THE BATTLE OF MONTJUÏC DURING THE REAPERS' WAR

The Grandma & Claire visit Montjuïc, Barcelona

Today, the weather is good and The Grandma has decided to walk out with her closer friend Claire Fontaine. They have visited Montjuïc, the historic mountain that rises between the city of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea.

This mountain is a great witness of the history of the city and today, the city of Barcelona commemorates the anniversary of the Battle of Montjuïc, when in January 26, 1641, the Catalan troops defended the city from the attack of the Castilian troops during the Reapers' War.

Catalan troops won this battle and protected the city from the tyranny of the Castilian troops who killed all people -civilians and militaries- who found on their way.

This battle was an episode of the Reapers' War, a conflict that had an effect in the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), which ceded the County of Rosselló and the northern half of the County of Cerdanya to France, splitting these northern Catalan territories off from the Principality of Catalonia and the Crown of Aragon.

Nowadays, Catalonia is an historic nation, one of the oldest European ones, whose territories are divided in two states -French and Spanish. There are other cases like this: Basque Country (France and Spain), Alsace (France and Germany), and Britain (France and United Kingdom)...

History demonstrates that borders do not determinate a community but culture does, and one of the most significate symbols of culture is language. A spoken language determinates a community and it is a vivid element of its history, past and present.

More information: Ajuntament de Barcelona

The Battle of Montjuïc took place on 26 January 1641 during the Reapers' War. A Spanish force under Pedro Fajardo launched an attack on the Catalan army led by Francesc de Tamarit, with French cavalry support.

The Catalan rebels had taken up position on the heights of Montjuïc which dominated the city of Barcelona.

The Spanish launched several concerted attempts to capture Montjuïc Castle, but were continually repulsed. Finally a large force of Catalan rebels counter-attacked from the direction of Barcelona. Large numbers of Spanish troops were killed and the remainder had to withdraw to Tarragona along the coast. The Spanish force had recently massacred hundreds of rebels who had tried to surrender at Cambrils.

The Battle of Cambrils or the Massacre of Cambrils took place in December 1640 during the Reapers' War.

Barcelona, 17th century

The revolt had started in May-June 1640 and as a reaction the Spanish Army had occupied Tortosa in Catalonia in September. On December 8 a large army under Pedro Fajardo de Zúñiga y Requesens headed for Barcelona, passing through Cambrils. Here, a small force of Catalan rebels attempted to ambush this much larger force, before withdrawing into the town and attempting to defend it. After several days of bombardment and heavy fighting the Spanish captured the town.

When the defenders tried to surrender, some 700 of them were massacred. The three leaders were quickly trialed and executed on the garrote. The next day, more people were hanged and the city was sacked.

The Spanish army then continued in the direction of Barcelona, taking Tarragona on December 24. Later this army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Montjuïc.

More information: Museu d'Història de Catalunya (MHCAT)

The Reapers' War, in Catalan la Guerra dels Segadors, also known as Catalan Revolt was a conflict that affected a large part of the Principality of Catalonia between the years of 1640 and 1659.

The war had its roots in the discomfort generated in Catalan society by the large presence of Castilian troops during the Franco-Spanish War between the Kingdom of France and the Monarchy of Spain as part of the Thirty Years' War.

Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, the chief minister of Philip IV, had been trying to distribute more evenly the huge economic and military burden of the Spanish Empire, until then supported mainly by the Crown of Castile. But his Union of Arms policy raised hostilities and protests all across the states of the Monarchy of Spain.

Battle of Montjuïc, 1640

Resistance in Catalonia was especially strong; the Catalan Courts of 1626 and 1632 were never concluded, due to the opposition of the estates against the economical and military measures of Olivares, many of which violated the Catalan constitutions.

In 1638, the canon of La Seu d'Urgell Pau Claris, known for his opposition against non-Catalan bishops who always collaborated with the Crown, was elected by ecclesiastic estate as president of the Generalitat, while Francesc de Tamarit was elected member of the Generalitat by the military estate and Josep Miquel Quintana for the popular estate.

