85 years ago today, Jesse Owens shocked Adolf Hitler and the Nazis hosting the Berlin Olympics by winning the 100-meter dash. (4 Pics)

 

Owens, a black American, also became the first United States athlete to win four gold medals in track and field at the Olympic games.

there are several reports of a salute or wave from Hitler. According to sports reporter and author Paul Gallico, writing from Berlin, Owens was “led below the honor box, where he smiled and bowed, and Herr Hitler gave him a friendly little Nazi salute, the sitting down one with the arm bent.” Owens himself later confirmed this, claiming that they exchanged congratulatory waves.

So, Owens was not personally snubbed by Hitler. However, Owens did feel that he had been snubbed by someone: U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt. A month after the Olympic Games, Owens told a crowd, “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was [Roosevelt] who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” Roosevelt never publicly acknowledged Owens’s triumphs—or the triumphs of any of the 18 African.