Sixty-four years ago Roger Bannister did the impossible: he became the first athlete to run a mile in under four minutes.\n\nOkay, so it wasn\u2019t impossible ;-).\n\nBut the prevailing belief back then, including amongst the medical community, was that a sub-four-minute mile wasn\u2019t humanly possible.\n\nRoger Bannister believed differently. On May 6, 1954 he ran a 3:59.4 minute mile.