< Badass

Badass/Real Life

Military Figures

  • Alexander the Great.
  • Joan of Arc
  • King Leonidas of Sparta. Most people know him only from his last battle, which he even lost, but stalled the invading Persian army long enough to prevent the conquest of the Greek world. You know, the one that laid the foundation for the entire Western world. Even 2,500 years after his death, his absolutely epic Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner "Come and get them!" still sets the standard for ultimate badassery.
  • King Xerxes the 1st of Persia, part of his training as a prince was being locked into a dark room, with a spear and a hungry lion, he survived. except for greece he kicked ass during his kingdom, crushing the babilonian AND the egyptian uprisings. at once.
  • his father Daryus had to face even more, he conquered the same lands of Alexander the Great...in 9 months instead of 9 years.
  • Witold Pilecki, the Original Polish Badass. Pilecki, after the small tasks of creating the Secret Polish Army to resist the Nazis, then willingly volunteers to be captured and taken to Auschwitz, for the express purpose of gathering intelligence as to the exact nature of the concentration camp. And when he had seen enough, he organized a resistance movement in the camp, escaped, and sought to warn the West about the death camps. He continued working with the resistance, first against the Nazis and then the Communists, until he was arrested and sentenced to death. No idea how they managed to kill him. They probably needed silver bullets.
  • Simo Häyhä, a Finnish sniper who racked up five hundred and forty-two kills during the Winter War, without using a scope, and another two hundred kills with a Suomi sub-machinegun. How big of a badass was he? He was fighting the Soviet army in the dead of winter and they nicknamed him "White Death". Survived getting shot in the face and recovered. He's been immortalised by the swedish Power Metal band Sabaton, with their song "White Death".
  • Thomas Cochrane, 10th earl of Dundonald. Kicked off his career (as a British naval officer in the Napoleonic era) by capturing a spanish frigate six times the size of his own vessel (the doctor gets an honorable mention: He steered the ship) he then went on to shut down the coastal trade on the southern coast of france, put together the archtypical fire ship attack at the Aix Roads, and (after switching to the navy of Chile) led 240 men to liberate the entire nation of Peru. As a full admiral in his 70s he applied for a command during the Crimean War but was turned down because the british government were afraid he'd sail to St Petersburg and conquer Russia. Every fictional captain from then on, from Horatio Hornblower to James T. Kirk, owes something to him.
    • Richard Sharpe (Bernard Cornwell's Napoleonic-era hero) is one of the most badass men ever written. When he shared a book with Cochrane, he was simply and effortlessly out-badassed. That's how badass Cochrane was.
    • It was alleged that Cochrane planned to break Napoleon out of exile and make him the leader of the United States of South America.
  • To follow on from the Cochrane example, the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail was practically a World of Badass:
    • Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, managed to relieve Gibraltar despite being outnumbered. He went on to win the Battle of the Glorious First of June at the age of seventy, defeating a numerically superior French fleet
    • Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, spent his life as a professional badass. After taking command of the HMS Carleton at the Battle of Valcour Island he took a great risk to stop his ship being captured. In 1780, he took command of his ship after the commanding officer was killed and drove off his enemy. Later, when a British Indiaman ran aground, he swam out to the wreck, in a gale with a line. Later, he took his ship, the HMS Indefatigable into action against a larger French battleship, during a storm, and destroyed it. He spent his twilight years killing Barbary slavers.
    • Sir Sidney Smith enlisted in the Swedish Navy, and fought the Russians at Svenskund, where he was knighted by Gustavus III for badassery. He later took the Iles St-Marcouf, which the Navy managed to hold, right under the nose of the French fleet, for seven years. After his promotion to Admiral, he kicked some life into the Ottoman Empire at Acre, defending the city against a superior French attack. How badass was he? Napoleon said of him: "That man made me miss my destiny."
    • Even the Royal Navy's guile heroes were still badasses: Sir Richard Keats, at the Battle of Algeciras, found at night two 112-gun Spanish battleships. He sailed between them in the dark, firing at both. The two of them, believing each other to be an enemy, proceeded to destroy each other. Keats had taken 74 guns against 224, and won.
    • Badass Grandpa Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan, was both Guile Hero and Badass in equal parts: he was given the task of blockading the Dutch fleet. Unfortunately, the British fleet was wracked by mutiny, and only two loyal ships would sail with him. He kept a Dutch fleet of 11 battleships blockaded by disguising his ships as different ones, and signalling to an imaginary fleet just over the horizon. It worked. When the Navy joined him and he lifted the blockade, he smashed the Dutch at Camperdown. Oh, and when one of his men tried to incite a mutiny, Duncan, at the age of 66, threw the six and a half foot Jack Tar overboard.
    • George Anson, 1st Baron Anson. A true Determinator. Read the story of his circumnavigation of the globe.
    • The Badass-in-Chief of the British Navy was Handicapped Badass Horatio Nelson. He didn't let the loss of an eye and an arm stop him being the most successful Naval commander in the Royal Navy's (or possibly any Navy's) history. After he died at Trafalgar, his men wept openly
  • Fighting Jack Churchill. Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill was an English soldier who served in WWII armed with a bow, arrows and a claymore (the huge sword, not the explosive).
  • William Marshall, 1st Earl of Pembroke. A man of legendary badassery, he was charging into battle at the front of armies, killing fully-armored knights well into his seventies. When men spoke of mighty warriors in the 12th and 13th centuries, they simply had to say "THE Marshall" and everyone knew who they were talking about.
  • Admiral Yi Sunshin from Korea is one of (if not the best) admiral in the world history. He battled Japanese 23 times and won all of them with the total damage on his side was loss of 254 men(including himself). He did have a sturdier and armed with cannon ship compared to the fast but weak fragile Japanese, but he was almost always outnumbered in battles and in his 13 vs. 133 battle, he WON with 2 soldiers injured on his side with more than 40 ships crippled on Japanese side. Now that's badass. Unlike Nelson or any other historical military figures, he had no supplies sent from the main government that was fleeing all over the place. Instead he got jealousy, hatred and eventual punishment from them.
    • He was a faithful son (to a devoting countless pages on his war journal for her when she died), a Team Dad to his naval force and he was very strict and fair. Almost a fictional character if you ask me.
    • On top of that, he was a genius strategist with capability in fighting a outnumbered battle with barely any damage on his side. To be fair, Japanese ships were mostly formed of cargo ships, but that doesn't mean that 133 of those Lightning Bruisers against your petty little force consisting of 13 ships and scared and pathetic soldeirs and officers.
