Before 70,000 fans at Yankee Stadium, heavyweight champion Joe Louis avenged his only professional loss by knocking out Germany's Max Schmeling in the first round. The fight, broadcast to millions and heavily politicized as a contest between American democracy and Nazi ideology, became one of the most celebrated sporting moments of the 20th century.
Two years earlier, Schmeling had stunned the world by knocking out an unbeaten Louis, a result Nazi propagandists trumpeted as proof of Aryan superiority. Joseph Goebbels' regime celebrated Schmeling as a racial champion, and the rematch took on outsized political weight as fascism spread across Europe.
Louis trained obsessively for revenge. When the two men finally met again on June 22, 1938, Louis unleashed a savage assault from the opening bell, battering Schmeling with a barrage of punches, including a devastating right to the kidney that some accounts say fractured vertebrae. Schmeling's corner threw in the towel after just two minutes and four seconds.
The fight was heard on radios across America, including in Black communities where Louis had become a towering symbol of pride and defiance against segregation and Nazi racism alike. Decades later, Schmeling and Louis became close friends; Schmeling even helped pay for Louis's funeral in 1981.
Key people: Joe Louis, Max Schmeling