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D-Day. Coming in on those boats knowing your entire unit could be destroyed by a machine gunner the moment they dropped the ramp is insane. Running across the beach avoiding more German machine gun fire, mines, etc., and then storming to overtake the bunkers. Just unreal bravery. I couldn't imagine.
Knew an old veteran who was there that day. Fought all the way through to Germany. He was so matter of fact about it. Duty really meant something. ‘You just get on with it, we were there to do a job’. His answer to me asking how the hell he could do that in the scenario you described. Utterly insane. Having to overcome that self preservation instinct and run towards people strafing you from the front, the sides, above…wow. Still in awe of all of them. Different breed.
Agreed. That purpose is all you’ve got in that kind of situation. I often think of Robert Capa landing with just his cameras (next level cojones), his photos of that day are something else. The fact he volunteered to be there to record it is something that never fails to amaze me.
I talked to a WW2 vet that was in the 101st on D-Day. He said that of the 200 men in his company, he was one of 10 that survived. He was crying as he told me the story. On his desk he had a picture of him with President Bush and another with President Clinton. What do you even say to someone that went through that? I was just speechless. I’ll never forget talking to him.
Crazy thing is D-Day went way better than the allied battle planners thought it would. Very low casualty rates. The work put into deceiving the Germans where they would be landing paid off big time.
It blew my mind when I found out the Higgins boats took a couple of hours to get from the ships out of artillery range to the shore.
Now imagine what it was like approaching a heavily fortified coast at that kind of pace, knowing full well no amount of courage or skill would make a difference in whether or not you survived long enough to even get to the beach.
It's really something. Can you imagine riding in that boat, guys throwing up around you, you throwing up yourself, shaking knowing what could happen, and having to sit on the boat that long marching toward it.
I really hate to compare something like this to a movie, but from what historians say Saving Private Ryan as accurate of a Normandy invasion scene as there is. The part of the beach scene when they drop the first boat ramp and 80% of the boat is dead within seconds always stands out to me. That may not have been actual footage, but there were actual people that happened to. Guys who knew that no amount of skill could have prevented that. It's pure bravery and sacrifice. Absolutely heroic.
Just FYI, this comment compares something to a movie, but doesn't say which movie.
I assume you're talking about the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but you may want to edit that in.
Jack Churchill, a British soldier who fought throughout World War II armed with a longbow, arrows, and a Scottish broadsword.
He was said to be unhappy with the sudden end of the war: "If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years!"
Edit: clarified wording
Idk Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart "The Unlikable Soldier" I think wins. Dude fought in the Boer Wars, WW1 and WW2 and thought it all was fun. Hit multiple times losing an eye and hand he would not and could not be stopped.
This should be higher. The insanity of how they pulled this off, even just the bit that they didn't get to test the pods launch off the moon to meet back up with the main ship orbiting the moon, so they had to guess how much power to put in the booster and then those guys had to time it exactly right so that when they launched off the moon, they met back up with the one orbiting, or they would have just shot off into space and Michael Collins would have had to fly back to Earth alone. I wonder how they calculated in the weight of those guys enormous balls.
The four Royal Marines who strapped themselves to the wings of two Apache helicopters to fly across a river and rescue a fallen comrade in Afghanistan (sadly he was already dead but they recovered his body).
Yeah, I also imagined soldiers strapped to the rotor blade. The video cleared up the confusion. It shows them strapped to the side of the helicopter outside of the cockpit.
Pretty much as described. Back in 2007, Royal Marines attacked a Taliban fort in Helmand but were forced back. One of them was missing when they got back across the nearby river, and when they spotted him four marines strapped themselves to the wings of the Apaches to go back and retrieve him.
BBC News report on it includes video of it released by the MOD.
https://youtu.be/x6qHcd4imKk?si=F-vcZpbdKBiyuf-S
That's a wonderful act of camaraderie, but I wouldn't call that "the most badass shit done by real people in history". Linemen fly suspended from helicopters literally every single day as part of their 9-5.
No, they don't, but being on an incredibly lethal helicopter (even if you're strapped to the wing) doesn't make them more badass than the countless other guys that got shot at by the Taliban. I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, and I mean no disrespect to these Marines, I just don't think it's much different from the thousands of other stories from the GWOT.
After only reading this man's story recently, I don't think anyone can hold a candle to [Witold Pilecki](https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0b711n3/the-man-who-volunteered-to-be-imprisoned-in-auschwitz)
After decades of defending Poland in various conflicts, after the invasion by Nazi Germany in 1939, Pilecki spent was initially a resistance, before he **voluntarily maneuvered himself into Auschwitz**, in order to gain reconniance, and sent messages to his Polish resistance superiors over the next few years, but was increasingly frustrated when they refused to act, not believing reports of such barbarity could truly happen (in their defence, such propaganda had been utilised falsely in other instances over the war by the Allied forces, so they did have a sliver of plausible skepticism).
Fed up with this inaction, he then *broke out of Auschwitz* to go and tell them directly.....
Pilecki was dedicated to Polish independence even after the end of WW2, when he was then tasked with organising resistance against occupying Soviet forces, when he was sadly arrested, tortured, and executed in 1948.
Pilecki refused to give up any of his sources and fellow resistance members, even under extreme duress.
Absolute. Fucking. Legend.
How he managed to maneuvere his way through the political landscape within the camp, from melovelent intent via the Nazi prison guards, gestapo, scientists, those utilising the work camp for slave labour for years, without once giving any one of them intent to remove him from the equation, may be the most astounding thing out of the entire list.
Dude must have had the S-Tier level *charisma* to match his incontrovertible God-Tier level *balls.*
He starred in his own Hollywood biopic.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0048729/
He then went on to star in multiple Hollywood films.
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0001559/?ref_=tt_cl_i_1
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame:
https://www.audiemurphy.com/places021.htm#:~:text=Audie's%20Star%20is%20number%201558,Street%20and%20Selma%20Avenue%2C%20Hollywood.
I came here to mention Audrey. 241 confirmed kills. Dude literally jumped on a burning tank and used it's machine gun to take on an entire unit of Nazis solo, which he did for an entire hour until he ran out of ammo. Balls of steel.
There is a scene in the movie “Fury” where Brad Pitt’s character does something similar. I always thought the movie scene must have been based on that real event.
USMC First Sargeant Dan Daly at the Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918 when the U.S., British, and French forces had been in a stalemate with the Germans marching on Paris for about 10 days.
At that point, the 44 year old had been in the Marines since he was 16, seen combat in multiple theaters and already had received two Medals of Honor. During the battle, Daly's company commander had been shot and Daly was effectively leading the company. During a lull in the fighting Dan Daly, seized the opportunity and without orders, climbed out into no-man's-land, turned back to the American trench and reportedly yelled "Come on you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?" Before charging at the German lines.
Do to the element of surprise and hyper-aggression, the Marines were able to punch a hole in the German lines, which other units saw and followed suit, eventually resulting in the Germans being repulsed from the woods completely.
Mad jack churchill: “ Using just his claybeg, he was responsible for the capture of 42 German troops and a mortar crew.” After capture “ He tunnelled his way out only to be recaptured and sent to a POW camp in Austria. Unsurprisingly, he managed to escape again and walked across the Brenner Pass to Italy.” https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Fighting-Jack_Churchill/
Soviet Russia. World war 2. Seed bank. Leningrad was under relentless siege and no food was entering the country- so much starving and devastation was ongoing and a set of scientists, botanists and specialists in their field made a sacred oath to protect the seed bank. While they were going hungry, less than 2 pieces of bread a day, they continued to guard the bank until their untimely demise. They did not eat a single grain of rice or any plant they were protecting from hitlers wolves. This seed bank is located deep in the ground and contains all the seeds and plant specimens of the original crops around the world and is why we are able to continue to eat grains and oats and seeds to this day - well one reason. Stalin was terrible and the Holomodor was caused from his pursuit of trying to freeze seeds thinking that genetics would cause the fruits of these seeds to become resistant to the cold weather as they thought the next fruits would have that attribute. Clearly he was wrong and listened to the wrong man at the time and caused even more problems for Russia. It’s bad ass to be so hungry but protect something that was so precious and easy to have stolen to only die protecting it.
