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Ohio Fun Facts
Capital: Columbus
State abbreviation/Postal code: Ohio/OH
Governor: John Kasich, R (to Jan. 2015)Lieut. Governor: Mary Taylor, R (to Jan. 2015)
Senators: Sherrod Brown, D (to Jan. 2013); Rob Portman, R (to Jan. 2017)
U.S. Representatives: 18
Historical biographies of Congressional members
Secy. of State: Jon A. Husted, R (to Jan. 2015)
Treasurer: Josh Mandel, R (to Jan. 2015)
Atty. General: Mike DeWine, R (to Jan. 2015)
Entered Union (rank): March 1, 1803 (17)
Present constitution adopted: 1851
Motto: With God all things are possible
State symbols:
| flower | scarlet carnation (1904) |
| tree | buckeye (1953) |
| bird | cardinal (1933) |
| insect | ladybug (1975) |
| gemstone | flint (1965) |
| song | “Beautiful Ohio” (1969) |
| beverage | tomato juice (1965) |
| fossil | trilobite (1985) |
| animal | white-tailed deer (1988) |
| wildflower | large white trillium (1987) |
Nickname: Buckeye State
Origin of name: From an Iroquoian word meaning “great river”
10 largest cities (2005 est.): Columbus, 730,657; Cleveland, 452,208; Cincinnati, 308,728; Toledo, 301,285; Akron, 210,795; Dayton, 158,873; Parma, 82,837; Youngstown, 81,469; Canton, 79,478; Lorain, 67,820
Land area: 40,948 sq mi. (106,055 sq km)
Geographic center: In Delaware Co., 25 mi. NNE of Columbus
Number of counties: 88
Largest county by population and area: Cuyahoga, 1,335,317 (2005); Ashtabula, 703 sq mi.
State forests: 20 (more than 183,000 ac.)
State parks: 74 (more than 204,000 ac.)
Residents: Ohioan
2005 resident population est.: 11,464,042
2000 resident census population (rank): 11,353,140 (7). Male: 5,512,262 (48.6%); Female: 5,840,878 (51.4%). White: 9,645,453 (85.0%); Black: 1,301,307 (11.5%); American Indian: 24,486 (0.2%); Asian: 132,633 (1.2%); Other race: 88,627 (0.8%); Two or more races: 157,885 (1.4%); Hispanic/Latino: 217,123 (1.9%). 2000 percent population 18 and over: 74.6; 65 and over: 13.3; median age: 36.2.
Who was Jesse Owens?
Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama in 1913. His family moved to Cleveland, Ohio when he was eight years old as the last of the ten children of Henry and Emma Owens. Owens was the grandson of a slave and the son of a sharecropper.
Owens's greatest achievement came in a span of 45 minutes on May 25, 1935 at the Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he set three world records and tied a fourth. He tied the world record for the 100 yard dash (9.4 seconds) and set world records in the long jump (26 feet 8ΒΌ inches, a world record that would last 25 years), 220 yard dash (20.3 seconds), and the 220 yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds to become the first person to break 23 seconds). This incredible feat is widely considered one of the most amazing athletic achievements of all time.
While Jesse had all these successes, most people don't know that Jesse had to live off campus with other African Amerian athletes. When he traveled with the team, Jesse could either order carry out or eat at "black-only" restaurants. Likewise, he slept in "black-only" hotels. Jesse Owens was never awarded a scholarship, so he continued to work part-time jobs to pay for school.
Jesse Owens – Berlin 1936
In 1936, Nazi Germany played host to the Summer Olympics, and Germany's Adolf Hitler was determined to prove the superiority of the Aryan race.
African-American track star Jesse Owens, a son of a sharecropper and the grandsons of slaves, had other plans. In a display that dealt a tremendous blow to the Nazi's racist ideology, Owens won the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash and the long jump. He was also a key member of the 400-meter relay team that won the gold medal. He set records in three of those events. He was the first American to ever win four medals in an Olympic Games.
Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, an irony at the time given that African-Americans in the United States were denied equal rights.
After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend a reception for him at the Waldorf-Astoria.
But as Owens himself later noted, his single-handed destruction of Hitler's myth of Aryan superiority did little at the time to advance the cause of African-Americans in the US.
"When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens said. "I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either."
Forbes.com calls Jesse's feats- The Single Greatest Athletic Achievement
Jesse Owens was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by Gerald Ford and the Congressional Gold Medal by George H. W. Bush on March 28, 1990.
The Jesse Owens Foundation provides information, materials, and direction for research on the life and legend of Jesse Owens. Since 1983, the Foundation has provided more than 350 young people, throughout the country, with support for their college education.
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