Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro finally succumbed to illness and died on Friday.
But over the years the 90-year-old had managed to dodge a number of reported assassination attempts (mainly from the United States).
Cuban intelligence claimed more than 600 attempts were made on his life, which ranged from poisoning his milkshake to putting explosives in his cigar.
He saw the James Bond-style plots as a badge of honour, saying: ‘If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.’
In the 1960s the CIA tried numerous ways to bring the Socialist leader down.
According to Cuba, this included a plan to poison his handkerchief.
The US agency also apparently wanted to contaminate his wetsuit but were thwarted yet again.
We’re surprised Castro ever went into the water, as someone is also said to have tried to hide explosives in a seashell that would have exploded while he was scuba diving (it was one of his favourite hobbies).
The creativity didn’t stop there as someone also allegedly tried to put a poisonous hypodermic needle in a pen that could be used to prick him.
CIA staff kept on going and this time rather than kill Castro they apparently wanted to embarrass him out of office by making his beard fall out.
A plan was also reportedly hatched to spike Castro with LSD during a radio appearance to make him seem crazy and lose credibility.
The next attempt was more traditional, with explosives being planted under a podium the Cuban leader was due to give a talk at.
Luckily for him his security staff discovered the trap.
The CIA apparently didn’t give up easily and wanted Castro’s mistress Marita Lorenz to feed him a poison capsule but it dissolved in her face cream.
A plan to put explosives in his cigar was also reportedly dreamt up by a New York police officer.
And then there was the poison milkshake, which somehow was the closest anyone came to killing the revolutionary leader.
The attempt apparently failed when the poison pill stuck to a freezer.
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