    • Plus, he was the first one to use an ironclad ship named turtleship.
  • Cracked's List of 5 Real Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a Pussy.
  • Pavlov's House. Twenty-odd soviet soldiers held out behind enemy lines for longer than any country other than the Soviet Union. They only left the building in between nazi attacks to remove enemy dead, refusing the nazis cover.
  • Honda Tadakatsu, the mightiest general of the Tokugawa clan. Amongst his achievements is that he has been around since the era of Okehazama to Sekigahara, accompanying Ieyasu in about 55 battles, and NEVER get wounded from it. He is so Badass that he is considered Ieyasu's luxury and Ieyasu would've bitten the dust very quickly if it wasn't for Tadakatsu. He also possesses a Badass spear named Tombogiri, a spear so sharp that a dragonfly would get cut in two if it passes by the spear's blade... while he's not even swinging it.
    • The almighty Uesugi Kenshin near the same time period, who is so feared and respected on the battlefield that friend and foe alike nicknamed him the 'God of War'; He was, in fact, the only person who actually managed to outright defeat Oda Nobunaga in an actual field battle at Tedorigawa (and so badly that Nobunaga reportedly, by one account, actually was ready to surrender if Kenshin marched onto Kyoto), and his Crowning Moment of Awesome remains at the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima against his rival Takeda Shingen, where Kenshin rides through the entire battlefield and into the Takeda camp all by himself to strike at Shingen with nothing but himself, his horse and his blade.
    • While Shingen defended himself with an iron fan.
      • And funnily enough, that sword Shingen is defending himself against? A gift from him in recognition of how badass they both were. It's hard not to recognize if none could beat either of them in the field of battle, except maybe for the other.
      • In Furin Kazan, Kenshin (played by Gackt) accentuates this by declaring himself to be the Avatar of Bishamonten -- openly and in public in front of all his retainers. This in itself takes a certain amount of balls.
  • Audie Murphy, a highly decorated American soldier who served in the European Theater during World War II. Among other things, he earned the Medal of Honor. We'll let the Citation for his Medal of Honor speak for his actions:
    • Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by 6 tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad that was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective. That is a direct extract from the military's citation for his medal. If it had been written by someone trying to make it sound exciting instead of simply stating the facts, your head would have exploded from sheer badassery.
    • In the 60's, he was addicted to the insomnia medication Placidyl to treat his PTSD. When he realized his addiction, he locked himself in a motel room for a week and suffered withdrawal symptoms, quitting cold turkey.
    • And did we mention that he joined the military at 16 YEARS OLD!!!!
      • And suffered from malaria throughout most of the war?
    • He was #1 on the above list of "5 Real-Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a Pussy". Flaming M-10, anyone?
    • Murphy was so badass that, when Hollywood decided to make a movie about his actions during the war, he actually asked that the depiction of his actions be toned down because he thought nobody would believe he was really that badass.
      • And who was the only person they could find who was badass enough to play Audie Murphy in the movie about Audie Murphy? A little WWII vet named ... Audie Murphy.
  • Any holder of the Victoria Cross. This is the most rarely awarded medal for valour in the world, and 50% of awards are posthumous. Here's the London Gazette entry for a WWII tank driver with The Irish Guards, Guardsman Edward Colquhoun Charlton:
    • On the morning of 21st April, 1945, Guardsman Charlton was co-driver in one tank of a troop, which, with a platoon of infantry seized the village of Wistedt. Shortly afterwards, the enemy attacked this position under cover of an artillery concentration and in great strength, comprising as it later transpired a battalion of the 15th Panzer Grenadiers supported by six self-propelled guns. All the tanks, including Guardsman Charlton's, were hit; the infantry were hard pressed and in danger of being over-run. Thereupon, entirely on his own initiative, Guardsman Charlton decided to counter-attack the enemy. Quickly recovering the Browning from his damaged tank he advanced up the road in full view of the enemy, firing the Browning from his hip. Such was the boldness of his attack and the intensity of his fire that he halted the leading enemy company, inflicting heavy casualties on them. This effort at the same time brought much needed relief to our own infantry. For ten minutes Guardsman Charlton fired in this manner until wounded in the left arm. Immediately, despite intense enemy fire, he mounted his machine gun on a nearby fence which he used to support his wounded left arm. He stood firing thus for a further ten minutes until he was again hit in the left arm, which fell away shattered and useless. Although twice wounded and suffering from loss of blood, Guardsman Charlton again lifted his machine-gun onto the fence, now having only one arm with which to fire and reload. Nevertheless, he still continued to inflict casualites on the enemy until finally he was hit for the third time and collapsed. He died later of his wounds, in enemy hands. The heroism and determination of this Guardsman in his self-imposed task were beyond all praise. Even his German captors were amazed at his valour. Guardsman Charlton's courageous and self-sacrificing action not only inflicted extremely heavy casualties on the enemy and retrieved his comrades from a desperate situation, but also enabled the position to be speedily recaptured.
      • Charlton's actions were reported by a British Po W after the war, and confirmed by German POWs, who reported a lone guardsman standing in front of three burning tanks and held up a battalion of German infantry.
  • Likewise, any recipient of the Medal of Honor (USA) or Medal of Valor (Israel). Reading the citations, even if the guy dies at the end, can be strangely heartwarming -- there are still people out there who are willing to do that.
  • While we're on the subject of the Second World War, Otto Skorzeny deserves mention as well. His service record alone should speak for himself, with many a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but among his crowning moments was saving Benito Mussolini, who was under heavily armed watch, without firing a single shot.
  • Gurkhas. They have such a fearsome reputation that in the Falklands War, some Argentine units facing them surrendered to the nearest non-Gurkha British unit rather than chance being on the receiving end of the Gurkhas' kukris.
    • Bishnu Shrestha, 35-year-old Nepalese soldier and shining example of how the Gurkhas earned their reputation. 40 bandits jump the train he's riding on. Some of them started stripping the 18-year-old girl next to him. He pulls out his giant kukri, kills 3, wounds 8, and takes a nasty knife wound to the arm. The rest of the bandits fled, presumably to avoid being crushed to death by his enormous balls.
      • Dipprasad Pun, a 31-year-old Nepalese corporal who belong to the Royal Gurkha Rifles, who won the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for fighting off 30 Taliban in Afghanistan single-handedly. At one point, having run out of ammo, he simply hit one of the Taliban with the tripod of his machine gun, and killed two more with a claymore mine. To quote a Yahoo! comment:

