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(CNN) -- Jesse Owens' 1936 gold medal sold for $1,466,574 at auction Sunday, setting a record for the highest price ever paid for Olympic memorabilia.

New owner Ron Burkle, a billionaire investor and co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team, plans to use it for a future educational tour of historic pieces.

This medal is considered one of the most important in Olympics history and is one of four Owens won at the 1936 games in Berlin, spoiling Adolf Hitler's planned showcase of Aryan superiority.

Imagine the shock to Nazi Party elites when a black American, the son of a sharecropper and a grandson of slaves, stared down fascist propaganda, bested his rivals and took home four gold medals.

Documentary explores Jesse Owens' life beyond victory

Jesse Owens' 1936 gold medal sold for $1,466,574 at auction on Sunday, December 8, setting a record for the highest price paid for Olympic memorabilia. This medal is considered one of the most important in Olympics history and is one of four Owens won at the 1936 games in Berlin, spoiling Adolf Hitler's planned showcase of Aryan superiority.

Norman Rockwell's painting "Saying Grace" sold for $46 million on Wednesday, December 4, at Sotheby's American Art auction. It was a record for works by the late artist and for a single American painting. The illustration originally appeared on the Thanksgiving issue cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1951.

For the first time since 1947, and only the second time since the 19th century, a copy of the first book printed in America will be sold at auction. The Whole Book of Psalmes -- universally known as The Bay Psalm Book -- was produced in the virtual wilderness of Massachusetts Bay Colony by the Congregationalist Puritans.

Titanic band leader Wallace Hartley's violin sold for $1.7 million at Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers in Devizes, England, on Saturday, October 19. The sale price was far higher than expected.

An engraving from Wallace Hartley's fiance, Maria Robinson, is attached to the Titanic band leader's violin.

This 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 recently sold at auction for $30 million in England. It was part of a group of race cars that won nine of 12 Forrmula 1 World Championship-qualifying races during 1954 and 1955 and was driven by Juan Manuel Fangio.

The October yearlings sale at Tattersalls auction house in England saw a number of auction records broken in brisk trade.

A 118-carat white diamond is on display at Sotheby's, a New York auction house, on September 4. The oval stone was auctioned off in Hong Kong on October 7 for a record $30.6 million.

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Hitler was furious, but tens of thousands of ordinary Germans cheered him on.

Owens won the 100- and 200-meter sprints, the long jump and ran the opening leg for the winning 4x100-meter U.S. relay team.

"It leaves one nearly speechless to behold this medal. It survives as one of the world's most poignant symbols of triumph," the vice president of SCP Auctions, Dan Imler, said in a statement.

No one knows where the other three original medals are, the auction house said.

Owens gave this medal to friend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson a few years after the Olympics, and the late entertainer's widow, Elaine Plaines-Robinson, sold the medal, the auction house said.

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Owens never cashed in on his Olympic glory. Instead of earning a living from his extraordinary athleticism, he ended up opening a dry cleaning business and occasionally raced against horses at the behest of promoters.

"People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do?" Owens once said, according to an ESPN.com article. "I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals."

Owens eventually made a good living in public relations and as a public speaker. He died in 1980.

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CNN's Steve Almasy contributed to this report.