('Hervor','Unknown','Unknown','Norway','Mythological Viking Warrior','<p>Hervor was a powerful, fearless Viking warrior woman who didn\'t take crap from anyone &ndash; living or dead &ndash; avenged her father\'s death with a magical sword, led Norse raiding parties in the pillage and plunder of unsuspecting civilizations, and proved to everyone under her command that she had bigger, brassier balls than any other Viking warrior in Norway.</p>\r\n<p>Hervor\'s father was a great Viking warrior, and her mother\'s father was a head-splitting insane-o-bot berserker, so she didn\'t really have a chance to become anything other than a completely over-the-top assbeater.&nbsp; She was born not long after her father was gloriously slain in a Valhalla-approved bloody mess, dying with another warrior\'s sword lodged in his abdomen.&nbsp; Everyone who knew Hervor\'s dad knew that the guy was kind of a bloodthirsty murder-machine, so when the young girl was born her frightened neighbors all suggested that the best course of action might well have been to just take the baby out into the woods and leave it to be eaten by wild dogs.&nbsp; This didn\'t happen, and Hervor grew up pretty much exactly the way everyone was worried she might.&nbsp; She was tall, strong, and tough as hell, with reddish-gold hair and a sword arm that wouldn\'t quit.&nbsp; At a time when other girls in her village were learning how to knit and weave and paint pots and do other boring nonsense, Hervor was practicing horsemanship, archery, and swordfighting, routinely beating the neighbor boys into crumpled heaps or sending them running home to their mommies with black eyes and broken bones.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hervor2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Hervor decided she didn\'t really want to settle down and be a bored housewife when she was obviously so adept at rendering grown-ass men unconscious with a few well-placed sword blows to the throat, so she decided to forgo the homemaker profession for a while and become a badass shieldmaiden instead.&nbsp; Now, I talk about the shieldmaidens briefly in my book (insert imperceptibly-subtle-yet-shameless self-promotion here), but the short version is that they were hardcore warrior-women who strapped on the chainmail, grabbed a spear, and spent the warm summer months sailing around on Drakkar longships getting their rape, plunder, and pillage on whenever the opportunity presents itself.&nbsp; I should note that I use the word \"rape\" here in the old-school manner meaning, \"to seize or take away by force\", rather than the more commonly-used definition, though I suppose you can never really be sure when you\'re talking about Vikings of any gender.&nbsp; Regardless of the verbiage, Hervor was really awesome at it, because she was so tough, daring, and charismatic that after the leader of her village\'s raiding party was killed in battle the other Vikings nominated her to take his place and lead them to wealth and victory.</p>\r\n<p>Hervor didn\'t disappoint &ndash; she and her salty sea-dogs looted unsuspecting villages with the best of them, and she won honor and glory at the pointy edge of her blade.&nbsp; However, one thing was still really bugging the shit out of her:&nbsp; Her father was famous not only for cleaving people from head-to-groin with mighty sword-strokes, but for carrying an incredibly bitchin\' epic-level +5 sword known as Tyrfing, and she wanted to get in on that action ASAP.&nbsp; Tyrfing was an insanely-hardcore weapon that, according to legend, had been constructed by the Dwerger in their magical subterranean fires of intense awesomeness. This Dwarf-forged sword had a hilt fashioned of solid gold, and was so deadly that so much as a nick from the blade was universally fatal. However, there\'s a catch &ndash; the blade was cursed.&nbsp; It was more bloodthirsty than a school of mutant man-eating Great Whites having a feeding frenzy in chummed-up water, and every time it was drawn from its scabbard it consumed a life &ndash; either in battle, or by driving the wielder insane and forcing him to slaughter one of his own friends.&nbsp; After Hervor\'s dad\'s death, the blade was considered so unlucky and dangerous that it was buried with him, presumably never to be used again.&nbsp; Hervor had other ideas.&nbsp; This kickass blade was her inheritance, and she certainly killed enough people to make it well worth its while, and she was determined to recover the heirloom.&nbsp; One day, in between raids, she and her crew sailed out to the island where her father was buried with the intention of recovering Tyrfing.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hervor1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>This is supposed to be a picture of the Dwarves handing Tyrfing over to Hervor\'s father,<br />though honestly I really have no damn clue what the hell is going on here.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>So Hervor and her homeskillets arrive at this totally creepy island in the middle of the night, and the first things they notice are huge-ass fires and ghosts flying around all over the place like crazy.&nbsp; Every man under her command completely soiled their loincloths and refused to get out of the ship, fearing that the grounds were more haunted than Dracula\'s underwear.&nbsp; Hervor proved that she was the only Viking with the balls to set foot on the spooky island, jumping down, politely informing her colleagues that they\'re all total pussies, and then confidently walking over to the funeral mound where her father\'s corpse lay.&nbsp; Then, just to further demonstrate the fact that this sword-chucking chick wasn\'t scared of anything, she started yelling out insults and curses to call her dead dad back from beyond the grave.&nbsp; Dad responded by throwing up a huge curtain of fire outside his funeral mount, but Hervor just jumped through the flames and reiterated the fact that she wasn\'t fucking leaving without her sword.</p>\r\n<p>That was it.&nbsp; She had now summoned the dead, and the next thing you know she was staring into the lifeless eyes of the ghosts of her father and uncles, all decked out in their full battle gear looking pissed.&nbsp; They tell her there\'s no fucking way she\'s getting Tyrfing &ndash; this thing is cursed as hell, and will bring doom and ruin on her family.&nbsp; Hervor could give a rat\'s ass.&nbsp; She tells this army of angry spear-toting ghosts that magical swords are no good to dead men, so fork that shit over before she has to start cracking poltergeist skulls together until they explode into protoplasm.&nbsp; Hervor\'s dad, understandably impressed with his daughter\'s moxie, reveals the blade &ndash; it\'s in a pit of fire, surrounded by angry ghosts who arbitrarily hate her.&nbsp; Hervor doesn\'t give a shit.&nbsp; She walks over, ignores the ghosts, sticks her hand in the fire, pulls out Tyrfing, gives everyone the double-middle-fingers, and goes back to her ship, only to find that her associates had already left her because they were pussies.&nbsp; The big, bad Vikings had watched from the shore when the fires and ghost activity became more epic, and ran for it like scared little bitches.&nbsp; Hervor found a way off the island (the sources aren\'t specific as to how), got back to her homeland, and continued her career as a war-band leader.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hervor5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Hervor served as an inspiration for the Eowyn character in Tolkien\'s <em>Lord of the Rings</em> trilogy.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>With Tyrfing at her side, Hervor became even more unstoppable in combat.&nbsp; In comic book terms, this weapon made her go from regular Jean Grey to Dark Phoenix, and it wasn\'t long before she was well-known as a murderous asskicker that lived to torment to coasts of Scandinavia, England, and Europe with her vicious sword of face-bifurcating.&nbsp; Of course, Tyrfing also did its thing and made her kind of become completely brutally insane.&nbsp; Like, one time she was chilling out playing dice with the King of Norway, when some douchebag started futzing with the sword, so Hervor freaked out and murdered the dude right in the middle of the royal throne room.&nbsp; I\'d like to think that it was so hardcore that everyone clapped rather than arrest her, because if anyone can appreciate that shit, it\'s the Vikings.</p>\r\n<p>Hervor eventually settled down, got married, and had a couple kids.&nbsp; Her son Heidrik inherited Tyrfing, and its bloodlusting effects seemed to affect him a lot more than his mom.&nbsp; Heidrik ended up murdering his brother and his foster son with it, and eventually died in battle surrounded by a bunch of dead Huns (Heidrik\'s own daughter, who was named Hervor after her grandma, also fought as a shieldmaiden in the battle and was killed in action).&nbsp; Heidrik married a princess, though, so his life wasn\'t all about agony and misery and being stabbed to death by Huns.</p>\r\n<p>We don\'t really know what happened to Hervor after her son inherited Tyrfing.&nbsp; Some say she died in combat while fighting in a war of vengeance, and others claim she just grew old and died a peaceful, boring death at home.&nbsp; A later saga briefly mentions a mysterious Valkyrie named Hervor, so it\'s presumably also possible that this war-chief\'s awesomeness helped her ascend to semi-goddesshood.&nbsp; That would be pretty much super-kickass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hervor4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Hervor Junior dying amid some slaughtered Hunnic warriors.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.northvegr.org/lore/oldheathen/018.php\">Northvegr Saga</a> <a href=\"http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/onp/onp07.htm\">The Lay of Hervor</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/index.htm\">The Poetic Edda</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Barring-Gould, Sabine.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A Book of Folklore</span>&nbsp; BiblioBazaar, 2007.<br /><br /> Belloni Du Chaillu, Paul.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ivar the Viking</span>&nbsp; Scribner, 1910.<br /><br /> Monaghan,Patricia.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines</span>&nbsp; ABC-CLIO, 2009.<br /><br /> Tilton, Lois.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Written in Venom</span>.&nbsp; Wildside, 2000. </span></p>','2010-04-09','987215823231','hervor.jpg','hervor1.jpg','Hervor','Viking shield-maiden and wielder of the magical sword Tyrfing.','\"My your ribs writhe with worms, may your barrow be an anthill where you rot, unless you speak with me, sons of Arngrim, all girt with battle-gear, keen blades at your sides and bright spears stained with blood.  Death has made you cowards, but I have kin-right here. I come for the sword made by Dvalin. Why should dead hands hold the blade?\"'),('Choi Yeong-eui','July 27, 1923','April 26, 1994','Gimje, Korea','20th-century Korean Athlete','<p>Mas Oyama is a martial arts master who became famous for killing bulls by punching them in the face.</p>\r\n<p>Now, I have previously argued that the senseless killing of lesser species of animals in and of itself doesn\'t necessarily automatically qualify you a badass, but this is some seriously next-level shit.&nbsp; Any time you go up against a horned, clawed, or otherwise bigger, badder, and more-naturally equipped to kick your ass killing machine and pummel it retarded in hand-to-hand combat, it\'s inevitable that some degree of badass credibility is going to come your way.&nbsp; This is especially the case when you\'re a guy who can karate chop horns off of bulls and punch them in the face with your bare hands until they die from it.</p>\r\n<p>Mas Oyama, the founder of the Kyokushinaki style of full-contact, kick-you-in-the-scrote karate, started his personal quest to become a one-man human abattoir while growing up in Korea in the 1930s.&nbsp; Learning whatever he could from the Chinese workers on his sister\'s farm, Mas developed many bizarre techniques for becoming more awesome.&nbsp; For instance, his first teacher told him to plant a seed, and then jump over it 100 times a day every day.&nbsp; By the time the seed sprouted and grew into a relatively-large tree, Mas had some pretty unbelievably mad leaping skills.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/oyama5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Japan invaded mainland China in the early stages of what we now know as World War II, Mas Oyama went back to mainland Japan (his homeland, Korea, was under Imperial control at this time) and began training to be a fighter pilot.&nbsp; When he wasn\'t flying it into the closest approximation the Imperial Aviation School had to the danger zone, Oyama started training in martial arts with the guy who founded Shotokan Karate. Shotokan is, among other things, the style of martial art used by Ryu and Ken from <em>Street Fighter II</em>, so studying from the dude who invented the <em>Hadouken</em> is kind of one of the most awesomest things I\'ve ever heard.&nbsp; Oyama never saw combat in the Pacific War, but he did dedicate his life to studying the art of kicking ass, and by the time he was twenty he was already a fourth-degree black belt.&nbsp; Bummed that me missed out on all the sweet WWII action, and more than a little pissed about American pilots blowing up his classmates, Mas Oyama spent the first few post-war years getting arrested for beating the shit out of U.S. military occupation forces in Japan.</p>\r\n<p>Figuring that punching soldiers in the face without warning or provocation, while kind of hardcore, wasn\'t really the best way to hone his fighting prowess, Mas Oyama eventually decided on taking on more drastic measures to improve his physical conditioning.&nbsp; Not long after meeting the guy who wrote the famous biography on super-mega-badass samurai Miyamoto Musashi, Mas Oyama decided to climb the same mountain where Musashi compiled <em>The Book of Five Rings</em> and train himself alone in the wilderness until he was such a ridiculous face-crusher that peoples\' heads imploded every time he simply walked into a room.&nbsp; For eighteen months he punched trees, ran through the wilderness, lived off the land in a homemade shack, meditated while kneeling under freezing-cold waterfalls, and broke rocks with his fists.&nbsp; In 1947 he came down the mountain to win the Japanese National Martial Arts Championship, and then promptly went right back up the mountain for another eighteen months.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/oyama4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Oyama beating the shit out of a tree.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Confident that he was the awesomest dude to ever cause pain to an inanimate object with his forehead, Oyama came down the mountain and, in 1953, founded a dojo to train n00bs in how to stop sucking ass and being a bunch of pathetic wussbags.&nbsp; He implemented a tough, grueling training program of full-contact martial arts, and pretty much everyone who came through his school found themselves injured at some point or another during their training.&nbsp; It\'s kind of hard to get people to want to pay you money so that you can pummel them senseless, though, so Mas Oyama went on the road with a series of promotions across Japan to drum up support for his program.</p>\r\n<p>Nowadays, martial arts school promotions involve a lot of board-kicking and Jock Jams soundtracks, but Mas Oyama\'s style of publicizing his art was just as borderline-psychotic as he was.&nbsp; This guy would fight bulls with his bare hands.&nbsp; A lot.&nbsp; In fifty-two separate battles with full-sized, pissed-off steers, this guy killed three outright with one punch &ndash; a feat that earned him the completely-awesome nickname \"The Godhand\", by the way &ndash; and defeated 49 more by either wrestling them to the turf or chopping off their horns with a well-placed iron-plated judo chop.&nbsp; WTF, dudes.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/oyama1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Epic.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Mas Oyama also enjoyed testing himself in <em>Kumite</em>, which is the Japanese word for getting jumped by a hundred dudes at once and beating them all into bloody stumps.&nbsp; Over the course of three days, Oyama fought 300 sparring matches, one after the other, and defeated all comers. He was so tough that even on the third day of nearly non-stop fighting people who were blocking his punches were ending up with broken arms.&nbsp; When it was all over, Oyama thought the kumite was so awesome that he made a 100-man battle the <em>requirement</em> for getting your fourth-degree black belt in Kyokushinaki Karate.&nbsp; To this day, you need to fight a hundred full-contact matches in a row, win over 50% of them, and not be knocked down for more than five seconds at any time in the trial.&nbsp; This is insanity.</p>\r\n<p>Mas Oyama, a non-smoker, died of lung cancer in 1994 at the age of 70, but his legacy continues to live on.&nbsp; His famous all-world karate tournaments, where masters of all styles could come together and fight each other, serve as the basis for the plot of nearly every fighting game ever, he was the main character in a couple of utterly-terrible Sonny Chiba movies called <em>Champion of Death</em> and <em>Karate Bear Fighter</em>&nbsp; Today his school now boasts over 10 million enrolled members across 120 countries and is widely belived to be one of the most hardcore fighting styles capable of human comprehension.&nbsp; If I saw a guy kill a bull with his fists, I\'d probably want to learn his secrets as well.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/oyama3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"It is possible for even the smallest of accolades of achievement to be truly worthwhile without tears and toil?\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.fightingmaster.com/masters/oyama/index.htm\">FightingMasters.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.masutatsuoyama.com/\">MasOyama.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.uskyokushin.com/sosai.htm\">U.S. Kyokushin</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/Mas_Oyama\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Beasley, Johnny.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mastering Karate</span>.&nbsp; Human Kinetics, 2003.<br /><br /> Meyers, Richard.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Great Martial Arts Movies</span>.&nbsp; Citadel, 2001.<br /><br /> Oyama, Mas.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Classic Karate</span>.&nbsp; Sterling, 2004.<br /><br /> Oyama, Mas.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">They Kyokushin Way</span>.&nbsp; Japan Publications, 1979. </span></p>','2010-04-02','679579615967','oyama.jpg','oyama1.jpg','Mas Oyama','Godhand.','\"One Strike, Certain Death.\"'),('Diomedes','Unknown','Unknown','Argos, Greece','Mythological Greek Warrior','<p>Diomedes might possibly be the most insane, over-the-top asskicker from the Trojan War. Sure, Achilles, Ajax, <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hector.html\">Hector</a>, and <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/odysseus.html\">Odysseus</a> get most of the ink when you\'re talking about sack-kicking hardasses from the epic ten-year Ionian bloodbath, but the significantly less talked-about King of Argos performed towering acts of bone-crunching awesomeness on par with the greatest deeds of any of those mighty warriors.&nbsp; Plus he went into battle with a shield that also doubled as a flamethrower, and this is a point that I can\'t possibly emphasize enough.</p>\r\n<p>Even before the glory days assaulting the golden walls of Illium with a giant spear drenched in the blood of torn-to-shit Trojans, Diomedes kicked ass.&nbsp; A favorite of the mega-hardcore warrior-goddess Athena (and the only mortal man to have ever seen her in her full divine form), Diomedes was blessed with wisdom, strength, and cunning well beyond his years, and he usually employed this particular skillset in the business of wrecking the asses of all of his enemies.&nbsp; The first chumps to feel this wrath were the citizens of Thebes.&nbsp; Diomedes\' father was a member of the Seven Against Thebes &ndash; a legendary group of seven warriors who led an army against the heavily-defended city.&nbsp; The Seven were defeated out of hand, their leader was slain and left to die in a field somewhere, and Diomedes\' father returned home reeking of failure and defeat and cabbage.&nbsp; As a teenager, Diomedes sought to correct that bullshit right quick.&nbsp; He joined the Epigoni, which was comprised of the seven sons of the Seven Against Thebes, attacked the city once again, destroyed the defending forces, and pulled down the walls of the city.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diomedes1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Incidentally, this much-celebrated battle was more military experience than many of the Greek generals had when they left for Troy, and though Diomedes was the youngest military commander to lead warriors across the Aegean he was also among the wisest, the strongest, and the most accomplished.&nbsp; It also bears mentioning that Diomedes was a one-time suitor of the oft-lusted-after Helen, and that when he departed the shores of Greece he brought 80 ships with him, which was the second largest invasion force behind only Agamemnon - the overall commander of all Greek forces in Troy.</p>\r\n<p>Once the war was in full swing, Diomedes only continued to assert his bronzed balls and subtle knack for cleaving people apart at the neck.&nbsp; For starters, this guy was huge and completely crap-your-pants scary.&nbsp; He charged into battle wearing impenetrable armor crafted by the forge-god Hephaestus, which was emblazoned with images of some badass pointy-tusked wild boars.&nbsp; If it\'s not enough that he carried a wide variety of weaponry and wore sword-proof armor, he also had a shield and a helmet that were enchanted by Athena to blast out fireballs like some kind of goddamned flamethrower.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diomedes5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Igniting enemy warriors with a searing-hot jet of flaming liquid is great, but Diomedes was more than capable of busting people apart the old-fashioned way as well.&nbsp; According to Homer, this head-crushing behemoth was second only to Achilles in terms of fighting ability and blood-raging fury, a fact supported by the ridiculous body count he piles up throughout the Iliad.&nbsp; In the brutal ten-year showdown, Diomedes kills a couple Princes of Troy, some Amazons, and whatever the hell else he feels is pissing him off at the time.&nbsp; The Iliad lists nearly thirty names of warriors killed by Diomedes, along with several other excerpts mentioning him \"freaking the fuck out and murdering a shitload of people with his dick\", so we can assume that this guy was at least somewhat competent in the field of making people his bitches.</p>\r\n<p>But the wanton slaughter of enemy warriors is just the beginning of Diomedes\' awesomeness.&nbsp; At one point during the war, he actually came face-to-face with another epic hero &ndash; the mighty Aeneas.&nbsp; Diomedes took one look at this warlike member of the Trojan royal family, brained him in the face with a huge-ass rock, and then rand in to slice the dude\'s head off and destroy the Roman Empire before it was sperm.&nbsp; The goddess Aphrodite, seeing Aeneas in trouble, swooped down from Olympus, snatched the badly-wounded Trojan hero up into her arms, and ordered Diomedes to stop.</p>\r\n<p>Diomedes told her to get fucked.&nbsp; With Athena guiding his sword arm, Diomedes charged forward, striking Aphrodite in the arm and causing her to cry out in pain.&nbsp; She dropped Aeneas and fled back to Olympus while he yelled taunts at her. If beating up fertility goddesses isn\'t hardcore enough for you, when Apollo rushed in to carry Aeneas away, Diomedes also attacked him three times, only to be repelled by blinding flashes of light each time.&nbsp; This guy just didn\'t give a shit &ndash; he would take on any one, any place, any time, regardless of their potential status as being immortal, or, you know, whether or not they were <em>his gods</em>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diomedes3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Never was this more intensely awesome than when Diomedes, the mortal son of some moderately-important guy, went straight-up against Ares, the Greek God of War, in mortal combat.&nbsp; That\'s right, this guy was so utterly fearless that he fought the deity responsible for warlike bloodshed, and the being whose sole job is to decide who wins battles.&nbsp; Oh yeah, and as he was charging in to do battle with Ares Himself, Athena warped down into Diomedes\' chariot, guided his arm, and the Greek hero threw a fucking spear that <em>wounded the god of war</em>, sending him running back home crying like a punk bitch.&nbsp; The only analogy I can really make here is that this is like playing a game of D&amp;D, deciding to have your character attack the Dungeon Master, and winning.</p>\r\n<p>It\'s hard to top something like out-dueling the god of war, but it does bear mentioning that Diomedes also bests many of the Trojan War\'s greatest heroes in tests of strength and skill.&nbsp; He defeats Hector in a duel by cracking him in the skull with a javelin.&nbsp; He beats up Ajax in a full-contact sparring match, which is actually stopped by the Greek generals when they see Diomedes\' fury and fear for Ajax\'s life.&nbsp; He outruns Odysseus in a footrace, and wins a badass <em>Ben-Hur</em>-style chariot race against many other Greek heroes.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diomedes4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"While my Strength yet exists, not a single foe will escape me with life.<br />The brave man makes an end of every foe.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Diomedes also played an understated role as a badass Greek special forces commando during the war.&nbsp; He and Odysseus went on a couple of espionage missions that had far-reaching implications for the allied victory against Troy, including one time when they broke into the city and stole the Palladium (the most holy and revered artifact the Trojans had), and another time when they assassinated the King of Thrace in his palace and stole off with his horses.&nbsp; The most famous of these covert operations, however, was the famous Trojan Horse mission.&nbsp; Diomedes was one of the warriors inside the belly of the wooden horse that was led into the city, and he was one of the motherfuckers that set fire to Troy, destroyed the city, and ended the war in a giant cataclysm of bloody explosions.</p>\r\n<p>After the war, Diomedes returned home to find that his wife was no longer interested in having him around (the myths attribute this change of heart to the work of Aphrodite, who was still understandably a little upset about the whole being-shanked-in-the-arm thing), so he traveled around the Mediterranean having all sorts of adventures.&nbsp; He ventured across North Africa, Italy, and Greece, built some cities, and then basically vanished out of history.&nbsp; No sources exist explaining what the hell happened to Diomedes, which is kind of interesting and awesome. Some mythographers speculate that he died of old age as the ruler of a distant land, while other folks are convinced that Athena granted him immortality and brought him up to live out eternity on Olympus.&nbsp; Dante of course claims that Diomedes and Odysseus are encased in a sheet of flame down in the Eighth Circle of Hell, but there really aren\'t a lot of non-Saints that Dante doesn\'t have burning in Hell.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diomedes2.bmp\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>\"Seducer, a worthless coward like you can inflict but a light wound; when I wound a man though I but graze his skin it is another matter, for my weapon will lay him low.&nbsp; His wife will tear her cheeks for grief and his children will be fatherless: there will he rot, reddening the earth with his blood, and vultures, not women, will gather round him\".</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/achaeans/a/070809Diomedes.htm\">About.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/DiomedesOfArgo.html\">Diomedes of Argos</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Diomedes2.html\">Diomedes</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/diomedes.html\">Encyclopedia Mythica</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Apollodorus.&nbsp; <em>The Library of Greek Mythology</em>.&nbsp; Trans. Robin Hard.&nbsp; Oxford University Press, 2008.<br /><br /> Homer.&nbsp; <em>The Iliad</em>.&nbsp; Trans. Richmond Lattimore.&nbsp; University of Chicago Press, 1951.<br /><br /> Pausanias.&nbsp; <em>Description of Greece</em>.&nbsp; Trans. W.H.S. Jones.&nbsp; Loeb Classical Library, 1933. </span></p>','2010-03-26','62044316043','diomedes.jpg','diomedes1.jpg','Diomedes','Flamethrower-toting epic hero of mythological Greece.','\"He fights with fury and fills men\'s souls with panic.  I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear even their great champion Achilles, son of an immortal though he be, as we do this man:  his rage is beyond all bounds, and there is none can vie with him in prowess.\"'),('Mellivora Capensis','N/A','N/A','South Africa','21st-century SouthAfrican Supervillain','<p>In the last couple of weeks, several faithful e-mailers have correctly called me out on the fact that I haven\'t written about too many badass animals recently.&nbsp; This isn\'t because there are a shortage of totally awesome, face-rending beasts out there just looking for one good reason to shred your organs with their ultra-sharp claws and then eat your children, or that there aren\'t plenty of totally-bitchin\' <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/voytek.html\">Voytek</a>-like war beasts who somehow overcame their lack of prehensile thumbs and received medals, commissions, and military honors for valor in combat, but rather just a simple oversight on my part.&nbsp; So, this week, as I\'m sitting here laid up on the couch with a particularly nasty cold/flu/whatever that is kind of kicking my ass, I think there is no better time to write about one of the most vicious, brutal, and throat-crushingly hardcore mammals to ever nut-punch a lion unconscious by swinging a couple King Cobras around like a pair of serpentine nunchucks &ndash; the African Honey Badger (also known as the Ratel):</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/honeybadger3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"If you had not committed great sins,<br />God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now for those of you who are looking at that cute, adorable little angry toothy maw and are thinking to yourselves that this cuddly killing machine would be more fitting as a teddy bear than a murderous demon from the blackest darkness of Lucifer\'s ballsack, I should mention that the picture above was taken as he was charging a jeep that he thought was invading his territory.&nbsp; He\'s so fearless that he just doesn\'t give a crap.&nbsp; Sure, the Honey Badger isn\'t the hugest guy out there &ndash; at three and a half feet long and thirty pounds he\'s roughly the size of the medium dog, and he kind of looks like a skunk that\'s cracked-out on PCP, but the Ratel is easily one of the most hardcore creatures plaguing the earth today.</p>\r\n<p>I suppose the best way to begin illustrating my point would be with one of the most badass YouTube videos you\'ll ever see.&nbsp; I\'ll preface the clip by disclaiming that this video is NSFW, but only if your workplace frowns on things that make you so pumped up that you want to run out and start tearing your co-workers\' jugulars out with your teeth.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><object width=\"480\" height=\"385\" data=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/c81bcjyfn6U&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" /><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" /><param name=\"src\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/c81bcjyfn6U&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;\" /><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" /></object></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For those of you who don\'t enjoy watching things that are awesome, this video is basically a series of high-quality violence-porn courtesy of the Ratel\'s chomping jaws.&nbsp; In the span of about three minutes this ferocious furry psycho climbs up into a tree to battle a six-foot cobra thirteen feet above the ground, somehow catches and eats a bird, chases off a leopard, and digs some sweet holes, but by far the most incredible aspect of the clip is when the Honey Badger takes on a super-deadly African Puff Adder.&nbsp; Now, the Puff Adder is one of the most murder-tastic snakes on the entire continent.&nbsp; One of these vipers possesses enough venom to kill 4 or 5 men, and they are so violent, toxic, and aggressive that they routinely account for more human fatalities than any other African snake.&nbsp; But the Honey Badger doesn\'t give a crap &ndash; he comes across a puff adder that is eating a rat, and his first instinct is to run up, grab the rat <em>out of the snake\'s mouth</em>, carry it a few feet away, and then eat the rat right in front of the snake just to show the adder that he\'s a bitch.&nbsp; After eating the stolen meal, the Badger than decides, \"Screw it, now I\'m going to eat this damn snake too.\"&nbsp; This really takes being an asshole to another level, which is something I can appreciate.&nbsp; The adder and the Ratel fight, and the Honey Badger kills the viper, but not before being bitten in the face and pumped full of enough venom to kill a creature three times its size.&nbsp; The Badger succumbs to the poison, falls unconscious, but then &ndash; amazingly &ndash; somehow comes <em>back to life and continues devouring the already-half-eaten snake</em>. Are you kidding me?</p>\r\n<p>That\'s just how Ratel operates.&nbsp; He\'s been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as \"The World\'s Most Fearless Creature\" every year since 2002, with no end in sight.&nbsp; A relative of the equally-badass Wolverine, the Honey Badger has no natural predators. This is kind of impressive, since three-foot-long creatures generally don\'t last long in environments featuring leopards, lions, cheetahs, black mamba snakes, and other savannah beasts, but there you have it.&nbsp; It helps that this thing doesn\'t screw around when it gets pissed off &ndash; the Sir Didimus of wildlife is known to go after anything, anytime, anywhere, and has been known to attack buffalo, humans, wildebeest, jackals, monitor lizards, wild boars, and even lions and cheetahs.&nbsp; If the creature is too huge for the Badger to straight-up eviscerate with its inch-and-a-half long claws or its razor-sharp teeth, the Ratel still knows how to go for the weak spot &ndash; the balls.&nbsp; That\'s right, folks, this thing has been documented as killing male lions by running underneath them and tearing off their scrotums.&nbsp; This is one creature you don\'t want to go balls-out against.