Get it right, this man was unable to run away... due to the size of his enormous balls.

  • George Washington: he had countless hats shot off of his head, and horses shot out from under him, without ever taking a bullet himself. And he was made of radiation. When Washington gave up the Presidency after his second term in office, it was the first time in recorded history that a military leader rose to the highest position in his country... and then gave it up voluntarily, without even so much as people pressuring him to step down.
  • Hans-Ulrich Rudel - The World War II German Stuka pilot so badass, Stalin himself put a 100,000 ruble bounty on his head. No one ever got to collect it.
    • For those not familiar, the Stuka was a slow, poorly armored aircraft that was essentially a piece of meat hanging in the sky for enemy fighter pilots. Ulrich nonetheless managed to destroy an incredible number of enemy ground vehicles, several enemy FIGHTER aircraft, and a Battleship in one. The United States Air Force tracked him down after the war for his knowledge of Ground Attack tactics, and he was a major contributor to the design of the A-10 Thunderbolt II.
  • Erich Hartmann-According to The Other Wiki Called "The Black Devil" by his Soviet enemies, was a German World War II fighter pilot and is the highest scoring fighter ace in the history of Aerial warfare. He claimed 352 aerial victories (of which 345 were won against the Soviet Air Force, and 260 of which were fighters) in 1,404 combat missions. He engaged in aerial combat 825 times while serving with the Luftwaffe. During the course of his career, Hartmann was forced to crash land his damaged fighter 14 times. This was due to damage received from parts of enemy aircraft he had just shot down, or mechanical failure. Hartmann claimed never to have been shot down or forced to land due to fire from enemy aircraft.
  • World War I German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, widely known as the "Red Baron", is probably even more widely known than Erich Hartmann; although he shot down much less, at only 80 confirmed kills, it has to be known that World War I planes were actually much harder to bring down, considering that the first air battles involved slow, dramatic turns, loops, barrel rolls, all the while avoiding those fragile wings, making kill rates much lower than WWII pilots, let alone the fact that Hartmann fought in a country whose planes were actually quite easy to destroy. Also most probably due to his cool red triplane, dramatic nicknames, such as "Red Baron", "Le Diable Rouge" (French for "Red Devil"), "Red Knight" by the British, and "Le petit Rouge" (French for "Little Red"), and also possibly due to his legendary mysterious death (for a long time, many didn't know how exactly he was killed, though the running theory is that a he was hit by a bullet from the ground). A superior airman and commander of the elite Jasta 11, (sometimes called "The Flying Circus" or "squadron of aces"), he had 80 confirmed kills, and is said to be "worth more than an entire division". Anyone who could take down a few dozens, let alone eighty enemy aircraft, is technically a One-Man Army; only expert fighter pilots could bring down five or more enemies, at which point they were already called an "ace". He learned much of his skills from his mentor and idol, Oswald Boelcke (who later died in a collision with friendly aircraft).

After his death, he was buried with full military honors by his enemy.

  • The Cossacks. Those guys were able to get together and kick the asses of their bigger neighbors who dared to fuck with them one way or the other. Tatars raiding them? Cossacks raided them back. Ottomans attacking them? Cossacks got so pissed off they almost sacked Istanbul. Some Polish bigwig tried to screw the Cossack Bohdan Khmelnytsky over a part of his lands? After Khmelnytsky's plea for help was turned down by the Polish king, he blew a fuse and started a war with Poland, getting all the Zaporizhian Cossacks to help him. Even the Russians didn't dare to conquer rhe Cossacks for a long time. Suffice to say that "Cossack" (Kozak) is the Polish name of this trope, and solidly grounded in real-life vocabulary.
  • Former British Army Captain Ed Stafford. See for yourself
  • John Basilone who's exploits can be seen in The Pacific. Although that only brushes the surface of what the guy did. He almost single-handidly held off a regiment of Japanese soldiers for 3 days with no food or sleep. In his Medal of Honor citation, it said that he virtually annihilated a regiment of 3000 soldiers. And his tragic but still badass death on Iwo Jima where he wiped out a garrison of Japanese soldiers and ran back to the beach to guide tanks through a minefield.
  • Douglas Bader was fairly badass even when he still had both his legs – as a young man he was a rugby player of close to international standard, a cricketer who had one first-class match to his credit and might have had more, and he suffered only a single defeat in his RAF boxing career. But when he crashed while performing aerobatics he maimed both legs, which had to be removed to save his life. He barely survived, then set about re-writing the operating manual for double amputees. Expected to recover sufficiently to be reasonably mobile on crutches, Bader refused to settle for even a walking-stick, insisting he was going to be able to drive, play golf and take girls dancing again. He achieved all that and more. Naturally he was invalided out of the RAF (refusing even to consider a mere desk job); as soon as war was declared, his insistence to be re-admitted not only to the Service but as a combat pilot became more persistent and hard to ignore, and was finally rewarded with a posting to active duty as a squadron commander. He turned around a battle-weary, demoralised and dispirited squadron by force of personality and example, and shot down a great many German aircraft through guts, determination and skill (he fought long and hard against being given a cannon-armed fighter, believing it discouraged pilots from getting in close enough to do the job as they were forced to with .303-calibre machine-guns). On being brought down over occupied Europe, he turned his attention to making a nuisance of himself with repeated escape attempts until his German captors were forced to send him to Colditz, which at least slowed him down if only because escape from it was so difficult that opportunities deserved to go to the most able-bodied men. After the defeat of Germany Bader agitated hard for the opportunity to transfer to the Pacific theatre and was perhaps only finally thwarted by the atomic bombing of Japan. Then in peacetime he took on a punishing work-load both for Shell Oil and as a campaigner for the disabled. Take him all in all, Bader would have been quite a badass even had not his left leg ended just below the knee and his right halfway down the thigh.
  • Carlos Hathcock. A U.S.M.C. sniper serving during the Vietnam War, Sergeant Hathcock attained 93 confirmed kills during the war, and ranks as the 4th most prolific sniper to have served in the U.S. Military. He was the living incarnation of Nightmare Fuel for N.V.A, so much that they at one point put a $30,000 bounty on his head. He is possible the Ur Example of Scope Snipe; an enemy sniper had been deployed with orders to specifically kill Hathcock, and had killed several marines already. While hunting for the sniper, Hathcock caught a glimpse of the sun glaring off of the lens of the enemy sniper's scope, and quickly fired on him. His bullet traveled through the enemy's scope and right through his eye, killing him. A later mission would send Hathcock on the trail of a N.V.A. general. To avoid detection, he had to crawl his way to the general. After four days of inching along, he killed the general and made his way back, having to again crawl the entire length to avoid detection. After the war, Sergeant Hathcock helped in the creation of the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School, and helped train a new generation of sharpshooters for the U.S.M.C.
  • Chuck Yeager. The man was born to fly. He could pull stunts in the air that were deemed impossible. Probably his biggest claim to fame was being the first man to break the sound barrier. The real kicker? He broke two of his ribs in a horse riding accident two days before reaching Mach 1. He was so afraid of being pulled off of the project that he went to a veterinarian to get treatment and told almost no one else. He broke the sound barrier in excruciating pain, and pulled it off like a true badass.
  • Marine 2nd Lieutenant Jefferson J. DeBlanc was a fighter pilot in WWII. On January 31, he flew in a formation of F4F Wildcats providing cover for a squadron of SBD Dauntless bombers in the region of the Solomon Islands, having only registered about 10 hours of flight time with the Wildcat prior to the mission. Shortly into the mission, DeBlanc realized that his plane was leaking fuel and that if he didn't turn back, he wasn't going back, but he refused to abandon the bombers and advised other pilots with maintenance problems to do the same. Before long, Japanese planes engaged them and DeBlanc broke off to gun down two heavy, dangerous "Pete" float planes. He and his wingman return to find a flight of Oscar planes bearing down on the bombers, and DeBlanc flies up beneath them, unnoticed, to cripple one and kill another. After that, most of the Oscars are after them, and the wingman is shot down and forced to bail out, leaving DeBlanc vulnerable to attack. Another pilot comes to his rescue in the nick of time, after which Lieutenant DeBlanc decides to head home. But two enemy fighters close in on his tail and he turns to face them head on, opening up and destroying one of them immediately. The other has him dead to rights, and he tries one desperate gambit: to "skid" on the air, hoping that the other plane will overshoot him. It works, and he guns down his fifth kill of the day, enough to become an ace all in one afternoon. But before he can escape, more Oscars close in on his tail and shoot him out of the sky, forcing him to bail out and swim for a nearby island. Natives find him and trade him back to a friendly tribe for a sack of rice, and for his bravery, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Most people cannot price out their exact amount of money they are worth. But I know exactly how much I am worth: one ten pound sack of rice.

