History is full of some great badasses.
Like these people!!
11.
Frederick Douglass
In February of 1818, Frederick Douglas was born as an enslaved person.
When he lied 77 years later, he was a free man.
Douglas spent the first 20 years of his life as a slave in Maryland, where as a child he
taught himself to read and write.
As a teenager he was sent to work for a particularly sadistic slave owner named Edward Covey who
was known for beating his slaves.
But Douglas fought back, and actually won a physical fight against Covey and his cousin.
The legendary battle lasted nearly two hours, with Douglass emerging the victor.
No one ever tried to beat him again.
Armed with the ability to read and write, and the desire for freedom, Douglass tried
escaping in 1836 and 1837, but failed both times.
But the third time was the charm.
In 1838, Douglass, with the help of a free black woman named Anna Murray, disguised himself
as a sailor and boarded a train to Delaware.
He then trekked to Philadelphia and ultimately to New York City and freedom.
As a free man, Douglass was a staunch abolitionist, working tirelessly to end slavery.
During the Civil War he helped the Union cause, working as a recruiter while also advocating
for suffrage for free black men.
In his lifetime, Douglass saw the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which ended slavery,
provided citizenship and equal protection under the law for African Americans,, and
gave them the right to vote.
In his later years, he worked to combat White Supremacy, in particular, the KKK, while campaigning
for women’s suffrage too.
Today he is regarded as one of the most prominent civil rights leaders and an American hero.
10.
Tank Man
We may never know his real name, but the image of one man standing in front of a bunch of
tanks is pretty badass.
Since the occurrence in 1989, the image has become iconic worldwide.
The incident happened on June 5, 1989 as the Chinese military was cracking down on the
Tiananmen Square protests, which resulted in a massacre by the military after the Government
imposed martial law.
As four tanks were driving towards the north end of Tiananmen Square, this dude just walked
up to the tanks and stops.
When the tanks tried to move around him, he would move as well, blocking their path.
This went on for a while until the tanks finally shut their engines off.
The mysterious man then hopped up onto the tank, and had some kind of conversation with
the tank commander.
He then climbed back down, the engines started back up and they once again found themselves
at an impasse.
Finally, two men wearing blue, possibly members of the Public Security Bureau or concerned
bystanders, and the tanks went on their way.
We’re not sure who this guy was, but the image left an impression on people all over
the world.
Time Magazine labeled him as “The Unknown Rebel” and cited him as one of the most
100 influential people of the 20th century.
9.
Andrew Jackson
The seventh President of the United States was a badass.
He was also savagely racist, and for that he kind of sucks, but let’s give credit
where credit is due.
For one, the man lived a lot of his life with a bullet lodged in his chest.
You heard that correct, he was shot in the chest, survived, and went about his way with
a freaking bullet INSIDE of him.
He was shot because he challenged a fella named Charles Dickinson after he insulted
Jackson’s wife.
After taking a bullet to the chest, the future President stayed on his feet and then shot
Dickinson dead.
But his badassness went back to his childhood.
As a kid who grew up during the American Revolution, Jackson helped locally militia by acting as
a courier.
At age 13 he and his brother were captured by the British and nearly starved to breath
in captivity.
When a grown ass british officer told the boy to clean his boots, a defiant Jackson
told him no..so the officer slashed him with his sword.
While Andrew survived, his brother Robert did not.
Jackson went on to have a brilliant Military career, winning decisive battles during the
War of 1812, before becoming President in 1829.
While in office, he survived a bizarre assassination attempt.
A dude named Richard Lawrence attacked him on the lawn of the Capitol building, firing
two guns at close range.
However both guns misfired and Jackson charged his attacker, personally beating the crap
out of him with his walking stick until police came.
The Secret Service didn’t exist back then, and it wouldn’t appear that Jackson needed
them anyway.
8.
Anne Bonny
To be a successful pirate it took grit, courage, brains, a ruthless spirit and many other qualities
that make up a badass.
But it was mostly a guy thing.
Mostly being the operative word.
