50 years ago today Bob Beamon did this:
Beamon had played basketball at Jamaica High in Queens. & attended North Carolina A & T. He transferred to Texas Western w/ a kid named Neville Shed. His leap of 29'2 1/2" broke Ralph Boston's WR by nearly 22 inches. He jumped beyond the capability of the measuring equipment
Beamon's jump was more than 20 inches better than his PR of 27'6". He did not know how to convert metric distances to U.S. He figured he had jumped about 27'10". Boston told him it was 29'2" & some change. Beamon was beside himself. The jump had to be hand measured
Beamon's record leap in slow motion (the mark stood for 23 years):
To give you a sense of how far Beamon jumped, he nearly jumped a first down in U.S. football yardage.
It took judges 20 minutes to measure Beamon's jump
Beamon's record leap, video from the front:
It is still an Olympic record, and it's the second longest legal wind LJ in history. 50. years. later.
On the victory stand Beamon rocked black socks in solidarity with his recently banned teammates, & his community. He was drafted by the Phoenix Suns
