Roger That or Bannister's Barrier

Roger Bannister died last year.  Otherwise, today would be his 90th birthday. (I guess it still is.)  Bannister did a lot of things in his long life, but he's remembered for one thing he did at the age of 25--he ran the first four-minute mile.

There was a time when people may have thought the barrier would never be broken--in the 1800s, no one even came close to breaking 4:10.  But the fastest times slowly crept downward.  In 1931 came the first sub-4:10 run, but four minutes was still a long way off.  By the 1940s, some runners came close to 4:01.

By the 1950s, the four-minute mile was more a psychological barrier than anything else.  Finally, in 1954, in Oxford, Roger Bannister, who'd already run in the 1952 Olympics (and didn't medal), ran the mile in 3:59.4.

He'd been trying to break the barrier for a while, and had some pace-setters to help him.  The crowd went wild, of course, when the time was announced.

The record didn't stand for long.  It happened in May, and by June another runner ran the mile in 3:58.  Not that anyone remembers his name.  It's Bannister who'll be forever famous.

The mile kept getting faster and faster.  It became no big deal to run the four-minute mile.  By 1975  the record dropped below 3:50, and today it stands at 3:43:13.  Imagine how far ahead of Bannister that runner would have he'd have been.  No woman has run a four-minute mile yet, or even a 4:10, though give it another century and see what happens.