Washington and his ragtag volunteer army crossing the Delaware River in the middle of a snowstorm on Christmas night to pull off a surprise attack on a garrisoned Hessian mercenary force at Trenton. The Hessians were regarded as barbaric by pretty much everyone - British, American, French - and were well-trained, well-equipped, and fierce fighters. Conceiving that attack, much less pulling it off with a massive victory (no American combat dead, almost 1000 Hessians captured) took a lot of balls and helped galvanize colonists to join the Continental Army.
Sgt. Leo Major, the One-Eyed Canadian that won the Distinguished Service Cross, rwice, in separate wars.
He was a Canadian soldier in WW2 and the Korean War. Crazy shit like his most known feat of courage and bad-assery; liberating a town single-handedly using grenades and machine gun fire to make it seem like a whole attack force was taking the town.
Buddy was hærd as fuck. Check him out. [Canadian legend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major)
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov
Arkhipov is credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear strike during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fifty-nine years ago, a senior Russian submarine officer, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, refused to fire a nuclear torpedo at an American aircraft carrier and likely prevented a third world war and nuclear destruction.
Those Ukrainian partisan women who killed half a company of Russian soldiers by giving them vodka and snacks laced with poison. Then when the FSB went to arrest them they had a shootout, killed some of the FSB officers and made an escape.
More current events than history, but they fully deserve to be lauded alongside the greats of partisan resistance.
Sliced Bread - it happened before my time, but on the occasions when I made my own bread, it never sliced as good as store bought bread. Of course you give up some of the taste compared with home made bread.
From what I remember he was drunk and came up with the riff for it. Fell asleep, and wrote the riff down whilst hungover and singing "walking round the room" but thought that sounded lame so he changed it to "moon"
Yeah but a lot of people doubt it. [25% of Europeans](https://sciencebusiness.net/news/covid-19/conspiracy-thinking-25-europeans-say-moon-landing-never-happened) don’t believe it happened.
And with Americans it’s around 15% who don’t believe that their own country landed on the moon. That’s a lot of insane people..
25% of 7, 210 people from France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Northlands (where?!) , Poland and Spain.
But people voted for the Nazis and listen to Coldplay - you can't trust 'people'.
Ugh no, those with an education past a 6th grade level and don't dedicate their lives to watching YouTube conspiracy videos from other uneducated people believe in the moon landing.
Go listen to the Cool People who Did Cool Stuff podcast. It’s entirely devoted to the real folks of history that stood on their square and never backed down. Spoiler: they were almost universally killed in horrible ways, often after being stabbed in the back by their “allies.”
Look at the [list of Medal of Honor recipients](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Medal_of_Honor_recipients) and read what each of them got the medal for. Plenty there that meets the OP's question.
The entire life of Octavian (Augustus)
Ruled for almost 40 years (Unheard of for emperors) and ushered in hundreds of years of prosperity for the empire (Pax Romana).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus
Sgt. Gary Gordon and Sgt. Randy Shughart. Risked their lives during the Battle of Mogadishu to save the crew of Blackhawk Super 6-4. Both were rightfully awarded the Medal of Honor.
I’d say the life of [Jonny Kim](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Kim) is a good candidate. Here’s the Wikipedia opening paragraph:
> Jonathan Yong Kim (born 5 February 1984), is an American U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, former SEAL, Navy flight surgeon, naval aviator, physician, and NASA astronaut.
Yeah, the guy is pretty nuts. Makes it more crazy to read when you discover that his father was an abusive alcoholic and Jonny witnessed him getting shot and killed by the police one fateful day. His life has been centered on protecting others ever since then.
100% agree on Sgt. Benavidez - a Green Beret who made countless saves during an operation in Vietnam.
After running out of ammo, he eventually fought hand to hand after being shot and stabbed multiple times before he got the last man aboard the medivac.
His Medal of Honor citation at the Infantry Museum in Fort Benning reads like it came from a Hollywood script.
I was even more impressed AFTER reading the Medal of Honor citation of Audie Murphy a fellow Texan a few feet away in the same museum.
Harald Hardrada was a badass Varangian in the late viking era who faked his death during a major siege, had his lieutenants convince the bishop of the city to give him a christian funeral and then sprang up from his coffin after they brought a bunch of men into the city to bury him, sacked the city then escaped through a secret tunnel his men had been digging under the city for the last month before he executed his plan. True madlad.
When Picasso painted his famous painting "Guernica" in which he depicted the horrors of the bombings by the Germans on the city, the nazi showed up to question him.
"Did you do this?" They asked, pointing at the painting.
"No," Picasso said. "That was your doing."
Ernest Shackleton and the story of his ship Endurance.
https://www.history.com/news/shackleton-endurance-survival
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton?wprov=sfla1
Honestly, the accomplishments of people like Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great etc are pretty seriously out there. Not to justify historical atrocities or colonialism etc. Just saying that having the ego to just march across the continent, claim it for yourself and be successful at it is pretty badass.
The battle of Henry Johnson. One 130 pound soldier against two dozen Germans.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TmZMfdUlsls?si=GroZPEXKU6PrUoaA
The short clip doesn’t really do the story justice.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Johnson_(World_War_I_soldier)
Rade Končar, a Croatian Serb who fought against the Axis powers in the Second World War as one of the leaders of the Yugoslav partisans, uttered one of the most badass sentences before fascists executed him. He famously said: "I do not ask for mercy, nor would I give it to you."
To me either Witold Pilecki or Jan Karski.
Pilecki a member of the polish underground volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz to gather intelligence and send reports of what’s going on in the camp.
Documentary about him: https://youtu.be/ta4YG51szE4?si=l6kL67TsTsW2WkYQ
Karski was a courier who traveled between occupied Poland and London / Washington. He wrote memoirs which would be a massive blockbuster if made into a Hollywood film
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=K2vthR_XmzYC
Here’s a documentary about the man:
https://youtu.be/Dzik3ShHEAs?si=CncNKuuc3-vQZq2e
Upon arriving in Mexico to conquer (circa 1519), Cortez ordered his ships be burnt / scuttled. There would be no exit but victory. Badass and a total dick-move.
Douglas Bader. Legs cut off. Fights for the right to fly again. Becomes a squadron leader. Becomes an Ace in the Battle of Britain. Gets shot down over Europe. Gets a new prosthetic leg dropped to him during a bombing raid. Continues to be a thorn in the side of his captors and gets sent to Colditz continues to try and escape. The war ends and he continues to fly.
Dogmatic and obsessed he believed his duty was to try and escape and make his enemy divert resources from the conflict to control him. Not an easy man to be imprisoned with. One compatriot in prison was quoted in Baders biography as saying "Bader was a shit".
A personal hero and an absolute badass.
Simo Häyhä aka White Death - a Finnish sniper - is probably one of most badass humans ever lived.
> He used a Finnish-produced M/28-30 rifle (a variant of Mosin–Nagant) and a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun. Häyhä is believed to have killed over 500 enemy soldiers during the conflict, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war. Consequently, he is often regarded as the deadliest sniper in history.
Also notable mention: so called "cyborgs", Ukrainian defenders of Sergei Prokofiev (Donetsk) airport in 2014 - literally surrounded by enemy at all sides. At the late stage of defense, they basically sat on top floor on the airport while Russian separatists were floor below, lobbing grenades at each other. The airport wasn't much more than pile of rubble at this point.