Women such as Anne Bonny decided that a Pirate’s life was the life for them and broke a glass
ceiling of sorts when they took to the high seas.
While we don’t know a lot about Bonny, we know that she had a fiery temper and a knack
for revenge.
For example, as legend has it, when she was disowned by her father for marrying a pirate,
she burned down his plantation and skipped town to the Bahamas.
She would later divorce her husband and marry another pirate, Calico Jack.
Along with another female pirate named Mary Read, the couple stole a ship from the Nassau
harbor, recruited a band of pirates, and quickly garnered a reputation as some of the fiercest
Buccaneers in the world.
Known to be vigilant during battle, Bonney was respected and/or feared by nearly everyone
who became familiar with her.
Her run came to an end in October of 1720 when she and her crew were captured a crew
commissioned by the Governor of Jamaica.
While Calico Jack and the majority of the crew surrendered easily during the fight,
Bonny and Read managed to fight off the crew for a while before being captured.
While awaiting execution in prison, Bonny claimed to be pregnant, and received a stay
of execution.
Oddly enough, there is no record of her being released or executed.no one knows for sure
what happened to her, which kind of adds to her badass image.
7.
Grigory Rasputin
Everything about the life and breath of Grigori Rasputin is just flat out strange.
As a leader of the Mysticism movement in Russia during the early 20th century he became close
friends with the family of Tsar Nicholas II.
Inf act, a bit too close.
Known by his peers as a pretty weird guy, Russian elites and political leaders were
really concerned about the amount of influence he seemed to have over the Tsar’s family.
They viewed Rasputin as a weirdo, who could not be trusted, especially since Nicholas
was in charge of the army during WWI.
So in 1916 they hatched a plan to grill him.
Mind you, the man already survived an assassination attempt wherein he was stabbed in the stomach.
He survived by running down the street to a hospital while he bleed profusely from his
stomach.
This time they planned to poison him by lacing his food with copious amounts of Potassium
Cyanide at a dinner party.
After giving him the poison they got him drunk it was clear the poison was not working.
So one assassin shot him him in the chest with a revolver.
Rasputin fell to the ground, but soon hopped up and made a break for the door.
Climbing up some stairs he tried to escape outside, but was shot three more times.
Still he powered on, making outside before finally collapsed.
When his assassins approached them he began moving again.
Finally, he was shot in the head and lied.
At the very least, Grigori Rasputin was one tenacious fella.
6.
Tesla
Known by his peers as something of a mad scientist, Nikola Tesla is regarded today as one of the
brightest minds of the past few hundred years.
As an engineer, physicist, and futurist, Tesla was instrumental in the design of the Alternating
Current Electric Supply System.
Soon after immigrating to the United States from Croatia with just the clothes on his
back, he worked with Thomas Edison for a bit before setting out on his own where he sold
many influential patents.
The Tesla Coil, for example, is still being used in radio technology.
He also did experiments that led to the development X-ray technology, radar technology, remote
control and the rotating magnetic field.
With a photographic memory, he was believed to have memorized books he had read.
He was also a master of chess and billiards, and claimed to only have slept for about two
hours a day.
Today his legacy lives on.
Not just through groundbreaking science, but through Tesla Motors, which was named after
him as well as the Nikola Tesla museum, plus a number of holidays that are held in his
honor.
5.
Muhammad Ali
There aren’t many sports figures who were more popular than Muhammad Ali during the
20th century.
As a heavyweight champion, Olympian, iconoclast, civil rights later, and Grammy nominated musician,
just to name a few of his accolades, Muhammad Ali inspired millions of people across the
world.
Aside from being one of the best fighters in the history of Boxing, Muhammad Ali was
a man of principle.
Refusing to fight during the Vietnam War as a consciousness objector due to his muslim
faith, he was jailed during the prime of his career, a ruling the Supreme Court would later
overrule.
Though he was controversial at times, he would eventually become an American icon.
A champion in and out of the ring.
Winning 56 career matches, he recorded 37 knockouts, while maintaining his status as
a social activist.
He beat every single heavyweight champion he ever fought.
He was dubbed the Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and received the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 2005.