  • Louie Zamperini. He was an Olympic runner (and stole a German Swastika flag from Berlin) before he enlisted in the army during WWII. After his plane crashed in the ocean, he and his shipmate survived 47 days on a raft before they were picked up by a Japanese ship nearly 2,000 miles from where they crashed. From there, he was taken and held at Kwajalein aka execution island. He then spent almost 2 years in 3 different POW camps in Japan where he was singled out by Matsushiro Watanabe, #23 of Japan's most wanted criminals after the war. After the war? He struggled with alcoholism before becoming a devoted Catholic and returning to Japan to personally forgive all of his captors. At 81, he ran with the Olympic torch in Japan in the 1998 Olympics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzjN9cu-T Dc
  • Timmy. Captured by an Evil Uncle when he was twelve, locked in a cangue (a sort of mobile stocks) for a week, he escaped by hiding in a flowing, ice-filled river for nine hours until a sympathetic member of his uncle's retinue rescued him.
    • He grew up... and became Genghiz Fucking Khan! (His real name was Temujin. He'd probably kill me with his mustache if he heard me call him Timmy.)
  • And we can't forget Walter Cowan. This man was pure unadulterated badass. During WWI he was a naval captain who spent his leave IN THE TRENCHES. During WWII he was too old (according to the British navy) for war, so he had to make his own way to Africa, where he captured an Italian tank.
    • With a goddamn REVOLVER!
      • He was 82!
  • Admiral David Farragut, who ordered his ship through a minefield with the exclamation "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
  • Han dynasty general, ambassador and historian Ban Chao certainly counts. Combine this with a hint of Badass Bookworm, one feat of Ban Chao consists of during a diplomatic mission to the western part of the Silk Road, after learning that the Huns were making their bid at the local city state and winning, making him and a total of 30 of his company virtually under house arrest at the moment. What was his solution? Night raid on the Hun camp with the said 30 men. The Hun envoy was much larger, outnumbering them by about 10 times. After one night of onslaught, most of the Huns were killed, rest fled. The ruler of said city state accepted things he asked unconditionally afterwards. Afterwards, when asked where he had the idea to do so, his reply was : "If you don't enter the tiger's den, how can you catch the tiger's cub."
  • Bernard Freyberg, whose official title is "Lieutenant-General The Right Honourable The Lord Freyberg VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO and three Bars" is perhaps the most badass general of modern times. All you need to know is that, within 3 years of WWI starting, he had risen from the rank of Lieutenant to Captain and was promoted to the temporary rank of Brigadier General. He was wounded nine times while in France, in addition to several wounds he received at Gallipoli, and captured a bridge just one minute before the armistice came into effect. By the end of the war, he had won a VC, a DSO with two bars, the French Croix de Guerre and had been mentioned in dispatches 5 times. In WWII, he was wounded twice more (once by a bloody artillery shell), and commanded Allied forces at Crete, as well as New Zealand forces all throughout the Greek, African and Italian campaigns. He died in 1963 from one of his war wounds.
  • Captain Sam Templeton. Too old to enlist in the army, he lied about his age, but was rejected anyway, because of his flat feet. Instead of ending up on the front lines, he joined the 39th Battalion, a militia battalion, in Papua New Guinea. Promoted to Captain, he went up and down the column as his company climbed the Kokoda track, he would often carry several men's rifles and packs in addition to his own. According to some observers, he traveled up and down his company so often that he traveled twice the distance anyone else did. And remember, this is a track that still kills people even today. In the end, Templeton was killed when he taunted a Japanese officer, saying that there were 80 000 Australian troops in Port Morseby and asking how many Japanese troops would make it there.
    • Actually, any soldier on either side of the New Guinea campaign (with the exception of some members of the 53rd Battalion and some of the US forces) is badass in their own right. Suffering from tropical diseases, malnutrition, lack off ammunition and fighting a war in which both sides refused to take prisoners, anyone who survived did pretty damn well. And that's without adding that some of them held off the Japanese forces by duel wielding a Bren gun and Tommy gun, destroyed a Japanese platoon by themselves, spent six weeks navigating around enemy positions and deliberately marched through their own artillery fire in order to engage the enemy. On the Japanese side, Kokichi Nishimura fought on the front lines in every major battle of the Pacific, survived New Guinea, was once so malnourished that he weighed on 30 kg, built up a multimillion dollar company, sold it and now recovers the remains of Japanese soldiers who died during the New Guinea campaign. He's still finding remains at the age of 90.

Political Figures

  • Theodore Roosevelt's life was a nonstop tale of badassery. One event that particularly stands out is an assassination attempt made in 1912, when he was shot in the chest by a deranged saloonkeeper. Instead of going to the hospital he proceeded to give a 90-minute speech at a political rally. Oh, yes, and when he wasn't doing that president thing he was a martial-arts master known for challenging visitors to the White House to a friendly judo bout.
    • Actually, before learning Judo he was an avid bare knuckle boxer. After losing an eye to a well placed punch, he switched to Judo.
    • "Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake there would have been a fight."
    • Related to the above quote, it's implied that the only reason TR died was because he wanted to die. After his son Quentin was killed in WWI, the sheer force of will that played a large part in keeping TR alive failed, and his health took a nosedive. He died a year later.
  • Mahatma Gandhi, the Trope Codifier for Badass Pacifist. Yes, a small bald man with a white robe and glasses. One that defied injustice at every turn, took his beatings for it, and came back for more. A man who specifically targeted injustices in order to defy them, and to hell with the consequences. A man who likened colonial prison to a bridal suite. A man who, in short, fought injustice at every turn and with at least some success, while still adhering completely to his pacifist ideals. Even if the guy didn't raise his hands to shoot people, he was a subtle yet very emotionally strong Badass. His first name was actually Mohandas, and Mahatma is a title that translates to something along the lines of "Person So Awesome We Had To Invent A New Word Just To Describe His Awesomeness." Or "Enlightened One." Either way, it's the Indian version of being a "The Great" and one of the Names to Run Away From Really Fast.
  • Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Neither Gandhi nor King would've gotten very far without the Pacifist equivalent of a Badass Army pushing them forward: the Indian Independence movement and the Civil Rights Movement, respectively.
  • King Zog of Albania. Not only pushed Albania into the twentieth century after coming back from exile, pissing a lot of people off, but also pulled out a gun on some schmucks who tried to shoot him during his visit in Vienna. Quoting The Other Wiki: "This is the only occasion in modern history when a Head of State has personally exchanged fire with potential assassins."
  • Jack Lang the Premier of New South Wales during the Great Depression. He was so badass that when the rest of the country threatened to stop paying wages to government workers in order to repay foreign loans, he took the entirety of the states money out of the Reserve Bank as cash. Thats right he stole the states money to keep paying workers, but only after ignoring a federal order and declaring that the governments actions were illegal as they caused a state of slavery.
  • Alexander Hamilton.
  • Andrew Jackson. Holy smokes, Andrew Jackson. Quite a few articles online have included him in their 'badass Presidents' category, with credentials like the Battle of New Orleans and foiling his own assassination under his belt.
    • You can only claim he foiled his own assassination if you conclude that BOTH pistols failed to fire simply because they were AFRAID of him (which, given how widely his habit of not dying when shot by pistols must have been known among pistols, is quite possible). He did, however, have to be prevented from beating his would-be assassin to death with his cane.
  • Abraham Lincoln.
  • Ulysses S. Grant, for somewhat different reasons. He essentially won the civil war while drunk. Legend holds that when somebody tried to report Grant's drunken behavior to President Lincoln, Lincoln simply replied "then tell me what brand he drinks and send some to all of my commanding officers", or something along those lines.
  • And while we're on the topic of presidents, George Washington.
  • Thomas Jefferson was plenty Badass.


