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Jesse Owens
American athlete
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Category:
Arts & Culture
- Born:
- September 12, 1913 Alabama
- Awards And Honors:
- Olympic Games Presidential Medal of Freedom (1976)
Top Questions
What is Jesse Owens known for?
What was Jesse Owens’s life like before the Berlin Olympics?
Was Jesse Owens snubbed by Hitler at the Berlin Olympics?
What was Jesse Owens’s life like after the Berlin Olympics?
How did Jesse Owens die?
Jesse Owens, byname of James Cleveland Owens, (born September 12, 1913, Oakville, Alabama, U.S.—died March 31, 1980, Phoenix, Arizona), American track-and-field athlete who set a world record in the running broad jump (also called long jump) that stood for 25 years and who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His four Olympic victories were a blow to Adolf Hitler’s intention to use the Games to demonstrate Aryan superiority. As a student in a Cleveland high school, Owens won three events at the 1933 National Interscholastic Championships in Chicago. In one day, May 25, 1935, while ...(100 of 505 words)