Jesse Owens took Hitler’s plan to prove Aryan supremacy at the Olympics and shook it like a ragdoll. The African-American athlete shattered records left and right at the 1936 Berlin Games. His 4x100-meter relay team held its record for 20 years; his accomplishment of earning four track-and-field gold medals in a single Olympics stood strong for 48 years.(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)