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/honeybadger4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Explains why this lion is a little hesitant to face off with a pissed-off Ratel.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While chomping balls is fun and all, it\'s generally not really a good idea to routinely take on predators twice your size if you can help it, so the Honey Badger\'s primary diet consists of smaller, equally-dangerous creatures that are no less deadly but far more bite-sized.&nbsp; It takes a pretty balls-out animal to routinely eat poisonous snakes, spiders, and scorpions, but the Ratel doesn\'t give a crap.&nbsp; He also loves honey (which is where the Honey Badger gets his unfortunately-unbadass name) and bee larvae, but his method of getting to them is just as hardcore as he is &ndash; he just jams his face into a beehive, and starts eating the baby bees and honey while a bunch of crazy pissed-off bees stab him in the face with their stingers.&nbsp; He doesn\'t register pain, fear, or any emotion other than anger, and doesn\'t even seem to noice the hundreds of stab-wounds he\'s getting all over his hide.&nbsp; It helps that he\'s heavily armored, with skin that\'s a quarter of an inch thick (making him somewhat immune to the puny stingers).&nbsp; The thick skin is also cool because loose enough that if another creature bites the Ratel he can still turn around (with the attacker still chomping down) and reposition himself to better bite faces or shred nutsacks.&nbsp; He\'s so tough that the South African army actually named their heavily-armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle after this voracious predator:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/honeybadger5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Ratel-20 is only somewhat more dangerous than the creature it\'s named after.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It\'s not every laborador-sized mammal that gets a damned APC named after it, but the Honey Badger isn\'t your typical member of the Mammalia class.&nbsp; He\'s a brutal, vicious killer who kicks asses, never backs down, never registers fear, destroys everything in its path and then adorably trots off into the sunset with his prey in his teeth and the severed nutsacks of his enemies still gripped between his dagger-like claws.</p>\r\n<p>It\'s a badass animal.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/honeybadger2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.honeybadger.com/\">Honeybadger.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.wildwatch.com/living_library/mammals-2/honey-badger\">Living Library</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature6/index.html\">National Geographic</a></p>','2010-03-19','720607116102','honeybadger1.jpg','honeybadger1a.jpg','The Honey Badger','The world\'s most fearless animal.','\"As tough as a Honey Badger.\"\r\n\r\n- South African saying'),('Juan Pujol Garcia','February 14, 1912','October 10, 1988','Barcelona, Spain','WWII Spanish Spy','<p>Being the guy who almost single-handedly ensured that the Germans were completely unprepared the Allied invasion of Normandy is pretty damn impressive.&nbsp; Doing it without so much as lifting a rifle is so badass that I think I just crapped.</p>\r\n<p>Juan Pujol Garcia, the man who may possibly be the most successful double-agent in history, is the complete opposite of everything you think about when you think of badass secret agents.&nbsp; He was ordinary-looking, married, balding, and wore kind of nerdy glasses, and never owned a wristwatch that shot lasers.&nbsp; He never snuck into a top-secret high-security enemy facility disguised as a frogman, flying side-kicked a dude into a nuclear reactor, and stole biological weapons schematics from a rogue terrorist nation.&nbsp; He didn\'t lead foreign authorities on high-speed car chases through crowded streets, plow commandeered armored vehicles through blown glass museums, or stop the Doomsday Laser from fragnosticating the human population into radioactive ash by flicking a coin into the machine seconds before it activated.&nbsp; He didn\'t have illicit affairs, sleep with piles of beautiful women stacked up on top of each other, or gamble away millions in complicated casino table games that don\'t make any goddamned sense to anybody watching.&nbsp; No, this unconventional spy-tastic badass had one thing going for him &ndash; he was probably the best bullshit artist ever.&nbsp; That\'s all he needed to weave a web of intrigue so hardcore it would make Tom Clancy start barfing blood.</p>\r\n<p>Garcia was born in Barcelona, this Catalan had been raised in a politically-liberal household and developed a perfectly healthy, red-blooded disdain for totalitarianism, oppression, tyranny, and all other assorted forms of political jackassery.&nbsp; So, of course when the Spanish Civil War started busting in the doors of Spaniards from the Pyrenees to Portugal and everyone quickly had to decide whether they\'d rather be persecuted by a Soviet Union-inspired Communist dictatorship or a Nazi Germany-inspired Fascist dictatorship, Pujol was placed in a position that was kind of like deciding which brand of soccer ball he\'d prefer to have kicked into his balls by a <em>burro loco</em>.&nbsp; Harassed by both sides and pressed into military service against his will on a half-dozen occasions, Pujol played the sides against each other, bided his time, went AWOL when things got too intense, and did whatever he could to stay out of the war while also not getting shot in the head as a traitor for not playing along with this autocratic revolutionary bullshit.&nbsp; After the Civil War ended, Pujol would proudly claim that he had served in the armies of both sides but never fired a single bullet for either.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/pujol1.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"Haha, take that, fuckers!\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Sure, I guess it\'s cool to squirm your way through a brutal deathmatch between two ideologies you don\'t give a shit about and emerge intact with a bullet-free torso and with a clear conscience, but it\'s only after Hitler invaded France that we really got to see the sort of skillset Juan Pujol Garcia brought to the table. Pujol was working as a humble hotel manager in Madrid in July 1941, but, eager to do what he could to destroy Fascism where he could find it, he got in touch with the British Secret Service in Spain and asked them if there was any way they\'d bring him on as a spy.&nbsp; The British, thinking Pujol was just some wannabe punk, didn\'t even respond to his request &ndash; he sat in a waiting room for a while before heading home without even so much as having a guy pop his head out of a door and haphazardly yell, \"hey, fuck off, mate.\"</p>\r\n<p>So Pujol thought to himself, \"OK, fine, I see how it\'s going to be,\" and he took his services to the German Abwehr spy network.&nbsp; After a couple of meetings, the Abwehr hired Garcia on to spy against Allied interests in England.&nbsp; This is sort of an impressive posting to attain &ndash; Pujol was able to somehow convince his contact at the Nazi spy office that he was a diplomat working in England, thereby guaranteeing that he\'d be an ideal candidate for spyhood, but he inconcievably managed to do this despite the notable shortcoming that he didn\'t speak English, had never been to England, and forged his own passports and visas without actually knowing what the real documents even looked like.&nbsp; Nevertheless, the German Abwehr hooked him up with three grand, a vial of totally bitchin\' invisible ink, a cipher for encrypting secret messages, and a code name:&nbsp; ARABEL.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/pujol2.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>PRZH JV YXIIP KXWF YFQZEBP</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well instead of moving to London and becoming a Nazi spy, Pujol moved to Portugal and flexed his mad B.S.ing skillz to the max.&nbsp; From his home office in Lisbon, armed only with a Spanish-language version of <em>Frommer\'s Guide to England</em>, a British railway schedule, and a couple road maps, he somehow convinced the Nazis that he had established himself as a secret agent working deep undercover in the British Isles.&nbsp; As if magically teleporting himself across the Channel to a country he\'d never seen before wasn\'t enough of a feat, he then fabricated an entire organized network of badass fictional spies to come work for him and do awesome things in his name.&nbsp; Before long, this crazy imaginary spymaster built a network of twenty-seven (!!) fake men and women ranging from a Swiss banker who was horrified by Liverpool orgies to a Venezuelan dock worker trading wine bottles for information in Glasgow, and they were all feeding him intel about places he\'d never actually been before, which he then relayed to the Germans.&nbsp; I probably don\'t need to mention that the Nazis weren\'t exactly known for taking it easy on guys who royally cocked them over, but Pujol apparently didn\'t even give a shit that he was playing with radioactive fire here &ndash; he was so balls-out that he mailed the letters from his local post office, passing it off as though he had a KLM pilot under his power that was flying the letters across the Channel and dropping them in a Portuguese mailbox. Incredibly, they bought it.</p>\r\n<p>Hell, this rogue freelance secret agent was so effective and omnipresent in his reporting to the Abwehr that eventually the British started intercepting messages from this powerful spymaster operating right under their noses, and started trying to figure out how to counteract him.&nbsp; The Brits, however, had a little more insight into the fact that Pujol was more full of crap than a manure truck, and could tell that this guy had obviously never set foot in their country before.&nbsp; For starters, he was reporting on troop movements and convoy deliveries that didn\'t exist, and the fact that he couldn\'t figure out the difference between pounds, shillings, and pence was also somewhat puzzling for a guy who was supposed to be seamlessly blending in with British society.&nbsp; MI5 still went out and put together a counter-espionage group aimed at locating ARABEL, bringing him in for questioning, and taking down his web of saboteurs.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/pujol3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Luckily for Juan Pujol Garcia, in February 1942 he once again approached the British Secret Service in Spain.&nbsp; This time, instead of a meek plea for work, this fearless badass walked right into their offices, threw down the ULTRA machine, told them he was already \"in there\" as a secret agent with the Nazis, and demanded that they bring him over to work for them.&nbsp; At least, that\'s the way I picture that going down.</p>\r\n<p>MI5 considered Garcia\'s application a little more seriously this time around, and they relocated him and his family to England to work as a clandestine double agent feeding misinformation to the Germans.&nbsp; Armed with the British code name GARBO (I don\'t know why they kept giving him girls\' names for some reason) and $340,000 worth of funding to keep his spy network running, Pujol was even more of a baller once he had some actual real-life British spies feeding him info to send along to his contacts in Nazi Germany.</p>\r\n<p>For two more years Juan Pujol Garcia fed info to the Germans regarding his super-awesome network of imaginary operatives, moving them around the country, passing off information, and then having them murdered, fired, or imprisoned when the messaged he sent along proved to be incorrect.&nbsp; As spies died off from counter-espionage intrigues, plane crashes, and extended battles with cancer, he replaced them with more fake guys and more bullshit information.&nbsp; Like, for instance there was a fascist-sympathizing soldier named Dagobert who belonged to a non-existent unit in the British 9th Armored Division that enjoyed hunting down and assassinating \"political undesireables\" (the British government backed up these claims by posting fake obituaries in the newspapers, which kicks ass.). Despite spewing forth an endless fire-hose stream of bullcrap, ventually Pujol got in so tight with the Nazis that they completely stopped dispatching spies to the United Kingdom.&nbsp; What was the point, since Pujol had a veritable army of James Bonds running around feeding them all the info they needed?</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/pujol4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now Juan Pujol Garcia was like the Dungeon Master of World War II &ndash; he passed along the stories he wanted the Germans to hear, and they reacted to his information without questioning the reality of it.&nbsp; While this surely had its bonuses, never was Pujol\'s more important to the Allied war cause than during the days leading up to the Allied invasion of Normandy.&nbsp; During Operation Fortitude &ndash; the counter-intelligence project designed to mislead the Germans regarding the location of the Allied landing sites &ndash; Pujol\'s primary responsibility was to convince the Germans that the amphibious landings were going to come at the beach of Pas de Calais rather than Normandy.&nbsp; He accomplished this by convincing the Nazis that the Allies had 25 more divisions stationed near the departure zone than they actually did &ndash; basically conjuring half a million soldiers out of thin air in some crazy crap that makes David Blain look like a punk street performer.&nbsp; Then he convinced them of the Pas de Calais landings in a series of messages culminating in an incredibly epic climax &ndash; four days before D-Day, Hitler cancelled a large-scale transfer of German soldiers to the Normandy coast.&nbsp; This info was based largely on intel provided by Pujol and his insane balls-out spy network.&nbsp; Omaha Beach was already a pretty hellacious clusterbone, and another couple hundred thousand German machine guns might have made the entire operation a failure, but as it stood the Allies got a foothold in mainland France and started the long process of pushing the Nazis all the way back to Berlin.</p>\r\n<p>So yeah, that\'s kind of a big deal.&nbsp; You\'d think that lying your ass off and feeding misinformation that would lead to the defeat that would mark the beginning of the end of the war in the West would get a super-spymaster fired, but Pujol, as we\'ve seen, was really fucking clever.&nbsp; Two days before D-Day he mailed a letter saying that he\'d discovered the truth and that the invasion was coming at Normandy.&nbsp; Of course, back before e-mail transmitted information directly into your brain on a series of YouTubes, mail actually took time to be delivered, and Pujol was certain to make sure that the Germans didn\'t get the note until it was already too late.&nbsp; The German Abwehr was like, \"ok dude wish we\'d heard this sooner,\" but they STILL kept him on as a spy.&nbsp; Not only that, but they were so convinced that he was a loyal hero to the cause that even in December 1944 &ndash; five months after the deception at Normandy &ndash; the Germans awarded him the Iron Cross.</p>\r\n<p>It was the second medal he\'d earn for bravery as a spy.&nbsp; He\'d already received the Member of the British Empire award in June.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/pujol5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-double-agents-d-day-victory.htm\" target=\"blank\">Historynet</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/agent-garbo.html\" target=\"blank\">MI5.gov.uk Page</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Barbier, Mary.&nbsp; <em>D-Day Deception</em>.&nbsp; Greenwood, 2007.<br /><br /> Holt, Thaddeus.&nbsp; <em>The Deceivers</em>.&nbsp; Skyhorse, 2007.<br /><br /> Pujol, Juan, and Nigel West.&nbsp; <em>Garbo</em>.&nbsp; Grafton, 1986.<br /><br /> Rankin, Nicholas.&nbsp; <em>A Genius for Deception</em>.&nbsp; Oxford Univ. Press, 2009.<br /><br /> Seaman, Mark.&nbsp; <em>Garbo: The Spy Who Saved D-Day</em>.&nbsp; Dundurn Press, 2004.<br /><br /> Shugaar, Anthony and Steven Guarnaccia.&nbsp; <em>I Lie for a Living</em>.&nbsp; National Geographic, 2006. </span></p>','2010-03-12','364278016160','pujol.jpg','pujol1.jpg','Juan Pujol Garcia','The most effective double agent of WWII.','\"This is the crowning achievement of the long and glorious history of the British Secret Service.\"\r\n\r\n- Winston Churchill'),('Viriato','Unknown','138 BC','Lusitania, Portugal','Ancient Portuguese General','<p>Even before they were an ever-expanding empire hell-bent on world domination and the unconditional submission of anything they even remotely perceived as an enemy, the Romans were still pretty colossal jackasses. While this statement can confidently be broadly applied to almost every single dealing between the time that Romulus first suckled a she-wolf and when Mehmet the Conqueror\'s Turkish forces overran the last bastion of Constantinople nearly two millennia later, the Iberian peninsula is as good a place as any to focus on the good people of Latium and their crush-tastic propensity for violently ruining the lives of everyone in their general vicinity.</p>\r\n<p>The whole mess started with a charming little African city called Carthage, and the fact that it\'s mere existence was enough to send the Roman senate into hysterical bouts of implacable, over-the-top Lou Ferrigno-style blood rages. Much like people didn\'t like Lou when he was angry, so was it with Rome, and over the years Rome and Carthage ended up embarking on some pretty epic murder-fests that left a large part of the Mediterranean either plundered, appendageless, or otherwise seriously jacked up beyond all recognition. The people of Rome were particularly upset when a Carthaginian general named Hannibal put together a huge army, stomped his way around southern Italy, and nearly demolished their entire civilization beneath the heels of a few thousand rampaging elephants, and when you\'re a classical-age warrior culture you tend to have a little bit of trouble getting over a little thing like that.</p>\r\n<p>Carthage was eventually crushed, burned down, and urinated on, and the earth was salted so that no crops could ever grow there again, which more or less took care of that problem. After handling diplomatic relations with North Africa in a thoroughly Roman way, the powerful Latin consuls still hadn\'t satiated their kill-boners, so they decided to march into Hispania and extend their domination to the native peoples of the Iberian Peninsula &ndash; many of whom had lent their services to the afore-mentioned Hannibal and his murdergasmic marauding death force.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/viriathus1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well Spain and Portugal, and particularly a region known as Lusitania, weren\'t really down with getting their necks stomped on by the sandaled foot of Roman-style totalitarian domination, so they decided to pick up a bunch of shiv-tastic weapons and stab anybody foolish enough to get within appropriate kidney-shanking distance. The Roman commander Sulpicus Galba wasn\'t particularly interested in going toe-to-toe with these indigenous hardasses, so he approached the good people of Lusitania and offered them a deal &ndash; if they handed over their weapons and agreed to play nice, he would listen to their demands and try to work out a deal with them.</p>\r\n<p>It doesn\'t take a political nuclear scientist to figure out what happened next. The Lusitanians, pumped up about the possibility of getting a sweet deal, showed up looking for a peace treaty, were immediately surrounded, and somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 men of military age were double-crossed the hell out of and executed on the spot in one giant horrific stab-fest of a bloodbath. The women and children who had come along for moral support were sold into slavery in Gaul and never heard from again. Uh, whoops. That\'s what you get for trying to deal with Rome, dumbasses.</p>\r\n<p>Well you\'d assume that having the entire core of the Lusitanian military exterminated in the time it takes a race horse to piss would have been a rather effective way of winning the war in one fell swoop, but the Romans didn\'t count on one thing &ndash; a particularly-intense assbeater named Viriathus had somehow escaped the ridiculous slaughter, retreated to the mountains of Iberia, and began plotting his ultra-bloody, Tarantino-style revenge.</p>\r\n<p>Viriathus had started his life as a humble shepherd doing shepherdly things in backwoods Lusitania, but seeing that this career path wasn\'t a particularly vicious undertaking, he shifted gears and fell into a more exciting life consistint of copious amounts of good old-fashioned hardcore violent crime. For a while he was the leader of a gang of brigands and rogues who pillaged and plundered the countryside like a cross between <em>Braveheart</em> and <em>Boyz in the Hood</em>, but when he eventually got sick of harassing the good people of Iberia with fireballs and face-impalement he decided instead to start fashioning himself as a hardcore army general instead. This was significantly more in line with his career aspirations, most of which involved leading his soldiers to military victory and then moonwalking across battlefields strewn with the corpses of slain warriors - a strategy that everybody thought this was dope as hell.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/viriathus2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In terms of being awesome, Viriathus was like the Ultimate Warrior circa the early days of Wrestlemania, back before he became crazy and super-religious for some reason. This phenomenal asskicker had grown up living off the land, traversing the wilderness, and doing other Bear Grylls-style shiz, and had become so hardcore that he rarely needed to eat or sleep or do pretty much any of the things that nowadays we consider basic life functions. He didn\'t suffer from extreme heat, cold, exhaustion, or hunger, always carried his weapons with him, slept in his armor, and never backed down from a fight, no matter how insane-o-matic it may be. As a war leader for the Lusitanians he had cleansed the land of robbers and rogues, and on more than one occasion he was credited as murdering \"wild beasts\" by choking them out with his bare hands like the bitches they were. In short, he kicked ass.</p>\r\n<p>So when the Lusitanians decided they were going to seek inevitable vengeance for the wanton slaughter of their greatest warriors, you can be pretty damn sure Viriathus was in on the party. The small cadre of men who had escaped the murder-fest regrouped, cobbled together a makeshift army presumably comprised of every living man in Lusitania, and captured the town of Turditania. Why the hell you would want to conquer a place called Turditania is beyond me, but there you have it. Despite what he unfortunate name of the town would indicate regarding the overall quality of the municipality itself, the armies of Rome counter-attacked, fought the Lusitanians to a stalemate, and then offered peace. The Lusitanian leaders, dumbasses that they were, decided to accept the Roman offer, but Viriathus knew better. He got up in front of the army, reminded them of the double-cross that had happened just months before, and told the men that if they gave him a chance to lead he would shove the Legions directly up the consuls\' collective assholes. This sounded like a much better plan than being murdered, and Viriathus was placed in charge of the assembled army.</p>\r\n<p>Viriathus, assuming command of the Lusitanian force in their hour of most dire need, knew that he was kind of boned in the position he was in. So, like any good genius, he came up with a plan. Viriathus\' forces lined up against the Romans, as though they were going to fight to the death in a battle they had no chance of winning, but as soon as Viriathus gave the signal the Lusitanians all started running off into the woods in every direction screaming like maniacs. The Romans, too disciplined to break ranks, watched as a couple thousand warriors dispersed every which way until all that was left was the Lusitanian commander and a battle-hardened force of 1,000 cavalrymen staring down a disproportionately-large assault force of 10,000 Roman legionaries.</p>\r\n<p>The Romans let the Lusitanians escape, but decided they may as well wipe out Viriathus and his bodyguards while they still outnumbered him ten-to-one. The Roman commander ordered his men ahead, but in a battle that lasted the entire day Viriathus used hit-and-run tactics to outpace his assailants, drawing out the Roman army and single-handedly occupying them while his main body of soldiers escaped and regrouped to fight another day. When darkness fell, Viriathus and his men took off through an uncharted forest and rejoined the army at a pre-determined meeting point a few miles away. Sure, \"you guys run for it while I cover you by getting the Romans to chase me around a field for eight hours\" doesn\'t necessarily sound like the most badass tactic ever devised, but this single action would end up giving Viriathus a cadre of troops that would allow him to conduct a guerilla war against Rome that would last for nearly a decade.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/viriathus3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>From here on out, Viriathus would pretty much excel at making the armies of Rome look like a clusterhump of inept bumbling morons who gave themselves brain aneurysms while trying to remember how to tie on their own togas. When the Roman commander Vetilius came after Viriathus with an army of 10,000 men, the Lusitanian commander ambushed him while he was marching along a ravine, pushed half of the legionaries off the cliff onto some rocks, and executed Vetilius on the spot (they didn\'t realize who he was &ndash; they saw they\'d captured some \"fat old man\", decided he was \"worthless\" and tossed him off the ledge with the rest of the chumps). The other half of Vetilius\' army retreated to the city of Carpessus, reinforced themselves back to full strength, and marched out to avenge themselves against Viriathus, but we honestly have no idea what happened to this 10,000 man assault force, because they were never heard from again.</p>\r\n<p>After working Vetilius over, Viriathus went on the offensive. He overran Carpetania, burned and looted Roman settlements, and pushed his armies deep into enemy territory. The Roman commander Caius Plautius came after him with two full legions and 1,300 horsemen, but was lured into a fake retreat, surrounded, and annihiliated by the Lusitanians. Viriathus took control of the region, ordered local farmers and ranchers to help him sustain the rebellion, and bitch-slapped anybody who didn\'t like it right in their face with an axe.</p>\r\n<p>For the next eight years, the Romans tried everything the could possibly do to quell Viriathus\' uncontrollable rage, but the \"War of Fire\" (as it came to be known) was little more than a parade of Roman commanders lining up waiting to be cold-cocked into mouth by the iron fist of Viriathus. Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, Claudius Unimanus, Quintus, Caius Marcius, and Servilanius all came out, one by one, fell for the \"fake retreat\" tactic, charged into traps where their armies were crushed, and ended up being either killed, demoted, or arrested for incompetence. When he wasn\'t making the highest-ranking officers in the Roman legions look like mouth-breathing retards, Viriathus enjoyed posting captured legionary battle standards outside his evil genius-style mountain fortress as a testament to his strength. The Romans eventually had enough of getting their heads cracked together like the Three Stooges and agreed to a peace treaty with the Lusitanians, formally declaring Viriathus an \"ally of the Roman people\". This title would be rescinded a year later, but hey, it was great while it lasted.</p>\r\n<p>Now the Romans, who weren\'t exactly known for heaping praise on their enemies, had nothing but nice stuff to say about the Big V. Not only did this guy strike fear in the hearts of his enemies and establish the foundations for guerilla war as we know it today, but he always treated his men fairly, divided plunder according to merit and bravery rather than station, and commanded the respect and dedication of everyone who followed him. This guy was so selfless that even at his own wedding he refused presents of gold and silver, saying that wealth was worthless if you were being dominated by your enemies. All he wanted was to eat a huge hock of beef, drink some wine, and ride back to his mountain fortress with his new bride.</p>\r\n<p>Well, I guess when I\'m talking about \"commanding the loyalty of his men\", I should mention three notable exceptions. You see, eventually a Roman jacknut named Caepio took control of the legions in Hispania, and being somewhat less of a dumbass than his predecessors, this guy realized he had no chance to survive against Viriathus and his insanely-dedicated soldiers. So, being the good back-stabbing jackass that he was, Caepio just paid three of Viriathus\' own men to stab the Lusitanian commander in the neck while he was sleeping. Of course, selling out your buddy rarely pays &ndash; Viriathus\' friends had been promised riches and wealth in exchange for the throat-stabbing, but when they arrived at the Roman camp to collect their reward they were told point-blank, \"Rome does not pay traitors who kill their chief.\" Burn! Caepio then returned home and received a Triumph for being a hero to his people and overwhelming Viriathus in what is apparently the only manner by which the Iberian leader could possibly have been defeated. Viriathus, the great hero of the Hispanian resistance, was burned on an awesome funeral pyre while mighty warriors sung songs and dirges in his honor. His successors wouldn\'t achieve nearly the same kind of success, and after an unsuccessful war the Lusitanians would eventually surrender to Roman rule.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/viriathus5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.unrv.com/bio/viriathus.php\" target=\"blank\">UNRV History</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viriathus\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Appian of Alexandria. <em>The Roman History of Appian of Alexandria.</em> Trans. Horace White. Loeb Classical Library, 1972.<br /><br /> Cassius Dio. <em>Dio\'s Rome.</em> Echo, 2008.<br /><br /> Diodorus Siculus. <em>Library of History.</em> Trans. C.H. Oldfather. Loeb Classical Library, 1933.<br /><br /> Leighton, Robert Fowler. <em>A History of Rome.</em> Maynard, Merrill, &amp; Co., 1901.<br /><br /> Long, George. <em>Decline of the Roman Republic.</em> Bell, 1864. </span></p>','2010-03-05','674451216254','viriathus.jpg','viriathus1.jpg','Viriathus','Iberian hero who led the resistance against Rome.','\"He carried on the war not for the sake of personal gain or power nor through anger, but for the sake of warlike deeds in themselves; hence he was accounted at once a lover of war and a master of war.\"\r\n\r\n– Cassius Dio'),('Leo Major','1921','October 12, 2008','Montreal, Canada','WWII Canadian Commando','<p>I know that technically we have to be enemies for the time being (at least until the final horn sounds on the third period of the Olympic Hockey tournament and we\'ve finally decided who gets US-Canada bragging rights for the next four years), but all this talk about Canada and the Winter Games and all that crap has got me thinking about one thing &ndash; dead Nazis, and lots of \'em.&nbsp; In a large way this weird subliminal association between Canadians and machine gunned SS soldiers has to do with the actions of one man &ndash; a lowly Private in the Canadian military who went out and did some of the most insane shit you\'ll ever read about.&nbsp; During his adventures ripping the hedgerows of Normandy into sawdust, Leo Majors became not just the only Canuck to receive the Distinguished Conduct Medal (the second-highest award for bravery offered by the Royal government) twice, but the only person from any Commonwealth country to win it for actions in two separate wars.</p>\r\n<p>Of course, being a total head-smashing badass isn\'t just about kicking in teeth, confiscating enemy ballsacks, and then standing there while some high-ranking self-important douchebag pins a small chunk of tin on your chest.&nbsp; Much like many of the bizarre contests that we are watching on television during this Olympic cylce with equal parts respect and WTF confusion, there are style points involved, and holy shitballs did Private Leo Major of the Chaudiere Regiment of the Canadian Army bring his A-game to Europe back when Hitler needed a good bit of iron-fisted cock-punching justice.</p>\r\n<p>Major kicked things off by landing on Normandy along with the rest of the Canadian military, and I\'d wager that anybody who\'s ever played any of the ten billion World War II-themed video games on the market today can tell you that running across a beach while Nazis shoot machine guns at your face is no picnic.&nbsp; Well not only did Majors miraculously manage to somehow not die nose-down in the surf, but on his first day in the lovely French countryside he went out and single-handedly captured one of these bad boys:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leomajor4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><span><br />I don\'t need to say that he captured a real one, and not a plastic model, right?</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Leo Major, a scout and sniper by trade, charged out in broad daylight, popped an entire squad of Nazis, stole their ride, and then impressed all his superiors when they discovered that the jacked truck was loaded up with communications gear that would prove invaluable in terms of intercepting and deciphering German messages during the Normandy Campaign.&nbsp; For those of you out there who aren\'t experts in military tactics and strategy, being able to know what your enemy is going to do before he does it is kind of a good thing if you enjoy not losing wars, and that\'s a benefit that the Allies had in no small part to Leo Major\'s raging iron ballsack.</p>\r\n<p>Helping out the intel cause one bullet at a time was great and all, so about a week later Major went out and pissed off a squad of battle-hardened badass SS soldiers.&nbsp; Sure, the SS were the most elite force the Nazis could field, but Major still smoked all eight of them.&nbsp; Unfortunately right as the last guy was getting ready to eat it he chucked a phosphorous grenade that blew up in Leo\'s face, covering him with a very unpleasant coating of burning-hot liquid.&nbsp; Major lost all vision in his right eye, but when the Allied docs told him to pack up and head home, this German-smiting asskicker demanded to stay on the front.&nbsp; He argued, in true badass fashion, that as long as he had one eye to look into the scope of his rifle he was still capable of serving his country.&nbsp; From that point on, Leo Major went into battle with an eyepatch on his right eye, which is a detail that is so awesome I think I may have just crapped. Oh, and just in case Nazi-killing pirate snipers still aren\'t tough enough for you somehow, Major also refused evacuation a few years later when his APC drove over a landmine and he broke his back in a couple places.