1936 Berlin facts

While investigating facts about 1936 Berlin, I found out little known, but curios details like:

German longjumper "Luz" Long gave Jesse Owens advice allowing him to win gold at 1936 Berlin Olympics. Long won silver. During the war, Long asked Jesse to tell his son "what times were like when we were not at war... how things can be between men on this earth", before being killed in 1943.

The idea of having the Olympic torch run from ancient Olympia to the host country was invented by the Nazis for the 1936 Berlin Summer Games.

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about 1936 Berlin I managed to collect.

1. The Olympic Rings (actually designed in 1912) were mistakingly thought to be an ancient Greek symbol, after researchers in the 1950s found a stone with the symbol carved on it in Delphi. The stone turned out to be a leftover from a ceremony held there for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

2. Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, medaled in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Upon returning home to California, the only work he could find as an African American was sweeping streets, which he did while wearing his Olympic 'USA' sweatshirt.

3. During 1936 Berlin Olympic games, the Nazis ridiculed the US for relying on "non-human black auxiliaries." American black athlete Jesse Owens went on to win 4 gold medals and beat a German at Long Jump in front of Hitler. Four years after Owens' death, a street in Berlin was renamed after him.

4. Despite the fact that Jesse Owens won four gold medals during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, US President Franklin Roosevelt never congratulated or invited him to the White House. 'Hitler didn't snub me - it was FDR who snubbed me,' Owens said

5. During the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, 25,000 pigeons were released during the opening ceremony. When a cannon was fired, the pigeons begun to poop on the spectators watching the ceremony below.

6. Saturn, an American Alligator born in 1936, who is rumoured to have met Hitler and survived the Battle of Berlin as one of only 96 out of 16000 animals from the Berlin Zoo to survive WW2. He was moved to Moscow Zoo after the war where he still lives today.

7. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the US men's basketball team beat Canada 19-8 to win the gold medal. The game was held outdoors on a dirt court in the pouring rain. The conditions prevented dribbling, which is why the score was so low.

8. Adidas, a German company, gave Jesse Owens free shoes to run in at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

9. In Nazi Germany, the founders of Adidas and Puma (The Dassler brothers) secretly gave Jesse Owens a pair of track shoes that helped him win 4 gold medals for the Americans in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. This gift is said to have spared their factory from destruction from Allied forces.

10. During the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens fouled his first two attempts at long jump, but before the final attempt his Nazi rival, Luz Long, gave him some friendly advice that helped Owens qualify and win gold

What is true about 1936 berlin?

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At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Jesse Owens (3 Golds already in hand) was one failed jump away from not even qualifying for the Long Jump Final. German competitor, Luz Long, placed a white towel 1 foot from the plate & told Jesse to 'take off from there.'

The Dassler brothers drove to the 1936 Olympics Village in Berlin with a suitcase full of spikes and persuaded Jesse Owens to use them, the first sponsorship for an African American. Owens won four gold medals. Business boomed and they were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes annually before WWII. - source

After he completed his habilitation in 1936 he became a teaching assistant and lecturer at at the Technische Hochschule Berlin.

Jackie Robinson's older brother, Mack, competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and won the Silver Medal for the 200 meter dash behind Jesse Owens

Hitler loved Irish music and invited an Irish musician to play for him in Berlin in 1936. However there was no room for the musician to sit, so Hitler ordered an S.S member on his hands and knees to act as a chair so the Irishman could preform his music - source

Jesse Owens was snubbed by FDR at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, not Hitler.

In high school Jackie Robinson was an All-Star baseball player, accomplished tennis player, and his older brother Matthew (nicknamed Mack) won a silver medal in the 200 meter sprint in the 1936 summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

In 1936, basketball became an official game at the Olympics, which were held in Berlin, Germany.

Jackie Robinson's older brother, Matthew Robinson, won a silver medal in the 200-meter dash—just behind Jesse Owens—at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

In 1936, Adolf Dassler (founder of Adidas) drove all the way from Bavaria to Berlin to be the first to sponsor US sprinter Jesse Owens. Owens won four gold medals at the Olympic Games, turning Adidas from a small company ran out of the Dassler family laundromat to an international company.

The Olympic torch relay tradition was started at the Nazi-organized 1936 Olympics in Berlin