There was so much wrong about Hitler - the indie kid haircut, the Chaplin moustache, the ill fitting suits. Not to mention his massive racism issues and war waging. What was with that, Adolf? Seriously. Anyway, no matter, we killed him in the end, and all of his mean Nazi cohorts ended up looking like idiots. That all happened in about 1945, but it was a whole nine years earlier, in 1936, that a brilliant young black athlete called Jesse Owens kicked off the humiliation by beating a load of Aryans at running and jumping. He won four gold medals in Berlin.
In 1984, everyone wanted to be American. Playgrounds were awash with young boys sporting Michael Jackson’s one glove, girls skipping around in Madonna wedding dresses. And, lurking in the corner somewhere near the bike sheds were the kids who wanted to be Carl Lewis. They were essentially brilliant at absolutely everything, but totally lacking in social skills. That summer, the great man equaled Jesse Owens’ record of four gold medals (100m, 200m, long jump, relay), whilst simultaneously convincing the planet that his superhuman arrogance was a little bit abhorrent. In the above clip, legendary funny man Eddie Murphy does an impression.
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