&nbsp; Even something as ridiculous as a fractured spine didn\'t stop this maniac from finishing out the war, going out to fight in another one, and winning bravery medals in both.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leomajor5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Artist\'s interpretation</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Major\'s first larger-than-life action came during the Battle of the Scheldt in the Netherlands in late 1944.&nbsp; Major and his best friend (a lumberjack named Willy, because when you\'re a hardcore Canadian you\'re more or less obligated to be best friends with a lumberjack commando) went out to scout a town and figure out what the hell happened to a company of Canadian infantry that had failed to return from a reconnaissance mission.&nbsp; Major went into the town, discovered that the company had been captured, and then single-handedly captured the entire enemy garrison by running up and down guard posts jamming his rifle in peoples\' faces and screaming at them.&nbsp; He returned to the Allied camp with 93 German prisoners in tow.&nbsp; Because this was so insane, the British high command offered him a Distinguished Conduct Medal, but Leo told them to get bent and shove the medal up their asses.&nbsp; In Major\'s opinion, Allied High Command General Bernard Montgomery was such an incompetent dickbrain that he wasn\'t qualified to be giving medals out to anyone, and any award issued by him was about as worthless as he was.&nbsp; Try to keep in mind, now, that this is a Private talking about the most senior officer in his army.&nbsp; Say what you\'d like about maintaining respect for the chain of command, but this takes some giant balls.</p>\r\n<p>Luckily for Democracy, the Canadian high command didn\'t see fit to reprimand this guy for his not so subtle diss of Monty, and their decision ended up paying off in one of the most balls-out one-man battles ever fought &ndash; the single-handed capture of the Dutch town of Zwolle by Private Leo Major and his implacable rage.</p>\r\n<p>One quiet night in 1945 Major and his buddy were sent out to do some recon in the Nazi-occupied town of Zwolle, report back on enemy numbers, and maybe establish contact with the Dutch resistance.&nbsp; Sadly, not long into the mission, Willy the Lumberjack was cheap-shotted and killed by a German machine gun.&nbsp; This set off one of the most epic blood rages ever recorded.&nbsp; Leo Major completely flipped his shit, strapped three machine guns onto his back, grabbed a huge sack of hand grenades, and charged into the quiet town with his guns and weapons blazing.&nbsp; Leo ran around like a berserker madman, creating such a clusterfuck of explosions, fires, and dead bodies that the German garrison was convinced that they were fighting a vastly superior force.&nbsp; During his mad rampage of Nazi destruction, this one-eyed juggernaut kicked in the door of an SS officer\'s club, kiled four high-ranking enemy commanders in a firefight, and then went and ran out and burned down the local headquarters of the Gestapo.&nbsp; By the time the sun rose on Zwolle the next morning, the entire German garrison had evacuated and the town was returned to Dutch control.&nbsp; To this day Leo Major is still remembered as the sole savior of Zwolle, an honor that kind of blows my mind a little.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leomajor3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Major would deservedly receive his first DCM for the insanity at Zwolle, but the second one would come a decade later and halfway around the world, during the fighting in the Korean conflict.&nbsp; Major, who by this time had graciously been promoted to Corporal, was sent to infiltrate a key hill that had just been captured from the Americans by a huge force of nearly forty thousand Chinese soldiers.&nbsp; Major snuck in with 19 other French Canadian hardasses, set up fortifications, and &ndash; for whatever reason &ndash; decided to open fire on the Chinese. In a massive battle that lasted for three days and nights, Leo Major and his 20-man platoon somehow captured the hill and held off desperate counterattacks by two full divisions of the Chinese army.&nbsp; Major was right in the middle of the whole thing, pumping up his men and calling mortar fire down mere feet from his position to ensure maximum detonation of his enemies.&nbsp; That\'s some stone-cold shit right there, but at this point we know it to be par for the course for this guy.</p>\r\n<p>Leo Major died in 2008, but nowadays he is fondly remembered as a hero to Canadians, Dutch, and pretty much anybody who\'s a fan of guys in eyepatches that kick their enemies in the groin as hard as possible whenever the opportunity presents itself.&nbsp; His old unit now offers a yearly award in his name to the toughest company in the regiment, and the people of Zwolle continue to teach him in their public school curriculum.&nbsp; There\'s also a constellation named after him, but there\'s a slight chance that may have been around first.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leomajor1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"I fought the war with only one eye, and I did pretty good.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.thejanuscenter.com/heroworkshop/heromajor.htm\">An Article Written by His Son<br /><br /> </a><a href=\"http://www.theheroconstructioncompany.com/main/Hero_Gallery/Entries/2009/10/4_Le%CC%81o_Major.html\">Hero Construction Company</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.kvacanada.com/stories_trfleo.htm\">Leo Major, DCM and BAR</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94\">Ottowa Citizen Article</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Major\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2010-02-26','8548116863','leomajor.jpg','leomajor1.jpg','Leo Major','One-man Canadian wrecking crew during WWII.',''),('Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak','August 18, 1921','August 1, 1943','Moscow, USSR','WWII Russian Pilot','<p>If there\'s one thing that the Soviet Air Force is famous for, it\'s getting shot out of the sky and careening to earth in a fiery inferno. It\'s no secret that the Russkies were plagued with their fair share of inexperienced pilots, insufficient combat training, and substandard equipment, particularly in the early years of the Second World War, but from <a href=\"http://www.acesofww2.com/germany/Germany.htm\">Erich Hartmann</a> and <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara.html\">Hiromichi Shinohara</a> to pretty much every 1980s military action movie ever made, if you didn\'t know better you\'d get the idea that you couldn\'t release a weather balloon into the atmosphere without accidentally bringing down a MiG or two in the process.</p>\r\n<p>It\'s beyond the scope of this article to debate the operational combat history of the Soviet Union\'s air forces, but I do mention this because it may come as somewhat of a surprise to you that the top-scoring female fighter pilot in history was out there flying the unfriendly skies and shredding Fascist fuselages in the name of the Motherland. Lydia Litvak, the \"White Rose of Stalingrad\" (she is sometimes referred to as the \"White Lilly\" as well, but I\'m not going to argue semantics here), was out there testing her mettle against some of the most well-trained, battle-hardened, and highest-scoring fighter pilots to ever strap themselves into a cockpit, and spent some of the most critical moments of World War II making all of them her bitch.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/litvak6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Whenever we go to cool-ass war museums, most uneducated rubes like myself look at all the shiny knobs, gauges, and levers in a fighter cockpit and think to themselves, \"how the hell are you supposed to make any goddamned sense out of this insanity?\" I generally have trouble successfully operating the twelve buttons and two sticks on my Xbox controller in a way that doesn\'t get the Master Chief killed once every eight seconds, so with all the shit you\'ve got going on in the pilot\'s seat of a fighter plan it probably goes without saying that you don\'t just sit down in front of the flight stick and suddenly turn into the Danica Patrick of aeronautical bloodshed. That shit takes work.</p>\r\n<p>Growing up in Moscow, Lydia Litvak always knew she wanted to fly, and she wasn\'t going to fuck around with big dreams when she could have been out there doing awesome barrel rolls and finding out what happens when you barf while pulling a half-dozen Gs &ndash; she just went balls-out (in a manner of speaking), learned to pilot a prop plane by age fifteen, and was a flight instructor within three years. The same day that she heard our old pal Adolph Hitler had double-crossed Uncle Joe and invaded Russia in 1941, she was standing outside the military recruiting office looking to fly combat missions for the Soviet air force. The guy behind the counter told her that she wasn\'t eligible because she hadn\'t logged over 1,000 hours of flight time in her short, five-year career as a pilot, so she thanked the guy, walked up the street to the next recruiting office, filled out her paperwork, and put \"1,000\" in the box asking how many hours of flight time she\'d logged in her career. Next thing you know, she was shipped out to boot camp.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/litvak2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After a pretty intensive-yet-short training camp, Lydia was assigned to a men\'s squadron, where she took her Yak-1 fighter into battle against a sea of pissed-off German warplanes in the skies above the raging battle of Stalingrad. The guys in Lydia\'s unit weren\'t super-keep on having some girlie flying around with her, but it wasn\'t long before the asskicking Amazonian ship-wrecker would prove herself to the point where pretty much every guy out there was like, \"you can be my wingman any time.\"</p>\r\n<p>It only took Lydia Litvyak two combat missions to score her first kill, shooting down a German Junkers Ju-88 bomber and becoming the first woman in military history to ever score a solo aerial victory in combat. About ten minutes later she became the first woman in military history to score <em>two</em> aerial victories, when she outdueled a badass motherfucker who oh yeah just so happened to be an eleven-kill fighter ace and a recipient of the Iron Cross. When this proud German officer was captured by the Russkies, he demanded to meet the pilot who finally took him out of action. Lydia walked up to him and stared him in the eyes, and of course this guy\'s first thought was that the Communists were fucking with him and being total dicks by playing some joke on him. It wasn\'t until Lydia described the entire dogfight turn-for-turn that this guy\'s mind was completely blown. Since he\'d been completely pwnd out of hand by this chick, he got really pumped and offered her the super-expensive gold watch he always wore around his wrist. Lydia didn\'t even look at it. She kept her gaze straight in the dude\'s eyes and calmly said, \"I do not accept gifts from my enemies.\" Then she got so pissed that she went out the very next day and shot down another German fighter plane.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/litvak3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For the next year, the White Rose of Stalingrad ignited enemy fuselages up and down the Eastern Front. She was transferred to a Guards Regiment, the elite of the Soviet military, and flew as a Junior Lieutenant and Flight Commander in the recently-established all-female 586th Fighter Air Regiment. She flew bomber escorts, attack missions, and was so ridiculously awesome that she was given a James Bond license to kill at will &ndash; she was assigned \"Free Hunter\" status, meaning that she was free to go balls-out into enemy airspace without orders to do so. Over that year she flew 66 combat missions, sometimes four or five a day, including one attack when she busted through a gauntlet of AA guns and fighters to shoot down an observation balloon that was fucking with the Red Army and helping Nazi artillery range their shells on Russian positions outside Stalingrad. So fuck those guys. She notched twelve solo kills &ndash; the most of any woman ever &ndash; and had four or five more assisted kills. Basically, she kicked some Fascist ass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/litvak4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It should also be mentioned that she was flying a Yakolev Yak-1 for most of her combat actions. I was hoping to be able to put some paragraph in here about how the Yak-1 was a piece of shit that was about as maneuverable as the name \"Yak\" would imply, but looking through some research it doesn\'t seem like this is the case. It was, however, an unreliable plane that had a lower ceiling and was more lightly-armed than the Me-109s the Germans were flying, and looking at the kill totals of some of the German aces should give you some idea that when you were dealing with one-on-one attacks, the Soviet airmen and airwomen were definitely the underdogs.</p>\r\n<p>Eventually, Lydia\'s luck ran out. In 1943, after an intense battle, the hardcore 21-year-old ace was last seen busting through enemy airspace and hauling ass towards the horizon being chased after by eight German fighter planes. One of only two female fighter aces in history (the other, Katya Budanova, was Lydia\'s wingman and was killed just a month before Litvyak &ndash; the two of them combined for 23 of the 38 confirmed kills of the 586th Fighter Regiment), Lydia Litvyak was never heard from again. Her body was eventually recovered in 1989, and she was posthumously awarded honors as a Heroine of the Soviet Union &ndash; the highest military award for bravery offered by the USSR.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/litvak5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Litvyak\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/litvak/litvak.htm\" target=\"blank\">Litvyak</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Noggle, Anne.&nbsp; A Dance with Death.&nbsp; Texas A&amp;M University Press, 2002.<br /><br /> Pennington, Reina and John Erickson.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Wings, Women, and War</span>.&nbsp; University of Kansas, 2007.<br /><br /> Sakaida, Henry.&nbsp; Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-1945.&nbsp; Osprey, 2003.<br /><br /> Strebe, Amy Goodpaster.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Flying for Her Country</span>.&nbsp; Greenwood, 2007. </span></p>','2010-02-19','32366216904','litvak.jpg','litvak1.jpg','Lydia Litvyak','The highest-scoring female fighter ace ever.',''),('The Polish Hussars','Early 15th Century','N/A','Poland','15th-century Polish Soldier','<p>Invariably, whenever most people talk about the military prowess of the Polish cavalry, some joker busts out with some intelligent, well-constructed argument that vaguely resembles something along the order of <span>\"YA RITE HOW BOUT CHARGIN NAZI TANKS W HORSIES FTW LOLOLOL OMG I&rdquo;M HILARIOUS SOMEBODY LOVE ME PLS\"</span>.&nbsp; Well not only are the wild claims of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty\">that infamous engagement</a> dubious at best, but it\'s time that the Polish cavalry &ndash; and particularly the Winged Hussars &ndash; get appropriately recognized as one of the most eye-skeweringly hardcore associations of asskickers ever assembled.&nbsp; These daring, brave, unabashedly-feathered badasses crushed throats up and down Europe for two centuries, annihilating battle-tested armies three times their size with nothing more than a huge-ass lance, an awesome set of ultra-cool wings, and a gym bag full of iron-plated armor ballsacks.</p>\r\n<p>The hussars as we know them first show up on the scene in the early 16th century as part of a hammer-smashing army of stone-cold motherfuckers under the Hungarian King Stefan Bathory.&nbsp; Bathory (who fought the Turks alongside Vlad the Impaler and was an ancestor of the infamous virgin-cidal blood countess and psychopath Elizabeth Bathory), basically levied the cavalry force by conscripting one out of every twenty Polish and Lithuanian peasants to strap on a pair of wings and a suit of heavy armor and start piercing the faces of anyone stupid enough to step to Eastern Europe.&nbsp; Over the next two hundred years, these ordinary dudes morphed into a ten-ton anvil of pointy justice that would go up against some of the toughest armies the world had to offer and completely fuck them inside out.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hussars2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>I\'M IN UR TOWN TORCHIN UR HUTS</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The combat record of the Winged Hussars stands for itself.&nbsp; In 1577 a massive charge of this ultra-heavy cavalry unit smashed a German army from Danzig, blitzing into the teeth of a 12,000 man force and crushing them until all that remained was a well-trampled patch of red where the enemy army once used to be.&nbsp; Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth losses in the battle totaled about 88 men, and most of those clowns weren\'t even Hussars.&nbsp; In 1601, a thousand Hussars defeated a Swedish cavalry force four times that size.&nbsp; At the Battle of Kircholm four years later, the Hussars (whose commanders\' completely badass motto was \"Kill First, Calculate Later\"), sent 1,000 lancers in a charge against 11,000 Swedish infantrymen and cannons for some reason, and incredibly, despite the ridiculous idiocy of sending your elite troops on such an impossible mission, the friggin\' Hussars jammed their poles <span>(OMG AWESOME PUN FTW)</span> into anything they could find and not only emerged victorious, but utterly slaughtered their opponents army, hacking the broken infantry units into giblets as they fled the field.&nbsp; Amazingly, that wasn\'t even the most impressive shit this mobile last stand accomplished in its proud heritage as the Commonwealth\'s premier exporter of busted-up faces.&nbsp; At the Battle of Klushino in 1610, the Hussars were outnumbered ten to one, and still somehow came out on top, utterly annihilating an army of 40,000 Swedes and Russians with just 4,000 lancers.</p>\r\n<p>What might be even more awesome then the Winged Hussars\' much-deserved reputation as seemingly-invincible shit-wreckers is their completely over-the-top awesome battle gear.&nbsp; These guys went with the heaviest armor they could find, decking themselves out in fully-articulated plate mail at a time when most European armies were switching away from breastplates and over to firearms, but these ferocious warriors didn\'t even give a crap about rushing at state-of-the-art muskets with hand-to-hand combat weapons.&nbsp; Their primary implement of facial demolition was a lightweight (yet still completely insane) 19-foot lance capable of outreaching even the most well-endowed infantry spear hedges, and after they splintered that up the asses of their foes, the Hussars could fall back on pistols, a dagger, and one of two different types of swords.&nbsp; Why they needed two different swords is beyond the scope of my knowledge, but I\'m pretty sure that I support it.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hussars5.bmp\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While the badass weaponry and armor was unquestionably utilitarian, the Winged Hussars also went that extra mile to ensure that they were armor-crappingly terrifying while charging ahead in perfect formation.&nbsp; Their armor was burnished and well-polished so that it gleamed in the sunlight (most Renaissance-era knights preferred black armor because it was more resistant to rust), they wore brightly-colored heraldry, and OH YEAH they also had giant-ass fucking wings strapped onto their backs.&nbsp; These wings, which were made of ostrich or eagle feathers glued onto wooden frames that arched up and over the back, made an insane whistling noise while the Hussars were charging, completely unsettling, terrifying, and overawing the enemy in the brief moments between when they said, \"holy shit WTF\" and when they had a kebab skewer jammed into their eye sockets at about a hundred and twenty miles per hour.&nbsp; Some of the Hussars also used to up the \"wow factor\" by stuffing severed heads down the tips of their weapons and charging into battle with a lance-full of heads, which sounds pretty gnarly.</p>\r\n<p>The hussars were also super-well-trained, capable of changing directions and altering their formations in mid-charge, and then plowing through their enemy, circling around, and hitting them again from the rear.&nbsp; In case you\'ve never seen footage of a well-executed cavalry charge before, this is kind of like the equine equivalent of the Blue Angels doing all of their trademark death-defying stunts while in the middle of a dogfight.&nbsp; I don\'t care who you are, this has to kind of fuck with your head a little.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hussars3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While they have a long and illustrious string of asskickings under their heavyweight championship belts, the Winged Hussars\' finest hour came during the epic Battle of Vienna in 1683, when the Ottoman Turkish armies were busting nuts across Eastern Europe looking to conquer all of Christendom.&nbsp; With the main body of the Holy Roman Imperial army completely surrounded and besieged by over 200,000 Turkish warriors, the badass Polish King Jan Sobieski led the single hugest and most balls-out cavalry charge in history.&nbsp; Their wings fluttering and zipping like creepy, spear-flinging birds of prey, three thousand Winged Hussars plowed into the Turkish force, driving them back, plundering their supply train, and driving the Turks from the field.&nbsp; It would be the furthest West the Ottoman Empire would ever advance, and it was the Poles who had finally stuffed them like Shaq blocking a layup attempt by Verne Troyer.&nbsp; Honorable mention during the Battle of Vienna has to go to the Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, who personally charged out to try and help his men, fought in hand-to-hand combat even after his entire bodyguard was annihilated, and only escaped after saving the Holy Banner that once belonged to the Prophet Muhammad from falling into Christian hands.&nbsp; Mustafa was rewarded for his heroism by having his head chopped off and delivered to the Sultan in a velvet bag, but what can you do - there\'s just no pleasing Sultans sometimes, especially when you\'ve just let three thousand Polish Hussars completely rout a force roughly a hundred times larger than them.</p>\r\n<p>They just didn\'t realize that this is how the Winged Hussars rolled.&nbsp; These guys were nuts &ndash; they never backed down from a fight, always went completely balls-out all of the time, and looked at ten-to-one as an exciting challenge rather than a suicide charge.&nbsp; Total insantiy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hussars4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.jasinski.co.uk/wojna/index.htm\">Polish Renaissance Military</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/EastEurope/ViennaSiege.html\">Siege of Vienna 1683</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_Hussars\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Brzezinski, Richard.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Polish Armies 1569-1696</span>.&nbsp; Osprey, 1987.<br /><br /> Brzezinski, Richard.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Polish Winged Hussar 1576-1775</span>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2006.<br /><br /> Davies, Norman.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">God\'s Playground</span>.&nbsp; Columbia University Press, 1982.<br /><br /> Dennis, Peter.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Vienna 1683</span>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2008. </span></p>','2010-02-12','55690916930','hussars.jpg','hussars1.jpg','The Winged Hussars','One of the most feared cavalry regiments of all time.','\"It is chivalry that has no equal in the world;\r\nwithout seeing it with your own eyes,\r\nits vigor and splendor is impossible to imagine.\"');
INSERT INTO `weekly` VALUES ('Marcus Luttrell','November 7, 1975','N/A','Huntsville, TX, USA','21st-century American Commando','<p>U.S. Navy SEALs are badass.&nbsp; That\'s a given.&nbsp; The fact that one of the world\'s most elite special forces units is crammed full of grizzled, bare-knuckled face-wreckers who are harder than battleship hulls and so over-the-top hardcore that they floss their teeth with chainsaws isn\'t going to provoke a whole lot of debate among people who aren\'t complete douche-heads.&nbsp; It\'s an established law so incontrovertible that if you were writing one of those bullshit research papers that make you use half a page of footnotes every two sentences, you could easily print the first line of this article without any kind of attributable reference and your professor would just shrug and be like, \"Well you really don\'t need to cite things that are <a href=\"http://www.yale.edu/bass/writing/sources/plagiarism/common.html\">common knowledge</a>\".&nbsp; It\'s like I almost feel like I\'m insulting your intelligence simply by implying that \"SEALs are badass\" is a statement that warrants being put into print.</p>\r\n<p>So why do I even bring it up?&nbsp; It\'s certainly not because I secretly think you are all lumped in with the afore-mentioned complete douche-heads (as a reader of this website, a certain level of classiness and non-douchery can be assumed of you);&nbsp; it\'s because when a guy makes a name for himself as a hardcore, tough-as-hell war hero in an organization where shanking terrorist dictators, disarming tactical nuclear warheads, and infiltrating maximum-security military facilities are about as mundane as typing up TPS reports or successfully using a stapler without injuring yourself, people tend to take notice.</p>\r\n<p>On June 28, 2005, Marcus Luttrell and three other SEAL Team operators fast-roped into the Hindu-Kush Mountains of Afghanistan as part of Operation Redwing.&nbsp; This small, mobile, four-man special reconnaissance team was tasked with quickly moving through difficult, oxygen-deficient terrain 10,000 feet above sea level, tracking down a local Afghan warlord who had aligned himself with the Taliban, and doing something to him that he probably wasn\'t going to enjoy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/luttrell1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>SEAL Team 10.&nbsp; You really wouldn\'t want these guys hunting you down.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>No problem.&nbsp; It\'s not like this was a huge deal to these battle-hardened asskickers - Luttrell himself was a Texas horse rancher who\'d been in the SEALs since 1999, and by this point he\'d already seen action in Baghdad, Afghanistan, and probably a hundred other operations that he\'s never going to be allowed to talk about, and snatching one guy and punching his head through a brick wall was the sort of thing these guys did when they were done tying their boots in the morning but before they\'ve had their second cup of coffee.</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately, this time things were going to be a little different.&nbsp; Not long after roping in, the team encountered a group of local shepherds.&nbsp; The locals recognized the SEALs as American soldiers, which is kind of a problem when you\'re trying to travel undetected through the countryside, but the SEALs wanted to check it out before just scrubbing the mission.&nbsp; After talking with the locals for a while the SEALs determined that these guys seemed relatively harmless, so Luttrell and his buddies opted not to completely smoke them with automatic weapons fire and leave behind a pile of corpses.&nbsp; There are some folks who look back on this encounter and think that that maybe releasing these shepherds from custody was a mistake, but personally I\'d assume that if you\'re on the fence about whether or not to shoot a civilian in the face, it\'s probably best to air on the side of not actually killing them.&nbsp; Then again, I hardly claim to be an expert on the subject of international diplomacy.&nbsp; I just know that it\'s always easier to second-guess shit after you already know what the outcome is going to be, so cut the guy a break.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/luttrell2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The shepherds were released to go about their business, and we\'re fairly certain that their business was to immediately go out and inform the warlord that there was a team of badass Navy SEALs running around the mountains with grenade launchers getting ready to pummel the fuck out of him and all of his buddies.&nbsp; Armed with the knowledge of his impending doom, the warlord set a trap.&nbsp; When SEAL Team 10 entered a particularly nasty ravine, they were ambushed and bombarded on three sides by a heavily-armed forces of somewhere in the vicinity of 50 to 200 guys armed with machine guns, assault rifles, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.&nbsp; I know that it\'s kind of a huge variable between fifty and two hundred, but when you\'ve got four dudes in an exposed position flanked on both sides by fighters who have an elevation, position, and concealment advantage on you, it doesn\'t really make a huge difference if you\'re outnumbered twelve-to-one or fifty-to-one.&nbsp; Either way, it ain\'t good.</p>\r\n<p>But these guys weren\'t just some chump <a href=\"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mooks\">mooks</a> &ndash; they were United States Navy SEALs, and they weren\'t just going to throw down their weapons and start hyperventilating into paper bags simply because they were in a hopeless situation against an impossibly-huge enemy force.&nbsp; In a tactical clusterfuck of a situation that would have seen lesser squads annihilated in about fifteen to twenty seconds, the SEALs immediately began a fighting withdrawal that would stretch out for over two hours.&nbsp; Moving from rock to rock, attacking the horde of assailants, and laying down covering fire, the team moved deeper down the ravine, sometimes jumping down 20 or 30-foot cliffs to try to get out of the kill zone.</p>\r\n<p>Tragically, there was nothing that could be done to escape the gunfire.&nbsp; The team leader, Lieutenant Michael Murphy, was heroically able to get to elevation (exposing himself in full view of the enemy to get a usable radio signal &ndash; an act of self-sacrifice that would earn him the Medal of Honor) and call for extraction, but the daring attempt to fly in a rescue chopper failed when a surface-to-air missile hit the bird, killing all 16 men on board.&nbsp; After an epic battle the team was annihilated, and the SEALs suffered their bloodiest day of fighting since Vietnam.&nbsp; Luttrell was shot in the leg, then hit with an RPG and blown off a cliff.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/luttrell3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>This is the sort of terrain the SEALs were dealing with.<br />Try to imagine running through this with full battle gear and a bullet in your leg while being shot at with rockets.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But amazingly, amidst all the chaos and destruction, Marcus Luttrell didn\'t die.&nbsp; Concussed, bleeding, dehydrated, and exhausted, with three broken vertebrae, a bullet in one leg, and a shitload of burning-hot shrapnel in the other, the seemingly-unkillable SEAL awoke to find himself alone, in relatively-unfamiliar territory deep behind enemy lines, and without any hope of timely extraction, resupply, or medical attention.</p>\r\n<p>Not like that stopped him.</p>\r\n<p>As I alluded to earlier, it takes a certain sort of guy to become a Navy SEAL.&nbsp; These elite warriors only have two levels of combat readiness:&nbsp; balls-out and KIA, and the only way these guys stop ripping peoples\' throats out is if they\'re physically incapable of grabbing and/or ripping, or else unable to find and effectively utilize some sort of throat-grabbing-and-ripping device.&nbsp; So, Marcus Luttrell, having just spent the past two hours in constant high-intensity combat and suffering from serious wounds so jacked-up that it would pretty much have killed 99% of the population of humanity, somehow willed himself to his feet and started moving.&nbsp; For seven miles this unstoppable juggernaut of pain tolerance walked on two busted legs and a broken back, while still evading the enemy and not drawing attention to himself.&nbsp; At one point he even jumped into a pond and the warlord and his men walked right past him as they combed the countryside searching for the body of the missing American soldier.&nbsp; Shit, I was complaning this morning about having to walk up six flights of stairs to my office when the elevator went out, and this guy is gimping seven miles through rocky high-altitude terrain while guys are trying to hunt him down and murder him.&nbsp; Insanity.</p>\r\n<p>After nearly a day of crawling, walking, hiding, and dragging himself along with some crazy Jedi Knight mind-over-matter shit, Luttrell made contact with a local Pashtun villager.&nbsp; The villager was a totally stand-up dude, and he brought Luttrell back to his small hut, where the SEAL, who\'s MOS was Navy Corpsman, started treating his own wounds with the sparse supplies available in his first-aid kit.&nbsp; For three more days he rehabilitated in the Pashtun village, still trying to avoid detection.&nbsp; At one point, the fucking warlord Luttrell had been searching for came right up to the home of the villager and demanded he hand over the American, but the guy was somehow able to tell this warlord to get bent and piss off.&nbsp; Everyone shit a brick when word came back to a nearby Marine base that Luttrell (who at this point was listed MIA &ndash; Presumed Dead) was alive.&nbsp; An operation was sent in to extract him, and on July 2 &ndash; four days after his drop-off &ndash; Marcus Luttrell was able to get the medical attention he very badly needed.</p>\r\n<p>This story is so hardcore that I kind of expect my monitor to start growing chest hair any moment now.&nbsp; Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL badass, had survived a four-against-the-world gunfight, willed himself through grievous wounds, and continued to not die no matter how much bullshit and ammunition was thrown at him.&nbsp; He returned home, wrote his memoirs, became a best-selling author, donated a buttload of money to help military families, received the Navy Cross, and actually even went back to serve another tour of duty.&nbsp; After retiring from the military he also broke up a ring of teenage punks who were driving around Texas shooting dogs for no good reason &ndash; Luttrell caught them in the act, called 911, and relayed their location to the police while he followed them in his truck on a high-speed through three counties.&nbsp; When the puppy-kicking dirtbags were finally nabbed by the fuzz, they started talking trash to Marcus about how they were going to kick his ass when they got out of prison.&nbsp; Marcus calmly informed those punks that he could easily kill them 600 different ways without even breaking a sweat, and from a dude like this those typically aren\'t just idle threats and bravado.