A more spectacular 45 minutes likely have not existed in the history of sport than when Jesse Owens ran and jumped his way into the record books at the Big 10 track and field championships. Nothing about his early childhood could have predicted it: Owens was born to an impoverished Alabama family, and was often sickly as a child. By age of seven he was expected by his family in the cotton fields, picking up 100 pounds a day. But he matured and grew in strength, first getting on the recruiters’ radar when he beat national high school records in the 100- and 220-yard dashes and the long jump. That was what got him to Ohio State, where he would get on the nation’s radar.

On this day, May 25, in 1935 at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 21 year-old Jesse Owens tied the world record in the 100-yard dash, and then set world records in the long jump, the 220-yard dash and the 220 low hurdles. And he did it with an injured back.

Owens would get on the world’s radar a year later, competing in the 1936 Olympic Games in Hitler’s Berlin. Hitler himself had plans to use the games as a propaganda piece, showcasing a resurgent Germany and the superiority of the “master” Aryan race. Instead, Owens, African-American and the son of a poor sharecropper, won a total of four medals in track and field events. Hitler never shook his hand or acknowledged the victories (choosing to skip all medal awards to avoid having to recognize Owens.) But a moment did occur when Hitler happened to pass by, as Owens recalled: “He waved at me and I waved back. I think it was ‘bad taste’ to criticize the man of the hour in another country.”