The Mile That Changed What Was Possible

On the blustery evening of May 6, 1954, a twenty-five-year-old medical student named Roger Bannister stood at the starting line of the Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England. For decades, experts had declared the four-minute mile physically impossible — some physicians even warned that the human heart would give out under such strain. The wind whipped across the cinder track that afternoon, and Bannister nearly withdrew.…