This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

The United States leads the Olympics in medal awards and is just about supreme in the Sprint races.

On October 16, 1968, American Sprinters Tommy Smith and John Carlos climbed onto the podium

at the Mexico City Olympics to accept their medals.

Yesterday, they came in first and third in the 200 meter dash.

Smith had won gold. Carlos had won bronze.

As the national anthem began to play, the men, both African-American, bowed their heads,

and raised their fists in the Black Power salute.

That's producer Claire Monde.

They kept their fists raised until the last notes of the anthem faded away.

The gesture was a statement of Black pride and defiance.

It's still considered one of the most overtly political statements made in the history of the

modern Olympic Games.

But that wasn't the only politically significant moment at the Olympics that year.

A Mexican heard learned and re-keta Basilio became the first woman to ever light the Olympic

Cauldron. A Czech gymnast beat out Soviet gymnast for the overall women's title,

just two months after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

It was also the first time a Latin American city or even a Spanish-speaking country had hosted

the Games. It was a big deal to have hundreds of thousands of international travelers come visit

Mexico. The Mexican government saw the Olympics as an announcement to the world.

Mexico City had arrived as a major international metropolis.

So almost everything about the 1968 Olympics felt revolutionary.

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