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Facts and Events
Name
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James Cleveland Owens
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Alt Name
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Jesse Owens
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Gender
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Male
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Birth
?
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12 Sep 1913
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Oakville, Lawrence, Alabama, United States
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Residence
?
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1922
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Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, United States
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Education
?
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From 9 Oct 1933 to 1936
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Columbus, Franklin, Ohio, United States
Attending
Ohio State University
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Marriage
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5 Jul 1935
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Cuyahoga, Ohio, United States
to
Minnie Ruth Solomon
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Death
?
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31 Mar 1980
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Tucson, Pima, Arizona, United States
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Burial
?
|
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Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States
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Reference Number
?
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Q52651
?
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- the text in this section is copied from an article in
Wikipedia
James Cleveland
"
Jesse
"
Owens
(September 12, 1913March 31, 1980) was an American
track and field
athlete who won four gold medals at the
1936 Olympic Games
.
Owens specialized in the
sprints
and the
long jump
and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". He set three world records and tied another, all in less than an hour, at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in
Ann Arbor, Michigan
?a feat that has never been equaled and has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport".
He achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in
Berlin
, Germany, by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4 × 100-meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black American man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing
Hitler
's myth of
Aryan supremacy
".
The
Jesse Owens Award
is
USA Track and Field
's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete. Owens was ranked by
ESPN
as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the 20th century and the highest-ranked in his sport. In 1999, he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC's
Sports Personality of the Century
.
References
-
Jesse Owens
, in
Wikipedia
:
The Free Encyclopedia
.
-
Jesse "JC" Owens
, in
Find A Grave
.
-
Jesse Owens Memorial Park
.
-
American Experience: Jesse Owens
.
-
Jesse Owens Papers at Ohio State University
.
-
Owens, Jesse
, in
American National Biography Online
.
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