Terry Fox had his right leg amputated above the knee at eighteen after being diagnosed with a form of bone cancer, and while recovering in hospital, he was struck by how many other cancer patients around him, many of them children, were suffering from a disease that seemed to receive far less research funding and public attention than it deserved.
He decided to run across Canada, coast to coast, using a prosthetic leg, to raise money and awareness for cancer research — a distance of over eight thousand kilometers — despite having no long-distance running background before his diagnosis and having to relearn an entirely new, physically punishing running gait suited to his prosthesis.
He began his run, which he called the Marathon of Hope, in April 1980, running the equivalent of a full marathon almost every single day for 143 consecutive days, gradually drawing national media attention and growing crowds of supporters as word of what he was attempting spread across the country.
In September 1980, after covering more than five thousand kilometers, he was forced to stop when doctors discovered the cancer had spread to his lungs. He died the following June, without completing the run, but the Marathon of Hope he had started continued as an annual fundraising event held in his name, which has since raised several hundred million dollars for cancer research worldwide.