Around 1639, both causes approached and the identification and solidarity of the peasants took place with the attitude of political distrust of the authorities. Thus the political doctrine of the uprising and the popular ideology of the revolt were formed.

Catalan peasants, who were forced to quarter Castilian troops and reported events such as religious sacrileges, destruction of personal properties and rape of women by the soldiers, responded in a series of local rebellions against their presence.

More information: Ajuntament de Barcelona

The revolt grew, until the Corpus Christi day of May 1640 in Barcelona, with an uprising known as Bloody Corpus in Catalan Corpus de Sang, under the slogans Long live the faith of Christ!, The King our Lord has declared war on us!, Long live the land, death to bad government, Reape our chains. When the bishop of Barcelona, after blessing the furious crowd, asked them: Who is your captain? What is your flag? They raised a big Christ in the Cross Statue covered with an all black cloth and shouted Here is our captain, this is our flag!.

This Bloody Corpus which began with the death of a reaper, in Catalan segador and led to the somewhat mysterious death of The 2nd Count of Santa Coloma, the Spanish Viceroy of Catalonia, marked the beginning of the conflict.

The irregular militia involved were known as Miquelets. The situation took Olivares by surprise, with most of the Spanish army fighting on other fronts far from Catalonia. The Council of Aragon demanded more military presence in Barcelona as the only way to restore the order.

Pau Claris, MHP of the Generalitat

Pau Claris, President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, called the politician members of the all Principality in order to form a Junta de Braços or Braços Generals (States-General), a consultive body.

The calling was a success, and the presence of royal cities and feudal villages was exceptionally large. This assembly, which worked with individual voting, began to create and apply various revolutionary measures, such as the establishment of a Council of Defense of the Principality and a special tax for the nobility (the Batalló), while the tension with the monarchy grew.

At the same time, the Generalitat maintained contacts with France, in order to establish an alliance between the Principality of Catalonia and this country. By the pact of Ceret, French promised to help the Principality. In this way, the States-General presided by Pau Claris proclaimed the Catalan Republic under the protection of the French monarchy, on January 17, 1641, which lasted a week until January 21, 1641, when they declared the French king Louis XIII Count of Barcelona as Louis I.

The threat of the French enemy establishing a powerful base south of the Pyrenees caused an immediate reaction from the Habsburg monarchy. The Habsburg government sent a large army of 26,000 men under Pedro Fajardo to crush the Catalan Revolt.

On its way to Barcelona, the Spanish army retook several cities, executing hundreds of prisoners, and a rebel army of the Catalan Republic was defeated in Martorell, near Barcelona, on January, 23.

In response the Catalans reinforced their efforts and the Franco-Catalan armies obtained an important military victory over the Spanish army in the Battle of Montjuïc (January 26, 1641).

More information: The Culture Trip

Despite this success, the peasant uprising was becoming uncontrollable in some places, progressively focusing on the Catalan nobility and Generalitat itself. In effect, the conflict was also a class war, with the peasants revolting both against the Habsburg monarchy and against their own ruling classes, which turned to France for support.

For the next decade the Catalans fought under French vassalage, taking the initiative after Montjuïc. Meanwhile, increasing French control of political and administrative affairs -maritime ports, taxes, key bureaucratic positions- and a firm military focus on the neighbouring Spanish kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, in line with Richelieu's war against Spain, gradually undermined Catalan enthusiasm for the French.

Battle of Montjuïc, 1641

A Franco-Catalan army under Philippe de La Mothe-Houdancourt moved south and gained several victories against the Spanish, but the sieges of Tarragona, Lleida and Tortosa finally failed and the allies had to withdraw. In the north of Catalonia in Rosselló, they were more successful. Perpinyà was taken from the Spanish after a siege of 10 months, and the whole of Rosselló was under French control. Shortly after, Spanish relief armies were defeated at the Battle of Montmeló and Battle of Barcelona.

