Two Olympic golds, two world records, and the first sub-two-hour marathon — a case that the fastest man over 26.2 miles is made of monastic discipline, not talent.

A serial betrayer and convicted machine boss who also broke France’s fifty-year silence over Vichy — and his country loved him for both.

Britain jailed him on perjured evidence for a rebellion he did not lead. He answered by founding modern Kenya on forgiveness for the powerful — and forgetting for the poor.

A medical-school dropout with no science degree built a wire-and-weight machine that let a Paris crowd watch the Earth turn.

He staged the demonstrations that founded microbiology — and his notebooks, opened a century later, tell a messier story than the myth.