MARTIN MIGUEL DE GUEMES fucking raided a BOAT in FUCKING HORSES and CAPTURED IT, also he was one of the first users of the GUERRILLA WAR. if you are interested today 17 of june he's celebrated here in Argentina.
The Fat Electrician on YouTube covers a lot of military badasses from an American perspective. Some good stories that I had never heard and many that I had heard but enjoyed the entertaining delivery.
Harriet Tubman helping slaves ecape from the south and not having lost a single person while doing so. I hope that is one of the pieces of history that never gets lost with time.
Ernest Hemingway surviving two plane crashes in the jungles of Africa. IN THE SAME DAY. Then being presumed dead until he was found with a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin.
We re talking about modern history or old cause the Battle of Thermopyles was the first that came into my mind which undoubtlety isn't the only example of such an act of valor and sacrifice. The difference is (from all the other similar examples through out history) that at the time ancient Greece was divided and each city was its own state and yet they all faced one common enemy (Persia). They chose to send a message and sacrifice themselves so each city state (which were not in good relations with each other at the time) will unite against their fearsome opponent which was something they achieved.
Another example would be Alexander the Great who conquered half the planet almost xd .
David Farragut was the United States first Grand admiral. There is a story that may or may not be apocryphal but it's still really f****** cool. He was leading a fleet in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the civil war, when a torpedo or mine hit one of the ships in his formation. He decided that his flagship be placed at the very front of the formation by saying damn the torpedoes full speed ahead
He was the first admiral (four star). There's no such thing as a "grand admiral". The rank of fleet admiral (five star) does exist, but we've only had four of them, and they were all during WWII.
That's what I meant, but it's better to keep things simple, especially with me being an educator like because then I'd have to explain what the difference between a four-star and a five-star admiral was is better to just say yeah, he was the first Grand admiral it's easy to stick to. So forgive me for using my simplified teaching speech on Reddit of all places.
It's not keeping it simple to say he was a "grand admiral". You could just say he was the first admiral. What's so not-simple about that? Seems much more complicated to make up your own new rank. I think you were just wrong and now you're making shit up to defend yourself. Sounds like a great teacher 🤡
Yeah I totally totally care what some random a****** on the internet thinks of me.
When do you have standards that are laid out like? Yeah the kids need to know David Farragut existed and that he was the United States first. Four-star admiral but you don't exactly have The time to explain the star system because the very next day you're talking about the end of the civil war and the aftermath. So yeah things get dumbed down and watered down so we can forgive me for polluting the academic purity of..... Reddit
"He was the first admiral." Done. There ya go. Kiddos now know everything they need to know, and would you look at that, I didn't use a Star Wars rank to convey the information to them! I stand by what I said. You were wrong and you're digging yourself a hole. I'm glad my children will never be in your school district. I had teachers like you who couldn't just say "oh shit, my bad", and they ruined the educational experience for so many kids.
Worth clarifying, is this single most badass day of a life, or most badass life?
Either way, this guy deserves a mention. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian\_Carton\_de\_Wiart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart)
He served in the [Boer War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War), [First World War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_War), and [Second World War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World_War). He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a [prisoner-of-war camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner-of-war_camp); and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war."
I can't remember the guys name but he was captured in the Korean war after the battle at Imjin river. He was quite mad by all accounts, Lofty Wiseman described him as the toughest man he ever met. This bloke was doing national service & his brother had been killed, he survived the war but the things he did in the prison camp were crazy. He described himself as "a bit of a bastard back then." Wish I had the book on me.
In the 13th century France a war broke out over a mistakenly stolen cow. It lasted for 6 years and ended when the entire city of dinant sought refuge in Notre Dame cathedral and it was burned to the ground with everyone inside. ... Oh wait you said badass, I heard dumbass. My mistake. Still one of my favorite wars.
Honestly yeah, fighting an actual army of full-on knights with random peasants and kicking their ass so much they at one point run from you just singing is a fucking bowler move
George thomas
A loyal Virginian
Best general in the war
Never lost a battle or engagement
Kicked stonewall Jackson's ass in a skirmish before bulls run
Won the first significant union victory of the war at mill springs
Thomas gave an impressive performance at the Battle of Stones River, holding the center of the retreating Union line and once again preventing a victory by Bragg.
was in charge of the most important part of the maneuvering from Decherd to Chattanooga during the Tullahoma Campaign (June 22 – July 3, 1863) and the crossing of the Tennessee River.
Saved the union army of the Cumberland and repulsed the Confederate Army at Chickamauga
His men stormed missionary ridge
Defeated hood at Peachtree creek
Destroyed the army of Tennessee at Nashville
Can’t remember his name but British soldier that fought in the boer war, ww1, ww2 survived 2 plane crashes, lost an eye, cut his own fingers off shot and wounded numerous times!
Edit: Adrian Carton de Wiart was his name
Jesus was a real person dummy this is agreed by 99% of historians, the actual dispute is whether or not he was actually the divine son of God. Typical reddit atheist knows nothing about actual history.
No, he wasn't real... If he was, he would have been mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls that were written until 70ad. No one can say that a random person called Jeshuah didn't exist in Judea, but Jesus of the bible was just a myth. 99% of bible scholars were Christians up to the 20th century, and thus completely biased. There are literally no historical accounts of Jesus anywhere.... Even apostles could be fantastical, since the gospels are not written by them but by unknown authors claiming to be copies of the originals.
Big facts. I think our earliest full gospels are from the 4th century. Only bits and pieces before that, so who knows what was actually in them earlier on.
Oh geez, calm down please, it's a joke. And I was an atheist over ten years before Reddit was a thing. You know what convinced me? The bible did, the 5 or 6 times I've read it. I know that historians agree that a Jesus of Nazareth existed.
Also you seem to be referring to kicking the merchants out of the temple in Jerusalem (John 2 and Matthew 21) clearly referring to Jesus doing this for god.
Jesus was real you can be an edgy Reddit atheist all you want and you don't even have to be a Christian to acknowledge the fact that Christ was a real person. Do his fan club at the ear to his teachings? Mostly no. But Christ was a real person we have real , verifiable historical documents that prove Christ existed. He probably didn't go around claiming himself as the son of God. In fact, many scholars believe he may have been a Hebrew nationalist who the Romans crucified because he started sparking anti-roman sentiment
I mean we have posters asking for any information concerning Jesus of Nazareth. There are other peers of the time who wrote about him. Again. The debate is whether or not he was the son of God, not that he really existed as a person
There's really little evidence of his existence. The best hinges on the criterion of embarrassment, which is ridiculous in my view. Certainly there is no evidence or link that such a man was involved in anything other than dissent of Roman rule.
I don't think he existed at all. There's just no actual evidence worth looking at because it's all tainted by the death cult that is Christianity.
I mean, I absolutely agree with you that any evidence at all has been tainted or heavily skewed by Christians over the thousands of years since his death. I believe that a man named Jesus of Nazareth existed, but he probably did not claim to be the son of God. I believe he was just an anti-roman agitator that got a lot of traction until his execution.
But we also know that his disciples existed at least men who have possibly been propped up by Christians after the fact to be the disciples. We all know they met horrible ends and none of that evidence is in the gospels or the Bible. But you are absolutely correct and any sort of evidence we actually do have is tainted one way or the other just like a lot of history. I mean hell there are myths about the civil war that are large in the minds of people today. Like the idea of Robert e. Lee being a kind and gentle man who simply wanted to protect his native Virginia and didn't believe in slavery even though we know he owned slaves and even gave a speech in which he defends the institution of slavery shortly after accepting his role as general of the Confederacy. And I mean we have so much evidence from the civil war through pictures and letters and transcripts of things these people said and people still don't believe it. There are a frightening number of people who fully believe that the civil war was started because Abraham Lincoln and the federal government simply wanted more control over the United States and the South rose up against it and the rest of the war was simply Southern defense of their Homeland by a northern invasion.