&nbsp; I know I wouldn\'t try it if I were them.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/luttrell4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>Epilogue:&nbsp; Two years after Operation Redwing, the Afghan warlord was killed in a gunfight with Pakistani police.&nbsp; I guess he wasn\'t as gangsta as he wanted everyone to think he was.</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/books/09seal.html\">New York Times</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Luttrell\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Wing\">Operation Red Wing</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Bahmanyar, Mir, and Chris Osman.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">SEALs: The US Navy\'s Elite Fighting Force</span>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2008.<br /><br /> Darack, Ed.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Victory Point</span>.&nbsp; Penguin, 2009.<br /><br /> Luttrell, Marcus, and Patrick Robinson.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Lone Survivor</span>.&nbsp; Little, Brown and Co., 2007. </span></p>','2010-02-05','225916017013','luttrell1.jpg','luttrell.jpg','Marcus Luttrell','Lone survivor of one of the bloodiest days in the history of the SEALs.',''),('Toyotomi Hideyoshi','March 26, 1537','September 18, 1598','Nakamura-ku, Nagoya Prefecture, Japan','16th-century Japanese Samurai','<p>Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a poor peasant\'s son who fought as a nose-in-the-trenches grunt in a strict, regimented, class-driven militaristic society that valued family honor and noble lineage above all things.&nbsp; Despite his inauspicious roots and lack of a recognizeable last name, this guy not only excelled at the art of war, but rose to the point where he became the <em>de facto</em> ruler of one of the most powerful industrialized military empires on the planet, the supreme commander of the Japanese army, and one of the most face-melting samurai warriors of all time.</p>\r\n<p>That\'s so completely over-the-top insane that I can\'t even think of an analogy absurd enough to compare it to.</p>\r\n<p>Hideyoshi was born in 1537 to some average Joe nobody who either worked as a woodcutter, an infantryman, a farmer, or some wacky metaphysical combination of those three professions.&nbsp; It\'s not really important in the grand scheme of things, because poor pops was toast by the time Hideyoshi was just thirteen, leaving this young peasant boy out on his ass to figure out what the hell he was going to do with his life.&nbsp; Hideyoshi tried his hand at entering a Buddhist temple, but xtreme head-shaving monkery really wasn\'t this guy\'s bag, and he quickly decided it would be far more lucrative to give up the simple life of monasticismness and go off to join a merry band of cutthroat murderous bandit thieves.&nbsp; Hideyoshi tooled around the countryside harassing innocent bystanders, robbing folks, punching old ladies, and generally being a bastard-faced blight on society, but eventually even that got boring as well.&nbsp; Fed up with kicking over strollers and shaking down laundromats, young Toyotomi tried his hand at being a blacksmith, a leatherworker, a wood carver, a fast-food fry technician, and pretty much every other job available to someone of his lineage.&nbsp; Nothing was really working out for him.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hideyoshi7.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>I was going to find some funny Demotivator about how much work sucks,<br />but after I saw this I just stopped looking.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>During his adventures wandering the Japanese country in search of a paycheck and a job that didn\'t completely lick Minotaur balls on fire, Hideyoshi somehow found employment as something called a \"sandal-bearer\" in the service of a soon-to-be-notorious feudal lord named Oda Nobunaga.&nbsp; Now I\'m not entirely certain what exactly a \"sandal-bearer\" was actually responsible for in his day-to-day work (it seems pretty self-explanatory, but then again so does \"Electronic Warfare Specialist\" - and apparently that job has absolutely NOTHING to do with being really good at <em>Call of Duty</em> or <em>Command &amp; Conquer</em>) but it\'s probably safe to say that this guy wasn\'t necessarily responsible for charging head-first into battle and single-handedly capturing enemy castles with nothing more than a <em>Wakizashi</em> and a really hard boner.&nbsp; I don\'t know, it just seems like there\'s no real way you can interpret the words \"bearing\" or \"sandals\" to make that job sound cool or interesting or not-utterly-soulcrushing.&nbsp; Still, Hideyoshi was sick of the nine-to-five bullshit he\'d beeing going through, and he dedicated himself to serving bravely and honorably in any capacity that he could.&nbsp; It paid off big time.</p>\r\n<p>Oda Nobunaga was a hardcore guy who knew a good badass when he saw one.&nbsp; Oda was quite the blood-spewing juggernaut himself (you can rest assured that I will be giving him his due diligence on this website at some point down the line) and it he took note of Hideyoshi\'s surprising balls-out attitude almost immediately.&nbsp; Initially, T-Hizzle he was lined up with those faceless soon-to-be-dead mooks that <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hideyoshi-musou.jpg\">stand around like dumbasses in KOEI games</a> trying to look vaguely menacing but honstely not really actually doing anything substantial, but it\'s obvious he didn\'t belong there.&nbsp; Hideyoshi\'s innate ability to forcibly kick ballsack sent him on the fast-track up the command structure, and time after time he prevailaed against superior forces using only his military tactical genius and his ability to kill lots of people when they least espect it.&nbsp; Like, one time this guy led a small group of badass Special Forces samurai asskickers up the side of Mount Inaba in the middle of the night to attack a heavily-defended castle from an unprotected side, and another time he crushed a besieged enemy army by having his soldiers re-route a river so that it flooded their fortress and drowned everybody inside.&nbsp; Shit like that gets you noticed, especially when you\'re working for a guy who\'s hatefully referred to across Japan as \"The Demon King\".</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hideyoshi.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Toyotomi enjoying a moment of barefoot rock-climbing before slicing someone\'s face in half longways.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Toyotomi Hideyoshi would go on to serve Nobunaga for 24 years, rising through the ranks from sandal-bearing boot-licker to a Corps Commander who took those sandals, put Grizzly Bears in them, and then rammed them up his enemies\' assholes.&nbsp; He and Nobunaga partied hard, smashed the balls off of a bunch of puny little city-state militias, and slowly but brutally unified the fragmented prefectures of Japan into one cohesive militaristic ass-kicking empire.&nbsp; Things went somewhat downhill in 1582 when Nobunaga was betrayed, sneak-attacked, and sworded to death by one of his own trusted generals, which bit.&nbsp; Apparently some dickmonger named Akechi Mitsuhideo was all pissed off or something just because the Demon King had ordered the dude\'s parents executed for treason or douchery or something along those lines, but I don\'t really get it, honestly.</p>\r\n<p>Whatever the stupid reason behind this betrayal, however justified or otherwise, Hideyoshi wasn\'t about to let that shit go down on his watch.&nbsp; As soon as this righteous typhoon of pointiness heard word that Nobunaga had been assassinated, he launched a full-on attack at the castle he was besieging, captured it in two days, pulled a 180-degree handbrake turn, and hauled ass after Akechi Mitsuhide and bloody, bloody vengeance.&nbsp; Despite the pit stop to crush his enemies, Hideyoshi STILL managed to catch Akechi before he\'d even been able to make his escape.&nbsp; Within seven days of Nobunaga\'s assassination, Akechi was dead at Hideyoshi\'s feet.&nbsp; Toyotomi personally presented the decapitated head of the traitorous general as part of his master\'s funeral procession.&nbsp; That is fucking awesome.</p>\r\n<p>After a brief power struggle, Toyotomi Hideyoshi took over as the full-on commander of Nobunaga\'s army.&nbsp; By this point the Demon King had already captured a third of Japan, and had the military forces in place to complete the conquest, and Hideyoshi spent the next eight years slicing more faces than a Los Angeles county certified plastic surgeon.&nbsp; By 1590 he had conquered the entire country, and forcibly pacified all opposition.&nbsp; And of course when historians say \"pacified\", they mean \"he impaled them with a <em>katana</em> or two until they were no longer breathing.\"</p>\r\n<p>Hideyoshi ruled as supreme totalitarian dictator of Japan from 1590 until his death in 1598.&nbsp; Though his official title was something sort-of lame, like \"Grand Master of State\", he was basically the guy in charge.&nbsp; As they say, he had all the arquebuses, so he made the rules, and the figurehead Emperor and Shogun basically had no choice but to agree with whatever crazy bullshit Hideyoshi wanted to attempt.&nbsp; It was at this time that Hideyoshi changed his first name to Toyotomi, which means \"Bountiful Minister\", because I guess when you\'re the presidente-por-vida you can do whatever the hell you want with your names and nobody\'s going to give you a hard time.&nbsp; It was definitely an improvement over his old name, Kinoshita, which means \"Under the Tree\" and is also an anagram for \"Shit in Oak\", so that\'s something.&nbsp; In somewhat more historically-significant news, Hideyoshi also re-defined the military and feudal hierarchy , established new systems of land surveying and taxation, set up a full-time army, and then cemented his position against any possible revolutions by confiscating every sword in the country that didn\'t belong to one of his professional soldiers.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hideyoshi3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Hideyoshi\'s rise from faceless grunt to the Will of the Emperor was pretty damn impressive, but like all good super-powerful megalomaniacs, later on in his career as a tyrant this guy kind of flipped his shit and became moderately-to-severely psycho.&nbsp; First he crucified a bunch of perfectly-good Jesuits for no reason at all, then he had his nephew\'s entire extended family &ndash; like 30 people &ndash; publicly executed and tossed into a pit labeled \"The Tomb of Traitors\", even though it wasn\'t really a tomb and there wasn\'t a lot of evidence to suggest that they were traitors.&nbsp; After that he unsuccessfully tried to invade Korea.&nbsp; Twice.&nbsp; His self-professed plan the second time was to stack up a giant pile of severed ears in the middle of downtown Kyoto, which is suppose is kind of amusing in a <em>Universal Soldier</em>-sort of way (I guess you\'d probably think it was less cool if you were Korean), but our old friend <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/admiralyi.html\">Yi Soon Shin</a> smashed the entire Japanese navy into flotsam with his nutbag and that was about the end of that.</p>\r\n<p>Despite the crippling boringness of his tax reforms and the failure to fulfill his dream of crushing Korea, conquering the Chinese Empire, and then eventually colonizing Alpha Centauri with samurai space cruisers and giant mecha robots, Toyotomi Hideyoshi is a pretty insane dude.&nbsp; This guy came from nothing, destroyed his enemies, conquered all of Japan, avenged his master\'s death, and then laid out the groundwork for a Shogunate that would control Japan for over three hundred years.&nbsp; Nowadays the Japanese regard him as one of their greatest historical heroes, and it\'s really tough to argue with them.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hideyoshi1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>BADASS FASHION SENSE FTW</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.samurai-archives.com/hideyoshi.html\" target=\"blank\">Samurai Archives</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://wsu.edu/%7Edee/TOKJAPAN/TOYOTOMI.HTM\" target=\"blank\">Toyotomi Hideyoshi</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyotomi_Hideyoshi\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_hd\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px solid #ffffff; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left; font: bold 12px/1em Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #cc0000; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff;\">Sources:</div>\r\n<div id=\"wdgt_brdr\" class=\"wdgt_brdr\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 328px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Hideyoshi-Harvard-East-Asian-Monographs/dp/0674390261/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yrZeBp41L._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Hideyoshi-Harvard-East-Asian-Monographs/dp/0674390261/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Hideyoshi (Harvard East Asian Monographs)</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Hideyoshi-Harvard-East-Asian-Monographs/dp/0674390261/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Mary Elizabeth Berry (Paperback - Jan 1, 1989)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 328px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Great-Leaders-Tyrants-Contemporary-History/dp/0313287511/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FHXPHPKHL._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"39\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Great-Leaders-Tyrants-Contemporary-History/dp/0313287511/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Great Leaders, Great Tyrants?: Contemporary &hellip;</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Great-Leaders-Tyrants-Contemporary-History/dp/0313287511/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"> (Hardcover - Jan 30, 1995)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 328px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Making-Modern-Japan-Marius-Jansen/dp/0674009916/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vt6g6afwL._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"57\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Making-Modern-Japan-Marius-Jansen/dp/0674009916/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">The Making of Modern Japan</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Making-Modern-Japan-Marius-Jansen/dp/0674009916/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Marius B. Jansen (Paperback - Oct 15, 2002)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 328px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Giants-Japan-Lives-Japans-Greatest/dp/1568363249/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51W30RHBA8L._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"58\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Giants-Japan-Lives-Japans-Greatest/dp/1568363249/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japan\'s Greatest &hellip;</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Giants-Japan-Lives-Japans-Greatest/dp/1568363249/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Weston (Paperback - Aug 16, 2002)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>','2010-01-29','192334517093','hideyoshi2.jpg','hideyoshi.jpg','Toyotomi Hideyoshi','Peasant-turned-samurai unified all of Japan under one ruler.',''),('Rabodoandrianampoinimerina ','1778','August 16, 1861','Ambatomanoina, Madagascar','19th-century Madagascarian Politician','<p>Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar wasn\'t known by the warm-and-cuddly nickname \"Ranavalona the Cruel\" for nothing.&nbsp; In fact, according to most of the (admittedly somewhat-unreliable) sources we have on this powerful African ruler, she generally tends to fall somewhere in the \"Vlad the Impaler\" quadrant of the spectrum between \"benevolent dictator\" and \"bloodthirsty oppressive tyrant who would be more likely to jam a sharpened toothpick in your eye than grant you one sentence\'s worth of freedom of speech\".&nbsp; Ruling a country that\'s nowadays more known for delicious vanilla beans and delightfully-wacky dancing CGI Disney characters than it is for vicious public executions and coastlines adorned with severed heads mounted on spiked poles, this exceedingly-violent Queen carved out a gruesome, badass reputation that would have many people today referring to her as the \"Female Caligula\".</p>\r\n<p>Ranavalona\'s birth name was Rabodoandrianampoinimerina, which is a ludicrously-long name that literally translates into roughly a paragraph of English text.&nbsp; She was daughter of a poor peasant, and illiterate for her entire life, but that last part is understandable considering that Madagascar didn\'t actually have a written language until a few years before she ascended to the throne so let\'s cut the lady a break.&nbsp; With little more than a life of poverty and hard, back-breaking labor ahead of her, Ranavalona caught kind of a sweet break when her father somehow managed to uncover a murder conspiracy aimed at assassinating King Andrianampoinimerinandriantsimitoviaminandriampanjaka (!!) and managed to warn the regent before his impending doom.&nbsp; The King was so happy that he wasn\'t going to die a bloody, premature death that he adopted Ranvalona into the royal family, marrying her off to the incredibly-boringly-named Prince Radama (only three syllables -- what a loser!).&nbsp; She was to be the first of his twelve wives, which I guess is the sort of honor that made a girl feel really good about herself back then.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ranavalona.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Radama took over as King after his dad retired, but he didn\'t last too long.&nbsp; Theories on Radama\'s untimely death range from syphilis to cirrhosis, but the safe money here is on Queen Ranavalona slipping him a few too many cyanide-laced sugar cubes in his morning tea.&nbsp; After Radama\'s sudden, untimely, and excruciatingly-painful demise in 1828 (he is said to have been in such head-searingly devastating agony that he cut his own throat to end his suffering), the power-hungry Queen sprung into action like a rocket-powered pogo stick of totalitarian authority.&nbsp; The rightful heir to the throne &ndash; Radama\'s brother &ndash; got all pissed and decided to take the crown and have Ranavalona executed, but she had spent her entire career in the royal palace making friends with powerful ministers, self-proclaimed sorcerers, and super-fundamental traditionalists, and the 46-year old tyrant was so firmly entrenched in her position that you couldn\'t dig her out with the <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow\">Bagger 288</a>.&nbsp; She seized the palace, garrisoned it with a powerful contingent of loyal warriors from her village, and had them kill the shit out of anyone who tried to enter the gates.</p>\r\n<p>Ranavalona already kind of hated her in-laws, but after she was in control she decided to go out of her way to make sure that no one - especially them - messed with her. First, she killed every member of the royal family that she could get her hands on, starting with the rightful heir to the throne and ending with some guy who knew a guy that used to be Facebook friends with the King\'s second cousin.&nbsp; It bears mentioning that it was considered bad form to spill royal blood, so these poor saps were usually either strangled to death or locked into a prison cell until they died of starvation.&nbsp; Both of these are equally shitty ways to go, but Ranavalona couldn\'t have given two craps about it as long as she eliminated any threat to her rule.&nbsp; In 1828, the 46-year old peasant girl was anointed with the blood of a freshly-slaughtered bull and coronated Queen and Supreme Ruler of Madagascar.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ranavalona4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now during this time in history, European Colonialism was in the early stages of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X\">getting its 4X on</a> with Madagascar.&nbsp; Ranavalona\'s power base was with traditionalists who hated this foreign expansion, and as soon as she took over she told every country in Europe that they could get fucked with a tetanus-encrusted pipe wrench.&nbsp; She expelled or destroyed all foreigners in her country, stripped all colonials of their titles, nullified all of Madagascar\'s treaties with Britain and France, and banned Christianity in favor of the traditional tribal religion.&nbsp; She also did away with the bullshit legal system, and brought back \"Trial by Ordeal\", where a person\'s guilt was judged not by logic and reason, but rather whether or not they threw up after drinking the super-poisonous juice of a particular indigenous plant.&nbsp; I think everyone will agree that this is crazy and/or awesome.</p>\r\n<p>The French of course got all pissed off about this, and launched an amphibious attack on the port city of Tamataye within a few months of Ranavalona seizing power.&nbsp; They made marginal gains against the Madagascarian defenders, and actually took control of the city at one point, but they were eventually turned back when most of their assault team was killed by a combination of gunshot wounds and malaria-infected mosquitoes.&nbsp; Both the French and the British would devote quite a bit of effort to ripping Ranavalona\'s face off, but nothing really proved successful.&nbsp; In 1835 a combined army landed at Tamataye once again, but they fared even worse against the entrenched defenders than the initial invaders.&nbsp; Ranavalona, being the good propaganda mistress that she was, cut off the heads of the slain Europeans, impaled them on pikes, and lined them up along the beach facing the ocean as a warning to anybody dumbshit enough to screw with her.&nbsp; After this little display of generosity, the Europeans decided they\'d just leave well enough alone and worry about conquest and colonial exploitation of resources until such time as there wasn\'t an insane, dominant shit-wrecker presiding over the armies of Madagascar.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ranavalona3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Having effectively (and gruesomely), elected for sovereignty and self-rule over European power, wealth, and territorial dominance, Ranavalona\'s next task was to make her people self-reliant.&nbsp; She brought in a handful of prominent foreign mercenaries to set up an infrastructure and train people in industrial development (making sure to keep them close enough that they wouldn\'t get into any trouble), and before long Madagascar had built factories for producing all of the most important shit they needed to sustain themselves &ndash; namely guns, bullets, sugar, clothing, and booze.&nbsp; For severing ties and dependence on foreign aid, Ranavalona was something of a hero to those people who opposed colonialism and foreign control.&nbsp; It was really only after she got older and crazier that Ranavalona started to put the \"mad\" in \"Madagascar\" (and perhaps both \"mad\"s in the phrase, \"The Mad Queen of Madagascar\") with the ridiculous tortures and killings for which she is now famous.</p>\r\n<p>In addition to suppressing a couple revolts (her preferred method for dealing with dissent in her ranks way by sending her enemies on endless force-marches through malaria-infested swamps) on her own turf, Ranavalona made every effort to crush European influence in her country.&nbsp; She was so opposed to these colonials and their beliefs that she then made it her personal mission to wipe out Christianity on the island &ndash; first by banning it, and then by executing Christians and missionaries by throwing them off of high places, setting them on fire, and/or torturing them to death with something called \"progressive amputation\", which doesn\'t sound like much of a picnic.&nbsp; Through this sort-of inverse Spanish Inquisition, she attempted to torture people to renounce their faith, and then popped their heads off when they didn\'t.&nbsp; She was never really able to wipe the Christians off of Madagascar (they are a tenacious bunch, from what I understand), but she did force it underground during her reign, effectively eliminating Christianity as a threat to her pro-traditionalist rule.&nbsp; Slaughtering tens of thousands of your own citizens has that effect on people from time to time.&nbsp; I suppose it\'s important to point out that I\'m certainly not saying it\'s \"awesome\" or \"totally awesome\" to go around tossing people head-first off of cliffs just because they don\'t share your particular religious convictions, but you kind of have to appreciate the fact that she was really willing to go that extra mile for the sake of being a brutal despot.</p>\r\n<p>From her palace, which was dominated by a Sauron-esque 100-foot tower, Ranavalona the Cruel reined for 33 years of semi-oppressive, Vlad the Impaler-style tyranny.&nbsp; She founded cities, built structures, and was one of the few African rulers to successfully hold off colonial rule (a fact that makes her something of a hero among African traditionalists), and even though she was somewhat of a bastard, she overcame her enemies and died peacefully in her bed of old age at the age of 80.&nbsp; Two other queens of Madagascar would go on to take her name, and her island wouldn\'t fall under colonial control for another 30 years after her death.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ranavalona2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Queen\'s Palace, Madagascar</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.allexperts.com/e/h/hi/history_of_madagascar.htm\">Allexperts.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Ranavalona-I-Queen-of-Madagascar.html\">Notable Biographies</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2002/sepoct/departments/studentvoice.html\">Stanford Magazine</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_I\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_hd\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px solid #ffffff; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left; font: bold 12px/1em Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #cc0000; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff;\">Sources:</div>\r\n<div id=\"wdgt_brdr\" class=\"wdgt_brdr\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/UNESCO-General-History-Africa-Abridged/dp/0520067010/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JA7XW1K6L._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"39\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/UNESCO-General-History-Africa-Abridged/dp/0520067010/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. VI, Abridged Edition: Africa in the Ni&hellip;</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/UNESCO-General-History-Africa-Abridged/dp/0520067010/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"> (Paperback - Jul 1, 1998)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Africa-6/dp/0521228034/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41RsPxBpX-L._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"38\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Africa-6/dp/0521228034/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">The Cambridge History of Africa (Volume 6)</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Africa-6/dp/0521228034/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"> (Hardcover - Sep 27, 1985)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Female-Caligula-Ranavalona-Queen-Madagascar/dp/047002223X/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515dRdRTpAL._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"36\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Female-Caligula-Ranavalona-Queen-Madagascar/dp/047002223X/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Female Caligula: Ranavalona, The Mad Queen of Madagascar</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Female-Caligula-Ranavalona-Queen-Madagascar/dp/047002223X/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Keith Laidler (Hardcover - Nov 18, 2005)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Leaders-African-History-Historical-Biographies/dp/0435944800/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FZZAJE1SL._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"38\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #184a9c ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Leaders-African-History-Historical-Biographies/dp/0435944800/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Women Leaders in African History (African Historical Biographies)</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #184a9c ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #184a9c ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Leaders-African-History-Historical-Biographies/dp/0435944800/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">David Sweetman (Paperback - Jun 1984)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>','2010-01-22','409702417137','ranavalona1.jpg','ranavalona2.jpg','Ranavalona the Cruel','The Mad Queen of Madagascar.','\"Never say, \'She is only a feeble and ignorant woman, how can she rule such a vast empire?\'  I will rule here, to the good fortune of my people and the glory of my name!  I will worship no gods but those of my ancestors.  The ocean shall be the boundary of my realm, and I will not cede the thickness of one hair of my realm!\"'),('Muhammad bin Da\'ud Chaghri','1029','December 15, 1072','Khorasan, Persia','Medieval Turkish General','<p>Everybody knows the Turks were badass.&nbsp; That\'s a given.&nbsp; I mean, you can\'t read anything about the military history of Eastern Europe without being regaled with tales of insane, daring Christian knights demonstrating the quality of their solidified concrete holy nutsacks by standing up to the mighty, face-crushing Turkish hordes and somehow pulling victory from the jaws of inevitable defeat.&nbsp; So it stands to reason that since fighting the Turks and surviving without being impaled by your own spiked gauntlets was such a tremendous, noteworthy achievement, then these were obviously a ruthless, vicious, powerful civilization of earth-breaking killmongers so insanely tough that they ate baby reindeer and urinated Red Bull energy drinks, right?&nbsp; Well, if that\'s the case, why is it that most Westerners can\'t name a single notable Turkish hero aside from Suleiman the Magnificent, <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/barbarossa.html\">Barbarossa</a>, and maybe Selim the Grim?</p>\r\n<p>The Turks, much like the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/darius.html\">Persians</a>, just need a better PR campaign or something, because they have a totally badass warrior pedigree on par with that of history\'s best.&nbsp; These guys forged a series of tempered-steel empires that dominated the fuck out of huge tracts of lands across Europe and Asia, and maintined a millenia-spanning stranglehold on Eastern military dominance running from the pre-Crusade middle ages to the end of World War I - a badass Xbox Live achievement that they owe in no small part to the warrior-king Alp Arslan and the role he played in the knife-point castration of the armies of Byzantium in the 11th century.</p>\r\n<p>Adud Al-Dawla Abu Shuja Alp Arslan Muhammad succeeded his uncle Tughril Bey as Sultan of the Seljuk Turks in 1063.&nbsp; His first order of business was of course to crush all opposition to his accession and have any pretenders to the throne violently executed by the sharpest gardening instruments in the Turkish Empire.&nbsp; Once that was out of the way, Alp Arlsan decided to show the world that even though the Seljuks were newcomers to the scene in the Middle East, that this Sunni Muslim empire of nomadic Central Asian steppe warriors could get out there and brain fools with the best of them.&nbsp; Alp Arlsan, known as \"The Valiant Lion\" of the Turks, immediately assembled an appropriately-imposing force of Turkish cavalry and horse archers and set his sights on destroying all trace of the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/alparslan1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At this point in history, the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium was still a pretty serious military threat, but years of &uuml;ber-corrupt rulers, reckless spending, and miscellaneous douchery left the entire system completely decrepit and over-the-hill, and Alp Arslan figured that he was just was the guy to deliver the final kick in the balls that was going to show the Greeks once and for all that they were no longer the big dogs in the Mediterranean.&nbsp; Alp and his armies figured the best way to demonstrate this fact was by blitzing into a number of small buffer states between Byzantium and the Seljuk Empire and utterly laying waste to everything they could find.&nbsp; The Turks, who were pretty pumped up about stabbing with intent to kill, found themselves facing off against Byzantine mercenaries who had gone months without getting paid and had shockingly little interest in getting themselves decapitated for a king who couldn\'t give a shit about them.&nbsp; The Turks captured Phyrgia, Cappadocia, Anatolia, and a bunch of other places that seem to only exist in ancient times, before facing stiffer resistance in Armenia and Georgia.&nbsp; The Armenians fought so hard and pissed Alp Arslan off so hard that after he finally captured their capital he ordered it torched to the ground and the entire population massacred.&nbsp; Hey, I didn\'t say he was a fine upstanding citizen &ndash; I said he was a dude you didn\'t want to fuck around with.</p>\r\n<p>After pretty much smoking everything in Asia Minor by the end of 1068, Alp Arlsan decided to leave the mop-up work to his lieutenants, and he headed back home to his harem to chill with his plunder and babes and start planning an invasion of Fatimid Egypt (who, like Byzantium, was also pissing him off for some unspecified reason).&nbsp; Well no sooner did Double-A leave Asia Minor than some brave-yet-delusionally-misguided Greek Emperor decided he was going to put a humongoid army together and actually start fighting back against these unstoppable face-crushing marauders.&nbsp; Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes assembled a tremendous force of Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Normans, Armenians, French, Modavians, and whatever else he could find (he even had a member of the Scottish royal family in his ranks) and set out to teach Alp a lesson in getting his face punctured by a flying sword-stroke of Western justice.</p>\r\n<p>The balls-out assault caught Alp Arslan\'s men off-guard, and before you know it Diogenes started winning a bunch of victories and talking about how he was the fucking hottest shit since Greek Fire.&nbsp; The Turks were driven back beyond the Euphrates River by an army of 100,000 Western knights, and Diogenes laid siege to the remainder of the Turkish army at the city of Manzikert in 1071.