Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, 1937-2014, was an American middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted of murder and later freed via a petition of habeas corpus after spending almost 20 years in prison.

In 1966, police arrested both Carter and friend John Artis for a triple-homicide committed in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey. Police stopped Carter’s car and brought him and Artis, also in the car, to the scene of the crime. On searching the car, the police found ammunition that fit the weapons used in the murder. ^[2] Police took no fingerprints at the crime scene and lacked the facilities to conduct a paraffin test for gunshot residue. Carter and Artis were tried and convicted twice (1967 and 1976) for the murders, but after the second conviction was overturned in 1985, prosecutors chose not to try the case for a third time.

Carter’s autobiography, titled The Sixteenth Round, was published in 1975 by Warner Books. The story inspired the 1975 Bob Dylan song “Hurricane” and the 1999 film The Hurricane (with Denzel Washington playing Carter). From 1993 to 2005, Carter served as executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.

Christopher “Chris” Malcolm (19 August 1946 – 15 February 2014) was a Scottish television and film actor, director and producer. He first achieved notability for his role as Brad Majors in the original stage production of The Rocky Horror Show.

After university, he returned to the UK and began his professional career with the Royal Shakespeare Company (1966–68). He appeared in at least ten productions and worked with directors including Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn and John Barton. Throughout the 1970s, he worked continuously in theatre and film, appearing in many Royal Court productions including the award-winning musical, The Rocky Horror Show creating the role of Brad Majors. He appeared in films including Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Reds, Ragtime, Labyrinthand Highlander.^{[citation needed]}

In 1990, Malcolm co-produced a new production of The Rocky Horror Show at the Piccadilly Theatre, in partnership with Howard Panter of the Ambassador Theatre Group. This Olivier nominated production went on to huge success throughout the UK, enjoying 4 nationwide tours over the next 10 years as well as many productions throughout the world. He oversaw these productions on behalf of The Rocky Horror Company Ltd, a company formed by the producers and the play’s author Richard O’Brien to look after this much loved musical. The show finally reached Broadway in 2000 in a Tony Award-nominated production co-produced with Jordan Roth Productions at the Circle in the Square theatre.

Võ Nguyên Giáp (25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a General in the Vietnam People’s Army and a politician

He first grew to prominence during World War II, where he served as the military leader of the Viet Minh resistance against the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. Giáp was a principal commander in two wars: the First Indochina War (1946–54) and the Vietnam War (1960–1975). He participated in the following historically significant battles: Lạng Sơn (1950), Hòa Bình (1951–52), Điện Biên Phủ (1954), the Tết Offensive (1968), the Easter Offensive (1972), and the final Ho Chi Minh Campaign (1975). Giáp was also a journalist, an interior minister in President Hồ Chí Minh’s Việt Minh government, the military commander of the Việt Minh, the commander of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), and defense minister. He also served as a member of the Politburo of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, which in 1976 became the Communist Party of Vietnam. He was the most prominent military commander, beside Ho Chi Minh, during the Vietnam War, and was responsible for major operations and leadership until the war ended.

Ronald Arthur “Ronnie” Biggs (8 August 1929 – 18 December 2013) was an English thief, known for his role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963, for his escape from prison in 1965, for living as a fugitive for 36 years and for his various publicity stunts while in exile. In 2001, he returned to the United Kingdom and spent several years in prison, where his health rapidly declined. Biggs was released from prison oncompassionate grounds in August 2009 and died in a nursing home in December 2013.

In need of a loan to fund a deposit on a house purchase for his family, Biggs approached Reynolds, who offered him a place on the proposed train robbery. Biggs was tasked by Reynolds to find a suitable engine driver to move the train forwards to the unloading point, and he recommended Stan Agate, known on the gang as “Pop” due to his age.

Having told his wife that he was off logging with Reynolds in Wiltshire,^[4] on the night of the raid Biggs was a passenger in the stand-by getaway car, and only saw the haul once the gang returned to Leatherslade farm.^[2] Stopping the mail train from Glasgow to London in the early hours of 8 August 1963 (Biggs’s 34th birthday), engine driver Jack Mills was coshed with an iron bar in the course of the robbery. As Agate had never driven a diesel engine, the gang forced the injured and bleeding Mills to move the engine and mail carriages forward to the bridge chosen as the unloading point.

Having unloaded 120 of the 128 mailbags from the train within Reynolds’ alloted timetable, and returned to their hideout at Letherslade Farm, various sources show that the robbery yielded the participants £2.6 million; Biggs’s share was £147,000. With their timetable brought forward due to the enclosing police investigation, Biggs returned home on the following Friday with his stash in two canvas bags.^[2]

After an accomplice failed to burn down Leatherslade Farm as agreed to clean it for evidence, Biggs’s fingerprints were subsequently found by the Metropolitan Police investigation team on a ketchup bottle. Three weeks later, he was arrested along with 11 other members of the gang in South London.  In 1964, nine of the 15-strong gang including Biggs, were jailed for the crime; most received sentences of 30 years.