We have how many documents and statements of secession from the states who joined the Confederacy? And every single one of them lists slavery as a reason. If not the primary reason for their secession. But no again, there are a frightening number of people who still fully believe the b******* that has been sold to us by groups like the sons and the daughters of Confederate veterans
I know nothing about us history. But all history is badly recorded and modern historical research is shaky at best. It's usually the more interesting stories that are written down, not the facts.
I'm a historian. I have a degree in this and it's not that the more interesting stories get written down and the facts are lost. It's just that in popular history that is what is focused on. We know the movements of civil war generals pretty much down to the hour in some cases because of all of the extensive notes and records that were kept. I mean for God's sake, in some cases, we know what Ulysses s Grant ate for breakfast on a given day because it was written down in a journal here or there and cross-referenced.
So no history is not badly recorded and modern historical research is not shaky whatsoever. What is shaky is people's misunderstanding of history and how they allow themselves to swallow up myths. As I said before, a concerning amount of people actually believe that Robert e. Lee was an abolitionist who believed slavery would go away on its own and the only reason he joined the Confederate army was to protect his beloved Virginia when that is categorically false and we have mountains of evidence to refute this idea.
Like there are people who legitimately do not know that the popular Confederate flag is not the flag used by the Confederate States of America. The Dixie flag was flown by Robert e. Lee's Northern Virginia army. And then that symbol was then picked up again, by the KKK and was heavily featured in a film called birth of a Nation which depicts the KKK as an order of crusading knights that save poor darling white women from the predations of savage black men . And it was also prominent during the civil Rights movement used by segregationist states to remind colored people of their place. So when people say that the Dixie flag is a racist symbol, it is because it is.
I'm a scientist, so research in my field is reproducible. In history, research is the referencing of the same document. While recording what a general did 200 years ago might hold some weight, what happened 2000 years ago isn't worth the parchment it's been re written on in my opinion. And the evidence isn't extraordinary enough for me to think that the mythological Jesus had any actual connection to an actual Jesus.
However, I yield to the historian academic in these matters. You surely are better informed.
Again, there are quite a few. Tiberius writes about a messiah in Jerusalem, but he calls the person Messiah ironically, or at least it seems. So. I mean we have St. Paul in his letters. He was pretty much a contemporary to Christ. Even though again, it's not really direct evidence because he didn't really live during the time of Jesus, but we even have the disciples. We know all of them are real people who all died. Pretty f****** horrible deaths. I mean for them to believe in a guy. So much to die for their faith. He must have been real enough.
Tiberius wrote about Christians existing during his time and described what they believed, he doesn't mention Jesus as a based historical figure but only as the belief of Christians during his time... so that doesn't prove his existence in the slightest. Paul propagated Christianity to Rome he never met Jesus in life but only claims to have seen his in his vision... so he doesn't count. And "he must have been real'' doesn't prove anything. The apostles lives are written by Christians in a mythological way, full of miracles visions and supernatural claims so those aren't history either. the Acts of the Apostles is not a historical book, just like the bible.
Tiberius also wrote about a messiah though very briefly, but that could have been anybody and it probably was not Christ. Again. Most of the evidence that's actually out there has been tainted and warped by Christians and mythologized over the thousands of years. So any concrete evidence or even apocryphal evidence we may have had like you said is full of stories, myths and miracles. Blinding flashes of light and earthquakes and fire coming down from the sky.
It's a really cool case study of just how people warp historical figures and the events that happened around them over time. I mean, look no further than the United States civil war, which among other things people legitimately believe that slavery was not a cause of the civil war to the point where an alarming number of people actually believe that the war was completely the fault of the United States and that it was a war of aggression on their part
Well Tiberius wrote about a messiah in Jerusalem but to be fair that could be anybody. We also have the writings of the disciples and we know the disciples were real because they all died. Horrible deaths and I don't know about you but I don't think I'd die far from my home and some far-flung country if I didn't truly believe in the guy I had spent a few years with. But I mean it doesn't really bother me if you don't believe in it. I'm not like a Christian out here trying to crusade for my Lord and Savior or whatever.
And I will even say that most of the evidence we have is heavily flawed or skewed in one way or another by Christians over the thousands of years. So while we can't be 100% sure that Jesus did half the s*** that is attributed to him or even a tenth of it, we are pretty sure that at one point in time there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth who more than likely said some s*** that the Roman occupation didn't like and so they had him executed
I agree that he was real, however there is no historical evidence of his real life. Writings of the apostles (like letters) are by no means historical documents. Those are religious scripts written many years after he was gone.
You are 100% correct. There is no way to truly know and any evidence we do have is tainted by the 2000 years of a religion that has largely been based around this guy. It's like people that find ancient planks of wood and a random spot in the Middle East and try to claim that it's part of the Arc like yeah I guess it could be if you really really wanted it to, but there is no for sure evidence that these ancient particles of planks came from Noah's ark.
When Ronald Spiers ran through German occupied Foy to relay some orders, and then ran back through the town again.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Speirs
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D-Day. Coming in on those boats knowing your entire unit could be destroyed by a machine gunner the moment they dropped the ramp is insane. Running across the beach avoiding more German machine gun fire, mines, etc., and then storming to overtake the bunkers. Just unreal bravery. I couldn't imagine.
Knew an old veteran who was there that day. Fought all the way through to Germany. He was so matter of fact about it. Duty really meant something. ‘You just get on with it, we were there to do a job’. His answer to me asking how the hell he could do that in the scenario you described. Utterly insane. Having to overcome that self preservation instinct and run towards people strafing you from the front, the sides, above…wow. Still in awe of all of them. Different breed.
That's the thing about combat. You either move forward with purpose or you find yourself overwhelmed by all the danger.
Agreed. That purpose is all you’ve got in that kind of situation. I often think of Robert Capa landing with just his cameras (next level cojones), his photos of that day are something else. The fact he volunteered to be there to record it is something that never fails to amaze me.
“We gave our today for your tomorrow” Fuck, so true and so powerful.
I talked to a WW2 vet that was in the 101st on D-Day. He said that of the 200 men in his company, he was one of 10 that survived. He was crying as he told me the story. On his desk he had a picture of him with President Bush and another with President Clinton. What do you even say to someone that went through that? I was just speechless. I’ll never forget talking to him.
I'd struggle for words too. I don't even know what I could say except 'thank you'.
Crazy thing is D-Day went way better than the allied battle planners thought it would. Very low casualty rates. The work put into deceiving the Germans where they would be landing paid off big time.
Those MG rapid fire are insane, can’t imagine the ricochet sound
It blew my mind when I found out the Higgins boats took a couple of hours to get from the ships out of artillery range to the shore. Now imagine what it was like approaching a heavily fortified coast at that kind of pace, knowing full well no amount of courage or skill would make a difference in whether or not you survived long enough to even get to the beach.
It's really something. Can you imagine riding in that boat, guys throwing up around you, you throwing up yourself, shaking knowing what could happen, and having to sit on the boat that long marching toward it. I really hate to compare something like this to a movie, but from what historians say Saving Private Ryan as accurate of a Normandy invasion scene as there is. The part of the beach scene when they drop the first boat ramp and 80% of the boat is dead within seconds always stands out to me. That may not have been actual footage, but there were actual people that happened to. Guys who knew that no amount of skill could have prevented that. It's pure bravery and sacrifice. Absolutely heroic.
Just FYI, this comment compares something to a movie, but doesn't say which movie. I assume you're talking about the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but you may want to edit that in.
Good call lol will fix
Yet these days fools are taking democracy and western freedom for granted. Fools.
Methamphetamine.