Animals

  • The Most Extreme has a list of the 10 most Badass animals in a different category each episode.
  • Crocodiles. especially Gustave...
  • Big cats are made of badass.
    • Sabertoothed cats like Smilodon, Machairodus and Megantereon were probably the most badass predatory mammals ever.
  • Sharks, SUCK MY D*******K!!!!
  • Dinosaurs
    • Specifically...the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its name wasn't tyrant king lizard for nothing.
      • If the 42-47 foot length and killer jaws weren't enough, this animal had incredible vision, being among the only dinosaurs with binocular vision and depth perception, as well as more or less the greatest sense of smell in the animal kingdom. Its hearing was great, too. Also quite fast-moving and deceptively intelligent. And probably a pack-hunter.
  • Wolves
  • Hyenas. They may not be usually considered to be badass, but they are stronger and more dangerous than wolves and have been said to be as smart as primates. They hunt most of their prey (the spotted hyena anyways), fight lions on a regular basis and bring down animals as big as the Cape Buffalo (a big badass itself).
  • The platypus, in addition to having enough badassery of being every animal rolled into one, also gets poisonous feet!
  • The Pistol Shrimp. Its claw can generate a cavitation bubble almost as hot as the sun's surface, and blast out as a sonic wave strong enough to shatter glass! The shock wave generated by its gun-claw is what kills its prey, and it can cause severe internal damage to larger animals.
    • Mantis Shrimp. Another crustacean with the ability to smash glass, this one just Megaton Punches its prey into oblivion.
  • The Signal Crayfish. It takes twenty-four hours in a bucket of concentrated crayfish poison to kill one.
  • Hippos. Really. Even Steve Irwin avoided tangling with them. The only animal that can kill an adult is a Nile Crocodile.
    • Steve Irwin once said that the most scared he'd ever been in the field was boating across a river that had a herd of hippos in it nearby.
  • Although they aren't nearly as Badass as reptiles, African Honey Badgers are quite respectable. Forget wolverines, African honey badgers have been named one of the most fearless animals in the Guinness Book of World Records, and that reputation is well deserved. They are fierce omnivores who can sometimes kill highly venomous snakes such as Puff Adders (whose species are responsible for more fatalities than any African snake), porcupines, scorpions, young gazelle, and juvenile crocodiles. In fact, in a 2002 documentary, one African honey badger steals a meal out of a puff adder's mouth and casually eats it in front of the hissing snake. After the meal, Kleinman eats the puff adder too. In another case, shown on an episode of Animal Planet, an old female honey badger that was nearly toothless and had one blind eye was attacked by a leopard. It took the leopard about one hour to kill the honey badger due to the badger's thick hide. They've even been known to bite off the testicles of lions.
    • Actually, the idea that a honey badger kills large animals via emasculation is largely unsupported. The only real evidence is one obscure anecdote. And honey badgers aren't indestructable. They have predators of their own. The venomous snakes that they kill are much smaller than the badger and conversely have fangs that are too short to penetrate its hide. The crocodiles that it kills are only juveniles.
    • They should just take the supermutant Wolverine, and rename him Honey Badger.
    • Why are they called Honey Badgers? Because they like honey, and are happy to eat it straight out of the hive while they're stung by bees.
    • The reason for their success is their thick, loose skin. Honey Badger skin is hard to penetrate and so loose that if you grab it by the scruff of its neck, the badger will still be able to turn around and bite you. The thick skin also prevents them from feeling a lot of pain, which is why they keep on going where other animals would turn tail. They often can't realize that they're in danger until it's too late. Some individuals have even attacked buffalo only to get their spines broken.
    • They're also one of the few animals documented using tools (A Honey Badger was filmed using a log to help it reach a baby bird that was tangled up in some vines). Not only are they fearless and tough, they're also smart.
  • The biggest monitor lizard in the world is not named Komodo DRAGON without reason: 3 meters long, 100 kilograms heavy, 60 5-cm-long teeth, claws that would make a leopard jealous, a tail able to knock a horse's leg off and a venomous bite. It is an ambush predator able to eat just everything, from water buffalos to wild horses, from wolves to (extinct) midget elephants and people easily fall into its menu (sometimes they leap into graveyards to feast on the corpses). To kill it needs just one bite, and begins to eat its prey while still alive, munching the innards out of their bellies. It is fearless as a Honey Badger, but twice as big and stronger...and would probably eat a honey badger and wear its hide as a Davy Crockett hat. as an ambush predator, it delivers even Tranquil Fury.
    • Adding the fact that the Komodo Dragon is into cannibalism, we can say that it is so badass that only ANOTHER Komodo Dragon is worthy to eat it.
    • Monitor lizards in general. They're the fastest, meanest, nastiest and smartest lizards around. If you provoke one, expect it to immediately hiss like its snake, lunge at you, and whip you with its tail, or even climb up onto you like a tree. They can rear up on their hind legs to get a better view of their surroundings, as well as swipe with their clawed hands. Apparently, some species of lace monitors have never been captured alive.
  • Barry, the four-feet-long polychaete worm with jaws tough enough to eat coral and the strength to break a 20-pound fishing line. When they tried to catch it with hooked bait? She swallowed the hooks. She's so poisonous, just touching her renders you numb for life.
  • Any animal who is protecting its young.
  • Mushroom coral. They eat jellyfish around the same size as them.
  • Scorpions. First animals on land, used to get up to three feet long, some species capable of killing you with a sting even now that they're smaller, and, size change aside, they haven't had to change their design at all in over 400 million years. Badass Grandpa / Old Master incarnate.
  • Anteaters. Due to their massive front claws, they are capable of killing some of their major predators... Predators like jaguars and panthers.
  • Humans. What started out as a monkey without hair ended up eventually creating inventions that allowed them to build civilizations, go into space, and no longer have any major natural predators.
  • Octopuses are capable of killing sharks. There's also a species of octopus known as the blanket octopus that beat the living shit out of jellyfish to use their stingers as weapons. According to this RPG.net post, Octopuses are also smart.
  • Any animal in Australia. Yes, even koalas.
  • While not an animal, the organisms in Domain Bacteria. They are infamous for God knows how many diseases, but yet they are the true masters of the world since tons of species have some type of symbiosis with them. Most of your cells are not human, or even eukaryotic; they are bacteria.
  • Cat kills a snake in under a minute.
  • Army ants, specifically those in the genus dorylus.
  • Eagles, used by mongolian hunters to kill WOLVES!
    • The Golden Eagle's place in the food chain is to swoop down, kill, and eat every badass animal it sees. It will hunt down grizzly bears. Remember how vicious the honey badger was? The golden eagle will send it running for its life.
      • Just watch this video of a Golden Eagle throwing mountain goats larger than itself off cliffs.
  • Crows, apparently.
  • Orcas have been known to eat whales three times their size, and great white sharks and polar bears for brekfast. They will also breach themselves on land to chase after prey.
  • Cher Ami, a pigeon that worked for the US army as a courier in WWI. He was shot in the breast, blinded in one eye and had one of his legs blown off, but succeeded in delivering a message that saved the 77th Batalion. He was even awarded a medal. Pigeons have been doing this for centuries.
  • King Cobras are the world's biggest venomous snakes. Too big to subsist on mere rodents, frogs and birds like other cobras. They need to eat other reptiles, especially snakes - even bone-crushing pythons. At full length, A King Cobra is 18 feet long and as thick as a man's thigh. It injects more venom per bite than any other snake. They also seem to be highly intelligent. The image of a cobra, reared up with its hood spread wide, has become the symbol of death itself.
    • Just watch this video of a mother king cobra scaring away a mongoose, a notorious predator of smaller cobra species and supposedly one of the most fearless animals on earth. She scares it away with just a glare. Not so fearless now, are you, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?
    • The Black Mamba, another member of the cobra family, is right behind the King in Badass. It is the world's fastest snake, clocked at 10 mph, which is about as fast as you can go when you have no legs. Unlike the King Cobra, which is shy and prefers to keep to itself, the Black Mamba is highly aggressive and territorial, confronting animals larger than itself with angry hisses. Its reflexes are so sharp that it can snatch passing birds out of the air in mid-flight. Babies fall prey to mongooses occasionally, but adults have no predators.
      • Video of a black mamba's awesomeness. Just watch it let out a low, cold hiss and open its mouth wide and instantly cause a whole herd of cape buffalo (which are formidable badasses themselves) to flee in fear.
    • Rattlesnakes. The sinister sound of a rattlesnake's rattle is the epitome of death and fear in the desert.
    • Anacondas and pythons can swallow unbelievably huge animals - crocodiles, humans, and pregnant sheep. You don't know when one's coming until it's too late.
    • Snakes in general are pretty Badass animals, especially the venomous species and large constrictors. They are more Badass than any mammal, even the mongoose or honey badger.
  • The praying mantis. So badass it inspired a martial art. Not badass enough for you? How bout a mantis beating the shit out of a predator one hundred times its own size?
    • normally a praying mantis has no problem at killing and eating lizards of its own size... a gecko can kill and eat a praying mantis of its own size and slightly bigger. Badass Adorable in its full effect.
    • If we're talking itty bitty badasses, I see your mantis and lizard, and raise you the shrew, which would kill and eat either of them with its too-fast-to-see reflexes and venomous bite. And then come back and eat their families an hour later, when its hyper-metabolism makes it hungry for more.
  • Tardigrades, also known as water bears or moss piglets are microscopic badasses that can stand enough radiation to kill an elephant, higher pressure than can be found at the bottom of the ocean, cold close to absolute zero, be sent into space, and die and rejuvenate themselves with absolutely no ill effects.
  • Belgica Antarctica, the largest land animal in Antarctica. It can survive 35% dehydration. It can survive being frozen. It can survive without oxygen.

