Sir Roger Bannister

On 6 May 1954, Roger Bannister ran the first timed sub-four-minute mile in history. A medical student at Oxford University at the time, Bannister ran the mile in 3:59:4 at a local meet at Oxford's Iffley Road track. Always an amateur athlete, he retired from competitive running later that year and went on to become a prominent neurologist. His autobiography, First Four Minutes (later reprinted as Four Minute Mile), was published in 1955. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975.

Extra credit: Bannister's story was told in the TV movies The Four Minute Mile (1988, with actor Richard Huw as Bannister) and Four Minutes (2005, with Jamie Machlachlan as Bannister)... The track announcer on the day of Bannister's famous run was Norris McWhirter, later a founding editor of The Guinness Book of World Records.