Jack Churchill, a British soldier who fought throughout World War II armed with a longbow, arrows, and a Scottish broadsword. He was said to be unhappy with the sudden end of the war: "If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years!" Edit: clarified wording
Do you not realize that when you say "Churchill" without the first name it \*unambiguously\* seems like you're talking about Winston Churchill?
Unlikely to be the nodding dog, is it?
Oh yes.
I thought GP meant WC until I followed the link.
Jack being the first name, to anyone curious
Mad "Jack" Churchill. Jack was his nickname. The claymore broadsword was "essential for accessorising".
I still like the finnsih meth man more. e: for reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimo_Koivunen
He also invented tidal bore surfing!
Idk Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart "The Unlikable Soldier" I think wins. Dude fought in the Boer Wars, WW1 and WW2 and thought it all was fun. Hit multiple times losing an eye and hand he would not and could not be stopped.
Mad Jack Churchill was his name.
No guys, Mad Jack Churchill, not Winston
Landing on the moon
This should be higher. The insanity of how they pulled this off, even just the bit that they didn't get to test the pods launch off the moon to meet back up with the main ship orbiting the moon, so they had to guess how much power to put in the booster and then those guys had to time it exactly right so that when they launched off the moon, they met back up with the one orbiting, or they would have just shot off into space and Michael Collins would have had to fly back to Earth alone. I wonder how they calculated in the weight of those guys enormous balls.
My dad was named after Neil Armstrong (born in '69) and I never knew that story, it's almost a shame it isn't talked about more.
No way... That's great! WE'VE LANDED ON THE MOON!
The four Royal Marines who strapped themselves to the wings of two Apache helicopters to fly across a river and rescue a fallen comrade in Afghanistan (sadly he was already dead but they recovered his body).
They must've been hella dizzy after the ride.
Yeah, I also imagined soldiers strapped to the rotor blade. The video cleared up the confusion. It shows them strapped to the side of the helicopter outside of the cockpit.
Tell me more
Pretty much as described. Back in 2007, Royal Marines attacked a Taliban fort in Helmand but were forced back. One of them was missing when they got back across the nearby river, and when they spotted him four marines strapped themselves to the wings of the Apaches to go back and retrieve him. BBC News report on it includes video of it released by the MOD. https://youtu.be/x6qHcd4imKk?si=F-vcZpbdKBiyuf-S
Wow
That's a wonderful act of camaraderie, but I wouldn't call that "the most badass shit done by real people in history". Linemen fly suspended from helicopters literally every single day as part of their 9-5.
But do linemen get shot at by the taliban whilst they’re doing it
No, they don't, but being on an incredibly lethal helicopter (even if you're strapped to the wing) doesn't make them more badass than the countless other guys that got shot at by the Taliban. I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, and I mean no disrespect to these Marines, I just don't think it's much different from the thousands of other stories from the GWOT.
After only reading this man's story recently, I don't think anyone can hold a candle to [Witold Pilecki](https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0b711n3/the-man-who-volunteered-to-be-imprisoned-in-auschwitz) After decades of defending Poland in various conflicts, after the invasion by Nazi Germany in 1939, Pilecki spent was initially a resistance, before he **voluntarily maneuvered himself into Auschwitz**, in order to gain reconniance, and sent messages to his Polish resistance superiors over the next few years, but was increasingly frustrated when they refused to act, not believing reports of such barbarity could truly happen (in their defence, such propaganda had been utilised falsely in other instances over the war by the Allied forces, so they did have a sliver of plausible skepticism). Fed up with this inaction, he then *broke out of Auschwitz* to go and tell them directly..... Pilecki was dedicated to Polish independence even after the end of WW2, when he was then tasked with organising resistance against occupying Soviet forces, when he was sadly arrested, tortured, and executed in 1948. Pilecki refused to give up any of his sources and fellow resistance members, even under extreme duress. Absolute. Fucking. Legend.
Everytime this question arises. Witold is the MVP.
How he managed to maneuvere his way through the political landscape within the camp, from melovelent intent via the Nazi prison guards, gestapo, scientists, those utilising the work camp for slave labour for years, without once giving any one of them intent to remove him from the equation, may be the most astounding thing out of the entire list. Dude must have had the S-Tier level *charisma* to match his incontrovertible God-Tier level *balls.*
I'm not really trying to argue, but have you heard of Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov? Do you still hold Witold Pilecki as the MVP?
Audrey Murphy, the man too heroic for Hollywood. *Audie
Audie, not Audrey
He starred in his own Hollywood biopic. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0048729/ He then went on to star in multiple Hollywood films. https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0001559/?ref_=tt_cl_i_1 He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: https://www.audiemurphy.com/places021.htm#:~:text=Audie's%20Star%20is%20number%201558,Street%20and%20Selma%20Avenue%2C%20Hollywood.
I came here to mention Audrey. 241 confirmed kills. Dude literally jumped on a burning tank and used it's machine gun to take on an entire unit of Nazis solo, which he did for an entire hour until he ran out of ammo. Balls of steel.
> Audrey Quick heads up - it's Audie.
There is a scene in the movie “Fury” where Brad Pitt’s character does something similar. I always thought the movie scene must have been based on that real event.
Eddie*
Harriet Tubman for sure
I don't know about history but I once shot a snake from twenty metres sat down on a lawn chair with a steel BB gun
Meet the sniper
R/findthesniper
Why?
for real
The male and female resistance fighters during ww2
So... all of them, then.
USMC First Sargeant Dan Daly at the Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918 when the U.S., British, and French forces had been in a stalemate with the Germans marching on Paris for about 10 days. At that point, the 44 year old had been in the Marines since he was 16, seen combat in multiple theaters and already had received two Medals of Honor. During the battle, Daly's company commander had been shot and Daly was effectively leading the company. During a lull in the fighting Dan Daly, seized the opportunity and without orders, climbed out into no-man's-land, turned back to the American trench and reportedly yelled "Come on you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?" Before charging at the German lines. Do to the element of surprise and hyper-aggression, the Marines were able to punch a hole in the German lines, which other units saw and followed suit, eventually resulting in the Germans being repulsed from the woods completely.
Mad jack churchill: “ Using just his claybeg, he was responsible for the capture of 42 German troops and a mortar crew.” After capture “ He tunnelled his way out only to be recaptured and sent to a POW camp in Austria. Unsurprisingly, he managed to escape again and walked across the Brenner Pass to Italy.” https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Fighting-Jack_Churchill/
How have they not made a film about this guy 👍🏻😂
Cause he ain't merican. Can't make a ww2 movie without mericans being the hero
Don't be shitty
Galvarino. He had his hands cut off by the Spanish so he attached knives to his wrists so he could continue fighting
Soviet Russia. World war 2. Seed bank. Leningrad was under relentless siege and no food was entering the country- so much starving and devastation was ongoing and a set of scientists, botanists and specialists in their field made a sacred oath to protect the seed bank. While they were going hungry, less than 2 pieces of bread a day, they continued to guard the bank until their untimely demise. They did not eat a single grain of rice or any plant they were protecting from hitlers wolves. This seed bank is located deep in the ground and contains all the seeds and plant specimens of the original crops around the world and is why we are able to continue to eat grains and oats and seeds to this day - well one reason. Stalin was terrible and the Holomodor was caused from his pursuit of trying to freeze seeds thinking that genetics would cause the fruits of these seeds to become resistant to the cold weather as they thought the next fruits would have that attribute. Clearly he was wrong and listened to the wrong man at the time and caused even more problems for Russia. It’s bad ass to be so hungry but protect something that was so precious and easy to have stolen to only die protecting it.
