Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day August 1936,

let's talk about the 1936 Olympics in Germany.

I think most people know the story.

Hitler has assumed power in Germany, the country is using the story. Hitler has assumed power in Germany.

The country is using the Olympics to showcase their new power and their new regime.

The U.S. does send a contingent to participate, including one Jesse Owens, a black man.

And of course that leads to one of the most famous and somewhat apocryphal stories in all of

sports history.

Jesse Owens, a black man, winning four gold medals in track and field right in front of the fewer himself.

But gosh the story is a lot more complicated than that and so kind of as our version of an Olympics preview or an Olympics hook since the Paris games are just getting going now.

We thought we would take a look at one of the least esoteric stories in Olympics history,

but run through some of the more esoteric elements within that story that maybe people have forgotten or add some complications and so forth like we like to do here on this show. So here as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley hello

hello Jody hey there so yeah this is going to be one of those like here's the two-sentence version of the story and then here's a smattering of things that add some context.

So I think we're on board with the two-sentence version, right?

This guy, Jesse Owens, goes over there.

He is incredible.

He wins a bunch of gold medals. Hitler is watching from the

stands and he's furious about this because an racially inferior person in his eyes is succeeding

and beating all of the Arian's running against them, right?

That's our apocryphal version?

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