The impact of his breath on June 3, 2016 is still being felt by millions of people all
over the world.
4.
Hugh Glass
You don’t survive a bear attack and harsh winters on the Western frontier unless you’re
a certified badass.
The life of Hugh Glass was depicted in the 2015 feature film, The Revenant.
Leonardo Dicaprio portrayed the legendary fur trapper and frontiersman, and won his
first ever Academy Award for the role.
The Bear attacks we just told you about occurred in 1823, while Glass was on an expedition.
He accidentally stumbled on a momma Grizzly with her two cubs.
Feeling threatened she attacked, nearly mauling Glass to breath.
Along with fellow trappers he was able to grill the bear, but they determined that he
was too injured to survive.
So the leader of the expedition, William Henry Ashley asked two dudes named Jim Bridger and
John S. Fitzgerald to stay behind and bury him ne he lied.
Instead they took all of his supplies and weapons and left him out in the open.
Glass, managed to crawl 200 miles to the next town.
As the story goes, he fastened a makeshift raft and floated down the Cheyenne River.
To prevent gangrene from setting in, he allowed maggots to eat dead flesh off of his body...just
to give you an idea of how much this ordeal sucked.
After he recovered from his ordeal he tracked down the men who abandoned him, but ultimately
spared their lives after retrieving his possessions.
So a badass and a gentlemen.
3.
Teddy Roosevelt
As the second U.S President to make this list, Teddy Roosevelt sure has a lot of street cred
when it comes to being a badass.
His face is on Mount Rushmore, he survived an assassination attempt, he explored the
world, he was a master of martial arts, and the leader of the Progressive Era.
He authored books, studied nature, sparred with professional wrestlers and led his troops
to victory.
His life was like one of those Most Interesting Man in the World commercials….only better.
To top it all off, he was portrayed by Robin Williams….how cool is that?
There’s a lot of little anecdotes that illustrate just how much of a badass he was, but getting
shot by a crazed assassin and then immediately giving a speech is as badass as they come.
It was October 14, 1912, and Roosevelt having already served as the 26th president, was
running again, this time for the Progressive Party.
Before delivering a speech, an out of work saloonkeeper shot him in the chest.
The bullet was somewhat stopped by a copy of the speech he had in his breast pocket.
Undeterred, Roosevelt gave his speech anyway, stating “It takes more than that to grill
a bull moose.”
Yeah, that’s pretty badass.
2.
Winston Churchill
As WWII escalated, someone needed to stand up to Hitler.
That man was Winston Churchill.
Granted, the political environment was pretty complicated at the time, but without Churchill’s
leadership, the U.K might not have survived the war.
While he was many things during his life, a writer, a soldier, a historian, and an artist
to name a few, it was his time as Prime Minister of the U.K that history will remember best.
After the U.K declared war on Germany, Churchill famously stated “We Shall Never Surrender”
before the Battle of Britain.
In fact, it was his speeches that encouraged the people of Great Britain when they stood
alone against Nazi aggression.
A symbol of courage, tenacity and strong leadership, Winston Churchill is still regarded as one
of the U.K’s best Prime Ministers of all time.
1.
Ben Franklin
A statesman, an author, a thinker, a doer, a politician, a diplomat, a scientist, an
inventor, a lover, a philosopher, a patriot, a Founding Father and all around badass.
Ben Franklin seriously embodied what he meant to be a Renaissance man.
Oh yeah, he also discovered electricity.
As a leader of the Enlightenment he staunchly opposed both political and religious authoritarianism,
and is often referred to as the “First American” due to his championing of democratic values.
By signing the Declaration of Independence, he essentially gave the middle finger to Great
Britain, proving he was willing to lie for the cause.
His contributions to the scientific community are still significant today.
In addition to inventing the lightning rod, he also invented bifocals, and the flexible
urinary catheter.
We could go on and on about everything Franklin contributed to society.
As a man way ahead of his time, he paved the way for countless scientific and philosophical
advances.
Suffice to say, human beings are still reaping the benefits of his brilliant mind to this
day.
Here’s what’s next!