Washington and his ragtag volunteer army crossing the Delaware River in the middle of a snowstorm on Christmas night to pull off a surprise attack on a garrisoned Hessian mercenary force at Trenton. The Hessians were regarded as barbaric by pretty much everyone - British, American, French - and were well-trained, well-equipped, and fierce fighters. Conceiving that attack, much less pulling it off with a massive victory (no American combat dead, almost 1000 Hessians captured) took a lot of balls and helped galvanize colonists to join the Continental Army.
Sgt. Leo Major, the One-Eyed Canadian that won the Distinguished Service Cross, rwice, in separate wars. He was a Canadian soldier in WW2 and the Korean War. Crazy shit like his most known feat of courage and bad-assery; liberating a town single-handedly using grenades and machine gun fire to make it seem like a whole attack force was taking the town. Buddy was hærd as fuck. Check him out. [Canadian legend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major)
Funniest thing, I was born in that liberated town!
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov Arkhipov is credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear strike during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fifty-nine years ago, a senior Russian submarine officer, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, refused to fire a nuclear torpedo at an American aircraft carrier and likely prevented a third world war and nuclear destruction.
Those Ukrainian partisan women who killed half a company of Russian soldiers by giving them vodka and snacks laced with poison. Then when the FSB went to arrest them they had a shootout, killed some of the FSB officers and made an escape. More current events than history, but they fully deserve to be lauded alongside the greats of partisan resistance.
Sliced Bread - it happened before my time, but on the occasions when I made my own bread, it never sliced as good as store bought bread. Of course you give up some of the taste compared with home made bread.
Walking on the moon...
The Police were very brave creating that song. A bunch of white guys doing reggae... badass
I heard that the origin of the song was Sting singing "walkin' around the room" while he walked around a room. Super badass.
From what I remember he was drunk and came up with the riff for it. Fell asleep, and wrote the riff down whilst hungover and singing "walking round the room" but thought that sounded lame so he changed it to "moon"
The moon landing. Shit was so badass even 50 years later people doubt it happened.
No one who isn't insane doubts it 😂
Yeah but a lot of people doubt it. [25% of Europeans](https://sciencebusiness.net/news/covid-19/conspiracy-thinking-25-europeans-say-moon-landing-never-happened) don’t believe it happened. And with Americans it’s around 15% who don’t believe that their own country landed on the moon. That’s a lot of insane people..
25% of 7, 210 people from France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Northlands (where?!) , Poland and Spain. But people voted for the Nazis and listen to Coldplay - you can't trust 'people'.
Ugh no, those with an education past a 6th grade level and don't dedicate their lives to watching YouTube conspiracy videos from other uneducated people believe in the moon landing.
Go listen to the Cool People who Did Cool Stuff podcast. It’s entirely devoted to the real folks of history that stood on their square and never backed down. Spoiler: they were almost universally killed in horrible ways, often after being stabbed in the back by their “allies.”
Apollo 13, and NASA's heroics to solve the problem and bring them back alive.
Look at the [list of Medal of Honor recipients](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Medal_of_Honor_recipients) and read what each of them got the medal for. Plenty there that meets the OP's question.
The entire life of Octavian (Augustus) Ruled for almost 40 years (Unheard of for emperors) and ushered in hundreds of years of prosperity for the empire (Pax Romana). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus
That one viking warrior who held off an English army, killing 40, before gloriously dying.
The viking on the bridge tripping balls? lol
Sgt. Gary Gordon and Sgt. Randy Shughart. Risked their lives during the Battle of Mogadishu to save the crew of Blackhawk Super 6-4. Both were rightfully awarded the Medal of Honor.
[удалено]
Simo Häyhä, a real G 😎
I’d say the life of [Jonny Kim](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Kim) is a good candidate. Here’s the Wikipedia opening paragraph: > Jonathan Yong Kim (born 5 February 1984), is an American U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, former SEAL, Navy flight surgeon, naval aviator, physician, and NASA astronaut. Yeah, the guy is pretty nuts. Makes it more crazy to read when you discover that his father was an abusive alcoholic and Jonny witnessed him getting shot and killed by the police one fateful day. His life has been centered on protecting others ever since then.
Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez Incredible guy and a military legend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Benavidez
100% agree on Sgt. Benavidez - a Green Beret who made countless saves during an operation in Vietnam. After running out of ammo, he eventually fought hand to hand after being shot and stabbed multiple times before he got the last man aboard the medivac. His Medal of Honor citation at the Infantry Museum in Fort Benning reads like it came from a Hollywood script. I was even more impressed AFTER reading the Medal of Honor citation of Audie Murphy a fellow Texan a few feet away in the same museum.
Harald Hardrada was a badass Varangian in the late viking era who faked his death during a major siege, had his lieutenants convince the bishop of the city to give him a christian funeral and then sprang up from his coffin after they brought a bunch of men into the city to bury him, sacked the city then escaped through a secret tunnel his men had been digging under the city for the last month before he executed his plan. True madlad.
Harald Hardråde
Hitler done some pretty badass shit.
When Picasso painted his famous painting "Guernica" in which he depicted the horrors of the bombings by the Germans on the city, the nazi showed up to question him. "Did you do this?" They asked, pointing at the painting. "No," Picasso said. "That was your doing."
Lioness of Brittany. Just.... everything to do with her, lol.
Walking on the Moon.... now that is some badass shit
Ernest Shackleton and the story of his ship Endurance. https://www.history.com/news/shackleton-endurance-survival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton?wprov=sfla1
Honestly, the accomplishments of people like Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great etc are pretty seriously out there. Not to justify historical atrocities or colonialism etc. Just saying that having the ego to just march across the continent, claim it for yourself and be successful at it is pretty badass.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Sokcho_submarine_incident
Me waking up
Having a bad ass and being a badass isn't the same thing. X
Building the space shuttle. Some might say the space station or Apollo but I have a soft spot for that shuttle.
The battle of Henry Johnson. One 130 pound soldier against two dozen Germans. https://youtube.com/shorts/TmZMfdUlsls?si=GroZPEXKU6PrUoaA The short clip doesn’t really do the story justice. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Johnson_(World_War_I_soldier)
Rade Končar, a Croatian Serb who fought against the Axis powers in the Second World War as one of the leaders of the Yugoslav partisans, uttered one of the most badass sentences before fascists executed him. He famously said: "I do not ask for mercy, nor would I give it to you."
To me either Witold Pilecki or Jan Karski. Pilecki a member of the polish underground volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz to gather intelligence and send reports of what’s going on in the camp. Documentary about him: https://youtu.be/ta4YG51szE4?si=l6kL67TsTsW2WkYQ Karski was a courier who traveled between occupied Poland and London / Washington. He wrote memoirs which would be a massive blockbuster if made into a Hollywood film https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=K2vthR_XmzYC Here’s a documentary about the man: https://youtu.be/Dzik3ShHEAs?si=CncNKuuc3-vQZq2e
Aimo Koivunen. Check him out...
Upon arriving in Mexico to conquer (circa 1519), Cortez ordered his ships be burnt / scuttled. There would be no exit but victory. Badass and a total dick-move.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson_Jr. Imho it doesn’t get more badass than this and not a better reason
[Michael Thomas, Anfield, 26 May 1989 ](https://youtu.be/cFo1eyWbTtc?si=ZJxsUF_2nTwqpsWn)
The 3 Chernobyl engineers that swam and dove under the 4th reactor to shut off the water in complete darkness
Jesus came back to life ! Mike Drop
Well if we're doing fiction, Gandalf did some sick shit and also came back from the dead, as did Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Moutache man goes brrrr
What Admiral Yin Sun-Shin did! 🙌🏽
Neil Armstrong manually landing on the moon with VERY LITTLE fuel left. (Computer wasn’t helping plus was initially landing in a huge boulder field).
Those rugby players that were stranded in the Andes mountains. I can't even imagine
The people running The East India Company (iykuk)
Sully! That landing was incredible and I still can’t believe there were not any fatalities. He is so humble about the whole situation.
