Year 500 (D) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Patricius and Hypatius (or, less frequently, year 1253 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 500 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

The Proclaimers are a Scottish band composed of identical twin brothers, Charlie and Craig Reid. They are probably best known for the songs "Letter from America", "I'm On My Way" and "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)". The band tours extensively throughout Europe and other continents. They have released nine studio albums from 1987 until the present, as well as two compilation albums and a DVD.

In 2011, the band scored history in Scotland when two of their tracks, "Sunshine on Leith" and "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" were featured on Scotland's Greatest Album (2011).

Craig Reid and Charlie Reid were born in Leith in 1962, and grew up in Edinburgh, Cornwall and Auchtermuchty. When they stayed in Auchtermuchty they attended Bell Baxter High School. After several punk rock bands at school they formed The Proclaimers in 1983.

The pair came to public attention when an Inverness based fan sent their demo to the British band The Housemartins, who were impressed enough to invite The Proclaimers on their 1986 UK tour. The exposure of the tour won them a January 1987 appearance on the British pop music television programme The Tube on Channel Four; "Letter from America" peaked at number 3 in the UK Singles Chart, whilst the album This is the Story went gold. The follow-up album Sunshine on Leith featured "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" and "I'm On My Way". They had a hit with their EP King of the Road, which reached number 9 in UK in 1990.

Nigel Owens (born 18 June 1971 in Mynyddcerrig, Llanelli, Wales) is a Welsh international rugby union referee. He is an international and Heineken Cup referee and was the only Welsh referee at the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France.

Owens was born and raised in a small village called Mynyddcerrig in the Gwendraeth Valley in South Wales and he is a fluent Welsh language speaker. He was a school technician at Ysgol Gyfun Maes Yr Yrfa Cefneithin and youth worker with Menter Cwm Gwendraeth.

Owens was appointed as an international referee in 2005, and that year officiated his first international between Ireland and Japan in Osaka. Along with Wayne Barnes of England and Marius Jonker of South Africa, Owens made his World Cup debut in Lyon, France on 11 September 2007 for the Argentina vs. Georgia match. He is only one of two referees ever to be appointed to referee two consecutive Heineken Cup finals: Munster v Toulouse at the Millennium Stadium in 2008 and Leicester Tigers v Leinster at Murrayfield in 2009.

Jerry Miculek is a speed shooter and competition shooting instructor. He is renowned as one of the fastest revolver shooters in the world, emptying a five-shot revolver in 0.57 seconds in a group the size of a playing card.^{[citation needed]} Miculek currently holds five world records in exhibition revolver shooting.^{[citation needed]} He is married to Kay Clark Miculek, herself an accomplished shooter, holding numerous national and world titles.

In addition, Miculek is an experienced gunsmith who tunes and adjusts his own revolvers for optimum function.

He is endorsed by Smith & Wesson, who created the S&W Model 625JM model in honor of him.

An avid shooter, Jerry holds numerous national and world shooting titles:^{[citation needed]}

Miculek also demonstrated the ability to fire five shots from a revolver on target with a S&W Model 64 ported barrel revolver in 0.57 seconds on September 25, 2003. This nearly matches the record held by Ed McGivern of 0.45 sec (first shot on 9/13/1932, reproduced 4 times on 12/8/1932). Originally recorded as "two-fifths of a second", the resolution of the timing equipment in 1932 was only 1/20th of a second, so the actual figure could have been anywhere between 0.40 and 0.45 seconds.^{[citation needed]}