Meb Keflezighi won the 2014 Boston Marathon.
Four days before Ted Williams belted the first of his 521 major-league home runs, another memorable event occurred at the 1939 Boston Marathon. The race began under a dark sky because of a storm and a partial eclipse of the sun. Two-time champion Ellison “Tarzan’’ Brown set a then-course record, finishing in 2:28:51.
An event roughly 2,500 miles away affected the race in 2010. Eyjafjallajökull, a volcano in Iceland, erupted twice in the weeks leading to the marathon, interrupting air travel. Hundreds of grounded entrants missed the race but were given the option of deferring their race until 2011.
The first running of the Boston Marathon in 1897 actually wasn’t. It was called the American Marathon then and included a grand total of 15 entrants. (Monday’s marathon has an expected field of 30,000.) Only 10 made it to the finish line, then 24.5 miles away. New Yorker John McDermott crossed first in 2:55:10.
The first woman to run the Boston Marathon, Bobbi Gibb, talks about the relationship between running and art.
Six years before the Boston Marathon allowed women officially into the field, Roberta “Bobbi’’ Gibb became the first to complete the race in 1966. According to a New York Times story in 2015, Gibb wore a hoodie to conceal her identity and hid in bushes at the start before blending into a pack of runners. She eventually took off her sweatshirt, and expecting a negative reaction, she got exactly the opposite. Men cheered, and women cried, the article said. Gibb finished in 3:21:40.
Veteran Eugene Roberts, who had lost both of his legs in the Vietnam War, made history in 1970 when he became the first person to finish the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair. Roberts was permitted to begin just before the race’s start at noon and crossed the finish line at 6:07 p.m.
John Kelley ran the Boston Marathon for the first time in 1928, the year that Mickey Mouse also made his first appearance. He ran it for the final time in 1992, the year that “Aladdin’’ hit theaters. In between, the most enduring Boston Marathoner of them all ran the race 61 times. He finished 58 of them.
Bill Rodgers won the first of his four titles in 1975, establishing a new American record of 2:09:55 in the process. Rodgers’ victory came two years after his quest to complete this nation’s most iconic endurance race ended after 21 miles. That time, he drank too much water and expended too much energy early in the race, forcing him to drop out. Rodgers won three straight titles from 1978-80.
Heather Abbott, a survivor of the Boston Marathon Bombing speaks to Southern Connecticut State University graduates durring the commencement address at the Wester Bank Arena in Bridgeport Firday, May 15, 2015.
One year after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Meb Keflezighi became the first American man to win the Boston Marathon since Greg Meyer in 1983. Thirty-four years ago also was noteworthy on the women’s side, as Joan Benoit established a world record in 2:22:43. in 1984, Benoit prevailed the first time that the women’s marathon was held in the Olympics in Los Angeles.
The Boston Marathon provided plenty of suspense in 2000, when Kenya’s Elijah Lagat edged Ethiopia’s Gezahegne Abera by less than a second. Both finished with official times of 2:09:47. Kenyan Moses Tanui (2:09:50) crossed the finish line only three seconds behind the leaders.
Because of the United States’ involvement in World War I, the format for the Boston Marathon underwent a one-time change in 1918. Instead of a traditional race, a 10-man military relay was staged. The team from Camp Devens in Ayer, Mass., won in 2:24:53.