In 1652 a Spanish offensive captured Barcelona bringing the Catalan capital under Spanish control again. Irregular resistance continued for several years afterwards and some fighting took place north of the Pyrenees but the mountains would remain from then on the effective border between Spanish and French territories.

The war was concurrent with the Arauco War in Chile where the Spanish fought a coalition of native Mapuches. With the Arauco War being a lengthy and costly conflict the Spanish crown ordered its authorities in Chile to sign a peace agreement with the Mapuche in order to concentrate the empire's resources in fighting the Catalans. This way the Mapuche obtained a peace treaty and a recognition on behalf of the crown in a case unique for any indigenous group in the Americas.

The conflict extended beyond the Peace of Westphalia, which concluded the Thirty Years' War in 1648 but remained part of the Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659) with the confrontation between two sovereigns and two Generalitats, one based in Barcelona, under the control of Spain and the other in Perpinyà, under the occupation of France.

In 1652 the French authorities renounced Catalonia, but held control of Rosselló, thereby leading to the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659.

More information: The Gates Hotel Barcelona

Here is our captain, this is our flag!
Catalans, let's go to fight!
The King our Lord has declared war on us!

Popular Romance

AMARAL PRESENTS 'SALTO AL COLOR' IN BARCELONA

Eva Amaral & Juan Aguirre

Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have gone to the Palau Sant Jordi in Montjuïc, Barcelona, to listen to Amaral, one of the most wonderful and amazing groups in current world music.

Claire and The Grandma love this duo because of their beautiful music, but especially their deep, poetrical and hermetic lyrics, full of social conscience, respect for diversity, care for the planet and hope in a better future for our humanity.

Claire and The Grandma like all songs, new and old ones, but today they strongly recommend  the new album Salto al Color and a little treasure, not included in it, named Corren sung for the new disc of La Marató de TV3.

Thanks to Eva, Juan and all their team for coming to our city, for Camins, for Corren and for offering an impressive show full of great music and social conscience. Good luck with this new and awesome project.

We will continue walking into wild, being drops of a great sea and eyes of falcon, being respectful in diversity like fish of colours and believing in our revolution because it is our time and we are listening to the drums that announce it.

We are going to gallop to bury them in the sea. Let's go to jump to colour!

Before going to this unforgettable concert, The Grandma has read a new chapter of Mary Stewart's This Rough Magic.

Amaral is a music group from Zaragoza, Aragon hat has sold more than four million albums worldwide. The band consists of Eva Amaral (vocalist) and Juan Aguirre (guitarist), who write their songs together.

Eva and Juan met in 1992 in a bar in Zaragoza. She played drums in a local punk rock band called Bandera Blanca and also sang with Acid Rain. Aguirre was playing with a band called Días de Vino y Rosas at the time. Soon after they met, the two decided to play together and perform their own material. In 1997, they moved to Madrid and signed a major deal with EMI.

Claire & The Grandma enjoy Amaral

Amaral's musical style is often called pop rock, but it is often fused with Latin beats, folk rock, synthesizers, complex poetic lyrics, and in particular, traditional Spanish folk music.

Their distinctive style was described by Juan as folk, and the person who has heard a lot of folk and traditional music will listen and understand, but I think our attitude to life is rather that of a rock group.

Juan Aguirre was born in Donostia, Guipúzcoa in the Basque Country. He spent his childhood in the town of Gros and currently resides in Zaragoza, while Eva originates from Zaragoza, Aragon.

The inspirations for their songs include cinema, friends, and literature. Amaral have won numerous awards including the MTV Europe Music Award for their 2002 album Estrella de mar, which was nominated for 5 other categories, and are one of the best-selling Spanish groups of all time.

As of 2019, they have released eight studio albums, one (double) live album, and two live DVDs. According to Eva, they are a libertarian group that doesn’t think of music as a conquest or a competition... We chose music as a way to break a lifestyle that we didn’t like and a society that we don't understand.

More information: Amaral

Eva María Amaral Lallana (4 August 1972) is a Spanish singer-songwriter, and a member of the group Amaral with Juan Aguirre.