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/alparslan2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>FUCKIN ANARCHY</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Alp Arslan heard the distressing news he threw down his favorite wife and immediately hauled ass out to the battlefield with an elite battalion of 40,000 of his best horsemen.&nbsp; He flew in, approached Diogenes\' force, and offered the Byzantines the opportunity to withdraw from the battlefield with honor rather than die an inglorious death at the receiving end of a few thousand scimitars.&nbsp; Diogenes\' reply was as follows:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><span>\"If the Barbarian wishes for peace, let him evacuate the ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans,<br />and surrender his city and palace as a pledge of his sincerity.\"</span></center>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Uh, wrong answer.&nbsp; The Battle of Manzikert took place the following day, when Emperor Diogenes charged his massive armored phalanxes and heavy infantry spears-first at Alp Arslan and his outnumbered force of light cavalry.&nbsp; While the sight of this huge army would inspire urine in pretty much any other military in the world, Alp Arlsan had seen this shit a thousand times at this point, and had the same response every time &ndash; he had his men ride backwards, firing their bows, maintaining ordered military lines, and keeping just out of reach of the Macedonian spears.&nbsp; For eight hours, Diogenes\' footsoldiers chased these horses across a field like a bunch of dumbasses, and as soon as the sun started to go down and everybody got tired from sprinting around in their armor, the Turks rode in, encircled the Byzantine flanks, and laid waste to Diogenes\' army with the ungodly realness.&nbsp; The Emperor himself, valiant warrior that he was, held firm, fighting to the last, but was finally brought down after all of his bodyguards were slain and his horse was cut out from underneath him. The most powerful and wealthiest man in the Western world had ridden into battle with an army over twice the size of Alp Arslan\'s (well, depending on who you ask), and somehow got worked over so hard that he found himself in the clutches of his hated enemies.&nbsp; That, my friends, is what we like to refer to in the Internet biz as \"epic fail\".</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/alparslan3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>LOL PWND</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Diogenes was brought before the Sultan, who demanded the Emperor signify his surrender by kissing the ground before the Turkish ruler.&nbsp; Diogenes did.&nbsp; According to some reports, Alp Arslan then placed his foot on the Emperor\'s neck, though it seems to be debatable.&nbsp; I kind of hope he did, if for no other reason than just to make sure Diogenes knew he was Alp\'s bitch.&nbsp; It sure makes for good pictures, if nothing else.&nbsp; After having appropriately humiliated the Byzantine ruler, Alp Arslan had him rise, and asked him a poignant question: \"If our circumstances were reversed, and I had found myself in your power, how would you have treated me?\"&nbsp; The Emperor, defiant (and, dare I say it, badass) to the end, responded by saying he would\'ve punched the shit out of the Sultan and then had him dragged through the streets of Constantinople behind some horses or something. Alp Arslan nodded, smiled, and said, \"I offer you far worse &ndash; I offer you your freedom.\"</p>\r\n<p>With that, the Sultan had Diogenes brought to a lavish tent, where he was given robes of honor, a giant feast, and all the dignity and respect associated with his lofty status as ruler of the a major world power.&nbsp; After a few days of living the good life, the two rulers worked out a sufficiently one-sided peace treaty that involved annual tribute paid from Greece to the Turks and the release of all Muslim POWs in Byzantine power, and then Diogenes was brought home by a full Turkish military honor guard.</p>\r\n<p>Well, Alp Arslan did all he could to be generous and kind to his captive, but once he left the Turkish camp things went downhill pretty quickly for poor Diogenes.&nbsp; Apparently while the Emperor was out of down getting beaten up and having Sultans step on his face some dude came in and usurped the throne, and when Diogenes showed up at Constantinople some dude tied him up and stabbed him in the eyes until he died from it.&nbsp; Alp Arslan suffered a similarly-unsatisfying fate a few months later when he was shanked by an assassin (one version of the story claims that some guy was a little sore that Alp Arslan had ordered him executed by being impaled on four sharpened stakes at the same time, and sent one of his kinsmen to avenge him), but the damage had been done &ndash; the core of the Byzantine army had been destroyed, and by 1081 all of Asia Minor and the Levant would be firmly under Turkish domination.&nbsp; This was the end of the Byzantine Empire\'s tenure as a dominant world power, and marked not only the beginning of the end of their civilization, but also the rise of a powerful Turkish presence that would last until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire almost nine hundred years later.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/alparslan4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://historymedren.about.com/od/aentries/a/11_alparslan.htm\" target=\"blank\">Answers.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/alparslan.html\" target=\"blank\">Crusades-Encyclopedia.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alp_Arslan\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_hd\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px solid #ffffff; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left; font: bold 12px/1em Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #cc0000; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ffffff;\">Sources:</div>\r\n<div id=\"wdgt_brdr\" class=\"wdgt_brdr\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/How-Wars-Are-Won-Ancient/dp/1400049482/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419RTSHGK0L._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"38\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #000000 ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/How-Wars-Are-Won-Ancient/dp/1400049482/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War o&hellip;</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #000000 ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/How-Wars-Are-Won-Ancient/dp/1400049482/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Bevin Alexander (Paperback - Sep 23, 2003)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/100-Decisive-Battles-Ancient-Present/dp/0195143663/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lbvsOzRrL._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"39\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #000000 ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/100-Decisive-Battles-Ancient-Present/dp/0195143663/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #000000 ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/100-Decisive-Battles-Ancient-Present/dp/0195143663/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Paul K. Davis (Paperback - Jun 14, 2001)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/History-Decline-Empire-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140437649/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FwJtT3oBL._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"38\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #000000 ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/History-Decline-Empire-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140437649/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Penguin Classics)</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #000000 ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/History-Decline-Empire-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140437649/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Edward Gibbon (Paperback - Jan 1, 2001)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl_pad\">\r\n<div class=\"wdgt_tl\" style=\"height: 64px; width: 492px;\">\r\n<div class=\"asin_img\"><a style=\"float: left; border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/History-Ottoman-Empire-Modern-Turkey/dp/0521291631/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt; text-decoration: none;\" src=\"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41GDsR4roNL._SL75_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"60\" /></a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h1\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; color: #000000 ! important; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/History-Ottoman-Empire-Modern-Turkey/dp/0521291631/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: Volume 1, Empire of the&hellip;</a></div>\r\n<div class=\"asin_h2\" style=\"color: #000000 ! important;\"><a style=\"border-bottom: medium none; text-decoration: none; color: #000000 ! important;\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/History-Ottoman-Empire-Modern-Turkey/dp/0521291631/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;creative=380737\" target=\"_blank\">Stanford J. Shaw (Paperback - Oct 29, 1976)</a></div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>','2010-01-15','628057317643','alparslan.jpg','alparslan1a.jpg','Alp Arslan','Medieval Turkish Sultan who irrevocably crushed the power of Byzantium.','\"The Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they forgot to mention that,\r\nin this fatal day, the Asiatic provinces of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed.\"\r\n\r\n- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'),('Friedrich Freiherr von der Trenck','February 1726','July 25, 1794','Haldensleben, Germany','18th-century German Adventurer','<p>The life of 18th century Prussian Baron Frederick von der Trenck reads kind of like what you would get if you tossed the complete works of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas,_p%C3%A8re\"> Alexander Dumas</a> into the back of a souped-up cement mixer along with a thick slurry of nitroglycerine and a couple construction-grade bricks of crack cocaine.</p>\r\n<p>Born in Konigsberg in 1726, Frederick was just one in a long line of distinguished military hardasses.&nbsp; Tracing his family lineage back to the days of the Teutonic Knights decapitating heathens in the Livonian wilderness, Frederick was proud to note in his autobiography that his own father had been wounded eighteen times while fighting in the service of the Prussian crown.&nbsp; So, it shouldn\'t really come as a surprise to anyone that by the time Frederick was eighteen he\'d already won four swordfighting duels, enlisted in the cavalry, battled on the front lines in a couple massive ball-crushing conflicts, and made his way up through the ranks from ordinary cadet to Lieutenant in the prestigious Prussian Life Guard - the personal bodyguards of King Frederick the Great.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/trenck6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Prussian military.&nbsp; You can tell these guys are serious because of their hats.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In addition to carving his name into his enemies\' chests with the point of his saber, this tall, handsome officer was also coming home every night to a lavish mansion packed from floor-to-ceiling with hot babes that wanted to hop on his junk.&nbsp; It was like a clown car of cleavage in there.&nbsp; This was cool and all, but Trenck\'s crowning achievement as a chick magnet in his early years came when he started getting it on with Frederick the Great\'s sister, the Princess Amalia of Prussia, who not only hooked it up with him but also gave him a bunch of money and stuff as well.&nbsp; I think we can all appreciate this.</p>\r\n<p>Wel, Trenck\'s military prowess continued to impress everyone who was lucky enough to be fighting on the same side as this crazy princess-humping face-wrecker, and in an ensuing war between Prussia and Austria the German nobleman received the Order of Merit for his badass actions cleaving the foes of the crown into tiny giblets of suck.&nbsp; Well sure, this was great and all, but Trenck\'s incredible success ended up making him basically the Sir Lancelot of 18th century Prussia &ndash; he was unmatched on the battlefield, but his indiscretions in his affair with the Princess eventually led to his downfall.&nbsp; Trenck\'s jealous enemies conspired against him, and in 1745 he was arrested for sending illegal correspondence to his brother (an Austrian military officer) and for the nebulous charge of \"conspiring against the crown\" (whatever the fuck that means).&nbsp; Trenck was sentenced to hard time in the closest thing early-modern Europe had to Federal Pound-Me-in-the-Ass Prison &ndash; the fortress of Glatz, located in modern-day Poland.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/trenck1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>(Cue ominous music)</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Being that he was a war hero and a one-time favorite of the King, Baron von Trenck was actually given a lot of liberty when he first arrived at Glatz.&nbsp; He was roomed in the officers\' quarters, given free run of the prison, and could do pretty much whatever he wanted as long as he promised not to try and escape or impale anyone with a sword or headbutt guards until their noses exploded into their brains.&nbsp; Well Trenck wasn\'t down with that horseshit &ndash; he wasn\'t going to just sit there with a big dopey grin on his face and rot in the clink for some trumped-up crime he didn\'t commit.&nbsp; He spent his first days in confinement doing what a real badass would have done &ndash; he wrote a long, nasty, venomous, hate-filled letter to King Frederick the Great calling him a fucking punk for letting his own bodyguard go to jail on some bullshit charges.</p>\r\n<p>You can imagine how that went over.&nbsp; The King ordered Trenck stripped of his hall pass and tossed into a cell with the rest of the criminals.&nbsp; Trenck, for his part, was sort of relieved that he wasn\'t under some half-assed imprisonment anymore, and immediately started plotting his escape.</p>\r\n<p>His first plan was to conspire with a couple of other inmates (most of the men being held at this facility were former Prussian military officers, so there was a lot of potential for them to be helpful in any attempted escapes), and then stage some kind of sweet-ass jailbreak that would have made Steve McQueen so jacked up that he would pop a fucking wheelie on his motorcycle and tear a hole in the space-time continuum.&nbsp; Unfortunately, right before this great escape was to take place, one of the conspirators ratted out the plot, and all of the would-be escapees were beaten up and placed under additional lock and key.&nbsp; (As a side note, the traitor earned his freedom in exchange for the information, but he would come to rue the day he crossed the Baron von Trenck &ndash; Trenck would later hunt this bastard down, publicly humiliate him in front of thousands of onlookers, and then kill his ass in a duel.)</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/trenck3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Glatz fortress interior.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Obviously, this guy wasn\'t going to give up that easily.&nbsp; After the guards relocated him to an inescapable prison cell in the top of a large stone tower, Trenck snuck in a small metal instrument, filed down the bars of his cell window, lowered himself down with a rope he made by tying some leather straps together, and made a break for it.&nbsp; Unfortunately for the BvT, it was raining on this particular night, and he got stuck in waist-deep mud while trying to wade through the fortress\' twenty foot-wide moat, and was recaptured.</p>\r\n<p>For his next escape attempt, Trenck took a more direct approach.&nbsp; When a guard came to move him between cells, Trenck dry-gulched the dude in the face, grabbed the sword off of his sword belt, and proceeded to cut his way through the prison block with the pointy end of the weapon.&nbsp; The guards came rushing to stop him, but they were no match for this insane, desperate asskicker &ndash; surrounded by six men, he wounded all of them, made his way out of the cell block like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker escaping the Death Star, and leapt from the rampart down to a courtyard nearly twenty feet below.&nbsp; He crashed down, rolled, popped up, killed two more sentries who tried to thrust their musket bayonets into his face, and jumped down a second rampart, falling an equal distance and still emerging unharmed.&nbsp; Trenck continued fighting, but just as he was busting through the wooden rampart fence towards freedom, a badly wounded guard managed to grab hold of his foot.&nbsp; Trenck was unable to dispose of this guy quickly enough, or chew through his own leg like a wolverine, and before long a huge crowd of guards showed up and beat the shit out of him with their rifles.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/trenck2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Glatz, with the palisades and stuff.&nbsp; You can get an idea of how far this guy was falling with his jumps.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Baron von Trenck was in the infirmary for nearly a month after this, but apparently hospitalization was the only thing that could keep this crazy bastard from trying to escape from prison.&nbsp; No sooner had he returned to the cell block than he started formulating a new plan.&nbsp; This time, he bribed a disgruntled guard to let him out, and the two of them decided to make a break for it together.&nbsp; So, one winter night in 1746, the officer unlocked Trenck\'s cell, handed him a sword, and together they rushed for the gates.</p>\r\n<p>Well, Baron von Trenck, while badass, was probably the most unlucky person this side of George Costanza.&nbsp; After fighting and defeating a couple guards on the cell block, Trenck and his companion rushed towards the main gate of the camp, when all of a sudden the fucking jackass Adjutant and a small group of guards came around the corner with their swords and muskets at the ready.&nbsp; Well fuck that &ndash; Trenck wasn\'t about to let that douche-face get in the way of his escape, so the two of them made a sharp left-hand turn and leapt down from the fortress walls down to the ground below.&nbsp; Falling nearly thirty or forty feet had no effect on Trenck and his unsmashable adamantium ankles, but his buddy wasn\'t so lucky &ndash; the dude dislocated his foot in the fall and was unable to stand.&nbsp; Trenck, being the noble guy he was, refused to abandon his fellow escapee &ndash; he grabbed the dude, chucked him on his shoulders, and carried the guy\'s crippled body towards freedom.</p>\r\n<p>Hotly pursued through the waist-deep winter snow, Trenck and his comrade fled into the night.&nbsp; After rushing through the mountains and forests of Prussia, the two men eventually came across a small farming village.&nbsp; They pretended to be wounded Prussian officers looking for a place to stay, but no sooner had they wandered into town than one of the villagers recognized them as the escaped criminals.&nbsp; Trenck looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, punched the dude unconscious with one swing of his fist, took some of his food, and then charmed the guy\'s daughter into giving him her two fastest horses so he could complete his escape across the border into Bohemia.</p>\r\n<p>Trenck got away, but he hadn\'t heard the last of Frederick the Great.&nbsp; The pissed-off Prussian King continually sent assassins and agents to kill and/or capture the Baron, and he spent the next seven years fighting off a number of attempts on his life.&nbsp; One time, Trenck was jumped by four men at once, and in a savage back-alley swordfight he managed to wound three and send the last guy running off in terror.&nbsp; Another time he heard that Frederick\'s men were planning to ambush him in a small village, so Trenck turned the tables, set up his own ambush, captured the would-be killers, and had them publicly whipped and humiliated in the town square.&nbsp; You don\'t want to fuck around with this dude.&nbsp; When he wasn\'t punching assassins in the neck, he served as the daring commander of a balls-out mercenary cavalry unit, had sex with a Russian Countess (and possibly even the Tsarina herself), and inherited a huge estate and a title of Austrian nobility from his dead brother.</p>\r\n<p>Life was good once again for Trenck, but as I said before, this guy had some really shitty luck.&nbsp; In 1753, seven years after his escape from Glatz, the Baron von Trenck was re-captured by Frederick\'s men (it\'s not really his fault &ndash; they ambushed him when he returned to Danzig to attend his mother\'s funeral, the bastards).&nbsp; Notorious for his brazen and impossible escape, Trenck was confined to a small, cramped, dark cell in Magdeburg that kind of resembled a stone outhouse:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/trenck5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>No sooner was he locked up than Trenck tried to Shawshank Redemption his ass outta there by tunneling through the rock with his bare hands.&nbsp; As a member of the Austrian nobility, Trenck started sending communications to the Austrian embassy detailing his plans to escape, but unfortunately the dude he was corresponding with ended up being an undercover Prussian spy who had infiltrated the Austrian system (did I mention Trenck\'s luck yet?).&nbsp; Trenck was about ten feet into his hand-carved tunnel when the order came down that he was to be bound to the floor by heavy iron chains.</p>\r\n<p>For nine long years Trenck languished in his prison, but miraculously, at the end of the Seven Years\' War the Empress of Austria was able to secure his release from that hell-hole (maybe he was three-for-three when it came to macking on female world leaders?) as long as he swore never to set foot in Prussia again.&nbsp; He returned to his huge estate, fought in the Austrian army, was promoted to Major, wrote his best-selling autobiography, bought a French winery, married a noblewoman, and had fourteen kids with her.&nbsp; For the rest of his life he never stopped having adventures as a mercenary, military officer, and official Austrian spy, but the party eventually ended while he was chilling in France during a little thing called the Reign of Terror.&nbsp; The French figured out he was an Austrian spy, and he was executed by guillotine.&nbsp; This was probably pretty sucky, but hey, if you\'re gonna go down and die a violent death, guillotine is a pretty sweet way to go out.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/trenck7.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.answers.com/topic/franz-freiherr-von-der-trenck\">Answers.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_von_der_Trenck\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Bernard, Frederick.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Wonderful Escapes</span>.&nbsp; Scribner, 1875. <br /><br /> Garland, Henry Burnard.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Oxford Companion to German Literature</span>.&nbsp; Oxford Univ. Press, 1997. <br /><br /> Haythornthwaite, Philip J.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Austrian Army 1740-80</span>.&nbsp; Osprey, 1995. <br /><br /> Parker, Douglas Norman.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Hohenzollern</span>&nbsp; Universal, 2005. <br /><br /> Trenck, Frederick.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Life of Baron Frederick Trenck<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">.&nbsp; J.Munsell, 1853. </span></span></span></p>','2010-01-08','560894217724','trenck.jpg','trenck1.jpg','Frederick von der Trenck','18th century German adventurer, soldier, and prison escapee.',''),('Tlahuicole','Unknown','Early 16th century','Mexico','16th-century Mexican Warrior','<p>A couple years before Cortez showed up on the shores of Mexico and almost single-handedly conquered the most powerful and ferocious warrior civilization in North America (that\'s a tale for a different day), the Aztecs were pretty much in the business of beating the holy living snot out of every other tribe in the land, annexing their territory, and leaving behind a gruesome trail of blood, destruction, and eviscerated enemy combatants.&nbsp; Anyone who defied them could look forward to one of two inevitable consequences &ndash; they would either be bodyslammed to death on the battlefield, or forcibly sacrificed to the sun god Huitzilopochtli by having their hearts cut out through their abdomens by some crazy blood-thirsty priest.&nbsp; Both options were equally crappy.</p>\r\n<p>The Aztecs were tough, hardcore ball-busters whose penchant for violence and righteous unrelenting groin-kicking didn\'t leave much to the imagination, but in the late fifteenth century there was one badass warrior who dared to defy their ever-expanding empire of blood &ndash; Chief Tlahuicole of the Tlaxcalan tribe.&nbsp; Tlahuicole (whose name is occasionally spelled Tlalhuicole by people who are big fans of putting random consonants in weird places) was a pretty insane face-smashing nutcracker in his own right, and he wasn\'t just going to roll over and expose his soft underbelly to the sacrificial pointiness without at least taking some motherfuckers along for the ride.&nbsp; Tasked with leading his warriors against the aggression of the unstoppable Aztec Empire, Tlahuicole was determined to protect his peoples\' way of life and avoid having his brave warriors ritualistically disemboweled by jerkface holy men.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tlahuicole1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Aztec sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli.<br />I love how the heart is flying off into the atmosphere here,<br />kind of like it was shot out of a potato cannon or something.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The war between the Aztecs and the Tlaxcans lasted for twenty long days, as Tlahuicole held out against all odds in a brutal struggle for survival.&nbsp; He made quite a name for himself as a head-splitting asskicker, fighting with a pair of massive tomahawks so heavy that many men could not even lift them, and even as the Tlaxcan numbers began to dwindle, many Aztec warriors were so awed by Tlahuicole\'s physical powers of face-crushing that they refused to engage him in single combat.&nbsp; The Tlaxcan hero struck fear in the hearts of his enemies, cleaving through hordes of terrified warriors, but eventually, after all of his men were killed or mortally wounded, the mighty chieftain was overpowered by superior numbers and captured.</p>\r\n<p>Tlahuicole was bound in chains and dragged before the Aztec Emperor Montezuma.&nbsp; Montezuma, quite the badass in his own right (and an appreciator of all things badassery-related), had heard rumors of this unstoppable tomahawk-hucking warrior who had inflicted so much carnage on the battlefield, and decided to spare this brave soldier\'s life.&nbsp; Montezuma offered Tlahuicole his freedom, treasure, women, and a safe passage home.</p>\r\n<p>To everyone\'s surprise, Tlahuicole refused.&nbsp; He knew that it was Aztec custom to sacrifice prisoners of war to the sun god, and for the disgrace of losing the battle and allowing himself to be captured, the Tlaxcan\'s sense of honor demanded that he suffer the appropriate consequences.</p>\r\n<p>Montezuma obviously thought this was completely fucking insane, so instead of sacrificing Tlahuicole, he co-opted his skills into the Aztec army, ordering this man to serve as a war-chief in an already-ongoing struggle against a rival tribe known as the Tarascans.&nbsp; Tlahuicole, being a dutiful soldier, obeyed the order and assumed command of a large contingent of Aztec warriors on the battlefield.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tlahuicole2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, Tlahuicole was pretty much awesome, and he of course pummeled the fail out of the Tarascans in combat, defeating them out of hand and sending their warriors running back home to their mommas with their entrails hanging out all willy-nilly.&nbsp; Tlahuicole\'s divisions returned to Tenochtitlan in triumph, bearing large amounts of wealth, slaves, and human sacrifices.&nbsp; Montezuma was so pumped up that he offered to make Tlahuicole an official member of the Aztec nobility, but the Tlaxcan vehemently refused, saying that by becoming an Aztec citizen he would be betraying his people.&nbsp; He once again turned down an opportunity for freedom, and begged Montezuma to allow him to die and end his miserable life of suffering and dishonor.</p>\r\n<p>Montezuma pretty much figured that there was nothing he could do to change this crazy war-mongering psycho\'s mind, so he offered Tlahuicole the opportunity to die the sort of badass warrior\'s death that would have made Odin Himself weep a single tear.&nbsp; Rather than sacrifice Tlahuicole at the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, Montezuma chained the warrior-chieftain to the Stone of Combat, stripped him of his armor, gave him an ordinary obsidian-studded war club, and pitted him against an endless onslaught of the greatest warriors of the Aztec Empire.</p>\r\n<p>(If it helps you to understand Tlahuicole\'s motivation for wishing for death before dishonor, you can think of this like the end of <em>Half-Life</em>, where the G-Man gives you the opportunity to either join him or fight a battle that you have no chance of winning. Tlahuicole chose the latter as a way of telling his captors to get fucked.&nbsp; Oh, um... spoiler alert, I guess)</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tlahuicole4.bmp\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Tlahuicole, surrounded by an endless horde of elite Aztec Jaguar and Eagle Knights.<br />As an interesting/morbid side note, the Stone of Combat had grooves cut into it to drain the blood away from the combat zone.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>According to Aztec culture, this Trial of Sacrificial Combat was a way for captured soldiers to earn their freedom by displaying their worth as warriors.&nbsp; Men would be chained to the stone, and be set upon by a large group of seven powerful enemies.&nbsp; If the prisoner killed or wounded all of his assailants and survived the combat, he was set free.&nbsp; Well, obviously Tlahuicole wasn\'t going to take the easy way out &ndash; in his mind, he had failed, and wasn\'t going to be satisfied until he had died a warrior\'s death, covered in the blood of his enemies, and going out in a pretty badass one-man blaze of glory.&nbsp; This battle was to the death.</p>\r\n<p>Surrounded by hardcore warriors wailing on him from every direction, Tlahuicole stood his ground like the neck-ripping shit-kicker that he was.&nbsp; Over the course of nearly an hour of non-stop hand-to-hand horde mode combat, Tlahuicole fought his epic last stand, killing eight of the Aztec Empire\'s most powerful and skilled Jaguar Knights and wounding over twenty more.&nbsp; He finally fell to his knees, fighting like a madman, before succumbing to a ridiculous number of seriously gnarly mortal wounds.&nbsp; As he lay there dying a painful death, an Aztec priest approached, exalted the name of this brave warrior, and ritualistically sacrificed him on the spot.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tlahuicole5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://famousamericans.net/tlaxcaltecwarriortlalhuicole/\" target=\"blank\">Famous Americans</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Gonio, J.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Ancient Cities of the New World</span>.&nbsp; Harper, 1887.<br /><br /> Spence, Lewis.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Myths of Mexico and Peru</span>.&nbsp; Kessinger, 2003.<br /><br /> Sundel, Albert.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A History of the Aztecs and the Mayas and Their Conquest</span>.&nbsp; Collier, 1967. </span></p>','2010-01-01','764207417779','tlahuicole.jpg','tlahuicole4.bmp','Tlahuicole','Tough Aztec-fighting warrior who chose duty and honor over his own survival.',''),('Tomyris','Unknown','6th century BC','Massagetae, Iran','Ancient Iranian General','<p>Tomyris, the sixth-century warrior-queen of the Massegetae, was a kick-ass chick who didn\'t go out looking for trouble, but knew how to end shit when people came around her corner of the earth trying to start shit with her.&nbsp; She was tough, wise, and fierce, and more than happy to respond to incursions on her territory by punching the offenders in the dick and then violating them with their own lopped-off appendages.&nbsp; Despite the fact that we know very little about this hardcore woman\'s life outside of a single military engagement, among the ancient Greeks she was highly respected as one of the most ferocious warriors to ever live, and a dauntless fighter who somehow managed to stand up to the mighty Persian Empire.</p>\r\n<p>I touched on Emperor Cyrus the Great of Persia in my article on <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/darius.html\">Darius</a> a few months ago, but the short version here is that he was totally awesome.&nbsp; This guy was a seriously-badass conqueror who smashed more balls than Barry Bonds in the height of his steroid-augmented half-cyborg MVP days, and he made quite a name for himself in the good old days by going out, putting together the largest and most technologically-advanced armies the world had ever seen, and subjugating the most ginormous empire that had ever been assembled.&nbsp; He was a genius at the fine art of beating the hell out of his enemies and breaking all of their toys, and by 550 BC nobody had really done a very good job of not gettin kicked in the groin repeatedly by Cyrus and passing out from a swollen pair of matching ruptured testicles.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tomyris1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Tomyris and the Massegetae, by comparison, were what the famous racist Robert E. Howard would have referred to as \"noble savages\".&nbsp; These nomadic Scythian-esque people from present day Iran or Afghanistan were basically an entire race of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/conan.html\">Conan the Barbarians</a>, and they weren\'t exactly too keen on submitting to the will of Cyrus the Great &ndash; no matter how great Cyrus and his followers seemed to think he was.&nbsp; So when CtG rolled into town in 550 BC and started talking about how sweet it would be if the Massegetae became Persian subjects, nobody was buying it.</p>\r\n<p>Cyrus first asked for Tomyris\' hand in marriage.&nbsp; Tomyris, who had assumed total rule of her people after the death of her first husband, wasn\'t really interested in handing over her power and marrying some guy she didn\'t really even know that well, so she told him to take that ring and shove it.&nbsp; Cyrus, undeterred by this rejection, resolved instead to take on the Massegetae tribe, annex their land, and pulverize their brains until they were the consistency of mashed potatoes and gravy.&nbsp; He ordered his men to advance to the Araxes River, the border between Persia and Massegetaeialand, and started building a huge bridge so they could cross over and start whipping asses.