AP

Check out seven facts about Zamperini below:

1. He lived on both coasts.



Zamperini was born Louis Silvie Zamperini on Jan. 26, 1917, in the eastern New York community of Olean to Italian immigrant parents, according to Laura Hillenbrand's book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, on which the movie is based. His family moved to California when he was a child and he grew up in the city of Torrence as a teen, throughout the Great Depression. The city's airport is named after him.

2. He had a rad nickname.

Zamperini was a track runner in high school and at the University of Southern California. During a 1934 state championship, he became the fastest high school mile runner in the United States when he broke the national high school record at 4 minutes, 21.2 seconds. He made headlines and earned the nickname the "Torrance Tornado."

3. He met—and pranked—Adolf Hitler.

In 1936, at age 19 and amid the Nazi party's rise to power in Germany, Zamperini competed in the Summer Olympics in Berlin as the U.S. team's youngest distance runner in history, running the 5,000 meters final. He did not medal and came in eighth place. Nazi leader Hitler, who was watching the event from a private box, took notice of the teen and met with him briefly at the event, according to Hillenbrand's book.

Hillenbrad, who described Zamperini in a Facebook message as her "beloved friend" and "surrogate grandfather," wrote that during his trip to Berlin, the Olympian, after drinking a couple of liters of German beer and wearing his Olympics dress uniform, opted to steal a small Nazi flag from Hitler's official residence and office. A guard fired a shot and another asked Zamperini why he did it. He replied that he wanted a souvenir. They give him the flag and spared his life.

4. He survived a plane crash and years of torture behind enemy lines during World War II.

In 1940, months after World War II began, Zamperini was drafted into the military. He became a bombardier. In 1943, the plane carrying Zamperini and other troops crashed into the ocean. He and two others survived on a raft for 47 days. They were discovered by a Japanese patrol boat and captured by the enemy. Zamperini spent more than two years as a prisoner of war and was tortured in internment camps.

In September 1945, he was liberated amid the end of World War II. He was given a hero's welcome at home.