Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics, and played professional football, professional baseball, and basketball, as well as boxing, wrestling, gymnastics, swimming, hockey, basketball, and track.

Thorpe’s career in sports was unparalleled. He played both professional football and professional baseball, and held records in both. He co-founded and was named the first President of the American Football League (later renamed the National Football League).

Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and became the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States.

Jim Thorpe was generally considered to have been born on May 22, 1887, he was born in a cabin on the North Canadian River near Prague, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), but no birth certificate has ever been found.

Thorpe himself said in a note to The Shawnee News-Star in 1943 that he was born May 28, 1888, "near and south o...