Other Examples

  • Oscar Wilde. When he was at Cambridge, four thugs just randomly decided to try and beat him up because he was effeminate. He promptly beat them up. The Marquess of Queensbury made the similar mistake of thinking that because Wilde was effeminate, he was also lily-livered but after barging into Wilde's home and calling him a "bugger", he discovered in no uncertain terms that messing with an Irish gentleman is a bad idea. As Oscar said before physically throwing Queensbury and his bodyguard out of the house: "I've no idea what the Queensbury rules are but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight."
  • Ayn Rand.
  • Muhammad Ali, come on he is widely considered the world's greatest boxer. As this video shows http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv Dok 3 kj B 7 c
  • C.J. Rapp! This guy invented Jolt, an energy drink served in the most badass can ever.
  • Korean history figure: Yu Gwan Sun. Anytime a 12 year old girl can stare down a Siberian tiger you know she's bad.
    • This is probably not true or simply a myth but, what makes her a real badass is that in her young age of 17~18 she simply focused all her life in trying liberate her country and died trying so... in prison.
  • These people.
  • Soldiers, Police, guards, and anyone else whose job involves potentially getting killed.
  • Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. Sir Edmund Hillary's climbing partner, making him one of the first two people to set foot on the top of Mt. Everest. He spent his whole life climbing and anything he didn't know about climbing wouldn't have been worth knowing. Without him, Hillary would never have made it to the top. Even Sherpas think he was a badass climber. That is pretty badass.
    • "Oh man, I wanna climb the Everest! But, like, everyone's done that... I know! I'll climb it without oxygen!" Ladies and gentlemen, Reinhold Messner, because "stupidly crazy" and "mind bogglingly awesome" walk hand-in-hands.
  • This person is standing right in front of a volcano.
  • Maurice and Katja Kraaft, a couple of volcanologists who went closer to volcanoes to study them than anyone else was willing to. Maurice even quipped once that he wanted a titanium canoe so he could paddle down a lava flow.
  • Discounting his role in the Watergate scandal, G. Gordon Liddy stayed quite busy being a badass. When he was a kid he was afraid of lightning, so one day he "killed the fear" by climbing a tree during a severe thunderstorm. Later in life he became known for an interesting parlor trick involving his arm and a lighter; a movie re-enactment can be seen here. (starts at 1:30).
  • Carl Williams.
  • Anyone who is willing to fight to protect themselves from mortal danger.
  • FRRRROOOM NORTH CAAAROLINA. AT GUARD, SIX-SIX, MICHAEL! JORDAN!!!
  • Antonio "Minotauro" Nogueira. Quoth wikipedia: "He was run over by a truck when he was nine, and fell into a coma for 25 days. During this time he lost a rib and part of his liver and had to be hospitalized for eleven months. As a result of the accident he has a large scar, including a noticeable indentation, on his lower back." Went to to become an MMA champion with a 31-4-1 record. A bunch of MMA fighters could qualify.
  • Alexis Goggins. Saved her mom by taking six bullets from the estranged boyfriend. Including a couple to the head. Said hi to the Grim Reaper, then told him she still had some shit to do. Was in grade one at the time. You go, girl.
  • When German state police spectaculary failed to end a hostage situation during the 1972 olympic games in Munich, German federal police responded by creating its first counter-terrorism unit. Four years later, their very first mission was a hostage situation in a plane on an African airport (which is often considered as one of the most dangerous and dificult situations). They shot all four hijackers with only one officer and one hostage wounded. In the next 30 years and over 1,500 missions they had to fire their weapons only four more times.
    • When they first competed in a SWAT-unit championship in 2005, they won all eight contests in a row.
    • In 2005, german federal police Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS) was renamed to Bundespolizei. Gruppe 9 (unit 9) was the only one badass enough to keep its old designation.
  • Cassius Clay. No, not the boxer later known as Mohammed Ali. The original Cassius Clay was a 19th century Southern aristocrat and landowner who abhorred slavery with burning hatred - a concept hard to swallow in itself. His badassness aside from fervently defending a cause all his peers detested was manifested in his survival of an assassination attempt in 1843, where he was shot point blank during a speech, after which he proceeded to cut off the attacker's ear, nose and eye off with his Bowie knife - the knife's scabbard had saved his life. When he had reached the age of 92, three men broke into his home with intent to rob and kill him - only one of the assailants survived to tell the tale, and Clay died peacefully a year later.
  • Scottish baggage handler John Smeaton. In June of 2007, when Al-Queida attacked Glasgow airport, this civilian responded by attacking the terrorist (whose body was mostly on fire) WITH HIS BARE HANDS (okay, he kicked the guy a lot too.), cussing him out according to Wikipedia. Then, later in a television interview, he publicly threatened Al-Queida if they ever returned to Scotland. By the way, the terrorist died from his burns and injuries.
    • And he said something along the lines of 'Don't come to Glasgow, we'll set about ye' (Which they will!).
      • Also, As noted in a headline about him in one of the red-top papers, He kicked said burning terrorist in the groin so hard that he BROKE HIS FOOT.
  • An inconspicuous little white mushroom with the formal name of Amanita bisporigera is considered one of the most toxic mushrooms in the world and responsible for more mushroom poisoning deaths than any other. Even half a small cap has enough amanitoxin to kill a healthy, adult human if not treated. Making it worse, symptoms don't appear for 12-24 hours after you've eaten it, by which time it's likely too late for treatment. It will destroy your liver and kidney function, cause vomiting and cramps, delirium and convulsions with death in a few days. It's called the Destroying Angel, possibly the most Badass name for any living organism, and completely descriptive.
    • And on top of that, it tastes good, making it an ideal weapon for assassinations. It looks and tastes like an edible mushroom, and the assassin is long gone before anyone realizes it's a deadly poison.
  • Ned Kelly. While wearing a homemade suit of armour weighing 40kg, he kept firing his rifle despite having his left arm disabled (asking one of his teammates to help reload); when finally taken down, he had twenty-eight gunshot wounds. Twenty-eight. And survived long enough to be hanged.
  • "That's wearing your badassness right on your face." Agreed. Gerry Cheevers took that many hits to the head and seems to have suffered no ill effects, now nearly 30 years removed from his playing days. With the advances in research as to the dangers of professional sports, that's absolutely unbelievable.
  • Dr. Werner Forssmann, according to The Other Wiki:

"In 1929, while working in Eberswalde, he performed the first human cardiac catheterization. He ignored his department chief and tied his assistant to an operating table. Then, he anesthetized his own lower arm and inserted a cannula into his antecubital vein, threading it 65 cm all the way to his heart. Afterwards, he walked some distance to the X-ray department to photograph the catheter which was now lying in his right auricle."

