James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens
(September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980)

On this day at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, African American track
star Jesse  Owens won his fourth gold medal of the Games in
the 4×100-meter relay. His relay team set a new world record of
39.8 seconds, which held for 20 years. In their strong showing in
track-and-field events at the XIth Olympiad, Jesse Owens and
other African American athletes struck a propaganda blow
against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who planned to use the Berlin
Games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority.

Owens with Adolf Hitler.

One of Jesse Owens’ four gold medals won at the 1936
Olympics in Berlin.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has ordered
all flags at Oregon public institutions to be flown at half-staff
until sunset on August 10 to honor firefighter Benjamin Charles
Sapper (21), who died in the line of duty on August 4.

Benjamin was a firefighter with the Rogue River-Siskiyou
National Forest Service.

Robert Swan, the veteran character actor who appeared in key
roles in the notable sports films Hoosiers, Rudy and The Babe, 
died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer at his home in
Rolling Prairie, Indiana.

Swan also portrayed a Canadian Mountie in Brian De Palma’s
The Untouchables (1987) and a bloodied deputy in Oliver
Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994) and was other lawmen in
Who’s That Girl (1987) and Mo’ Money (1992).

Robert Swan in Natural Born Killers.

CAMILLE BOHANNON