Jesse Owens

1913 – 1980

Sports

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete who made history at the 1936 Olympic Games by winning four gold medals, setting Olympic records in each event. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes in track and field history.

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Contemporaries

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir

Dorothy Hodgkin

Dorothy Hodgkin

Jacques Cousteau

Jacques Cousteau

Their World

Global Events

1914 World War I begins

1917 Russian Revolution

1918 World War I ends; Spanish flu pandemic begins

1919 Treaty of Versailles signed

1920 League of Nations established

1928 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

1929 Wall Street Crash; Great Depression begins

1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany

1936 Spanish Civil War begins

1939 World War II begins

1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor; US enters WWII

1944 D-Day: Allied invasion of Normandy

1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; WWII ends

1945 United Nations founded

1947 India and Pakistan gain independence

1948 State of Israel established

1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted

1949 People's Republic of China proclaimed

1950 Korean War begins

1953 Watson and Crick discover DNA structure

1955 Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

1957 Sputnik launched; Space Age begins

1959 Cuban Revolution; Castro takes power

1961 Berlin Wall constructed

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

1963 Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

1964 Civil Rights Act signed in the United States

1969 Apollo 11: first humans walk on the Moon

1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and independence

1973 1973 oil crisis

1975 Fall of Saigon; Vietnam War ends

1979 Iranian Revolution

In Their Field

1930 First FIFA World Cup held in Uruguay

1936 Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at Berlin Olympics

1947 Jackie Robinson breaks baseball's color line

1954 Roger Bannister runs first sub-4-minute mile

1960 Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) wins Olympic gold

1966 England wins FIFA World Cup at Wembley

1967 First Super Bowl played

1972 Title IX enacted, transforming women's sports in the US

1980 Miracle on Ice: US hockey defeats Soviet Union at Olympics