Death of Tom Simpson

Fritz Haber , 1918

Temperature map of the cosmic microwave background measured by the Planck spacecraft

01The pigeons roosting inside the horn antenna were trapped and relocated twice before the engineers accepted the hiss was cosmic.
02Penzias and Wilson won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics — accidentally, while testing satellite communication equipment.
03Princeton cosmologist Robert Dicke had been building a detector specifically to find this radiation; Penzias called him first, and Dicke told his team: 'We've been scooped.'

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights , oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in) , Museo del Prado , Madrid

'Put me back on my bike' — Simpson's last request on Mont Ventoux, 1967. Amphetamines and brandy were found in his jersey pocket. The Tour rode past his corpse to finish.