She studied sculpture studies at the Art School of Zaragoza. During this time, she was a member of the band Bandera Blanca, where she was the drummer. In 1993, she met the guitarist Juan Aguirre, who was a member of the band Días De Vino Y Rosas. Together, they created the band Amaral. They moved to Madrid and later signed a contract with Virgin Records.

They have recorded six successful studio albums and have performed as tour support for Lenny Kravitz's Spanish concerts. Their song Rosa de la Paz was included in a record to support Prestige boat victims, also performing at the Nunca Máis demonstration in Madrid. Moby performs along with Eva Amaral on the song Escapar, the Spanish version of the Amaral song Slipping Away. Beto Cuevas, front man with the Chilean band La Ley joins Amaral on their song Te Necesito. Pájaros En La Cabeza is their most famous album.

Even though some people believe that she was born in 1973, she confirmed that she turned 40 in 2012. I just turned 40 and I feel much more secure and stronger than 20 years ago.

Juan Aguirre & Eva Amaral

She claims that she had a joyful childhood and that she never liked to play with dolls. Instead, she would play music with her cousin. She declares that she is shy and that as a teenager, she felt like a weirdo and had many insecurities.

At a very young age, she started to play the drums in a self-taught way and she did not think she could sing until she started to do it and realized that it was a much more powerful way to communicate than the drums.

She studied in Zaragoza at the school Romareda. Afterwards, she studied volume techniques in the art school of Zaragoza. Meanwhile, she also worked as a bartender in Azul Rock Café. She began to study lyrical singing when she realized that she wanted to become a singer. First, she took lessons in a civic center, but the teacher was fascinated by her voice and she sent her to her master. Her lessons were very expensive and I did not have much money… She was asked to audition and the master admitted her with a discount.

Eva and Juan met in 1992 at the back of a bar in Zaragoza. At that time, she played the drums in a local punk-rock band called Bandera Blanca and was also the leader single of another band called Lluvia Ácida.

From the beginning, there was love, friendship and music between the two of them. They went through all the bars performing. They were together for five years before it all started. After that, they began to do some sporadic trips to Madrid and then they started to stay there a little longer, sleeping at friends' places, working in the catering industry and much more while they performed in Libertad 8, San Mateo 6, El Rincón del Arte Nuevo and La Boca del Lobo.

More information: Amaral-Youtube

One day, Jesús Ordovás invited them to Radio 3 and sometime later, a guy from the Virgin company attended one of their concerts and decided to work with them. Then, someday in 1997, they made the decision of staying in Madrid.

In 1998, Eva and Juan signed with the company Virgin-EMI and on 18 May, their first album was released. They called it Amaral and it was produced by Pancho Varona and Paco Bastante. The name of the band was Juan's idea, who took Eva's last name, even though she did not like it at first.

Claire & The Grandma ready to listen to Amaral

In 2000, after touring to present her first album, she recorded her second one in London. It was called Una pequeña parte del mundo (A small part of the world) and it contained 13 songs, 12 written by the band and a version of the song Nada de nada by Cecilia.

This time, the album was produced by Cameron Jenkins, who also worked with The Rolling Stones, George Michael and Elvis Costello. Eva met him on the recording of an Enrique Bunbury’s album, on which she collaborated. Cameron loved her extraordinary voice since the first time he heard it and he proposed the band to work with him. Jenkins produced all their albums until 2008.

In 2001, Eva Amaral was given the title of honorary citizen by the local government of Zaragoza.

The band recorded in London their third album, called Estrella de mar (Starfish). This was the best seller in Spain in 2002 and the most successful album of the band so far, having sold more than 2 million copies. The album appears as the number 24 on the list The 50 best Spanish rock albums, made by the magazine Rolling Stone. They did a tour for two years where they gave more than 200 concerts and they played as supporting band in a concert of Lenny Kravitz. Furthermore, in 2003, Eva played the leading role in a short film by Andreu Castro called Flores para Maika (Flowers for Maika).

