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The First Record Breakers 1/7: Everyone Said No Human Could Swim the Channel. A Sailor Did It in 1875
The First Record Breakers, Episode 1 of 7. In August 1875 nobody had ever swum across the English Channel, and most people thought nobody ever could. Then Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old sailor from Shropshire, dived off Admiralty Pier in Dover covered in porpoise oil. He swam through a jellyfish sting, a long night and tides that dragged him back and forth, and after 21 hours and 45 minutes he walked ashore near Calais. It would be 36 years before anyone did it again. The true story of the first person to swim the Channel: who he was, why he tried, and how he did it.
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