Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro was a legendary survivor after it was recorded that he survived 600 assassination attempts. He lived most of his life in the spotlight. Castro's would-be assassins are alleged to have plotted to kill him in a variety of ways, including poisoning him, dousing his dive suit with fatal botulism, and blowing him up during a speech. Many of these plots were spectacular failures.

More people have tried to kill the world's most famous socialist than any man alive, according to the 2006 British documentary, "638 ways to kill Castro". Today, Cuban officials claim that Castro survived more than 600 assassination attempts a figure that is impossible to confirm.

" If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win a gold medal", Castro liked to tell interviewers. Despite the ever-constant threat of assassination, it was not a bomb or cyanide that removed Castro from power, but a botched medical operation.

In 2006, having given up his beloved cigars and switched to a mostly vegetarian diet for health reasons, Castro was afflicted by an intestinal ailment. A series of years of bungled operations nearly cost him his life, and two years later he was forced to cede power to his younger brother Raul Castro.

On November 25, 2016, it was reported that Fidel Castro died peacefully on his bed at the age of 90 years