  • Jack Kirby. Yes, Jack Kirby. He proved his badassery when he once scared the shit out of mob that was threatening Will Eisner. And if Eisner would not stop him he would for sure send this mob to hospital.
  • It is positively shameful that no one has added Bruce Lee to this list already. This is a man who could snatch a dime out of a person's palm before they closed it, and leave a penny behind. He could thrust his fingers through unopened (!) cans of soda. He performed one-hand pushups using only his thumb and index finger. He could shatter wooden boards six inches thick. He once BROKE a 150lb punching bag by kicking it too hard.
  • Miyamoto Musashi. He wandered around Japan challenging people to duels, which he never lost. Ever. Frequently he would use a wooden sword in these duels. As a typical story: Musashi once challenged the leader of the Yoshioka School, the foremost martial arts school in Kyoto, to a duel. Musashi showed up late, greatly irritating his opponent Seijiro. When the duel began, Musashi struck one blow, using a wooden sword, knocking Seijiro unconscious. Seijiro retired in shame. Seijiro's two brothers each challenge Musashi in turn; each time Musashi arrives hours late and defeats them easily. The Yoshioka clan was outraged; they put together a force of dozens of swordsmen, archers and musketmen and have them wait near the Ichijoji Temple. Seijiro's youngest son Matashihiro challenges Musashi to another duel at the temple; the clan intends to ambush him with the soldiers as soon as he arrives. Musashi, however, arrives hours early, hides himself, then attacks by surprise, cuts his way through the soldiers, kills Matashihiro and escapes.
  • So, that's TWO Badass Miyamotos now?
  • Paul Rusesabagina, hotel manager. Saved over 1000 Rwandans during the Rwandan Genocide by sheltering them in Hôtel des Mille Collines.
    • Hotel Rwanda’ a myth created by Hollywood - Evidently the real Paul Rusesabagina was by all accounts a very bad man who was in bed with the genociders and completely exploited the hotel for his own personal benefit by making the hostages pay through the nose. The actual refugees were saved mostly due to international pressures, UN presence, and the genociders' aim to use them for a hostage exchange.
  • Leonid Rogozov, who diagnosed himself with appendicitis while stationed at a Soviet base in Antarctica, and performed an appendectomy on himself using local anesthetic, with only a few completely untrained people to help him.
  • This Woman. Attacked by a mugger, fought him off, and walked home with six inches of knife sticking out of her spine. Didn't even notice it until she got there.
  • Can't believe no one has mentioned Chuck Norris as being a badass. There's a good reason he has a meme based on him.
    • Not really. While he's in extremely good shape for a man of his age, the whole "Chuck Norris is so bad ass..." meme is really just a bit of internet humor that has no actual relation to any sort of real life events. He's starred as badass characters in some action movies and TV shows, but he himself has never done anything like the other people listed on this page.
  • Ancient Majapahit (Indonesia) general Gajah Mada. Majapahit was never glorious until he came in by doing a Big Damn Heroes during Coup d'etat, and by his own will dealing another coup d'etat before he is legitimately promoted into a general, made a Badass Boast... then actually fulfilling it by successfully unifying the archipelago with him as the main (and probably only and biggest) general. And when he steps down, followed by his king, that's when Majapahit starts to decline.
  • The whole population of Iceland. Just look at their history! And they still live there and seem to enjoy it.
  • Doctor Claudio Vitale suffered a heart attack while performing brain surgery. Instead of seeking medical attention, he powered through it to complete the lengthy procedure.
  • Tank Man. Nobody knows for sure who he is, but everyone outside China knows he stopped a column of tanks, unarmed.
  • Davy Crockett, full stop. Though the tales of him have been exaggerrated.
  • In one of the most unreported stories related to that infamous shipwreck, Second Officer C.H. Lightoller apparently spent most of his career working on his Master's Certificate in Badass, above and beyond his service during Titanic's foundering (where he sawed through the lines holding down a boat with a pen knife, was swept off the deck, spent the hours after the sinking balancing twenty men on an overturned lifeboat, and earlier, when ordered by the Chief Officer to take one of the boats, replied "Not damned likely!") After going to sea at thirteen, serving on windjammers and steamships, and surviving a fire at sea (which he put out), a cyclone, a shipwreck, and severe malaria in West Africa, he decided that wasn't tough enough and went to mine for gold in the Klondike. When that didn't pan out he worked as a cowboy on an Alberta ranch, rode the rails as a hobo to get back to the coast, served on a cattle transport, went back to work on passenger ships, served in the First World War including in the new job of observer spotting enemy fleets from an airplane, retired, decided THAT wasn't Badass enough, so he and his wife, at the request of the British government, took a nice little retired-couple cruise...around German ports...about which they sent back reports. And moving him into Badass Grandpa territory, when the government asked for the loan of said yacht to evacuate troops at Dunkirk, the 66-year-old Lightoller informed them HE would pilot the yacht. He did, evacuating 127 people. And proving he was also a Badass in the romantic department, his first assignment after joining the White Star Line was on the Britain-South Africa-Australia run. On his second Australian trip, he met a lovely young lady named Sylvia returning home from Britain to Sydney. When they got to Sydney, she turned right around and went 15,000 miles BACK to Britain as Mrs. C.H. Lightoller. They were married until his death in 1952. (She may have minored in Badass a bit herself as at the Board of Trade hearings about the Titanic, she took it upon herself to chew out the crew of the Californian for not coming to Titanic's aide. Whatever she said was enough for her Badass husband to remind her "My dear, you can't kick a man when he's down!") They could make a movie about him, but no one would believe it.
