For History.com, I wrote about the amazing Mercedes Gleitze:
A little after sunset on Thursday, April 6, 1928, after 12 hours 50 minutes in the water, a lone swimmer scrambled onto a rocky shore at Punta Leona, Morocco and grabbed a handful of sand to take home to London as a souvenir. Cheered on by dozens who had followed her progress in boats, 27-year-old Mercedes Gleitze arrived at the northernmost point in Morocco in a manner that no known person had before: by swimming from Europe to Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Her route, from Spain’s southernmost point at Tarifa was 12 miles as the crow flies, although the officials who had tracked her from the boat estimated that the strong and shifting currents had extended her swim to more than 22 miles.