It is one thing to sail the seven seas under wind power, as Ferdinand Magellan did. Or under motor power, as several intrepid sailors and aviators did in the early 20th century. But imagine travelling the world using nothing but raw, unaugmented human power. The demonstration flights — by Paul Macready’s Gossamer aircraft — proved hard enough. What Jason Lewis embarked on was nothing short of astounding: not a trip across the channel, country or continent, but around the world, pole to pole.

On this day, October 6, in 2007, Jason Lewis achieved an astounding feat of human endurance: using only a pedal-powered boat, skates, bicycles, and good old-fashioned walking and swimming, he travelled 46,505 miles. In thirteen years.

The first leg of the trip took Lewis and his companion 84 days to complete at sea — with no breaks on land in between. In Colorado, while skating across the American continent, he was run over by a car and spent months in the hospital nursing two broken legs. In 1997 he resumed his voyage, but danger would strike again as he ran into a saltwater crocodile and got blood poisoning while traversing across the South Pacific.