  • Nathan Hale.
  • Nikola Tesla, rockstar scientist.
  • This entire list. If you're willing to ride several thousand tons of explosives in the name of science, country pride, or to teach in space, you're not just a badass, you're an astronaut.
    • Can we just call them badastronauts?
  • Mike Tyson counts, despite being a bastard.
  • Mikio Yahara, Shotokan-Karate Master, was reported to have beat 34 Yakuza gangsters in a parking garage. He arrived at a tournament with an open knife wound. This man is what most Karate Students who enjoy sparring aspire to emulate.
  • Mas Oyama, also known as the Godhand. Founder of the Kyokushin School of Karate. Did exhibitions of his style by bullfighting. Yes, that's right - he fought bulls using karate. He fought 52 bulls, killing 3 outright and chopping the horns off the rest with his bare hands as they charged him (hence "Godhand"). Badass credentials established.
  • Don Alejo, Nov. 2010, 77 years old. The drug cartel comes to his ranch telling he has one day to leave. He warns them he'll be waiting for them if they come. The next day the drug gang arrives armed with assault rifles and grenades. Don Alejo is alone, barricaded in his home, armed with bolt action hunting rifles. Don Alejo greets the gang with gunfire, starting a gun battle during which he kills 4 gunmen, and wounds 2 more so badly they were left for dead. Finally the drug cartel breaches Don Alejo's home with grenades and kill him. The authorities show up on the scene and describe he as riddled with bullets and two guns by his side.
  • The various special intervention/counter terrorism squads around the world. Often hand-picked from a large group of volunteers, they are trained under brutal conditions and are deployed to some of the most hostile environments in the world. For example, the SAS has the "fan dance" which is a 14 mile march, in full gear, while climbing and descending a mountain, against the clock. And that's is still only part of the selection. You haven't even made it to an actual operational squadron by that point.
  • Actor Dolph Lundgren had his house broken into by three masked burglars who tied up and threatened his wife, but fled when they spotted a family photo and realized that the house was owned by Lundgren. Until today, no one has ever discovered who these guys were. They probably changed their identities, left the country, and never came back. Hard not to see why.
  • Hideaki Akaiwa. After Japan was hit with a 9.0 earthquake on March 11th, 2011, Akaiwa's hometown was flooded with a ten-foot-tall tsunami. Realizing his wife was trapped somewhere in there, Akaiwa strapped on some diving gear, then swam through the flood to find her and rescue her. For an encore, four days later he did it again to find and rescue his mother. And then he continues to keep going back into the wreckage on his own to find and rescue others endangered by the disaster.
  • The Dorobo people in Africa. Part of their survival strategy involves stealing meat from lions!
  • Many Shaolin monks count as Badass Pacifists.
  • Manny Pacquiao. The boxer seems destined for legendary status, as he continually accomplishes feats almost never done in boxing history. In recent years he has continually fought in higher weight classes, taking on opponents often bigger, stronger and better prepared than he, and he has crushed almost all of them, usually by taking the fight to them and just messing their day up. Would you really want to be in the ring with this man?
    • What makes his status doubly inspiring is that he has a duel career as a Senator for the Philippines. Promoting the welfare of his people as a Senator and challenging his physical and mental limitations as a boxer are his passions in life and they work together in harmony. The way Pacquiao himself described it is that when he is boxing he is thinking about his job as a Senator but when he is acting as a Senator he is thinking about boxing. He is even thinking about becoming President of the Philippines one day, and as popular as he is in the United States and the Philippines his status as an icon will almost assuredly make that happen one day.
  • There's been a lot of legitimate tough guys in Professional Wrestling, but the biggest and baddest of them all may have been Tonga Fifita, who wrestled under the names Haku and Meng. By most accounts a sweet guy until someone picked a fight with him, Fifita weighed 300 lbs and so strong he could tear lugnuts off a tire bare-handed. In bar fights he was known to bite fingers and noses off opponents, and break their teeth. When he caught fellow wrestler Jesse Barr kicking dirt on some ditchdiggers in Puerto Rico, Fifta gouged one of his eyes out of the socket. Jake "The Snake" Roberts once declared that if he had a tank and a gun, and he had to face down Fifita, he'd get out of the tank and shoot himself in the head, because he wouldn't "want to wound that son-of-a-bitch and piss him off."
  • Out of all the seiyuus in Japan, the most Badass one in real life has got to be Norio Wakamoto. Helps that he was also a policeman before he entered the industry. To wit: he's a black belt in martial arts, and is a 3-dan in both Kendo and Shorinji Kempo. That's not even pulling off 200 push-ups in his sixties. Oh and the only seiyuu to even have a Crowning Moment of Awesome page during the 2011 earthquake where he helped out searching and rescuing earthquake victims.
  • Sean Connery is one both in his movies and in real life. Bonus points for also being a Badass Grandpa.
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