In 1936, Germany was chosen to hold the olympics. At the time, there was a very politically tense atmosphere ad Adolf Hitler had recently come into power in Germany and began spreading his extreme nationalist point of view. Hitler wanted to use these Olympic Games to further the ideal that German was the superior race.
Jesse Owens, an African American from the United States, is well known for winning 4 golds at these 1936 Olympic Games. While these 4 golds are impressive, Owens is more well known for his feat for another reason. As Hitler was attempting to win as many golds as possible to show German superiority, it would be terrible for him and cause to lose to an African American from the United States.
When Jesse Owens won his 4 gold medals, which were against German athletes, Hitler was furious. Without intending to do so, Jesse Owens had defied Hitler and led the people of the United States and the people of Berlin to hail him as an American hero. To this day, there is still both a school and a street named after Jesse Owens in Berlin.
America, in some way, aimed to not defy Hitler. They told two Jewish runners on the 4x100 team that they would not be able to compete in the Olympics because of the fact that they were Jewish. The Americans did not make this move out of their own desire, they made that decision because they knew how opposed Hitler was to the Jewish, and did not want to upset him during the Olympics. Little did American leaders know that Jesse Owens would accomplish the feat that he did, defying Hitler without any knowledge of his actions.
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