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tomyris2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Tomyris, being the fearless leader she was, wasn\'t afraid of taking on Cyrus and the most powerful army in the entire world, even though they had a well-deserved reputation for traveling to every corner of the known world and head-butting their enemies into fleshy pulp.&nbsp; She was, however, getting really bored of sitting around waiting for Cyrus to build this bridge so that they could finally get together and fight each other, so she sent out a message to Cyrus that was basically like, \"ok whatever, chill dude... let\'s just pick a side of the river and meet up there to kick each other\'s asses.\"&nbsp; Cyrus was pretty cool with this, because it saved him a lot of time and energy, so he accepted the generous offer.&nbsp; He decided, being the good classical-age cheauv that he was, that it would be a serious dishonor to give even one foot of ground to a woman, and instead opted to cross the river and fight on the Massegetae side of the waterway.&nbsp; Tomyris, being the honorable woman she was, pulled her armies back, let Cyrus cross the river, and then prepared for an epic battle.&nbsp; This who process ended up saving everyone a lot of time and hassle, which is something I can really appreciate.</p>\r\n<p>Well Cyrus developed a devious plan to fight the Massegatae &ndash; he had his men set up a huge banquet, filled with wine and food and other awesome stuff, and then he abandoned his camp to move his armies around in the battlefield.&nbsp; He marched forward, leaving the banquet tables guarded by just a few men, and just as he suspected, one-third of the Massegetae army swung around, attacked the undefended camp, killed the guards, and started eating all the food themselves.&nbsp; Unfortunately for Tomyris, Cyrus knew that the Massegetae were total lightweights who couldn\'t drink their weight in stiff wine like real Persian men, and once the Massegetae were all more trashed than Uncle Fubar at Christmas dinner, the Persians returned, assaulted the drunk Massegetae, and killed or captured a third of Tomyris\' army.&nbsp; Dumbasses.</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately for our heroine, among the captured in this battle was her own son.&nbsp; Cyrus was pretty pumped that this turn of events, and sent a messenger to Tomyris telling her that he\'d release her son if she would just hand over all of her lands, possessions, freedom, and money, and also marry him so they could get busy. She responded by saying:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<blockquote><span>\"Now listen to me and I will advise you for your good:&nbsp; give me back my son and get out of my country with your forces intact, and be content with your triumph over one-third of the Massagetae.&nbsp; If you refuse, I swear by the sun our master to give you more blood than you can drink, for all your gluttony.\"</span></blockquote>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tomyris3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Cyrus ignored this threat, but when Tomyris\' son escaped his bonds in captivity and killed himself in shame, the Queen of the Massegetae decided it was time to stop fucking around with this bullshit and kick some Persian ass.&nbsp; Seething with rage, Tomyris assembled her armies and personally charged balls-out towards the Persian lines, throwing every available warrior into the fray against Cyrus\' battle-hardened troops.&nbsp; There was no trickery, no clever maneuvering, and no diplomacy &ndash; just full-on blood vengeance.&nbsp; The Greek historian Herodotus claims that, \"The battle which followed I judge to have been more violent than any other fought between foreign nations\", which is saying something considering that this guy is the primary source for pretty much everything from Marathon to Leonidas.&nbsp; In the insanity that followed people were kicking asses with arrows, spears, daggers, cattle prods, bazookas, flamethrowers, and god knows what else.&nbsp; Cyrus and his men go the worst of it, were backed up against the Araxes River, and without a quick avenue of escape (i.e. a sturdy, well-constructed bridge or something) their entire army was completely slaughtered by the Massegetae.&nbsp; The warrior-queen had defeated the most powerful man on earth.</p>\r\n<p>After the battle, Tomyris found Cyrus\' body, beheaded it, and dunked the severed head into a bowl of blood to prove to Cyrus that she was going to give him his fill of blood.&nbsp; Then, just in case there were a possibility that she hadn\'t desecrated his corpse enough, she scooped out his brain pan, and turned his empty skull into a wine bowl, which she kept on her dinner table for the rest of her life.&nbsp; I\'m told that as a centerpiece it was quite a conversation-starter.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tomyris4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/tomyris/g/013108Tomyris.htm\" target=\"blank\">About.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomyris\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Gera, Deborah Levine.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Warrior Women</span>.&nbsp; BRILL, 1997.<br /><br /> Herodotus.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Histories</span>.&nbsp; Trans. Aubrey de Silincourt.&nbsp; Penguin, 2002.<br /><br /> Jackson-Laufer, Guida Myrl.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Women Rulers Throughout the Ages</span>.&nbsp; ABC-CLIO, 1999.<br /><br /> Leon, Vicki.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Uppity Women of Ancient Times</span>.&nbsp; Conari, 1995 </span></p>','2009-12-25','839309917866','tomyris.jpg','tomyris1.jpg','Tomyris','Warrior-queen of the Massegetae who defeated the most powerful Emperor of the ancient world.',''),('Charles Hazlitt Upham','September 21, 1908','November 22, 1994','Christchurch, New Zealand','WWII NewZealand Soldier','<p>New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia.&nbsp; Sure, everyone is aware of its existence and all, but the place never really seems to get the same kind of badass cred as its closest neighbor, especially when it comes to cultural aspects like being awesome, flipping out, and/or smashing anyone who crosses them into a non-dissipating miasma of floating blood globules.&nbsp; This is kind of bullcrap, because, much like our Canadian friends, New Zealand has a rich and glorious history of intensely busting their enemies about the head with a tire iron until they die from it, high-fiving their buddies, and then kicking back on the couch with a refreshing alcoholic beverage of some sort.&nbsp; New Zealand is the traditional land of bone-crushing Maori tribesmen who tattoo their own faces and annihilate skulls by whacking jerks in the dome with a hefty polished chunk of jade, it\'s served as the backdrop for pretty much every epic sword-swinging film and screen production from <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>, to <em>Hercules: The Legendary Journeys</em>, and it\'s also the native home of a man named Charles Upham &ndash; a high-octane, neck-breaking maniac who holds the insanely-badass distinction of being the only infantryman to receive the Victoria Cross twice, and the somewhat-less-prestigious honor of being the first person on this website with a last name that starts with the letter U.</p>\r\n<p>Born in Christchurch in 1908, Upham got a degree in Agriculture and spent his early days working as a sheep herder and farm valuer, making him one of the more unsuspecting badasses I\'ve ever written about.&nbsp; Realizing that raising adorable sheeps isn\'t exactly the first step in the path towards slaughtering all who oppose you and then driving over their hearts with a motorcycle, Upham enlisted in the New Zealand Territorial Army, where he served in the home guard for five years.&nbsp; When World War the Second looked like it was going to be some serious business, Upham joined the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF), and was sent to Greece to help the Greek people fight off an invasion of Hitler\'s minions.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/upham1.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>By 1941 things had gone a little South in Greece, what with the killing and the stabbing and the Panzers and all, so Lieutenant Upham and his men went, well, South of Greece, withdrawing to the island of Crete.&nbsp; Well, if you know anything about the Nazis, you know that they aren\'t really going to sit around when there are enemy soldiers that they could be shooting in the face, so of course the Germans\' next step was to launch a full-out invasion of Crete.&nbsp; In a daring, balls-out attack &ndash; the first real all-airborne invasion in military history &ndash; the Nazis landed 10,000 paratroopers near the Cretan (not to be confused with Cretin) city of Meleme, fragged everything into bouncing giblets, and captured the airfield so they could fly in reinforcements.</p>\r\n<p>Upham was commanding a platoon near the outskirts of Maleme, and was ordered to send his thirty-odd men to retake the airfield from an unrelenting horde of maschinenpistole-slinging Nazi cows.&nbsp; Upham responded with his best <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D\">B.J. Blazkowicz</a> impression, single-handedly charging an enemy machine gun nest armed only with a pistol and grenades and somehow taking it out by himself.&nbsp; Then, to prove it wasn\'t a fluke, he crawled up to a house with two MG-34s in it, dropped a grenade in the window, and blew the gunners into giant clouds of meat shrapnel before they even had a chance to scream \"Mein Leiben!\".&nbsp; Finally, still operating lone-wolf style, this psycho-freak killer Kiwi crawled within fifteen feet of a third machine gun position and lobbed his last grenade right into the gunner\'s coat pocket, sending him up like Hitler at the end of <em>Bionic Commando</em>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/upham2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, seeing as how real-life doesn\'t allow for Debug Mode, Upham somehow fell short in his mission to single-handedly kill ten thousand elite German paratroopers, destroy a few metric shit-tons of war material, and re-capture the airfield all by his lonesome, and before long the New Zealanders were getting pushed back by a steady stream of reinforcements coming in through the air base at Maleme.&nbsp; During the fighting withdrawal across the Cretan countryside, Upham once again proved himself to be a fearless war hero who was harder than a battleship hull - once he carried a wounded man to safety in the middle of a firefight, another time he organized a detail to go into a heavy crossfire to save wounded men another time, and on a third occasion he personally went out on a daring night attack, killed two Germans, tracked down a previously-cut-off company of New Zealand infantry, and lead them to safety.&nbsp; All in a day\'s work for Captain New Zealand.</p>\r\n<p>The next day, the Steve Rogers from Down Under organized a defensive perimeter against a powerful German assault, holding the line against a massive assault of tanks, men, and giant robo Nazi mechs.&nbsp; During the fighting he was knocked over by a mortar, hit in the shoulder with shrapnel, and shot in the foot by a machine gun, but this crazy unstoppable lightning bolt of carnage somehow managed to shrug all of that damage off and repel a couple of counter-attacks, including one in which he needed to scramble up a huge cliff face without any climbing gear and fortify a position on the edge of a ravine.&nbsp; At one point during the fighting he was attacked by two German soldiers, and was shot by a Mauser rifle.&nbsp; He fell down, pretending to be killed, but surreptitiously positioned his rifle in the crook of the tree next to where he was laying.&nbsp; When the Germans approached him, he popped caps in both of enemy troops at close-range &ndash; one-handed like Ash, and in such rapid succession that they didn\'t get a shot off.&nbsp; That\'s some stone-cold Wild West shit right there, but for this dude it was like the tenth coolest thing he did in a single campaign.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/upham3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>So remember how I said Charles Upham won two Victoria Crosses?&nbsp; All of this shit I just described combined for one-half of that total.&nbsp; The second VC didn\'t come until a year later, when he was fighting <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rommel.html\">Rommel</a> and the <em>Afrikakorps</em> in the Battle of El Alamein &ndash; an insane clusterhump of blood and twisted metal that would be the decisive turning point in the battle for North Africa.</p>\r\n<p>Upham was a Captain by this point, having received a much-deserved promotion for the ridiculous carnage he left in his wake back in Crete, and was commanding a company that had been tasked with capturing a German-controlled ridge.&nbsp; He went out by himself to recon some intel on the qt, but when a truckload of German infantrymen drove up and blocked his path, he obviously didn\'t have a problem tossing a grenade in the back and detonating a dozen Nazis with some high explosives.&nbsp; Seriously, this guy must have been awesome at horseshoes or some shit, because he was completely nuts when it came to chucking grenades with laser-like precision.&nbsp; Fragging a couple squads of Germans gets a man noticed, however, and while trying to escape back to Allied lines Upham was wounded twice by gunfire.&nbsp; This, of course, didn\'t stop him from personally leading the assault on the ridge, taking 100 men up against four machine gun nests, a squadron of tanks, and a few hundred Nazi riflemen.&nbsp; Charging out in front of his men, Upham destroyed a couple Panzers and gun positions with grenades, which would be run-of-the-mill stuff for this guy except that he had been shot through the elbow and was winging these things around with a shattered throwing arm (this is kind of like the military equivalent of Kirk Gibson coming out of the dugout on the busted wheel and hitting a walk-off home run in the World Series).&nbsp; Upham somehow let his men to capture the ridge against these insane odds.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/upham4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>It was probably something like this.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After passing out from a loss of blood, he was evacuated to the hospital, but as soon as his wounds were healed he went back out and continued being completely insane.&nbsp; He led his men in yet another defense against a ferocious Fascist counter-attack, but was blown up by an artillery shell.&nbsp; Badly wounded, unable to move, and only one of six survivors from his unit, he was overrun and captured by the Germans.&nbsp; Of course, this couldn\'t even stop this madman, and he escaped from POW camps a number of times, including once when he jumped out the back of a moving truck, broke his ankle, and still kept running (awesome).&nbsp; He was branded \"dangerous\" and moved to Colditz camp, the toughest POW camp the Nazis had, but nothing could stand in the way of Charles Upham and his seething, unrelenting rage.&nbsp; After Colditz was liberated by the Allies, while most of the now-freed prisoners took a much-deserved ride back home, Charles Upham broke into the camp\'s armory, grabbed a submachine gun, and went out into the woods to continue his one-man war against Hitler and his robot Gatling gun arms.</p>\r\n<p>After the war, Upham went home, married his long-time girlfriend, and had a statue built in his honor.&nbsp; His community raised enough money for him to buy a huge farm to retire on, but being a true selfless badass, Upham refused, and instead donated the money to set up a scholarship so ex-servicemen could go to college.&nbsp; He bought a small farm, lived a quiet life, and was known for his steadfast refusal to allow any Germans or German-made machines on his property.&nbsp; It only took one guy driving his VW off Upham Farm at high speeds while being chased by a crazy old man with an Enfield rifle to drive that point across.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/upham5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/upham.html\">The New Zealand Edge</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/5048954/Captain-Charles-Upham-VC-and-Bar.html\" target=\"blank\">Telegraph</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-20Ba-b4.html\">Victoria Cross Citations</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Upham\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Horner, David Murray and Paul Collier.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Second World War</span>.&nbsp; Taylor &amp; Francis, 2003.<br /><br /> Macklin, Robert.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Bravest</span>.&nbsp; Allen &amp; Unwin, 2008 </span></p>','2009-12-18','226903017899','upham.jpg','upham1.jpg','Charles Upham','The only infantryman to win the Victoria Cross twice.','\"He showed fine leadership at all times and under his command his Company earned a remarkable reputation in attack.  Captain Upham\'s complete indifference to danger and his personal bravery has become a byword in the whole of the NZEF.\"\r\n\r\n- Second Victoria Cross citation'),('The Kraken','N/A','N/A','The Fuckin\' Ocean','Mythological Extraplanar Monster','<p>The ocean is a pretty jacked-up place.&nbsp; It\'s home to giant stinging jellyfish, sadistic seal-flinging Killer Whales, man-eating sharks, and a vast assortment of other horrific, ungodly aquatic creatures &ndash; any of which would be more than happy to advance the process of natural selection by tearing your balls out through your nostrils and then using your eviscerated corpse as an incubator for their disgusting spawn.</p>\r\n<p>What\'s worse than having your ass chomped in half by two rows of serrated, dagger-sized shark teeth, you might ask?&nbsp; How about getting a singing molest-o-gram from a half-dozen gigantor rubbery tentacles that bludgeon your brain apart while simultaneously tearing your ship into jetsam, leaving you either dead, retarded, or stranded in the middle of the ocean with no hope of salvation?&nbsp; While that\'s pretty much one of the worst things ever, to the Kraken it\'s just the way he enjoys spending his lazy Sunday afternoons.</p>\r\n<p>The Kraken is basically a giant-ass emotionless cephalopod who lives solely to eat boats, destroy all life in the ocean, and violently implode warships with his ultra-powerful crush-o-matic appendages of doom.&nbsp; Basically, you\'re just some sailor chilling out minding your own business, cruising the high seas on a sweet boat and thinking about cool stuff like mermaid boobs and zombie pirates when all of a sudden POW &ndash; you\'re getting your ship wrecked by this godless multi-limbed killing machine from the deepest uncharted reaches of the ocean\'s asshole.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>HLAUGHALGUAHGLUGH</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For starters, giant squids are probably some of the grossest, creepiest things ever.&nbsp; They have two humongoid colossal eyes that fall somewhere between The Lidless Eye of Sauron and the Uncanny Valley on the freak-out scale, and their unblinking stares never seem to register any emotion other than cold, unfeeling rage.&nbsp; If that\'s not enough, there are so many suckers and noodly rubber appendages flailing about on this thing that it makes even the most cracked-out Japanese hentai tentacle-rape porn look like an unmarried Mennonite couple holding hands at a funeral, which is just wrong in a vast number of ways.&nbsp; If you somehow survive being squeezed into Cheez Whiz by its eight legs or two barbed, suction-cupped tentacles you can always look forward to being violently inserted into a beaked mouth and crushed out of hand by giant champing toothless jaws for a while.&nbsp; There aren\'t too many creatures this side of a Hitchcock movie that are capable of beaking a man to death, but hey, that\'s the Kraken for you.&nbsp; If the Kraken possesses most of the same feeding mechanisms as <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken6.gif\">the Giant Squid</a>, after the beak your broken-down carcass will pass through something called the radula, a nightmarish mechanism which can best be described as saying that this thing has a cheese grater for an esophagus.&nbsp; After that fun stuff, you head for the stomach, where you\'re slowly devoured Boba Fett-style.&nbsp; Good times.</p>\r\n<p>Crushing and shredding aside, the main thing about the Kraken is that he\'s really damn huge.&nbsp; Believed to be something on the order of like 50 feet long, these foul beasts have supposedly been so massive that their arms were able to reach to the top mast of some old-school wooden sailing vessels.&nbsp; Honestly, what the hell are you supposed to do against a giant tree-trunk sized, fifty-foot long hunk of suction-cup equipped fleshiness capable of generating the same destructive force as a wrecking ball?&nbsp; Sure, you could try to go out there <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken8.jpg\">Captain Nemo style</a> and wave a harpoon at it like a spastic idiot, but unless you\'re a super-badass submarine commander who knows no fear and responds to every situation with extreme violence, you\'re probably just going to wind up getting a pointy tentacle jammed up your Krak.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 75%;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center></td>\r\n<td><center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As a completely non-sequitur side note, I\'d also like to point out that real-life Giant Squids are also known to fight Sperm Whales, sharks, and other monstrously-large aquatic creatures when they aren\'t trashing ships or munching peoples\' heads off.&nbsp; This, of course, is a fact I only mention solely so that I can follow it up with this picture:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken3.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The craziest thing about this Krake-sanity is that it\'s not even completely bullshit &ndash; there are actual accounts of multi-armed Krake-hem smasherating fishing boats and warships dating back to antiquity.&nbsp; The Greeks, Vikings, and others all have accounts of vessels coming under attack from the tendrils of some terrible ferocious Cthulu-esque sea monsters, which is pretty sweet.&nbsp; The Kraken as we know it was originally written about in the 16th and 17th century by some Scandinavian survivors of his insane crush-tacular wrath, but most rational people from that time period figured that the authors had just been hitting the crack pipe a little too hard or something.&nbsp; I mean, it kind of make sense when you consider that some of these accounts are so out there they sound like something out of a sci-fi film or an old <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/conan.html\">Conan</a> story &ndash; one group of Norwegians claimed that they camped out on a mile and a half wide Kraken and didn\'t even realize it until someone accidently stumbled across the beasts eye, which is a story so nuts that it gives all the other Kraken-spotters a bad name.&nbsp; It wasn\'t until 1870, when people started finding actual Giant Squid pieces, that people started putting it together that this might not be some weirdo delusional shroom-induced hallucination, and when a New Zealand crew discovered a 65-foot long squid in 1880 the entire scientific community pretty much crapped a brick.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Whether it\'s dragging ships down into the murky deep, leaving sailors to drown, or aggressively devouring seamen like Dr. Zoidberg assaulting a guinea pig, the Kraken isn\'t a monster you want to screw around with.&nbsp; It\'s huge, it\'s disgusting, it\'s emotionless, and it\'s at least somewhat based in fact, making it that much more terrifying.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kraken7.bmp\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.unmuseum.org/kraken.htm\">Unmuseum.org</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Coleman, Loren and Jerome Clark.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cryptozoology A to Z</span>.&nbsp; Simon and Schuster, 1999.<br /><br /> Jeans, Peter D.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Seafaring Lore and Legend</span>.&nbsp; McGraw-Hill, 2004.<br /><br /> Rose, Carol.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Giants, Monsters, and Dragons</span>.&nbsp; W.W. Norton, 2001. </span></p>','2009-12-11','400432517975','kraken.jpg','kraken1.jpg','The Kraken','What has two giant eyes, eight legs, a couple tentacles, and an insatiable thirst for human blood?','Below the thunders of the upper deep;\r\nFar far beneath in the abysmal sea,\r\nHis ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep\r\nThe Kraken sleepeth...\r\n\r\n- The Kraken, by Alfred Lord Tennyson'),('Hiromichi Shinohara','August 1913','August 27, 1939','Suzumenomiya, Tochigi Prefecture. Japan','WWII Japanese Pilot','<p>The highest-scoring fighter ace of the Japanese Army Air Force in World War II (indeed, in the history of the JAAF) never, at any point in his career, engaged a single American aircraft.&nbsp; He also died two years before the attack on Pearl Harbor.</p>\r\n<p>Have I effectively blown your mind like a close-range double-barreled shotgun blast to the eye socket?&nbsp; If the answer is no, just give me a minute, because Hiriomichi Shinohara is probably the one of the most badass fighter pilots you\'ve never heard of.&nbsp; This dude was an utterly fearless warrior who never once backed down from a fight and was once regarded as one of the toughest pilots the Allies ever faced, but is so obscure that nowadays he doesn\'t even have his own Wikipedia entry.&nbsp; And that\'s saying something, because it really seems like Wikipedia has articles on <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistics_Management_India_magazine\">pretty</a> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bote\">much</a> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHKB_%28gene%29\">everything</a> these days.</p>\r\n<p>Shinohara was born in 1913 to a small Japanese farming family.&nbsp; He enlisted in the Imperial Cavalry in 1931, and was soon sent out to assist the Imperial Japanese Army in its invasion, conquest, and occupation of the Manchuria region of China.&nbsp; Eventually (and wisely) realizing that horses weren\'t really designed to have machine gun ammunition and grenades flung at them, Shinohara decided to say goodbye to his days of galloping over bullet-riddled battlefields and instead decided to enroll in the burgeoning Japanese pilot training program, where he could really get out there and do some damage For the Glory of the Emperor.&nbsp; He graduated flight school in 1934, was trained in effective destructive applications of the brand-new, state-of-the-art Ki-27 \"Nate\" fighter aircraft in 1936, and was assigned to the 11th Sentai, which I assume is like some kind of fighter squadron or something along those lines.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Nakajima Ki-27.&nbsp; It kind of looks a little less than impressive,<br /> but keep in mind that it was going up against biplanes and other such bullshit.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, the technologically-superior and borderline-fanatical Imperial War Machine was able to overrun Manchuria without too much resistance, and by 1939 the Japanese had advanced all the way through China to the border of the Soviet Union.&nbsp; Now, the Japanese were afraid of nothing, and more than willing to start shit with anybody they damn well pleased, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that it wasn\'t long before the Emperor came out and said some incredibly profane and malicious things about Stalin\'s mother, Lenin\'s corpse, the quality of Soviet vodka, and how if the USSR wanted the Manchurian border to be situated along the lines of the Kalka River then they were going to need to find a way to defend it without having all of their tanks, airplanes, and soldiers exploded like expired eggs in a high-wattage microwave.&nbsp; The Japanese Army Air Force was dispatched to start incinerating Commies wherever they could catch them, and the next thing you know Shinohara Hiromichi was unleashed on the skies above the disputed border region.</p>\r\n<p>Now most pilots on their first combat mission generally spent most of the engagement one of two ways:&nbsp; desperately trying not to die or uncontrollably urinating in their flight suits.&nbsp; Well Shinohara Hiromichi (who you will see was so utterly fearless he would have dog-fought against a winged LaserBear with machine guns for eyes and balls made out of nuclear warheads if he\'d had the opportunity) almost became an Ace in a Day, killing four Russian I-6 aircraft in his first aerial combat mission of any kind.&nbsp; In case you think this is beginners luck or some crap, Hiromichi went out the next day and actually accomplished the head-searingly difficult feat, destroying five Russian I-15 fighter planes in a single battle.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara8.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Hiromichi was so awesome at destroying Soviet fighter planes<br /> that eventually the Russians just saved him the trouble<br /> and started manufacturing pre-destroyed aircraft fuselages.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, granted, the Nakajima Ki-27 low-wing fighter was significantly more advanced than the Russian I-5 and I-15 biplanes it was going up against, and the Japanese pilots tended to be better-trained and more efficient than their Soviet counterparts, but Hiromichi\'s accomplishments in his first week on the job are completely insane.&nbsp; Hell, the top Chinese fighter ace of the entire war had 11 kills, and friggin Shinohara had nearly reached that mark in his <em>first two days</em> as a combat pilot.</p>\r\n<p>What\'s even more impressive is that these battles between the Soviet Union and the Japanese Army Air Force weren\'t just like a couple of random bullshit isolated dogfights spread out here and there &ndash; these were insane, massive engagements with dozens (and sometimes hundreds!) of aircraft flying around all over the damn place, strafing anything that moved, and/or blowing up like antacid-filled seagulls.&nbsp; If it helps, you can think of Hiromichi as being less like Tom \"Iceman\" Kazanski taking on a half-dozen MiGs in some remote portion of the Mediterranean and more like Wedge \"Red Leader\" Antilles in the middle of a clusterfuck of shrieking TIE Fighters and impenetrable green laser fire above the forest moon of Endor.</p>\r\n<p>To help illustrate my point, let me try to sum up my impression of the Soviet-Japanese air war with a short series of pictures:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara5.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> <img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> <img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara4.png\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> <img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Just to give you some idea of the sort of insane Bullet Hell Shinohara\'s twin-linked aircraft machine guns were cleaving their way through, on 27 June 1939 he dove straight into the middle of a fucktardedly-massive 150-plane deathmatch in the skies above Tamask-Bulak.&nbsp; In the insane, whose-leg-is-that super-orgy of twisted metal, cannon fire, and explosions, this guy ended up killing 11 enemy fighter planes in a single day.&nbsp; As I said, the top Chinese ace had 11 kills in his career, and this guy punched that out in roughly the amount of time it takes for a modern-day commercial airline to fly from Seattle to Hawaii.&nbsp; Hell, the top U.S. Marine ace of the war had 28 kills, and Shinohara nearly came up with half of that in this one battle.</p>\r\n<p>Habitually turning perfectly good flying machines into bullet-riddled coffins is quite a way to earn yourself a reputation, and Shinohara soon became well-known and appropriately-feared by Soviet and Chinese pilots across the Manchurian front.&nbsp; Dubbed \"The Richthofen of the Orient\", this guy killed 58 enemy aircraft in the span of just a few months of service &ndash; the most of any Japanese Army Air Force pilot, and the most of any pilot of the entire Manchurian campaign.&nbsp; His tactics were no less bold than he was &ndash; he preferred to find a huge, massed formation of enemy fighter planes and charge straight into the middle of it with his machine guns blazing.&nbsp; This high-speed, bullet-ridden game of \"chicken\" was always won by Shinohara and his adamantium scrotum.&nbsp; His straight-on attack would break the formation apart, at which point he would go around and pick the enemy planes off one by one.&nbsp; This is basically like going to Pamplona\'s running of the bulls, grabbing a matador\'s sword, and running towards the horns instead of away from them.&nbsp; It\'s a feat that requires a certain mixture of psychosis, courage, and insanity that I think we can all respect.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>(Please take a moment to make awesome airplane noises with your mouth really loudly.)<br />ZOOOOOOM!&nbsp; RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!&nbsp; FWOOOSH!</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Despite what he may have believed, it turns out that Shinohara actually wasn\'t invincible (or at least he forgot to turn on his God Mode cheat), because on 24 July he miscalculated the size of his <a href=\"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitboxDissonance\">hitbox</a> and was shot down over enemy territory.&nbsp; He managed to somehow evade capture, death, and other such terribleness, and made his way back to be rescued by friendly forces, which I assume was OK by him.</p>\r\n<p>On 27 August he wasn\'t quite as lucky.&nbsp; Shinohara was scouting alone, when all of a sudden was attacked by a huge, almost impossible number of enemy aircraft desperately seeking to zoom in and kill him at all costs.&nbsp; Despite facing a battle he had no hope of surviving, Hiromichi Shinohara still refused to allow anything but liquid nitrogen to course through his veins &ndash; he took on the entire formation himself, flying full-throttle into the middle of the enemy phalanx of propellers and machine gun barrels.&nbsp; Surrounded on all sides, as well as above and below, he not only gave them a good asskicking, but he became an ace in a day for the third time in his short, three-month-long career -- he killed five more enemy fighters before they finally brought him down.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shinohara7.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Back in the days before the Nintendo DS, people were pretty proficient in the art of just chillin\'.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.warbirdcolors.com/get_aces.asp?J\" target=\"blank\">Warbird Colors</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.ww2incolor.com/japan/eaa+_61_.html\" target=\"blank\">World War 2 in Color</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Sakaida, Henry.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Japanese Army Air Aces 1937-45</span>.&nbsp; Osprey, 1997.