Others might have opted for some hardier fare, but Captain Matthew Webb in his second attempt to swim across the English channel (the first one failed) needed little more than some beef tea (water from boiled beef), porpoise oil to keep the body warm, and — mostly importantly — pints of beer, brandy, and ale. About three mile out from his starting point “he indulged in … half a pint of beer”, as a news chronicle from that day had it. At six miles out, he took some beef tea. At 10 hours out, after cheerfully concluding he can go the distance, he took some brandy. And he was right.

On this day, August 24, in 1875 Captain Matthew Webb swam from the Admiralty Pier in Dover, England across the English Channel to Calais, in France. The 39-mile trip, with currents and stinging jellyfish, took him 21 hours and 45 minutes.

After Webb many others attempted to swim the Channel. Gertrude Ederle, an Olympic gold medalist was one of the first women to complete the route in 1928. A 67 year-old Australian man swam the Channel in 1987. And the American Peter Jurzynski at age 56 became the first to cross the Channel not once, not twice, but amazing 14 times. As for Webb, he continued swimming for distance and speed, until meeting his end trying to swim the “whirpool rapids” of the Niagara Falls.