The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: Olympische Sommerspiele 1936), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: Spiele der XI. Olympiade) and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona at the 29th IOC Session on 26 April 1931. The 1936 Games marked the second and most recent time the International Olympic Committee gathered to vote in a city that was bidding to host those Games. Later rule modifications forbade cities hosting the bid vote from being awarded the games.

To outdo the 1932 Los Angeles Games, Reich Fhrer Adolf Hitler had a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium built, as well as six gymnasiums and other smaller arenas. The Games were the first to be televised, with radio broadcasts reaching 41 countries. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the Games for $7 million. Her film, titled Olympia, pioneered many of the techniques now common in the filming of sports.

Hitler saw the 1936 Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy and antisemitism, and the official Nazi Party paper, the Vlkischer Beobachter, wrote in the strongest terms that Jews should not be allowed to participate in the Games. German Jewish athletes were barred or prevented from taking part in the Games by a variety of methods, although some women swimmers from the Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna did participate. Jewish athletes from other countries were said to have been side-lined to avoid offending the Nazi regime.Total ticket revenues were 7.5 million Reichsmark, generating a profit of over one million R.M. The official budget did not include outlays by the city of Berlin (which issued an itemized report detailing its costs of 16.5 million R.M.) or outlays of the German national government (which did not make its costs public, but is estimated to have spent US$30 million).Jesse Owens of the United States won four gold medals in the sprint and long jump events, and became the most successful athlete to compete in Berlin, while Germany was the most successful country overall with 89 medals total, with the United States coming in second with 56 medals. These were the final Olympic Games under the presidency of Henri de Baillet-Latour and the final Games for 12 years due to the disruption of the Second World War. The next Olympic Games were held in 1948 (the Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland and then the Summer Games in London, England).

The Summer Olympic Games (French: Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, are a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, Greece, and most recently the 2020 Summer Olympics were celebrated in 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) organises the Games and oversees the host city's preparations. In each Olympic event, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver medals are awarded for second place, and bronze medals are awarded for third place; this tradition began in 1904. The Winter Olympic Games were created out of the success of the Summer Olympics. It is regarded as the largest and most prestigious multi-sport international event in the world.

The Olympics have increased in scope from a 42-event competition programme with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896 to 306 events with 11,238 competitors (6,179 men, 5,059 women) from 206 nations in 2016. The Summer Olympics have been hosted on five continents by a total of nineteen countries. The Games have been held four times in the United States (1904, 1932, 1984, and 1996), three times in Great Britain (1908, 1948, and 2012), twice each in Greece (1896 and 2004), France (1900 and 1924), Germany (1936 and 1972), Australia (1956 and 2000) and Japan (1964 and 2020), and once each in Sweden (1912), Belgium (1920), the Netherlands (1928), Finland (1952), Italy (1960), Mexico (1968), Canada (1976), the Soviet Union (1980), South Korea (1988), Spain (1992), China (2008) and Brazil (2016).

London has hosted the Summer Olympic Games a record three times, followed by Paris, Los Angeles, Athens and Tokyo, where the Games have been held twice. Paris will join London by hosting the Olympics for the third time in 2024, followed by Los Angeles which will hold the 2028 Games; Brisbane will then host the 2032 Olympics.Only five countries have participated in every Summer Olympic Games: Australia, France, Great Britain, Greece, and Switzerland. Great Britain is the only country to have won a gold medal at each edition of the Games. The United States leads the all-time medal count at the Summer Olympics, and has topped the medal table on 18 separate occasions — followed by the USSR (six times), and France, Great Britain, Germany, China, and the ex-Soviet 'Unified Team' (once each).