It must be said that each of us is unlikely to realize what we are capable of if at some point an extreme life situation arises. And not just a one-time powerful surge of adrenaline, thanks to which a person can, fleeing from a predator, immediately climb an inaccessible rock, and a fragile granny can send a hefty robber flying with a single handbag.
Such cases occur relatively often - and we are surprised when reading or hearing about them in the media. But no less surprising are situations when a person in a difficult circumstances shows unprecedented fortitude and composure - when 99 out of 100 would probably give up in the face of the problem. And this thread in the AskReddit community is dedicated to various similar cases from world history, a selection of which Bored Panda has collected specially for you.
More info: Reddit
#1 Nicholas Winton
Nicholas Winton helped 669 children escape the death camp. His efforts went unrecognized for 50 years. In 1988, while sitting as a member of a TV audience, he suddenly found himself surrounded by the kids he'd rescued.
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300points
#2 Witold Pilecki
Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki. He purposely made himself be caught and thrown into death camp in Auschwitz to infiltrate it and organize underground resistance and do general recon. He then escaped with another prisoner to fight in Warsaw uprising.
236points
#3 Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman. When she was a slave she would do work right alongside the men. Once when she was just a child she was taken into to big house to take care of the kids, and she snuck a sugar cube. She had never had sugar before. She knew she was going to be whipped, so she ran off and hid in the pig pen for days, fighting the pigs for food, before they found her.
Later on she was struck in the head by a lead weight thrown at another slave by an angry shop owner. She suffered brain damage but was back in the fields while she was still bleeding. All her life, she would suffer from hallucinations and sleeping spells. She interpreted her visions as signs from God.
Later on, she escaped slavery and joined the underground railroad. If slaves lost their nerve and wanted to go back, she would hold them at gunpoint. During the civil war she led a naval raid on a plantation at Combahee Ferry and freed 750 enslaved people.
In the 1890s she had brain surgery, where the doctor "sawed open my skull, and raised it up, and now it feels more comfortable."
She lived to be 90 or 91.
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232points
Scientists still haven’t definitively determined how it all works - one person, finding themselves in extreme conditions, may literally fall into a stupor, while another suddenly becomes the Hulk and Captain America combined - and when the wave of adrenaline recedes, they're back to the same ordinary person, often perplexed: “how the hell did I manage to do all this?” And some of the stories told in this collection are precisely from this area. But this, as you understand, is not all...
#4 Joe Medicine Crow
Joe Medicine Crow, the last Warchief of the Crow. He completed all the ritual rights to become Warchief while fighting in WW2. Which included taking an enemies weapon, touching an enemy without killing him, leading a war party and stealing an enemies horse (he stole 50 from the SS ).
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223points
#5 Someone's grandpa named Liberatus
My Grandpa Liberatus,
Was working solo on his farm in the 1950’s, when both hands were sucked into an auger slicing them up right to the shoulders. Was able to kick the controls to reverse the blades and get himself out, then drove himself in a grainery truck 45 minutes to the hospital, steering and shifting gears with his knees. Doctors were able to save one arm above the elbow but none of the other.
Still worked another 40 years with hooks for arms, Fathered 9 children, 6 after his accident and harvested 1000 acres on a hundred year old family farm. Smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, ate red meat 3 times a day, passed away in his sleep 2 days before his 99th birthday.
He was a hard man, but absolutely devoted to his family and was a great Grandfather to over 20 grandkids. He taught me about resiliency, resourcefulness and mental toughness. Every grandkid, on their first birthday, got a rocking horse that he built in his workshop using hand tools that he built custom attachments for his prosthetics. I still have mine, from 56 years ago, as a reminder of him when times are tough.
211points
#6 Desmond Doss
Private Desmond Doss. He refused to use a gun but carried 75 men to safety including two of the wounded Japanese soldiers on the other side & used his medical knowledge to save their lives. He is the only conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor as awarded by President Harry S. Truman.
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205points
Much more rare are cases when a person actually realizes everything, and at the same time does something heroic completely consciously, absolutely taking into account all the possible consequences of their deed - both for others and for themselves. Previously, songs and legends were written about such people; today films and TV series are made. But, and this is the sad truth of life, thousands and thousands of similar cases of self-sacrifice either did not remain in people’s memory, or were simply erased from it.
#7 Any enslaved person who ran for freedom
Any enslaved person who said f**k this and ran for freedom.
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201points
#9 Galvarino
Galvarino. He was a Mapuche warrior whose hands were amputated by Spanish conquistadors. His response? He rigged blades to his wrist stumps and led a rebellion against the Spanish.
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181points
Human memory is a strange thing. We can remember for years some insignificant detail, like the chorus of a song we heard once in our youth - and we can completely forget about an incredibly important work meeting that we planned just the day before yesterday. In the same way, different people leave our memory. Just yesterday you were sitting on your grandmother’s lap, today she’s just a photo in a frame on the chest of drawers, and tomorrow the old lady will disappear forever, leaving only a couple of lines and numbers in documents...
#10 Princess Khutulun
Khutulun, a Mongolian Princess, insisted that any man who wished to marry her must defeat her in wrestling, forfeiting horses to her if they lost.
She gained 10,000 horses defeating prospective suitors.