In November 2004, Eva and Juan left to London, where they recorded their fourth album, called Pájaros en la cabeza (Birds in the head). The album was released in 14 May 2005 and they started the tour in June in Salamanca. Afterwards, they continued the tour in Mexico, Chile and Argentina.

More information: Amaral-Twitter

Amaral made a stop in Barcelona to record the concert and release it on DVD. It was called El comienzo del big bang (The beginning of the big bang). Pájaros en la cabeza was the most sold album in Spain in 2005.

Eva and Juan remember this period as a difficult time. After 'Pájaros en la cabeza' we toured and it was a long and hard phase. It was all too much to handle. Suddenly, there was a lot of people around us who made us be worried about a lot more things than music, so we decided to detach ourselves from all that. We wanted to reflect on it and live a little", says Eva. Eva has shown me that she is very brave and she stays true to herself, against the interests of the market, claims Juan.

The tour of Pájaros en la cabeza turned into a nightmare, so they decided to give fewer concerts on the following tour, and with a band formed by friends, not by professional musicians. Juan declares that they needed to go back to their origins and Eva adds that they have lived a complete regression.

Juan Aguirre & Eva Amaral

In the summer of 2007, while Gato negro-Dragón rojo was being recorded, Eva Amaral's mother died and the singer was not feeling strong enough to continue. First, I thought that by locking myself in the studio I would get through it, but it was not that easy. But here we are, still standing on our feet, thanks to Juan, who really supported me". And Eva continues We thought about quitting. We did not do it, but we thought about it. Juan also confirms that they almost quit It was a bad time and we thought that maybe this was not making us happy. We liked to make music but we did not like to be public figures. There are some things that happen to you that turn you into something like a puppet, like the one on the cover of 'Pájaros en la cabeza'.

During these bad days, the producer Scott Litt had just replied to an email that Juan had sent him before. We had sent him a song and he said that the voice sounded amazing and he wanted to see us. I was freaking out, I thought it was a joke, says Juan. Scott moved to Madrid, where he worked for a couple of weeks with the band. But Juan and Eva could not get over the personal downturn so they explained it to Scott and he understood it and stopped the project. We thought that if you do something, you have to do it with all your heart and that was not our best time. We would rather lick our wounds on our own, we care more about ourselves than the band, continues Juan.

More information: Amaral-Facebook

Finally, Eva and Juan started the year 2008 making a version of A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan, the promotional song for the Expo Zaragoza 2008. The name of the version was Llegará la tormenta.

On 27 May 2008 was released the fifth album of the duo from Zaragoza with the title Gato negro-Dragón rojo, a double disc with 19 songs. The tour 2008 started in Zaragoza in December 2008. They were accompanied by a new band, formed by Coki Giménez (drums), Zulaima Boheto (cello), Octavio Vinck (acoustic guitar), Iván González (bass guitar) and Quique Mavilla (keyboard). 

On 2009, they had another tour that started in March in the Palau de la Música in Barcelona, a concert that was included on the Guitar Festival of the city. On July 2009, they participated in the concert of MTV Spain Murcia Night, celebrated in Cartagena by the wall of Carlos III and for more than 35.000 people.

On 22 September 2009, closing the Gato negro-Dragón rojo cycle, Amaral published a double CD+DVD/Blu-Ray named La barrera del sonido, which includes the concert recorded in the Palacio de los Deportes in Madrid in October 2008, closing like this a season to start a new band with the next studio album.

Salto al Color by Amaral

With Gato negro-Dragón rojo they started to self-manage their own songs.

It's an idea that came up in 2006 and we started doing in 2007. This year we've seen that it has caused interest. For us, it is a step forward [...] It's something that comes from long ago. We started the path of self-management with 'Gato negro-Dragón rojo', but the idea that we had was already from many years ago. We had our ideal world where everyone can just manage themselves and keep everything more familiar. As I was saying, we started the last CD with our own brand but it was distributed by EMI but this year we've taken another step. The distribution is done by a small Spanish company and the truth is, we are very happy. We don't have any kind of problem with EMI, in fact, we still have a good relationship with them.

