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Podcast: Ultrarunning History
Episode: 42: Around the World on Foot – Part 5 – Dumitru Dan
Description: By Davy Crockett
During the early 1900s, hundreds of people were claiming falsely that they were walking around the world and were given free room and board by the trusting public as they came into towns. Nearly every “around the world on foot” walker mentioned a wager as their motivation for making the attempt, similar to Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg’s wager in his 1872 novel “Around the World in 80 Days.” More than 95% of these globetrotters made claims that were false.
Beginning about 1904, a new twist emerged. A few of the globetrotters claimed that they were part of a race or competitio...