The morning of May 6, 1954 dawned over Iffley Road at England's Oxford University bringing first light to the day's track meet. Twenty-five-year-old Dr. Roger Bannister was scheduled that day to compete for the British Amateur Athletic Association. The young doctor was a studious medical student at the university who had a shown an exceptional talent for running track since his early childhood. He had competed in high school and, at the beginning of World War II, found his way to Oxford on a scholarship. Though his incredible speed while running in the mile and 1500 meter events captured the attention of the British media, it was dismayed when he declined to compete for England at the London Olympics of 1948. Roger had opted, instead, to spend the time focusing on his studies and to courageously train for another goal “breaking the world record for the mile. To reach this, Roger had pursued an unorthodox training regimen patterned after that of the Swedish miller, Gunder Hägg. Although the Swede had held the record at 4:01.4, the 4-minute mile was deemed humanly impossible. Roger would disappoint the press again when he finished fourth in the 1500 meter event in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. This morning would be different. With teammates, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, pacing him, Bannister ended the day by completing the mile in 3:59.4 demolishing not only Hägg's record but, more importantly, breaking the 4-minute barrier. Since his 1954 historic run, the mile record has been broken 18 times by 13 other individuals. Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj set the current record in 1999 at 3:43.13. Roger Bannister went on to excel in the field of neurology and was knighted in 1975. He is still quite active today at the age of 80. His explanation on achieving the impossible: "It's the ability to take more out of yourself then you've got.  In aeronautics, there once, too, was a virtual maximum speed “at which an airplane could sa