Hacia lo salvaje is the name of the sixth album by the band, released on 27 September 2011, already under the new brand created for the band, called Antártida and also produced by herself, Juan Aguirre and Juan de Dios Martín.

Eva explains the name of the brand saying that since we edited the CD with our own brand, it turned out that we didn't have a name because we are a bit of a mess. We also didn't care if it was our brand or Pepito Records. We decided to name it 'Antártida' because we were recording that song in the moment and it gave us the idea. We loved the image of the Antarctica, a completely imagined place as we've never been there. However, we loved the whiteness, something so pure and so real that it dazzles you. It also reminded us of that blank paper you have to face every time you start to write a song.

The presentation tour began in Zaragoza 6 October, where they performed five concerts in a row with all tickets sold out. Hacia lo salvaje was chosen as the third most important Spanish CD of 2011 by the Rolling Stone magazine.

In 2017, Amaral released Nocturnal, the seventh album by the band, and in 2019, Salto al Color, the last album of the duo.

Bien Alta la Mirada

Entre la Multitud

Halconera

Juguetes Rotos

Lluvia

Mares Igual Que Tú

Nuestro Tiempo

Ondas de Mar de Vigo

Peces de Colores

Ruido
 

Señales

Soledad

Tambores de la Rebelión

We are too many and they can not pass
Above the years we had to shut up
For forbidden books and secret entries...

Amaral

JESSE OWENS, A RACE AGAINST NAZISM & SEGREGATION

People's Olympiad Invitation, Montjuïc, Barcelona

Today, The Grandma has visited Montjuïc, the Olympic mountain, in Barcelona.

Montjuïc is referred to as Jewish Mountain in medieval Latin and Catalan documents, and remains of a mediaeval Jewish graveyard have been found there also.

Montjuïc, because of its strategic location at the foot of the Mediterranean, and alongside an important river communication channel such as the Llobregat River, was the birthplace of the city of Barcelona. In recent years, archaeological discoveries that have been carried out have changed the vision of the history of Barcelona. Montjuïc became since the Iberian period, and especially Roman, the main quarry of Barcelona, which meant a drastic change in the mountain's physics.

Barcelona's Montjuïc is a broad shallow hill with a relatively flat top overlooking the harbour, to the southwest of the city centre. The eastern side of the hill is almost a sheer cliff, giving it a commanding view over the city's harbour immediately below.

The top of the hill, a height of 184.8 m, was the site of several fortifications, the latest of which -the Castle of Montjuïc- remains today. The fortress largely dates from the 17th century, with 18th-century additions. The castle was also the site of numerous executions.

In 1936, The People's Olympiad, in Catalan Olimpíada Popular, was a planned international multi-sport event that was intended to take place in Barcelona, Catalonia conceived as a protest event against the Summer Olympics being held in Berlin, which was then under control of the Nazi Party.

Despite gaining the support from some athletes; and most significantly Soviet Union support; the People's Olympiad was never held, as a result of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

More information: Ajuntament de Barcelona

The  President of the Catalan government, Lluís Companys, was executed there in 1940, having been extradited to the Franco government by the Nazis.

Montjuïc was selected as the site for several of the venues of the 1992 Summer Olympics, centred on the Olympic stadium. Extensively refurbished and renamed the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, the 65,000-seat stadium saw the opening and closing ceremonies and hosted the athletic events.

The Grandma has visited the Olympic Stadium and she has remembered MHP Lluís Companys and the People's Olympiad.

She has also established a connection with other person and other event, Jesse Owens and the 1936 Summer Olympics being held in Berlin. The same event and two men fighting against Nazism, Francoism, racism and segregation two symbols of the struggle of the minorities against tyranny and fascism.

Jesse Owens won the 100 metre dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics on a day like today in 1936.

Before visiting Montjuïc, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

Chapter 8. Changes of Structure (IV) (Spanish Version)

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913-March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete and four-time gold medalist in the 1936 Olympic Games.

Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump, and was recognized in his lifetime as perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history. He set three world records and tied another, all in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan -a feat that has never been equaled and has been called the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport. He achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4 × 100 meter relay.

Jesse Owens

He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black man, was credited with single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy, although he wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.

The Jesse Owens Award is USA Track and Field's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete.

Owens was ranked by ESPN as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the 20th century and the highest-ranked in his sport. In 1999, he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century.

Jesse Owens, originally known as J.C., was the youngest of ten children -three girls and seven boys- born to Henry Cleveland Owens and Mary Emma Fitzgerald in Oakville, Alabama, on September 12, 1913. At the age of nine, he and his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, for better opportunities, as part of the Great Migration, when 1.5 million African Americans left the segregated South for the urban and industrial North.

When his new teacher asked his name to enter in her roll book, he said J.C., but because of his strong Southern accent, she thought he said Jesse. The name stuck, and he was known as Jesse Owens for the rest of his life.

More information: Jesse Owens

As a youth, Owens took different menial jobs in his spare time: He delivered groceries, loaded freight cars and worked in a shoe repair shop while his father and older brother worked at a steel mill. During this period, Owens realized that he had a passion for running. Throughout his life, Owens attributed the success of his athletic career to the encouragement of Charles Riley, his junior high school track coach at Fairmount Junior High School. Since Owens worked in a shoe repair shop after school, Riley allowed him to practice before school instead.

Owens and Minnie Ruth Solomon (1915–2001) met at Fairmont Junior High School in Cleveland when he was 15 and she was 13. They dated steadily through high school. Ruth gave birth to their first daughter, Gloria, in 1932. They married on July 5, 1935 and had two more daughters together -Marlene, born in 1937, and Beverly, born in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1980.

Owens first came to national attention when he was a student of East Technical High School in Cleveland; he equaled the world record of 9.4 seconds in the 91 m dash and long-jumped 7.56 meters at the 1933 National High School Championship in Chicago.

Jesse Owens

Owens attended Ohio State University after his father found employment, which ensured that the family could be supported. Affectionately known as the Buckeye Bullet and under the coaching of Larry Snyder, Owens won a record eight individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936.

The record of four gold medals at the NCAA was equaled only by Xavier Carter in 2006, although his many titles also included relay medals. Though Owens enjoyed athletic success, he had to live off campus with other African-American athletes. When he traveled with the team, Owens was restricted to ordering carry-out or eating at blacks-only restaurants. Similarly, he had to stay at blacks-only hotels. Owens did not receive a scholarship for his efforts, so he continued to work part-time jobs to pay for school.

On December 4, 1935, NAACP Secretary Walter Francis White wrote a letter to Owens, although he never actually sent it. He was trying to dissuade Owens from taking part in the Olympics on the grounds that an African-American should not promote a racist regime after what his race had suffered at the hands of white racists in his own country.

In the months prior to the Games, a movement gained momentum in favor of a boycott. Owens was convinced by the NAACP to declare If there are minorities in Germany who are being discriminated against, the United States should withdraw from the 1936 Olympics. Yet he and others eventually took part after Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee branded them un-American agitators.

More information: Olympic

In 1936, Owens and his United States teammates sailed on the SS Manhattan and arrived in Germany to compete at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Owens arrived at the new Olympic stadium to a throng of fans, according to fellow American sprinter James LuValle, who won the bronze in the 400 meters, many of them young girls yelling Wo ist Jesse? Wo ist Jesse? 

Owens's success at the games represented an unpleasant consternation for Hitler, who was using them to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had high hopes that German athletes would dominate the games with victories.

Just before the competitions, Adi Dassler visited Owens in the Olympic village. He was the founder of the Adidas athletic shoe company, and he persuaded Owens to wear Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik shoes; this was the first sponsorship for a male African American athlete.

 More information: My Black History

On August 3, he won the 100 m dash with a time of 10.3 seconds, defeating a teammate and a college friend Ralph Metcalfe by a tenth of a second and defeating Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands by two tenths of a second.

On August 4, he won the long jump with a leap of 8.06 m. He later credited this achievement to the technical advice that he received from Luz Long, the German competitor whom he defeated.

