Jesse Owens, the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in one Olympic Games, was born on this day in 1913. While his 1936 Olympic performance is certainly the best-known moment of his life (he did, after all, literally prove Adolf Hitler wrong), it may not even have been the most impressive athletic feat of his career. That was probably what many refer to as the "greatest 45 minutes ever in sports."
Despite facing discriminatory policies that made it massively challenging for him to even participate in college sports at the Ohio State University, Owens absolutely killed it at the 1935 Big Ten Track and Field Championships. At 21 years old, he tied the 100-yard dash record and set new world records in the long jump, 220-yard dash, and the 220 low hurdles. Oh, and he did it all with a back injury after falling down some stairs some days earlier.
Of course, Owens was also a notable civil rights activist in addition to setting his four-medal Olympic record—we'll get to those in other off-scripts. For now, you can read more at Sports Illustrated, where sports writer Richard Rothschild referred to Owens' 1935 achievement as "the greatest single day performance in athletic history."