<br /><br /> Sterling, Christopher H.&nbsp; \"Aces\".&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Air Warfare: An International Encyclopedia</span>.&nbsp; Ed. Walter J. Boyne.&nbsp; ABC-CLIO, 2002. </span></p>','2009-12-04','811350218024','shinohara.jpg','shinohara1.jpg','Hiromichi Shinohara','The greatest Japanese fighter ace you\'ve never heard of.',''),('Lewis Lee Millett, Sr.','December 15, 1920','November 14, 2009','Mechanic Falls, ME, USA','20th-century American Soldier','<p>Lewis Millett really hated Nazis.&nbsp; I know that most of you think that <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/indianajones.html\">Indiana Jones</a> cornered the market on hating those guys, but Millett really took that shit to a whole new level.&nbsp; This guy was so cheesed off at Hitler and his goose-stepping morons that in early 1940 he dropped out of high school as a junior to go enlist in the Army and help the world teach Der F&uuml;hrer that fucking with freedom and democracy was like the political equivalent of sending up a giant Bat-Signal with the words \"Please Come Kick My Ass\" engraved on there instead of a bat.&nbsp; Well, this was great and all, but back in 1940 the United States had a pretty strict policy of not intervening in Europe\'s bullshit, and President Roosevelt kept coming out on the radio being all like, \"whatever dudes we\'re not going to go to war with the Nazis (even though they really deserve it).\"&nbsp; However, unfortunately for Uncle Adolf, Lewis Millett held no such isolationist policies &ndash; when it looked like the U.S. wasn\'t going to get in on the Fascist-pummeling scrotal annihilation, he deserted the Army, hitchhiked up to Canada, and joined the Canadian Army instead.&nbsp; The Canadians were like, \"eh, whatever,\" and trained him in gunnery, anti-aircraft warfare, and radar system operation, before shipping him off to London to help their British buddies deal with the annoying stream of V-2 rockets and aircraft bombs that were constantly pummeling the English countryside during the Blitz.</p>\r\n<p>Well in 1941 a few thousand pounds of Japanese torpedoes finally convinced the U.S. that beating the shit out of the Axis Powers was a pretty decent idea, and it turns out that it wasn\'t that big of a deal for Millet to transfer over to the United States Army.&nbsp; He was sent to North Africa with the 1st Armored Division, where he spent six months fighting <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rommel.html\">Rommel\'s</a> Afrikakorps and having the pleasure of watching the 37mm rounds from his anti-tank cannon bounce off the ultra-thick armor of the German Panzers.&nbsp; It\'s not like that stopped this insane Jackhammer of Democracy from pneumatically ramming his foot up the Fascists\' assholes, however &ndash; not long into his deployment he received a Bronze Star for shooting down a German fighter plane that was coming in low for a strafing run.&nbsp; The Me-109 was zooming in low over the desert, so Millet jumped into the back of a half-track and used the fucking truck-mounted machine gun to cap the driver in the face, somehow putting a round through the cockpit of an airplane going 300 miles per hour and depositing it into the ocular cavity of the pilot.&nbsp; Just in case this didn\'t sound quite enough like the sort of insanity that you generally don\'t see outside of completely balls-out cheesy 1980\'s action movies, Millet earned a Silver Star for running up to a burning half-track, jumping in the driver\'s seat, hauling ass away from his men, and then leaping out of the moving vehicle seconds before it exploded.&nbsp; Basically this guy\'s actual life was like an amalgamation of the most badass scenes of every Stallone movie ever, which is an accomplishment so awesome that I think I just pissed.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/millett3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Millet was a Sergeant kicking asses in Italy when his superiors finally figured out that he had at one point deserted the Army.&nbsp; He was court-martialed and convicted of desertion, but because this crazy bastard was such a face-rending hardass, he was just fined fifty-two dollars and told to \"please never let it happen again.\"&nbsp; Then, just to show that there were no hard feelings, they promoted him to Lieutenant a couple weeks later.&nbsp; Millett would later claim that he was probably the only dude to make Colonel after being court-martialed for desertion, which is probably true.&nbsp; Then again, when you leave the armed forces of your country because they <em>aren\'t kicking enough asses</em> for your liking, I guess it\'s kind of hard to argue with your qualifications as a badass.</p>\r\n<p>Apparently the Second World War wasn\'t enough carnage for Millett, because when the Korean Conflict rolled around in the 1950s he still had quite a bit of fuel left in his Asskicking Tank.&nbsp; It was while serving as Captain of Company E of the 27th Infantry Regiment that Lewis Millett commanded the actions that earned him the Medal of Honor, so if you think the stuff I just wrote about was more awesome than carving a Thanksgiving turkey by throwing a tomahawk at it then you better hold on to your asses for this one.</p>\r\n<p>One day, while fighting in Korea, Millett and his men came across a note talking about how the Chinese thought the Americans were pussies who were afraid of cold steel and hand-to-hand combat.&nbsp; Obviously this made Lewis Millett so pissed off that he bit his own rifle in half, and he resolved then and there to provide the enemy with a first-hand demonstration of just how frightened he was of punching people in the cock with the broken-off remnants of a combat knife.&nbsp; It wasn\'t long before he had his chance.&nbsp; During the fighting for Hill 180, the 1st Platoon of Company E was pinned down by heavy fire from North Korean and Chinese machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and small arms.&nbsp; Millett immediately told his men to fix fucking bayonets and prepare for some neck-stabbing.&nbsp; He personally ran out in front of his men, and led 2nd and 3rd Platoon on a charge across an exposed rice paddy, up a 200-foot high snow-covered hill, and straight into enemy bunkers packed with 200 entrenched enemy soldiers.&nbsp; Millett, leading from the front, personally bayoneted two enemy soldiers, clubbed a couple more into submission with the stock of his rifle, threw a bunch of grenades all over the place, and shouted pump-up words of encouragement to his men.&nbsp; He was wounded by a grenade, but obviously it would take more than a gaping slash caused by a red-hot piece of metal shrapnel to slow this crazy badass down.&nbsp; He refused to be evacuated until the hill was captured, urging his men to fight on and kick asses.&nbsp; 47 of the 200 defenders of Hill 180 were killed (18 by bayonet), the rest retreated, and 1st Platoon was saved with minimal casualties.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/millett2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>\"In the fierce charge Capt. Millett bayoneted 2 enemy soldiers and boldly continued on, throwing grenades, clubbing and bayoneting the enemy, while urging his men forward by shouting encouragement.&nbsp; Despite vicious opposing fire, the whirlwind hand-to-hand assault carried to the crest of the hill.\" </span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>If this seems completely crazy to you, that\'s because it is.&nbsp; To Lewis Millett, however, that shit was so nice he had to do it twice &ndash; later that same month he received the Distinguished Service Cross for leading ANOTHER goddamned bayonet charge, this one with similar results.&nbsp; It would be what is now referred to as the last bayonet charge in American military history, which is pretty understandable if you ask me.&nbsp; I mean, there really aren\'t too many people out there crazy enough to order fixed bayonets against a row of automatic weapons, but that shit was pretty much par for the course for Lewis Millett and His Awesome \'Stache.</p>\r\n<p>After Korea, Lewis Millett completed Ranger training and founded the famous Recondo School to train reconnaissance commandos in Vietnam.&nbsp; He served throughout the Vietnam War, and retired a Colonel in the Army.&nbsp; He died of CHF on November 14th, a veteran of three wars, and hellacious kicker of Commie-Nazi asses, and a hell of a tough guy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/millett1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"I believe in freedom, I believe deeply in it.&nbsp; I\'ve fought in three wars, and volunteered for all of them, <br /> because I believed as a free man, that it was my duty to help those under the attack of tyranny. <br /> Just as simple as that.\" </span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.pbs.org/weta/americanvalor/stories/millett.html\">American Valor</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.webcitation.org/mainframe.php\">Boston Globe</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.historynet.com/military-history-interview-with-colonel-lewis-l-millett.htm\">Interview at Historynet</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.webcitation.org/5lVDOw97T\">Washington Post</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Millett\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2009-12-04','222268018077','millett.jpg','millett1.jpg','Lewis Millett','Veteran of three wars led the last bayonet charge in U.S. history.','\"We had acquired some Chinese documents stating that Americans were afraid of hand-to-hand fighting and cold steel...\r\nwhen I read that, I thought, \'I\'ll show you, you sons of bitches!\'\"'),('Caterina Sforza','1463','May 28, 1509','Milan, Italy','Medieval Italian Politician','<p>Caterina Sforza was an ultra-tough, mean-ass tyrannical ruler who dominated faces in the 15th century, refused to back down from any challenge no matter how impossible, never registered fear, and went out of her way to ensure that everyone who crossed her wound up suffering slow, excruciating and horrific deaths by her vengeful hands.</p>\r\n<p>Born in 1462, the illegitmate daughter of the Duke of Milan and his hot mistress (a woman who also happened to be married to royalty, for whatever that\'s worth), Caterina was raised in a bitchin, beautiful Italian villa surrounded by fawning attendants, lavish luxuries, and dungeons full of jackasses being brutally tortured into submission by her crazy villainous Dad.&nbsp; Young Caterina was engaged to the Pope\'s nephew when she was just 10 years old, but for those of you who aren\'t really into the whole pedophilia thing I should probably also note that she didn\'t actually get hitched until four years after that.&nbsp; Yeah, it turned out that a bunch of douches got their panties in a wad about being manacled to a wall and having their fingernails pulled off with grill tongs, so they got pissed, murdered the hell out of the Duke, and left Caterina with nowhere else to go.&nbsp; So, she moved into the Vatican for a while and became the wife of a wealthy, powerful, and well-connected man known as the \"Captain of the Vatican Ship of State\".&nbsp; He was like the Pope\'s consigliere, and this was back in the \"good old days\" when excommunication actually meant something, and when, if the Holy Father didn\'t like you, he could just send a couple Sicilian bros to bash in your kneecaps with a baseball bat.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/sforza1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Plus he has the Swiss Guard, who have funny uniforms but are totally badass.<br />Nowadays they carry MP-5s.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Caterina\'s new husband, Girolamo Riario (don\'t ask me to pronounce that), was right in the middle of all the anarchichal corruption, machinations, and underhanded Machiavellian back-stabbing the seemed to be all the rage back in Renaissance Italy, and while observing this crazy shit Caterina learned a thing or two about putting bitches in their place by stuffing a shank in their kidneys when they\'re least expecting it.&nbsp; She dug it.&nbsp; So much so that eventually, believing that her husband didn\'t really have the same ruthless tendencies that she so admired in her father, Caterina took it upon herself to be the balls of her new family (in his defense, Girolamo was kind of a heartless bastard, but if he wasn\'t Bond villain material Caterina really wasn\'t interested).&nbsp; She made self-serving political alliances, helped her husband raise armies to fight the enemies of the Papacy, managed the estate while he was on campaign, popped out a couple future heirs, and gained a reputation as an iron lady who dominated her people with a steel-toed boot to the crotch at every opportunity.&nbsp; Anyone who didn\'t fear or respect her was beaten about the face and neck until they either changed their minds or fell into a coma.</p>\r\n<p>In 1484 the Pope died, and both Caterina and her husband knew that meant there was all of a sudden the giant twenty-pound bag of manure was going to hit the HVAC air handler fan.&nbsp; You see, back in these days, new Popes weren\'t always determined by a vote of Cardinals, but by gladiatorial combat where a couple pissed-off noblemen with swords and halberds murdered each other, and the winner got the right to put his favorite priest in Saint Peter\'s Basilica.&nbsp; Anyways, Girolamo was off plundering cities and despoiling the countryside of its valuables (like I said, this guy wasn\'t exactly Mister Rogers wishing everyone a wonderful day in the neighborhood), so Caterina, knowing she was the only hope of maintaining her family\'s death-grip on the excommunication racket, started hauling ass towards Rome.&nbsp; She was living in a villa about ten miles from the city at this time, but that didn\'t stop her.&nbsp; Nor did the fact that she was seven months pregnant.&nbsp; As soon as word came of the Pope\'s death, she just charged out there on horseback, busted into Rome, and locked herself inside the Castle Sant\'Angelo &ndash; a forbidding fortress that kind of serves as the Papal version of Castle Grayskull.&nbsp; I\'m pretty sure her insane, vastly-pregnant death ride tearing ass around Italy is where they got the idea for the <em>(S)forza Motorsport</em> series of automobile racing games, but I can\'t say that for sure.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/sforza2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Castle Sant\'Angelo. Note the badass statue of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/stmichael.html\">Saint Michael</a> at the top. </span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Countess Sforza narrowly managed to get the place fortified before her family\'s enemies came knocking at the gate asking to come inside for chips and salsa and murdering people and installing a puppet Pope on the throne.&nbsp; Caterina told them to get bent, and that if they wanted the Vatican they were going to have to go through her giant pulsating nutsack first.&nbsp; She held the castle for eleven days, enough time for order to be restored in Rome, and she only relented once her husband arrived, was given confirmation that his lands and title would not be taken away, and told her to \"take a chill pill\".&nbsp; Another friendly Pope was installed, and things continued on as they were, which is a good deal if you\'re a ruthless dictator who doesn\'t want to give up her power.</p>\r\n<p>Giacomo was kind of losing his health at this point, so on his sickbed he officially delegated authority as ruler of his County to Caterina.&nbsp; It wasn\'t long before she once again demonstrated why people shouldn\'t fuck with her.&nbsp; One time a city rebelled against the Countess, so she rode out by herself, affected the surrender of the garrison simply by yelling horrible insults at the ringleaders for three days straight, appointed a new garrison commander, rode home, and went into labor with her seventh child the day after her return.&nbsp; When the same city rebelled against her a few months later, she went <em>back</em> out, personally oversaw the torture/interrogation/additional-torture of the conspirators, had them publicly executed, and draped their corpses on display outside the gates of the city to serve as a warning to anybody else who thought maybe it wasn\'t a face-crushingly stupid decision to screw around with Caterina Sforza.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/sforza3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"Among the footsoldiers and the horsemen she was much feared, <br />because when she had a weapon in her hand she was fierce and cruel.\" </span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Over the years Girolamo evidentally pissed a bunch of people off something fierce, because one night after dinner a bunch of angry guests stabbed him to death, threw him out a window, and dragged his naked corpse through the streets of his capital.&nbsp; Caterina barricaded herself in her chambers with her children, but was eventually captured by the same douchebags who killed her husband. These dickheads dragged her out to one of her castles, stuffed a sword in her face, and ordered her to have the garrison commander surrender.&nbsp; She responded by saying she needed three hours to go inside and negotiate with the dude and that it would be all good in the hood.&nbsp; These morons allowed it, so of course she went inside, reneged on her deal, and immediately started organizing the city\'s defenders to resist.&nbsp; The dumbshit conspirators dragged her screaming children outside the castle, threatening her by saying they would execute the children one by one if she didn\'t come back down, but she flipped them the bird, hiked up her skirt, grabbed her crotch threateningly, and told them that she didn\'t care what they did to her kids because she \"bears the instrument to make more\".</p>\r\n<p>That\'s pretty stone cold.&nbsp; Not only did this crazy chick basically moon the entire army of conspirators with her junk and leave her own kids to die (they lived BTW - the jailers didn\'t have the balls to kill them, even after Caterina called their bluff), but her <em>Girls Gone Wild: Ultimate Xtreme Renaissance Championship Hyper Fighting Edition</em> antics pumped up the defenders of the castle and left the dumbass rebel leaders with the morale-crushing realization that they\'d basically just let their one piece of leverage walk right into the front door of her castle.&nbsp; How stupid can you be?</p>\r\n<p>The garrison held out for two weeks, before Caterina turned the tables, crushed the conspiracy, defeated her enemies, and rescued her children.&nbsp; When she finally caught the man behind the plot, she tied him up, forced him to watch as she burned down his house, and then dragged him around the town square behind her horse for a while.&nbsp; Once he was covered from head to toe in third-degree road rash burns, she had him publicly dismembered, piece by piece, and reportedly got quite a kick out of watching the horrified look on his face as her executioner tossed the dude\'s severed body parts into the assembled crowd one by one.&nbsp; Did I mention that you didn\'t want to cross her?</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/isabella4.bmp\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"My people, I tell you to punish and kill all enemies.<br />For it I will consider you my good brothers for evermore.<br />Do not hesitate to act, and fear nothing,<br /> because the deeds will benefit you and your children.<br /> If you fail to act you will regret it in a few days.\" </span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Once the conspiracy was appropriately (and disproportionately) dealt with, Caterina assumed power in the name of her 8 year old son, made the local lords swear allegiance to her, and ruled as a tyrant for twelve years.&nbsp; She spent most of her time imprisioning or destroying her enemies, sleeping with any guy she wanted, chilling with Machiavelli, keeping her people out of a bunch of retarded Italian wars, and basically pissing off everyone in Italy.&nbsp; She also got married (and became widowed) twice more - the first guy was assassinated (she brutalized <em>his</em> murderer by roasting the guy alive on a spit and then having his wife and sons thrown down a dried-up well to die of starvation), and the second died of sickness or something far more benign than you\'d expect considering this chick\'s career as a blood-drenched psycho hose beast.</p>\r\n<p>Eventually the Pope turned on her after she refused to let her son be married to his daughter, a woman named Lucrezia Borgia.&nbsp; Now if you know anything about <a href=\"http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/228048/lucrezia_borgia_poison_beauty_daughter.html?cat=37\">Lucrezia Borgia</a>, you\'ll know that this was a pretty wise move, but the Pope just didn\'t seem to get it.&nbsp; He gave her lands over to his son, a total bastard named Cesare Borgia, all the same. Caterina responded by writing the Holy Father a venomous, hate-filled letter, which she doused in poisonous liquid designed to kill the Pope when he read it, but it didn\'t pan out.&nbsp; Failing in her attempt to murder the head of the Catholic Church, Caterina fortified her cities, raised an army, and vowed never to surrender.&nbsp; Unfortunately that ended up just as well as the Pope poison.&nbsp; She held out in her own fortress for a month, vehemently refusing all attempts at negotiation and diplomacy, but eventually the castle was broken, and she was captured and thrown into a dungeon in Rome where she was imprisoned for 18 months.&nbsp; After she got out of the clink she moved to a villa in Florence and made a couple more failed attempts to grab power, but eventually she got tired of having people strangled to death in their sleep and became a nun instead.&nbsp; It\'s just easier that way.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/sforza5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"Fortune helps the intrepid and abandons cowards... whatever may come, I am resolved to follow the course until death.\" </span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://pagesfromhistory.pbworks.com/Caterina-Sforza\" target=\"blank\">Pages from History</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.womenwholead.org/caterina_sforza.htm\" target=\"blank\">Women Who Lead</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterina_Sforza\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Janson, Sharon.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Monstrous Regiment of Women</span>.&nbsp; Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. <br /><br /> Miles, Rosalind and Robin Cross.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Hell Hath No Fury</span>.&nbsp; Random House, 2008. <br /><br /> Pasolini, Pier Desidero.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Catherine Sforza</span>.&nbsp; Trans. Paul Sylvester.&nbsp; H.S. Stone, 1898. <br /><br /> Ritchie, Anna Cora.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Italian Life and Legends</span>.&nbsp; Kessinger, 2006. </span></p>','2009-11-20','242438018616','sforza.jpg','sforza1.jpg','Caterina Sforza','Crazy medieval tyrant who subjected her foes to ruthless tortures.','\"If I have to lose, although I am a woman, I want to lose in a manly way.\" '),('Baldwin IV of Jerusalem','1161','March 16, 1185','Jerusalem','Medieval Crusader General','<p>Contracting Leprosy in the Middle Ages wasn\'t exactly most peoples\' idea of a good time. This relatively suck-tastic illness was a debilitating, crippling, at-the-time-incurable plague that causes permanent, irreparable damage to the skin, nerves, limbs, eyes, and balls. As if it wasn\'t exciting enough that your balls could drop off at any moment, you could also look forward to being covered with sores that alternated between being completely, stab-me-with-a-knife numb or incredibly painful, exhibiting large open wounds that don\'t heal properly (if at all), and being prone to bouts where your arms and legs become flaccid, jelly-like, and unusable. Eventually this muscular uselessness becomes permanent, and then just when you think it can\'t get any worse you go blind and die. Sweet. For the vast majority of European Crusader knights living in the 12th century Middle East, Leprosy came with a prognosis that included a priest, a pine box, and Fallout-style exile into the desert wastes. For Baldwin IV, the Leper King of Jerusalem, it was merely another seemingly-insurmountable obstacle that needed to be bitch-slapped into submission by the unrelenting backhand of his massive, disfigured leprous scrotum.</p>\r\n<p>Born in Jerusalem in 1161, Baldwin was tutored during his childhood by a famous dude named William of Tyre. This is significant because William wasn\'t just some chump with a GED from some unaccredited Southeast Asian learning academy and a home-made teaching certificate &ndash; he was actually the goddamned Archbishop of Tyre, one of the greatest intellectual minds of the Middle Ages, and a crazy bastard who had spent twenty years studying mind-crushingly complex bullcrap at universities and monasteries across Europe. William also ended up writing what is now known as the only &ndash;and therefore definitive &ndash; contemporary history of the Crusader Kingdoms of the 12th century, which is pretty sweet because being the only gig in town allowed him to tweak the facts however he saw fit, and nobody out there could talk trash about how he was full of shit or anything. William trained Baldwin in the fine art of ruling a kingdom, not being a total douchebag, and responding to any threats to his power by jumping into the air and front-kicking peoples\' teeth into their brains so hard that they\'d need a lobotomy to obtain the dental records required identify the body. It was William who first discovered Baldwin\'s unfortunate Leprous tendencies &ndash; the young prince had been playing with his buddies, and when one of the kids gave him a really nasty Indian burn Baldwin didn\'t even act like he gave a crap and just whapped the kid in the eye by swinging a live alligator like a baseball bat. At first, William just thought that this kid was just well on his way to becoming a totally emotionless badass, but it turned out that he actually just had leprosy instead. Sometimes it&rsquo;s a fine line between being a badass and having debilitating nerve damage, and apparently that line happens to be made out of a bacteria known as <em>Mycrobacterium leprae</em>. Go figure.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/baldwin1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>A leprous skull.&nbsp; <br />If you want the full effect of this horrific disease,<br />try running a Google Image Search for it sometime.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Baldwin was proclaimed King of Jerusalem in 1174 at the age of 13, and by his 15th birthday he had assumed full power over the throne. The young King was smart, dedicated, well-educated, and totally pumped up about doing a bunch of awesome kingly things like eating feasts, yelling at wenches, and jousting lions with magical lances made out of dragon bones, but unfortunately he was also subject to that pesky crippling disease that often left him feeling like he\'d just been used as a human speed bump by a convoy of semis. It also didn\'t help his efficiency or his morale that he was always surrounded by opportunistic jackasses constantly jockeying for position and seeking to take over as ruler once he eventually died a lonely, agonizingly painful, premature death, either. As a result, much of this poor guy\'s time was dedicated to fighting off power plays and doing other stupid bullshit that generally didn\'t involve jamming swords through peoples\' torsos, which kind of sucked a satchel of dicks. I should note that it worked out alright for Baldwin\'s sister, however &ndash; once it became common knowledge that the man she married would end up being the King of Jerusalem in the relatively-near future, she immediately became pretty much the hottest piece of ass in the Levant. She ended up marrying a dude named William Longsword, so you can draw your own conclusions from that.</p>\r\n<p>Well Baldwin IV wasn&rsquo;t going to go off and start digging his own grave just because he had a debilitating terminal illness or whatever &ndash; this hardass was determined to make the most of the time he had, live hard, and have a tombstone with some badass shit written on it, and it wasn\'t long before he got the opportunity to make his mark on history. In 1177, the great Muslim hero Salah al-Din came rolling into town to fuck some crusader shit up, and the 16 year-old Baldwin suddenly found himself in a prime position to get his face violently rearranged by one of history\'s all-time toughest and most badassed military commanders. The mighty Saladin has now made a name for himself as being the guy who almost single-handedly ruined the crusaders\' beach party in the Middle East by turning all of their most powerful and toughest knights into large heaping piles of rotting corpses, and squaring off against this guy on the field of battle was about as appealing as the prospect of getting kicked in the crotch by a donkey or using a Taco Bell restroom. Well, our friend Baldwin had spent his entire life looking the Grim Reaper right in his stupid punk face, and he wasn\'t about to start soiling his armor now. The King raised a large army, prepared for battle, and recruited the help of his good buddies the Knights Templar to help him turn back the invading forces.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/baldwin2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>When they weren\'t praying or clubbing people in the face with a mallet,<br />the Templars spent most of their time just standing around looking tough.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Of course, Saladin was like the Gary Kasparov of military strategy, and his initial invasion plan was so brilliant that it left the crusaders looking like a couple of monkeys trying to hump a football. First, he feinted at Gaza, and a large number of the Templar Knights all started reinforcing their positions there. Next, Saladin did an around-end and headed towards the fortress city of Ascalon &ndash; an easily-defensible position that Baldwin was eager to snap up and start fortifying. This was just a head fake as well, and as soon as Saladin boxed Baldwin in by completely surrounding Ascalon with a small force he just whipped around and led the main body of his army after his true goal: Jerusalem &ndash; a city so incredibly holy that people have been violently killing each other over it for like two millennia.</p>\r\n<p>At this point things were looking kind of bleak for our hero. He was outmanned, outsmarted, surrounded, and was now trapped inside a stupid, useless fortress while his nemesis was out there capturing undefended cities and blitzing towards the seat of European power in the Middle East. This was shitty, sure, but as I\'ve said before Baldwin wasn\'t the sort of guy who just gave up and called it quits every time he was stuck in a morbidly depressing, hopeless situation. This grim warrior-king sacked up, cracked his knuckles so hard it broke off one of his fingers, assembled a dedicated force of just 500 Knights Templar, and rode out to save his Kingdom from conquest at the hands of Saladin\'s seemingly-invincible armies.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/baldwin3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>It was kind of like this, only not really.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Baldwin and his men crashed through the besieging Muslim lines like a wrecking ball whacking down the pins at a bowling alley, and hauled ass for Jerusalem like Lando Calrissian gunning the Millenium Falcon through the exploding, crumbling remains of the second Death Star. He somehow kicked it into Ludicrous Speed, went plaid across the land, and inexplicably managed to catch up with Saladin\'s army in a narrow ravine a mere 45 miles from the gates of Jerusalem.</p>\r\n<p>Saladin had pretty much figured he had the Crusaders by the balls at this point, and in his haste to send the Europeans crying back home to their mamas he fucked up and forgot to keep an eye out for insane lepers hauling ass at Mach3.5 across the countryside. Baldwin and his Templars caught the once-unbeatable tactician completely by surprise, and before Saladin\'s men had even had a chance to figure out their swords from their dicks the young Leper King was leading a massive charge of cavalry all the way up their assholes.</p>\r\n<p>Think about this for a minute. On most days, Baldwin IV was barely able to stand &ndash; let alone take on the most powerful army in the world &ndash; but on the battlefield at Mont Gisard, he got so ripshit pumped up out of his mind about doing one completely fucking aweseome thing with his life that he did what seemed impossible and served as an inspiration to every man around him. The once-feeble King was out there in front of the host of warriors, his hands and arms wrapped in bandages in an unsuccessful attempt to lessen the searing pain shooting through his body as he gripped his blade, as he spurred his horse on, leading a charge of 500 knights (and a few thousand local infantry) against an army of 26,000 battle-hardened veteran soldiers. The people who witnessed this got so ridiculously jacked that they each fought like a fucking roid-raging Yetis on PCP, swinging their blades at the unprepared invaders like cheesy 1980s slasher-movie villains assaulting a sorority house. The crusaders suffered heavy losses &ndash; over 2,000 casualties were reported in the aftermath &ndash; but in the process Baldwin IV and his knights somehow managed to snatch victory from the asshole of defeat and inflict the most devastating defeat the Invincible Saladin would ever suffer. Saladin\'s army was annihilated, many of his personal bodyguards were killed, and the great commander was lucky to escape the carnage with his life. He returned home to Egypt with fewer than a thousand survivors still under his command.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/baldwin4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For his insane bravery on the field of Montgisard, Baldwin became a hero among his people almost overnight. He was made out as the savior of Christendom, the defender of the faith, and a superhuman man who had overcome a crippling illness to epically rock the face of the Crusader Kingdoms\' greatest enemy.</p>\r\n<p>The crusaders were not able to capitalize on their impossible victory, and I should of course mention that in true badass fashion Saladin would return, destroy a Templar stronghold, capture Jerusalem, and make all of the Christian Kingdoms his bitch, but that\'s a tale from a different story. As for Baldwin, his illness got progressively worse, to the point where he was paralyzed and blind and needed to be carried around in a litter, and he eventually died in 1185 at the age of 24. Despite his short, tragic life, the chroniclers of the time will always remember his bravery in the defense of Jerusalem in 1177.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/baldwin5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://historymedren.about.com/od/bentries/a/11_baldwiniv.htm\">About.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_IV_of_Jerusalem\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"https://health.google.com/health/ref/Leprosy\">Google Fact Sheet on Leprosy</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Hamilton, Bernard.