Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250th
19361776 Club

Owens takes his fourth gold in Berlin, in the stadium built for Nazi propaganda

The 4x100 relay victory capped a week that undercut the Nazi message the Games were built to send.

Hitler had wanted the 1936 Games to showcase Aryan supremacy to the world, in a stadium built for exactly that message. Instead, Jesse Owens, a sharecropper's son from Alabama, won the 100 meters, the 200 meters, and the long jump, then ran the 4x100 relay for his fourth gold on August 9. Owens became the meet's most successful athlete outright. Hitler, who had already stopped greeting any medalists after being told to greet all or none, left the stadium without acknowledging Owens's wins…

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More from August 9
1945

Bockscar drops a second atomic bomb, on Nagasaki

A broken fuel pump nearly forced the mission to abort before the plane ever reached its target.
1944

Bambi's loan runs out; the Forest Service names a bear of its own

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1942

In the dark off Guadalcanal, Mikawa's cruisers sink four Allied warships in under an hour

Then, fearing carriers that had already left, the Japanese admiral turns north and leaves the invasion transports untouched.
18621776 Club
Nathaniel Banks attacked at two-to-one odds; A.P. Hill's division arrived just in time to save Jackson's line.
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Read the full August 9 edition →Everything that happened on August 9 →
More from The World Wars
1922

The American Professional Football Association votes to call itself the National Football League

Two years after clubs from four states formalized the game in a Canton auto showroom, the league sheds its borrowed name for one that fits its ambitions.
1937

Navy orders North Carolina and Washington; first battleships laid down in a decade carry 16-inch guns

Japan's refusal to sign the London Naval Treaty triggers an escalator clause, swapping the planned fourteen-inch guns for nine sixteen-inch weapons on both hulls.
1945

50 nations sign the United Nations Charter in San Francisco

China signs first, as the nation that bore Axis aggression longest; delegates from all 50 Allied powers file through the Herbst Theatre to add their names.
1932

The Dow closes at 41.22; ninety cents of every dollar are gone

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