Jesse Owens

On August 5, he won the 200 m sprint with a time of 20.7 s, defeating teammate Mack Robinson, the older brother of Jackie Robinson. 

On August 9, he won his fourth gold medal in the 4 × 100 m sprint relay when head coach Lawson Robertson replaced Jewish-American sprinters Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller with Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, who teamed with Frank Wykoff and Foy Draper to set a world record of 39.8 s in the event.

Owens had initially protested the last-minute switch, but assistant coach Dean Cromwell said to him, You'll do as you are told.

Owens' record-breaking performance of four gold medals was not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Owens set the world record in the long jump with a leap of 8.13 m in 1935, the year before the Berlin Olympics, and this record stood for 25 years until it was broken in 1960 by countryman Ralph Boston. Coincidentally, Owens was a spectator at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome when Boston took the gold medal in the long jump.

The long-jump victory is documented, along with many other 1936 events, in the 1938 film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl.

On August 1, 1936, Hitler shook hands with the German victors only and then left the stadium. International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour insisted that Hitler greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations.

Owens first competed on Day 2 (August 2), running in the first (10:30 a.m.) and second (3:00 p.m.) qualifying rounds for the 100 meters final; he equaled the Olympic and world record in the first race and broke them in the second race, but the new time was not recognized, because it was wind-assisted.

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Later the same day, Owens's African-American team-mate Cornelius Johnson won gold in the high jump final, which began at 5:00 p.m., with a new Olympic record of 2.03 meters. Hitler did not publicly congratulate any of the medal winners this time; even so, the communist New York City newspaper the Daily Worker claimed Hitler received all the track winners except Johnson and left the stadium as a deliberate snub after watching Johnson's winning jump.

Albert Speer wrote that Hitler was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.

Jesse Owens

In Germany, Owens had been allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, at a time when African Americans in many parts of the United States had to stay in segregated hotels that accommodated only blacks.

When Owens returned to the United States, he was greeted in New York City by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

During a Manhattan ticker-tape parade in his honor along Broadway's Canyon of Heroes, someone handed Owens a paper bag. Owens paid it little mind until the parade concluded. When he opened it up, he found that the bag contained $10,000 in cash. 

Owens's wife Ruth later said: And Owens didn't know who was good enough to do a thing like that. And with all the excitement around, he didn't pick it up right away. He didn't pick it up until he got ready to get out of the car.

After the parade, Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria New York and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator to reach the reception honoring him.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) never invited Jesse Owens to the White House following his triumphs at the Olympic Games.

When the Democrats bid for his support, Owens rejected those overtures: as a staunch Republican, he endorsed Alf Landon, Roosevelt's Republican opponent in the 1936 presidential race.

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Owens joined the Republican Party after returning from Europe and was paid to campaign for African American votes for the Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon in the 1936 presidential election.

Speaking at a Republican rally held in Baltimore on October 9, 1936, Owens said: Some people say Hitler snubbed me. But I tell you, Hitler did not snub me. I am not knocking the President. Remember, I am not a politician, but remember that the President did not send me a message of congratulations because, people said, he was too busy.

Owens returned home from the 1936 Olympics with four gold medals and international fame, but there were no guarantees for his future prosperity.

Racism was still prevalent in the United States, and he had difficulty finding work. He took on menial jobs as a gas station attendant, playground janitor, and manager of a dry cleaning firm. He also raced against amateurs and horses for cash.

Owens was a pack-a-day cigarette smoker for 35 years, starting at age 32. Beginning in December 1979, he was hospitalized on and off with an extremely aggressive and drug-resistant type of lung cancer.

He died of the disease at age 66 in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, 1980, with his wife and other family members at his bedside. He was buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

Although Jimmy Carter had ignored Owens' request to cancel the Olympic boycott, the President issued a tribute to Owens after he died: Perhaps no athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry.

More information: International Documentary Association

I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible.

From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.

One chance is all you need.

Jesse Owens