166points
#11 Daniel Inouye
During a WWII assault on a fortified German position in Italy, gets shot in the stomach, shrugs it off and takes out two machine gun nests. As he's about to lob a grenade to take out a third, his right arm gets nearly amputated at the elbow by enemy fire. Now he's staring at his useless, dangling arm still reflexively clutching a live grenade. Shouts at his platoon to stay back for fear of the grenade going off, pries the live grenade out of his useless hand and throws it with his other hand, taking out the German in the bunker. Continues to move forward killing at least one more German before getting shot, for the fifth time that day, before falling unconscious. Wakes up to members of his platoon hovering over him. Proceeds to tell them to get back to their positions because "nobody called off the war!". Has to have his arm amputated without anesthesia at the field hospital. Comes back home, gets awarded a purple heart (and eventually a medal of honor), yet still gets refused service by a barber because they "don't cut J*p hair". Serves his country for 50 more years as a US senator.
While I don't necessarily agree with his politics, I respect the life of service he led.
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163points
#12 Giles Corey
Giles “More weight” Corey was pretty bad**s. Refused to testify at the Salem witch trials, so they “pressed” him- ie. They piled rocks on top of him as torture to force him to testify that his wife was a witch. They piled rock after rock on top of him. His last words were “more weight”, then he died.
158points
Alas, this is an objective process - we simply cannot remember everything. Even if some people have made tremendous efforts to help us simply live, or live well. Let it be at the cost of their own well-being, at the cost of their health or even life. This and similar threads are an attempt to bring back to our memory some outstanding persons who may have been ordinary people, who may even have been jerks for most of their lives - but at some point became true heroes.
So please feel free to read every given paragraph in this selection, upvote the special ones for you, and maybe add your own stories in the comments below the list. After all, history is a book that we all write together, so let's make this book a tad bit more interesting and exciting!
#13 Terry Fox
I think that Terry Fox has to be up there. To run a marathon every day on the Marathon of Hope, on one leg (and a crappy prosthesis), while riddled with cancer is beyond anything I can understand. Imagine the courage and determination that required.
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144points
#14 Roy Benavidez
Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez.
On May 2, 1968, a 12-man Special Forces patrol, which included nine Montagnard tribesmen, was surrounded by an NVA infantry battalion of about 1,000 men. Benavidez heard the radio appeal for help and boarded a helicopter to respond. Armed only with a knife, he jumped from the helicopter carrying his medical bag and ran to help the trapped patrol. Benavidez "distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions... and because of his gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men."
At one point in the battle an NVA soldier accosted him and stabbed him with his bayonet. Benavidez pulled it out, drew his own knife, killed him and kept going, leaving his knife in the NVA soldier's body. He later killed two more NVA soldiers with an AK-47 while providing cover fire for the people boarding the helicopter. After the battle, he was evacuated to the base camp, examined, and thought to be dead. As he was placed in a body bag among the other dead in body bags, he was suddenly recognized by a friend who called for help. A doctor came and examined him but believed Benavidez was dead. The doctor was about to zip up the body bag when Benavidez managed to spit in his face to show that he was alive. Benavidez had a total of 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds from the six-hour fight with the enemy battalion.
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135points
#15 Someone's grandma
My grandmother. Her husband died of heart disease in 1948, leaving her to raise 8 children between the ages of 9 months and 13 years old. She was a saint.
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132points
#16 Henry Johnson
For your consideration…..
He was 26 years old, 5-foot-4, weighed 130 pounds and came from Albany, New York.
And on the night of May 15, 1918, Pvt. Henry Johnson, a member of the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment, found himself fighting for his life against 20 German Soldiers out in front of his unit's trenchline.
He fired the three rounds in his French-made rifle, tossed all his hand grenades and then grabbed his Army-issue bolo knife and started stabbing. He buried the knife in the head of one attacker and then disemboweled another German soldier.
"Each slash meant something, believe me," Johnson said later. "There wasn't anything so fine about it," he said. "Just fought for my life. A rabbit would have done that."
By the time what a reporter called "The Battle of Henry Johnson" was over, Johnson had been wounded 21 times and become the first American hero of World War I.
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130points
#17 Shih Ching
Shih Ching. After marrying a pirate, she was a Chinese [escort] who inherited his fleet upon his death. She took no s**t, ruled her ships with an iron grip, and was so effective that the Chinese government dispatched an armada to put an end to her. She took 63 of their ships and kicked their bums. After two years of fighting, during which they even forced Dutch and British ships to surrender, they offered her and her 17,000 crew members amnesty. She lived to be 69 years old, kept ALL of her winnings, and spent her latter years operating a casino and brothel.
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118points
#18 Goyaałé (Geronimo)
Also worthy of consideration: Goyaałé (Geronimo.)
"One day he came into my quarters at Fort Sill in a most peculiar mood. He told me no one could kill him, nor me either, if he willed it so. Then he bared himself to the waist. I was dumbfounded to see the number of bullet holes in his body. I knew he had been in many battles and had been fired on dozens of times, but I had never heard of anyone living with at least fifty bullet wounds on his body. Geronimo had that many scars.
Some of these bullet holes were large enough to hold small pebbles that Geronimo picked up and placed in them. Putting a pebble in a bullet wound he would make a noise like a gun, then take the pebble out and throw it on the ground. Jokingly I told him he was probably so far away that the bullets didn’t penetrate him, but that if he had been nearer they probably would have killed him. 'No, no,' he shouted. 'Bullets cannot kill me!'"
- Charles F. Lummis
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105points
#19 Stephen Hawking
Maybe not in a traditional sense, but Stephen Hawking. Dude wouldn’t let something as trivial as ALS stop him from becoming an accomplished physicist. He essentially had to do all the math in his head, without the ability to write down notes as he worked.
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105points
#20 Simo Hayha
Simo Hayha
(The famous Finnish sniper who defended the independence of Finland from the USSR in 1939 - 1940. Having received a serious wound that almost deprived him of half of his face, Simo partly regained his health and returned to duty. - BP)
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99points