📅 On this day
24 August
1875 · Matthew Webb became the first man to swim the English Channel
Captain Matthew Webb dived off Admiralty Pier at Dover, swam breaststroke through the night, was stung by jellyfish, drank beef tea and brandy passed down from a rowing boat, and came ashore at Calais just under twenty-two hours later. He had no wetsuit and no goggles — only a pot of porpoise oil.
He drowned eight years later trying to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls. There is a memorial to him in his home town of Dawley in Shropshire.
Your turn
What is the hardest physical thing you have ever made yourself do?