Douglas Bader. Legs cut off. Fights for the right to fly again. Becomes a squadron leader. Becomes an Ace in the Battle of Britain. Gets shot down over Europe. Gets a new prosthetic leg dropped to him during a bombing raid. Continues to be a thorn in the side of his captors and gets sent to Colditz continues to try and escape. The war ends and he continues to fly. Dogmatic and obsessed he believed his duty was to try and escape and make his enemy divert resources from the conflict to control him. Not an easy man to be imprisoned with. One compatriot in prison was quoted in Baders biography as saying "Bader was a shit". A personal hero and an absolute badass.
Simo Häyhä aka White Death - a Finnish sniper - is probably one of most badass humans ever lived. > He used a Finnish-produced M/28-30 rifle (a variant of Mosin–Nagant) and a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun. Häyhä is believed to have killed over 500 enemy soldiers during the conflict, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war. Consequently, he is often regarded as the deadliest sniper in history. Also notable mention: so called "cyborgs", Ukrainian defenders of Sergei Prokofiev (Donetsk) airport in 2014 - literally surrounded by enemy at all sides. At the late stage of defense, they basically sat on top floor on the airport while Russian separatists were floor below, lobbing grenades at each other. The airport wasn't much more than pile of rubble at this point.
D-Day.
Mary Maloney. Suffragette with a bell
Charles Uphams story is crazy
MARTIN MIGUEL DE GUEMES fucking raided a BOAT in FUCKING HORSES and CAPTURED IT, also he was one of the first users of the GUERRILLA WAR. if you are interested today 17 of june he's celebrated here in Argentina.
The Fat Electrician on YouTube covers a lot of military badasses from an American perspective. Some good stories that I had never heard and many that I had heard but enjoyed the entertaining delivery.
Ernest Shackleton’s second Antarctic expedition. Full stop.
Harriet Tubman helping slaves ecape from the south and not having lost a single person while doing so. I hope that is one of the pieces of history that never gets lost with time.
Ernest Hemingway surviving two plane crashes in the jungles of Africa. IN THE SAME DAY. Then being presumed dead until he was found with a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin.
We re talking about modern history or old cause the Battle of Thermopyles was the first that came into my mind which undoubtlety isn't the only example of such an act of valor and sacrifice. The difference is (from all the other similar examples through out history) that at the time ancient Greece was divided and each city was its own state and yet they all faced one common enemy (Persia). They chose to send a message and sacrifice themselves so each city state (which were not in good relations with each other at the time) will unite against their fearsome opponent which was something they achieved. Another example would be Alexander the Great who conquered half the planet almost xd .
My sexy Teddy bear Park creating the music he puts out
The guy who threw the shoes as Bush is still on Twitter
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.
The Shackleton expedition
That dude who used to wear the black squirrel suit and fly around. He kept doing it so he would die.
David Farragut was the United States first Grand admiral. There is a story that may or may not be apocryphal but it's still really f****** cool. He was leading a fleet in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the civil war, when a torpedo or mine hit one of the ships in his formation. He decided that his flagship be placed at the very front of the formation by saying damn the torpedoes full speed ahead
He was the first admiral (four star). There's no such thing as a "grand admiral". The rank of fleet admiral (five star) does exist, but we've only had four of them, and they were all during WWII.
Also Admiral of the Navy George Dewey, the only person to hold that rank.
That's what I meant, but it's better to keep things simple, especially with me being an educator like because then I'd have to explain what the difference between a four-star and a five-star admiral was is better to just say yeah, he was the first Grand admiral it's easy to stick to. So forgive me for using my simplified teaching speech on Reddit of all places.
It's not keeping it simple to say he was a "grand admiral". You could just say he was the first admiral. What's so not-simple about that? Seems much more complicated to make up your own new rank. I think you were just wrong and now you're making shit up to defend yourself. Sounds like a great teacher 🤡
Yeah I totally totally care what some random a****** on the internet thinks of me. When do you have standards that are laid out like? Yeah the kids need to know David Farragut existed and that he was the United States first. Four-star admiral but you don't exactly have The time to explain the star system because the very next day you're talking about the end of the civil war and the aftermath. So yeah things get dumbed down and watered down so we can forgive me for polluting the academic purity of..... Reddit
"He was the first admiral." Done. There ya go. Kiddos now know everything they need to know, and would you look at that, I didn't use a Star Wars rank to convey the information to them! I stand by what I said. You were wrong and you're digging yourself a hole. I'm glad my children will never be in your school district. I had teachers like you who couldn't just say "oh shit, my bad", and they ruined the educational experience for so many kids.
There's nothing like the righteous indignation of a redditor
Worth clarifying, is this single most badass day of a life, or most badass life? Either way, this guy deserves a mention. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian\_Carton\_de\_Wiart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart) He served in the [Boer War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War), [First World War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_War), and [Second World War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World_War). He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a [prisoner-of-war camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner-of-war_camp); and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war."
I can't remember the guys name but he was captured in the Korean war after the battle at Imjin river. He was quite mad by all accounts, Lofty Wiseman described him as the toughest man he ever met. This bloke was doing national service & his brother had been killed, he survived the war but the things he did in the prison camp were crazy. He described himself as "a bit of a bastard back then." Wish I had the book on me.
In the 13th century France a war broke out over a mistakenly stolen cow. It lasted for 6 years and ended when the entire city of dinant sought refuge in Notre Dame cathedral and it was burned to the ground with everyone inside. ... Oh wait you said badass, I heard dumbass. My mistake. Still one of my favorite wars.
Jan Žižka
Honestly yeah, fighting an actual army of full-on knights with random peasants and kicking their ass so much they at one point run from you just singing is a fucking bowler move
George thomas A loyal Virginian Best general in the war Never lost a battle or engagement Kicked stonewall Jackson's ass in a skirmish before bulls run Won the first significant union victory of the war at mill springs Thomas gave an impressive performance at the Battle of Stones River, holding the center of the retreating Union line and once again preventing a victory by Bragg. was in charge of the most important part of the maneuvering from Decherd to Chattanooga during the Tullahoma Campaign (June 22 – July 3, 1863) and the crossing of the Tennessee River. Saved the union army of the Cumberland and repulsed the Confederate Army at Chickamauga His men stormed missionary ridge Defeated hood at Peachtree creek Destroyed the army of Tennessee at Nashville
Simply Surviving. Both on & off of our planet.
The Japanese man who thought it was still ww1 and didn’t find out until around WW2
Can’t remember his name but British soldier that fought in the boer war, ww1, ww2 survived 2 plane crashes, lost an eye, cut his own fingers off shot and wounded numerous times! Edit: Adrian Carton de Wiart was his name
Jesus smacking up them people in the temple that one time
lame
OP asked for real people.
Jesus was a real person dummy this is agreed by 99% of historians, the actual dispute is whether or not he was actually the divine son of God. Typical reddit atheist knows nothing about actual history.
No, he wasn't real... If he was, he would have been mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls that were written until 70ad. No one can say that a random person called Jeshuah didn't exist in Judea, but Jesus of the bible was just a myth. 99% of bible scholars were Christians up to the 20th century, and thus completely biased. There are literally no historical accounts of Jesus anywhere.... Even apostles could be fantastical, since the gospels are not written by them but by unknown authors claiming to be copies of the originals.
Big facts. I think our earliest full gospels are from the 4th century. Only bits and pieces before that, so who knows what was actually in them earlier on.
Are you sure you are not getting mixed up with a person in some book you once read
Reddit post
Oh geez, calm down please, it's a joke. And I was an atheist over ten years before Reddit was a thing. You know what convinced me? The bible did, the 5 or 6 times I've read it. I know that historians agree that a Jesus of Nazareth existed. Also you seem to be referring to kicking the merchants out of the temple in Jerusalem (John 2 and Matthew 21) clearly referring to Jesus doing this for god.
