Kathrine Switzer was the first official female finisher in the Boston Marathon

Women were prohibited from the Boston Marathon, so Bobbi Gibb snuck in

Race directors assumed women could not handle the physical demands of the race. In 1966, Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes near the starting line, then hopped in the race after it began, and became the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, albeit unofficially.

In 1980, a woman cheated her way to a Boston Marathon win

Rosie Ruiz, an unknown runner, finished first in the Boston Marathon, cutting her qualifying New York time by over 20 minutes. The world would soon learn, though, that Ruiz hadn't run the entirety of either race, something that her first interviewer seems to piece together by her strange answers to basic questions.

Joan Benoit was the first woman to win Olympic marathon gold

Benoit was the first woman to win Olympic gold in the 1984 Los Angeles Games marathon, running 2:24:52. She also won the Boston Marathon twice and held the Chicago Marathon record for 32 years. She’s still going, too, running Boston in a blistering 3:04 at age 61 in 2019.

Frank Shorter was the first American to win the 26.2-mile Olympic marathon

The running legend became the first American to win the 26.2-mile Olympic marathon in 1972 at 2:21:19. The televised race contributed to a nationwide running boom and helped popularize the event.

The first Boston Marathon was held the next year

In 1897, the manager of the US Olympic team organized the first Boston Marathon, which featured a field of 15 runners. The race took place on Patriots Day, a holiday commemorating the first battles of the American Revolution.

Watch Kipchoge break 2 hours in the marathon

The feat was once considered impossible, but one of the world's greatest marathoners got to work (with the help of a team of scientists and some of the world's most elite distance runners) to break that boundary in Vienna in 2019. The final stretch of the run is an emotional moment for Kipchoge, who doesn't even appear to be winded.

Chris Nikic is the first person with Down syndrome to complete several marathons

In March 2024, Chris Nikic finished the Tokyo Marathon in 5:39:41. That was the final step towards his ultimate goal of earning the Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star Finisher distinction. It recognizes runners who have finished Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

After Title IX, the University of Chicago advertised a women's academic-athletic scholarship

There were athletic scholarships for women before Title IX, but the University of Chicago’s Gertrude Dudley Scholarship might’ve been the first to advertise itself as such, taking out an ad in a 1973 issue of Parade magazine. The school received over 1,000 applications.

Billie Jean King's victory at the 'Battle of the Sexes' drew over 90 million viewers

After Bobby Riggs trounced No. 2-ranked Margaret Court in the first Battle of the Sexes, he challenged superstar Billie Jean King to a match. King beat Bobby Riggs in a match at the Astrodome, which drew 90 million viewers worldwide, leading to the WTA's first TV deal in 1975. Using historic photos, this Sports Illustrated story dives into the spectacle surrounding the event, why King agreed this time, and the impact the match had on King, as well as the future of women's tennis as a whole.

Women were barred from MBA enrollment for half a century

In 1908, Harvard launched the first modern MBA—and only admitted male candidates. The first full-year traditional female MBA students wouldn’t enroll at Harvard until 1963. Learn more about the history of the first women to receive their MBAs on Harvard’s website.

Grace Hopper won the Data Processing Management Association's 'Man of the Year' award

The inaugural recipient of the award—symbolic of the male-dominated nature of computer science—was honored in 1969 for her contributions to the development of COBOL and the first compiler. Hopper would also become the first woman from any country and the first American to be recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society.

The first official Women's World Cup was in 1991

The first unofficial Women’s World Cup was played in 1970 in Italy, and momentum grew throughout the 1980s with multiple international tournaments. In 1988, FIFA tested the event's viability with a 12-team invitational in China. The first official Women’s World Cup was held in 1991 in China, and was won by the US.

One halfpipe skier qualified for the Olympics via loopholes

Freestyle skier Elizabeth Swaney reached the 2018 Winter Olympics by completing safe, trick-free halfpipe runs and accumulating ranking points in low-participation events. The story, told humorously in this brief video, highlights how qualification systems can reward persistence and rule optimization over peak athletic performance.

Musician Gladys Bentley defied gender norms during the Harlem Renaissance

The singer and pianist was known for performing in a white tuxedo, something out of the ordinary for a woman in the 1920s and '30s. She was also openly gay at a time when homosexuality was still widely considered taboo. In the late '50s, she claimed she'd undergone a medical treatment to awaken her "womanliness," which scholars believe was a reaction to the retrenched homophobic attitudes of the McCarthy Era.

The story of America's first woman presidential candidate

This video guides us through the history of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president in the US. Despite the odds being against her, Woodhull experienced extraordinary success as a stockbroker, newspaper founder, and presidential candidate. Watch to learn more about her background, her revolutionary ideas, and her impact on 19th-century politics.

On one sailor's race to sail around the world solo

People wanting to sail around the world in modern times can sign up for the Golden Globe Race, a decades-old, organized sprint to circumnavigate the world by ship. This long-form article follows one woman's journey as she attempted to complete the...

Marie Curie's research in radioactivity made her the first woman to win a Nobel Prize

Overcoming social and academic barriers, Curie's realization that radiation resulted from an intrinsic property of atoms reframed scientific understanding of the phenomenon. Her subsequent work in discovering two new elements—polonium and radium—earned her a second Nobel Prize.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

The Wright brothers' sister hyped their work, and was the only one to attend college

Katharine Wright became the de facto household caretaker after their mother, Susan, died, when Katharine was 15. After graduating from Oberlin, Katharine took over household duties so her father and brothers could work. She promoted their work in the US and abroad.

Martha Graham refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics

Graham turned down an invitation to perform at that year's Summer Games in Berlin, citing the Nazi regime's persecution of artists and implying that Jewish members of her company would not be welcome. "Chronicle," a work about the rise of fascism, debuted in New York the following December.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

The first successful organ transplant was performed in 1954

The successful kidney transplant procedure, at what's now-called Brigham and and Women's Hospital, ushered in a new medical era and gave hope to patients with organ failure. The recipient, 23-year-old Richard Herrick, lived eight more years after receiving the donated organ from his living twin brother, Ronald.

Annie Taylor tested her Falls barrel by sending her cat first

Before her 1901 plunge over Niagara Falls, Annie Edson Taylor sent her cat inside a barrel as a test. The cat survived—and later posed with her in post-stunt photos.

Aboard Challenger, Christa McAuliffe would have been the first teacher in space

The social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, was selected from over 11,000 applicants to NASA's Teacher in Space program. Had the disaster not ended the mission, McAuliffe planned to teach lessons and conduct microgravity experiments in space.

Why did four Black servicewomen go on strike during WWII?

On March 9, 1945, dozens of Black women stationed at Fort Devens went on strike to protest against their treatment and working conditions. Under pressure, many abandoned the strike, though four women pushed through despite the possibility of their strike being considered mutiny, a crime whose punishment could mean death. Read this article to learn why Privates Mary Green, Anna Morrison, Johnnie Murphy, and Alice Young pushed back.

UMBC became the first 16-seed to ever beat a 1-seed, pulling off the biggest upset in March Madness history

In 2018, UMBC defeated the overall No. 1 seed Virginia 74-54, ending a 0-135 record for 16-seeds against 1-seeds and turning what was expected to be a blowout into one of the most unlikely results in sports history.

The first F1 sponsor was a cigarette brand

Early F1 cars were typically painted in the team’s national colors, but in 1968, Team Lotus replaced the British racing green with paint resembling their new sponsor, Imperial Tobacco. The sponsorship was a first in the sport and altered the visual and financial landscape of F1 forever.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people