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Spyridon Louis, a water carrier from Marousi, won the first Olympic marathon in 1896. Offered rich gifts, he asked only for a horse and cart.

Stamata Revithi was not allowed to run the first Olympic marathon in 1896. The next day she ran the route alone, with signatures to prove it, and then disappeared from history.

Carl Schuhmann, a small gymnast from Berlin, won three gymnastics titles at the 1896 Olympics, then the open wrestling, in a final stopped by darkness.

John Pius Boland went to Athens in 1896 to watch the Olympics. A friend entered him in the tennis, and he won the singles and the doubles, with the rival he had just beaten.

At the 1896 Olympics there was no pool. Alfréd Hajós, whose father had drowned, won two swimming races in the cold open sea, and later built a pool for his city.

Harvard refused to let James Connolly go to the 1896 Olympics. He left, was robbed on the way, and became the first Olympic champion in 1,500 years.

Billie Eilish’s parents slept in the living room so their children could each have a bedroom. In one of those rooms, an 80-dollar microphone started everything.

In 776 BC a cook named Koroibos won the only race at Olympia and became the first Olympic champion whose name survived. The true story, and how the Games came back in 1896.

In 1920 Earle Dickson made the first Band-Aid at home for his wife Josephine. It sold only 3,000 dollars’ worth in its first year, then Boy Scouts got them free.

In 1937 Sylvan Goldman turned two folding chairs into the first shopping cart, and nobody would push it. So he paid people to push it around the store.