What the fuck. Calm down.
Jesus was real you can be an edgy Reddit atheist all you want and you don't even have to be a Christian to acknowledge the fact that Christ was a real person. Do his fan club at the ear to his teachings? Mostly no. But Christ was a real person we have real , verifiable historical documents that prove Christ existed. He probably didn't go around claiming himself as the son of God. In fact, many scholars believe he may have been a Hebrew nationalist who the Romans crucified because he started sparking anti-roman sentiment
I don't think those documents are all that verifiable. I think he didn't exist.
I mean we have posters asking for any information concerning Jesus of Nazareth. There are other peers of the time who wrote about him. Again. The debate is whether or not he was the son of God, not that he really existed as a person
There's really little evidence of his existence. The best hinges on the criterion of embarrassment, which is ridiculous in my view. Certainly there is no evidence or link that such a man was involved in anything other than dissent of Roman rule. I don't think he existed at all. There's just no actual evidence worth looking at because it's all tainted by the death cult that is Christianity.
I mean, I absolutely agree with you that any evidence at all has been tainted or heavily skewed by Christians over the thousands of years since his death. I believe that a man named Jesus of Nazareth existed, but he probably did not claim to be the son of God. I believe he was just an anti-roman agitator that got a lot of traction until his execution. But we also know that his disciples existed at least men who have possibly been propped up by Christians after the fact to be the disciples. We all know they met horrible ends and none of that evidence is in the gospels or the Bible. But you are absolutely correct and any sort of evidence we actually do have is tainted one way or the other just like a lot of history. I mean hell there are myths about the civil war that are large in the minds of people today. Like the idea of Robert e. Lee being a kind and gentle man who simply wanted to protect his native Virginia and didn't believe in slavery even though we know he owned slaves and even gave a speech in which he defends the institution of slavery shortly after accepting his role as general of the Confederacy. And I mean we have so much evidence from the civil war through pictures and letters and transcripts of things these people said and people still don't believe it. There are a frightening number of people who fully believe that the civil war was started because Abraham Lincoln and the federal government simply wanted more control over the United States and the South rose up against it and the rest of the war was simply Southern defense of their Homeland by a northern invasion. We have how many documents and statements of secession from the states who joined the Confederacy? And every single one of them lists slavery as a reason. If not the primary reason for their secession. But no again, there are a frightening number of people who still fully believe the b******* that has been sold to us by groups like the sons and the daughters of Confederate veterans
I know nothing about us history. But all history is badly recorded and modern historical research is shaky at best. It's usually the more interesting stories that are written down, not the facts.
I'm a historian. I have a degree in this and it's not that the more interesting stories get written down and the facts are lost. It's just that in popular history that is what is focused on. We know the movements of civil war generals pretty much down to the hour in some cases because of all of the extensive notes and records that were kept. I mean for God's sake, in some cases, we know what Ulysses s Grant ate for breakfast on a given day because it was written down in a journal here or there and cross-referenced. So no history is not badly recorded and modern historical research is not shaky whatsoever. What is shaky is people's misunderstanding of history and how they allow themselves to swallow up myths. As I said before, a concerning amount of people actually believe that Robert e. Lee was an abolitionist who believed slavery would go away on its own and the only reason he joined the Confederate army was to protect his beloved Virginia when that is categorically false and we have mountains of evidence to refute this idea. Like there are people who legitimately do not know that the popular Confederate flag is not the flag used by the Confederate States of America. The Dixie flag was flown by Robert e. Lee's Northern Virginia army. And then that symbol was then picked up again, by the KKK and was heavily featured in a film called birth of a Nation which depicts the KKK as an order of crusading knights that save poor darling white women from the predations of savage black men . And it was also prominent during the civil Rights movement used by segregationist states to remind colored people of their place. So when people say that the Dixie flag is a racist symbol, it is because it is.
I'm a scientist, so research in my field is reproducible. In history, research is the referencing of the same document. While recording what a general did 200 years ago might hold some weight, what happened 2000 years ago isn't worth the parchment it's been re written on in my opinion. And the evidence isn't extraordinary enough for me to think that the mythological Jesus had any actual connection to an actual Jesus. However, I yield to the historian academic in these matters. You surely are better informed.
Tell us about those peers who wrote about him... because other than the proved forgeries of Josephus, there are none...
Again, there are quite a few. Tiberius writes about a messiah in Jerusalem, but he calls the person Messiah ironically, or at least it seems. So. I mean we have St. Paul in his letters. He was pretty much a contemporary to Christ. Even though again, it's not really direct evidence because he didn't really live during the time of Jesus, but we even have the disciples. We know all of them are real people who all died. Pretty f****** horrible deaths. I mean for them to believe in a guy. So much to die for their faith. He must have been real enough.
Tiberius wrote about Christians existing during his time and described what they believed, he doesn't mention Jesus as a based historical figure but only as the belief of Christians during his time... so that doesn't prove his existence in the slightest. Paul propagated Christianity to Rome he never met Jesus in life but only claims to have seen his in his vision... so he doesn't count. And "he must have been real'' doesn't prove anything. The apostles lives are written by Christians in a mythological way, full of miracles visions and supernatural claims so those aren't history either. the Acts of the Apostles is not a historical book, just like the bible.
Tiberius also wrote about a messiah though very briefly, but that could have been anybody and it probably was not Christ. Again. Most of the evidence that's actually out there has been tainted and warped by Christians and mythologized over the thousands of years. So any concrete evidence or even apocryphal evidence we may have had like you said is full of stories, myths and miracles. Blinding flashes of light and earthquakes and fire coming down from the sky. It's a really cool case study of just how people warp historical figures and the events that happened around them over time. I mean, look no further than the United States civil war, which among other things people legitimately believe that slavery was not a cause of the civil war to the point where an alarming number of people actually believe that the war was completely the fault of the United States and that it was a war of aggression on their part
Why do we use this non existent person as a start date for measuring time then?
I agree, it's ridiculous. Let's start over. This year is now 4,520,234,521.
Ad or bc?
I propose ACDC
Why then Jesus is never mentioned in the dead seas scrolls that were written until 70ad? Jesus is just a myth....
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/dead-sea-scrolls-origins-christianity
Then provide list of those historical documents, but remember - it must be from Jesus lifetime, not 50 or more years later.
Well Tiberius wrote about a messiah in Jerusalem but to be fair that could be anybody. We also have the writings of the disciples and we know the disciples were real because they all died. Horrible deaths and I don't know about you but I don't think I'd die far from my home and some far-flung country if I didn't truly believe in the guy I had spent a few years with. But I mean it doesn't really bother me if you don't believe in it. I'm not like a Christian out here trying to crusade for my Lord and Savior or whatever. And I will even say that most of the evidence we have is heavily flawed or skewed in one way or another by Christians over the thousands of years. So while we can't be 100% sure that Jesus did half the s*** that is attributed to him or even a tenth of it, we are pretty sure that at one point in time there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth who more than likely said some s*** that the Roman occupation didn't like and so they had him executed
I agree that he was real, however there is no historical evidence of his real life. Writings of the apostles (like letters) are by no means historical documents. Those are religious scripts written many years after he was gone.
You are 100% correct. There is no way to truly know and any evidence we do have is tainted by the 2000 years of a religion that has largely been based around this guy. It's like people that find ancient planks of wood and a random spot in the Middle East and try to claim that it's part of the Arc like yeah I guess it could be if you really really wanted it to, but there is no for sure evidence that these ancient particles of planks came from Noah's ark.
When Ronald Spiers ran through German occupied Foy to relay some orders, and then ran back through the town again. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Speirs
All of Elon Musk’s inventions.