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Leper King and His Heirs</span>.&nbsp; Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005. <br /><br /> Howarth, Steven.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Knights Templar</span>.&nbsp; Barnes &amp; Noble Publishing, 1991. <br /><br /> Lane-Poole, Stanley.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Saladin</span>.&nbsp; Putnam, 1906. <br /><br /> Madden, Thomas F.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The New Concise History of the Crusades</span>.&nbsp; Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2005. <br /><br /> Tyerman, Christopher.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">God\'s War</span>.&nbsp; Harvard Univ. Press, 2006. </span></p>','2009-11-13','635653018715','baldwin.jpg','baldwin1.jpg','Baldwin IV of Jerusalem','The Leper King of Jerusalem led the charge that destroyed Saladin\'s invading armies.',''),('Marko Peji&#263;','August 31, 1918','November 15, 2003','Charleroi, PA, USA','WWII American Marine','<p>Over the last couple weeks, I\'ve included quite a few badasses who accomplished some ridiculously insane acts of large-sacked bravery without so much as face-punching a person unconscious, hitting man-eating beasts with shovels, or flinging a couple dozen grenades into enemy pillboxes. So, with Veteran\'s Day around the corner, it\'s due time for me to tell the tale of one man who, in a single night of scrotum-crushing carnage, killed more than enough people for an entire month\'s worth of Badass of the Week content &ndash; badass United States Marine Corps Sergeant Mitchell Paige.</p>\r\n<p>Born Mitchell Pejic in 1918, the son of Serb immigrants, \"Mitch\" was always interested in doing things that kicked ass. He went out and learned how to tie a bunch of freakalicious knots and start raging bonfires simply by banging kindling together somehow, becoming an Eagle Scout in 1936, and once he\'d made Eagle he didn\'t even wait around to pick up his award before packing his shit up and joining the Marine Corps. He went through the ball-busting rigors of boot camp, served as a gunner on the battleship <em>Wyoming</em>, played on the all-Navy-Marine baseball team, and once pummeled a Japanese officer senseless in a huge barroom brawl in Beijing when that fucking doucheburger had the audacity to try and impale our boy Mitch through the neck with a goddamned samurai sword when he wasn\'t looking. Sure, almost being decapitated was fun and all, but it was after all that unpleasantness at Pearl Harbor went down that things got a little more serious. Mitch got so pissed he started spitting blood, and was immediately shipped off with the 7th Marines to demonstrate the appropriate way of handling a situation in which someone is begging to be kicked in the throat with a well-polished boot.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/paige1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When the 7th Marines landed on Guadalcanal in 1942, Mitchell Paige was already a Platoon Sergeant in command of a machine gun section. Now, in terms of things being so ungodly terrible that you want to puncture your own face with a letter opener, Guadalcanal was pretty much an epic clusterfuck on par with the <em>Star Wars</em> prequel trilogy or <em>Saturday Night Live</em> post-Tina Fey. The Americans were intent on capturing and holding a vital airfield to further establish their presence as big dogs in the Pacific and take the fight to the Japanese homeland, and the Japanese were understandably a little hesitant to allow the Yanks the ability to start sending bombers on strafing runs over downtown Tokyo. The Marines were able to get a slight foothold on the island at first, but relentless attacks from super-pissed Japanese asskickers and insane amounts of heavily-armed enemy aircraft, giant warships, malaria-infected mosquitoes, and fully-loaded troop transports made the entire affair essentially a massive exercise in sucking balls. At one point during the campaign things were looking so hopeless that the Marines were actually given the go-ahead to surrender the island to the Imperial Japanese Army.</p>\r\n<p>Well if the American high command wanted their forces to surrender, they shouldn\'t have sent in the Marines.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/paige2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Marine effort at Guadalcanal can be almost completely encapsulated in the actions of one neck-breaking buzz saw of asswhomping bloodlust &ndash; Sergeant Mitchell Paige. At 2 am on 26 October 1942, Paige was stationed in his foxhole on the perimeter of the American lines, when suddenly he noticed a massive throng of Japanese assembly lights in the forest before him. Within a few minutes, his small, 33-man machine gun platoon was facing off against a seemingly-unstoppable advance of roughly 2,500 Japanese men and officers &ndash; a full regiment of Imperial soldiers eager to crack skulls and shred faces. Well, as I said before, the Marines don\'t back down without a fight, and as soon as the first wave of infantry was close enough that he could hear the clinking of their canteens, Paige leapt up and ordered his men to start kicking some ass.</p>\r\n<p>A dump truck\'s worth of bullets mowed down the surprised Japanese troops, exploding many of them into red mist and sending the rest spiraling to the ground. This is great and all for the Americans, but I should also say that part of the reason why the Pacific War was so brutal was because <em>neither side</em> was going to back down just because they were getting torn up by bullets and explosions, and the heavy thumping of Paige\'s machine gun platoon only served to make the Japanese even more ripshit pissed out of their minds. A second wave of determined warriors charged ahead, plowing through no-man\'s land, and before long the horde of bayonet-and-rifle swinging infantrymen charged pointy-end-first into the Marine foxholes. At one point during the close-quarters, hand-to-hand fighting Mitch\'s hand was slashed badly by a Japanese bayonet, crippling his ability at taking on his enemies in vicious thumb-fighting duels, but he still managed to kill the dude with a ka-bar to the throat. Pulling himself up, Paige got right back to manning his machine gun. This rampaging human chaingun continued firing at everything that didn\'t have a Marine Corps helmet on, blasting away in every direction Smash TV-style while blood was exploding all over the place. When he ran out of targets, he repositioned his gun to a location that provided more targets. When his gun overheated, he changed it out for another. He was like fucking <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/matrix.html\">John Matrix</a> fragging an entire hacienda of soldiers at the end of <em>Commando</em> or some shit. After an insane couple of hours of near-constant battle, Mitch ran down the line to pump up his men, only to realize that he was the last guy standing &ndash; it was him, by himself, surrounded by a full regiment of Japanese on all sides.</p>\r\n<p>Mitchell Paige somehow managed to clear a path through the enemy, and by chance he discovered a small group of Marines heading his direction. Paige ran out, took one look at them, unhooked his machine gun from its tripod, and ordered the men to, \"fix bayonets and follow me.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/paige3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Carrying the machine gun under his arm Rambo-style, Paige led little more than a dozen Marines on a full-on fucking bayonet charge against a couple thousand take-no-bullshit Japanese troops in what should have amounted to little more than a suicide mission. The Japanese soldiers, however, disoriented and out of position in the pitch-dark night, didn\'t seem to realize what the deuce was happening and actually began to fall back and retreat in the face of this pointy onslaught. At one point, an Imperial officer jumped up, fired an entire clip of pistol ammunition at Mitch, and then rushed after him with his samurai sword, but Paige cut him down with a burst of automatic weapons fire. The Japanese called off their attack, and ten hours after the first gunshots were fired, Mitchell Paige still held his position. He won the Medal of Honor for his actions, becoming one of only seven men to be both Eagle Scouts and Medal of Honor recipients.</p>\r\n<p>After Guadalcanal, Mitch transferred to Australia, where he finished up the war. He made officer, retired as a Colonel in 1959, and went on to achieve the great honor of having a G.I. Joe action figure modeled after him. He dedicated the later part of his life to tracking down dickheads who owned or sold fake Medals of Honor, and died in 2003 at the age of 85 - a man who took on an army by himself and somehow emerged victorious.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/paige4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Paige\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3656/is_199812/ai_n8818698/\">BNet Article</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/Whos_Who/Paige_M.htm\">Who\'s Who in Marine Corps History</a><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /> <span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Clark, Johnnie.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Gunner\'s Glory.</span>&nbsp; Random House, 2004.<br /><br /> Collier, Peter.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Medal of Honor.</span>&nbsp; Artisan, 2006.<br /><br /> Paige, Mitchell.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A Marine Named Mitch.</span>&nbsp; Vantage, 1975.<br /><br /> Smith, Larry.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Beyond Glory.</span>&nbsp; W.W. Norton, 2004.</span></p>','2009-11-06','806371618760','paige.jpg','paige1.jpg','Mitchell Paige','One Marine on Guadalcanal takes on 2,500 Japanese and wins.','\"I continued the trigger bursts until the barrel began to steam. In front of me was a large pile of dead bodies. I ran around the ridge from gun to gun trying to keep each gun firing, but at each emplacement I only found dead Marine gunners. I knew then that I must be all alone.\"'),('Aki Ra','1970','N/A','Siem Reap, Cambodia','21st-century Cambodian Humanitarian','<p>Aki Ra is a Cambodian guy who goes out into the jungle and disarms landmines with a pocketknife and a really sharp stick.&nbsp; While I feel relatively confident that I can probably just post that sentence by itself along with a picture of this crazy bastard unscrewing a densely-packed bomb of unexploded TNT with his bare hands and a seemingly-endless supply of raw bravery, over the years you guys have come to expect a minimum word count out of me on these sorts of articles, so perhaps a little further explanation is going to be required.</p>\r\n<p>Back in the dark days of the 1970s, when the hypnotic horrors of disco music held much of the world in its terrible, unbreakable death-grip, the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia was taken over by a group of soulless assburgers known as the Khmer Rouge.&nbsp; These epic totalitarian douchebubbles were totally evil mega bastard-machines hellbent on exterminating pretty much everybody in the country who didn\'t have a hearty appreciation for mega bastard-machines, and/or who owned either a pair of glasses, a book, or the capability and willingness to construct and vocalize at least one independent thought.&nbsp; These guys flipped out like crazy hard, and in under a decade they successfully managed to kill something on the order of two million of their own citizens for basically no reason at all.&nbsp; This is a significant number no matter what you\'re talking about, but it carries a little extra gut-punching weight when you realize that there were only like 7 million people living in Cambodia at the time that the Khmer Rouge started these Hitleriffic purges.&nbsp; You probably don\'t need Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys to tell you that living under Pol Pot\'s regime wasn\'t exactly most peoples\' idea of a nice relaxing vacation.</p>\r\n<p>Aki Ra\'s parents were part of the unlucky 28.5% of the population that ended up being brutally murdered with pickaxes (Pol Pot was a strong believer in the doctrine that axe-murdering your own citizens was a much more cost-effective method of executing your enemies, as it allowed him to save money on bullets), and Aki was conscripted as a child soldier in the Khmer Rouge army at the age of five.&nbsp; He was raised in a militaristic jungle training camp, and as soon as he was strong enough to hold a landmine he was put to work setting booby traps along the entire length of the Cambodia-Thailand border.&nbsp; He served the Khmer Army for nearly ten years, working on this massive mine-laying project while dudes jammed AK-47s in his back and ordered him around - a daily regimen that kind of bit a bag of asses.&nbsp; As you can probably imagine, however, it\'s a little difficult for someone like the Khmer Rouge to run a country when they spent all of their time oppressing their soldiers and executing every literate member of their own citizenry, so eventually in the 1980s Ho Chi Minh just came across the border and conquered Cambodia for Vietnam.&nbsp; Aki Ra was once again conscripted into service, this time in the Vietnamese Army, where he served for another decade.&nbsp; The Vietnamese eventually decided the situation was hopeless and got the hell out of there in 1989, and this time poor Aki went BACK to Cambodia\'s military.</p>\r\n<p>Putting in twenty-plus years of service as a mine-laying peon in three different conscript armies by the time you\'re thirty wasn\'t really as awesome as you might think, however, and by the time the United Nations rolled into Cambodia in 1994 Aki Ra was getting pretty tired of blowing people up and turning his own countryside into one massive cascading explosion.&nbsp; So, when the UN decided to start giving people training in how to safely and effectively remove land mines, Aki Ra jumped at the chance to atone for his previous work and start undoing everything he\'d been working on for the past two decades.&nbsp; He accomplished this in a pretty damned spectacular manner:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aki-ra1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Just another day on the job,<br />which seems to involve whacking land mines with a pipe wrench.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The UN trained Aki in the proper application of protective bomb-proof armor, mine detector operation, and sweep-and-clear removal processes for dealing with dense fields of high explosives, but when those guys left town, Aki realized he didn\'t have very much in the way of money or equipment.&nbsp; Still, this unstoppable powerhouse of mine-clearing insanity wasn\'t going to be deterred from accomplishing his newfound goal in life simply by something as stupid as \"not having access to the sort of minesweeping gear you need in order to not die while removing mines\", and just decided to go out and start digging anti-personnel grenades out of the ground with a shovel and jamming sticks in them until they stopped being capable of blowing his arm completely out of socket and depositing the charred appendage in the South China Sea.</p>\r\n<p>The head-smashing ridiculousness of what this guy is doing is only further demonstrated by the fact that this human bomb-clearing robot can dig out, clear, and defuse a standard land mine in about two minutes &ndash; a process that usually takes the United Nations bomb teams something more on the order of one to two hours.&nbsp; This guy busts through entire minefields with the same nonchalant attitude that he would have while raking a lawn, plucking mines out without thinking about it and somehow spotting the buried explosives just by glancing down at the ground through a thick underbrush of green jungle crap.&nbsp; If it helps, you can think of Aki Ra as like the guy who comes over to your house once, boots up Minesweeper on your desktop, breaks all of your scores on the first try, and then leaves and you spend the rest of your natural life trying to beat his times until such point that you finally give up and manage to preserve your tenuous grip on your sanity only by ferociously ragequitting and clicking the \"Reset Scores\" button so hard that it snaps a button off of your mouse.&nbsp; It\'s like that, except instead of clicking flags and smiley faces, this guy is actually clearing out real-life minefields with little more than his bare hands and what I can only presume is a planet-sized ballsack.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aki-ra3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"I will do anything to make my country safe.&nbsp; Sometimes I get nervous, but that is rare.<br />In 20 years I\'ve never been injured.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>From 1994 to 2007, Aki Ra grabbed a shovel, a stick, and a knife and personally went out into the jungles of the densely-populated Siam Reap region of Cambodia to remove Soviet, Chinese, and Vietnamese-constructed land mines.&nbsp; He almost single-handedly cleared out all the explosives surrounding Cambodia\'s primary tourist attraction &ndash; the incredible <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aki-ra5.jpg\">Temples at Angkor Wat</a> &ndash; before turning his attention to local playgrounds and farmlands that had been off-limits for decades.&nbsp; For this guy to do this shizzle without wearing any kind of protective gear (he usually just went out in a pair of sandals and a button-down shirt) is so mind-flayingly insane that I kind of want to vomit a little.&nbsp; Thanks in no small part to the work of this one man, the number of accidental landmine casualties in Cambodia dropped from 3,047 to 1,109 in the three-year span from 1996 to 1999.</p>\r\n<p>Eventually Aki Ra had removed so many landmines that his house was overflowing with the shit, so in 1998 he opened the Cambodian Landmine Museum as a place to displace the unexploded ordinance and educate people on how much landmines seriously suck balls.&nbsp; The place is now a registered NGO, and Aki spends less time personally removing mines and more time training everyone from local villagers to Cambodian Army soldiers in his insane, completely-unlicensed and largely-unapproved-by-any-rational-human-being strategy of digging up and disarming mines with his fists.&nbsp; He now has a team of over 1,000 people working in de-mining operations across the country, and claims that in the 16 years he has been on the job he\'s personally removed and cleared over 50,000 mines by himself.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aki-ra4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>A small selection of the mines in Aki\'s Cambodian Landmine Museum.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When he\'s not running a successful non-governmental organization, curating the museum, or flexing his pulsating iron ballsack, Aki Ra also takes in homeless, (often-times drug-addicted) local kids who have had appendages blown off by land mines and provides them with adequate food, shelter, and education.&nbsp; Aki provides for his twenty-plus \"children\" by going out into the jungles and hunting wild boars with a crossbow.&nbsp; I wish I was making this shit up.</p>\r\n<p>Aki Ra is a real hero of Cambodia and a true badass - not because of his service rocking faces on a military level, as so many others on this website demonstrate &ndash; but because he has dedicated his life to single-handedly neutralizing Cambodia\'s once-crippling landmine problem.&nbsp; Of course, it doesn\'t hurt that he seems to have found the most badass way of accomplishing the feat, either.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aki-ra2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"There are still over one million landmines in Cambodia.&nbsp; At the rate they are going now, it will take 50-100 years to finish.<br />If they give me a license then I could teach villagers to de-mine the way I do.&nbsp; It is fast, easy, and cheap.<br />I believe we could have the whole country de-mined in 3-5 years.\"</span></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Further Reading:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Ra\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&amp;objectid=10388620\">The New Zealand Herald</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.fcccambodia.com/newsletter/0707/aki-ra-landmine-museum.php\">FCC Cambodia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.talesofasia.com/cambodia-akira.htm\">Tales of Asia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/akira.htm\">Mekong.net</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/\">Official Site of the Cambodian Landmine Museum</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pw-2yMC5BE\">Video of Aki Ra in action</a></p>','2009-10-30','255999318805','aki-ra.jpg','aki-ra - Copy.jpg','Aki Ra','Aki Ra is a Cambodian guy who disarms land mines with a pocketknife.','\"I poke my stick in the ground till I find a mine.\r\nThen I dig around it, to make sure that it is not booby-trapped.\r\nThen, I unscrew the detonator.  And the mine is safe.\"'),('Stephen Tyrone Colbert','May 13, 1964','N/A','Washington, DC','21st-century American Entertainer','<p>Once upon a time, politics was so boring that merely flipping on CSPAN was a neo-Kevorkian enterprise that generally resulted in someone becoming so borderline-comatose that they were often-times forced to violently insert silverware into their eyes just to make sure they were still registering brain activity.&nbsp; Those were the dark days, back before a massive, earth-rending behemoth of uni-partisan political reporting named Stephen Colbert came around and rocked the faces off of everything with a pulse, shoving ten tons of political commentary up Americans\' urethras with all the delicacy of a guy having his spleen assaulted with a vicious <em>Fusion-Powered Jackhammer of Spleen Annihilation +4</em>, and generally just making the entire political landscape of America his prison bitch.</p>\r\n<p>Nobody really knows where this epic, unstoppable Juggernaut of Punditry originated from, or indeed even whether he was born to human parents or just crash-landed on Earth after the destruction of the Planet Colbertron.&nbsp; I\'m told that he was apparently in some stuff before his role in the excellently-bitchin\' cult hit <em>Strangers with Candy</em>, but I don\'t really know anything about that and can\'t be bothered to look into it right now.&nbsp; After <em>SwC</em> he went on to portray a marginally less effeminate character, serving as a voice for one member of SNL\'s relentlessly-fierce <em>Ambiguously Gay Duo</em>, and then worked as a news correspondent on the <em>Daily Show</em> for a while.&nbsp; It was only after he finally managed to liberate himself from the fetters of Jon Stewart\'s tyranny, however, that he truly began to demonstrate his awesomeness in all of its righteous, pinko-eviscerating glory.&nbsp; On his cable television program <em>The Colbert Report</em> Stephen really found his niche as a relentless smiter of other peoples\' nutsacks, as he began to verbally tear new metaphorical assholes for everything from Communist sympathizers and bullshit Wikipedia entries to cities named Canton and any godless man-eating bears not currently getting their faces wrecked by <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/wanyandie.html\">Tom Wanyandie</a>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/colbert3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>His service to our country did not go unappreciated, not only in our nation and across the globe, but even by people who traditionally hate America (i.e. liberals).&nbsp; In just six seasons of his program, this Paragon of Americana (Amerigona?) has been knighted by the Queen of Jordan, personally issued a Hungarian passport by the country\'s U.S. Ambassador, coined a half-dozen new words, sang a duet with Barry Manilow, had a holiday dedicated in his honor in the city of Oshawa, Ontario, and had an excellently-stoic portrait of himself placed in the Smithsonian Institute\'s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.&nbsp; He also briefly attempted to run for President (but apparently got bored and decided to say, \"fuck it\"), presented at three Emmy Awards ceremonies, traveled to Iraq, became the first TV show host to produce a week\'s worth of shows in the middle of a raging combat zone, and had his head shaved by the Commanding General of Operation Iraqi Freedom on orders from the President of the United States.</p>\r\n<p>Colbert also has a particularly interesting/badass habit of lending his name to a bizarre menagerie of face-gnawing carnivorous beasts as well.&nbsp; In addition to the hockey mascot Steagle Cobeagle, various iterations of the Colbert name have been attributed to everything from turtles and bald eagles to a crazy nymphomanaical falcon named Esteban whose primary claim to fame is that he lives in downtown San Jose, eats pigeons, and has gets freaky with all the girl falcons he meets.&nbsp; Stephen has also had two new species of animals named after him &ndash; a trapdoor spider and some weirdo variety of trogloditic beetle which, according to <a href=\"http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/05/07/stephen-colbert-has-new-species-named-after-him/\">the news article</a>, sports, \"extremely complicated genitalia\".&nbsp; He also has an eponymous gourmet variety of ice cream that costs like fifteen bucks a pint, and was totally jobbed out of having his name on a wing of the Space Station and a state-of-the-art bridge in Hungary.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/colbert2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Stephen has a pretty decent relationship with outer space, which is also pretty sweet to the max gonzo.&nbsp; Not only does Colbert have a fully-armed-and-operational space station treadmill named after him, but he also basically impregnated the galaxy when his DNA was launched out of a space shuttle a couple months ago.&nbsp; Not a whole lot of people can claim that their genetic material once traveled so fast that it achieved escape velocity, or that it could potentially be used to repopulate the planet Earth after we as humans finally sack up and blow ourselves directly into Hell with a few billion metric fucktons of nuclear material.</p>\r\n<p>Some mention must also be made of Stizzle Cobizzle\'s &uuml;ber-mecha controversial appearance at the White House Press Correspondent\'s dinner in 2006, where basically he went into a room, stood a few feet away from the President, the First Lady, and a bunch of high-ranking politicians, celebrities and press members, and uncompromisingly mocked the hell out of all of them.&nbsp; Now, I don\'t care who you are or what your political leanings may be (I generally make an attempt to remain as a-political as possible here at Badass of the Week, albeit admittedly I sometimes achieve that goal with varying degrees of effectiveness), but I think everybody can agree that talking massive amounts of shit about powerful people right to their faces takes a radioactive set of adamantium-plated balls the likes of which few can ever hope to have an opportunity to display.&nbsp; Democrats, Republicans, the media, members of the <em>Ursidae</em> family, and pretty much everybody else got totally pissed off, crushed soda cans on their foreheads with enough force to crumple aluminum, and started talking all this vitriolic smack about how Colbert was a total dick (something which, in my opinion at least, was kind of the point of the entire exercise to begin with).&nbsp; I mean, any time you give a talk somewhere and the guy who asked you to speak ends up getting fired because of it, that\'s kind of awesome.&nbsp; The speech did win Spike TV\'s award for \"Gutsiest Move of 2006\", which I guess is as impressive as things can get when you\'re talking about something like Spike TV.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/colbert1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Perhaps one of the most badass aspects of Colbert, however, is the now-legendary \"Colbert Bump\", where he can basically get tons of media exposure for anybody, anywhere, at any time and for any reason he desires.&nbsp; So, say for instance (and this is purely a hypothetical situation, mind you) that you\'re <a href=\"http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/35294/index.aspx\">a relatively unknown author</a>, but you\'ve written <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bookfaq.html\">a pretty interesting book</a> that\'s being released in stores across North America in, say, four days.&nbsp; Basically, all this guy needs to do is sit across a wood table from you, cock his eyebrow like Dwayne \"The Rock\" Johnson asking people whether or not they can smell what he may or may not be cooking, jab a finger in your direction and threateningly demand why you \"hate America\", and the next thing you know you\'re sitting on a beach in Mykonos having Greek bellydancers pour Ouzo smoothies in your mouth while you think about how great it is not to spend eight hours a day hunched over a desk trying to figure out why the hell your stupid computer locks up every time you try to sort your Sent Items folder in Microsoft Outlook.&nbsp; This guy is like King Midas with hair gel.&nbsp; He\'s given the bump to everyone from politicians to actors, his own book was number one on the New York Times Bestseller list for 29 weeks, and the book he co-wrote with the Daily Show folks held that prestigious honor for an additional 15.&nbsp; It\'s kind of like he eats Macbooks and craps out bestsellers, which rocks.&nbsp; He\'s also won enough Emmies, Peabodies, CableACEs, and god knows whatever the hell else that he could melt all that shit down, build a fifty-foot android of himself, and send the thing out to wreak havoc on Western civilization (which would be completely rad, by the way).</p>\r\n<p>However, despite all of these sufficiently-badass details, any kind of bizarre, freaky hero-worship I may attempt to display on this website would pale in comparison to Stephen\'s own words, as described in the \"About the Author\" section of his bestselling book:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/colbert4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><em><strong>Stephen Colbert Is America.</strong></em></span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.colbertnation.com/about\">Colbert Nation</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/09/stephen-colbert/\">Colbert DNA in Space</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_%28character%29\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Colbert, Stephen.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">I Am America (And So Can You!)</span>.&nbsp; Grand Central, 2007. </span></p>','2009-10-23','625396118845','colbert.jpg','colbert - Copy.jpg','Stephen Colbert','I shamelessly plug my book by writing about the TV\'s most badass talk show host.',''),('Bruce Perry Crandall','February 17, 1933','N/A','Olympia, WA, USA','20th-century American Pilot','<p>In case you didn\'t know, earning the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor in combat isn\'t like exactly getting a gold star for attendance in second grade or unlocking the \"Congratulations You Completed the Bullshit Tutorial Mission\" achievement on some crappy low-budget first-person tactical shooter game.&nbsp; In fact, on average only one out of every six people who receive the highest honor bestowed by the United States military actually survives to accept the medal in person, so you can pretty much bet that any award in which things like \"survival\" and \"not exploding\" are merely optional is probably not something that\'s handed out to just any moron with an assault rifle and a skull-and-crossbones tattoo.&nbsp; Well Vietnam war hero Bruce Crandall not only won the Medal and lived to tell the tale, but he did it without firing a single bullet &ndash; this somewhat-insane, completely-fearless Sonic Boom of Awesomeness demonstrated his badassitude while piloting an unarmored transport vehicle and armed only by with his unbreakable sense of duty, a complete immunity to Fear-related spell-effects, and a well-polished set of giant titanium balls.</p>\r\n<p>Bruce Crandall got his start inauspiciously enough, making a name for himself at an early age as an All-American high school baseball player in Olympia, Washington, where (among other things) he boasted a single-season batting average over .600.&nbsp; This is pretty damned impressive, especially considering that many people don\'t hit .600 in beer league slow-pitch softball, but instead of being offered a multi-year deal for truckloads of cash and hot babes by some triple-A minor league club and retiring to a life of luxury, Bruce instead ended up being a first-round draft pick for the United States Selective Service System and shipped off to serve in the Army.</p>\r\n<p>Crandall went to flight school and spent the first few years of compulsory military service piloting fixed-wing craft and helicopters, where he was tasked with the incredibly face-breakingly dangerous job of mapping previously uncharted territories.&nbsp; Basically, this guy\'s mission, much like that of fellow badass Captain <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kirk.html\">James T. Kirk</a>, was to boldly go where no man has gone before, and presumably to bring back some sweet maps with him or something.&nbsp; So, without complaining once, this crazypilot spent several years zooming out over some of the world\'s most dangerous and pants-soilingly inhospitable environments &ndash; bitter regions such as the Arctic Circle, the Sahara Desert, and the Amazon Rainforest &ndash; taking reconnaissance pictures and desperately trying not to crash-land into some unsurvivable, uninhabited death-hellhole in the middle of nowhere from which he could never hope to be rescued and could look forward to little more than a lonely death being slowly digested by some kind of weirdo carnivorous plant.</p>\r\n<p>Apparently this sort of shizknuckle wasn\'t life-threatening enough work for Crandall, however, because before long he went out to serve in a little overseas entanglement known as the Vietnam War.&nbsp; Bruce flew choppers as a company commander in the 1st Air Cavalry &ndash; the same unit portrayed blowing the hell out of everything in sight in the badass opening scene of <em>Apocalypse Now</em> - and led a number of missions across the dense canopy jungles of Vietnam.&nbsp; In addition to helping develop the air assault and extraction tactics utilized by the entire Division (and, presumably, enjoying the smell of napalm in the morning), he also flew missions to support eight U.S. infantry battalions fighting on the ground during the An Khe campaign.&nbsp; His awesome callsign &ndash; Ancient Serpent Six (which honestly sounds like it would be a totally bitchin\' name for a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie) &ndash; also led to his men referring to him by the equally-bitchin\' nickname \"Old Snake\".</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/crandall1.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Dealing out \"death from above\" while cranking Wagner from his boom box at maximum volume was cool and all, but it was during the bloody asskicking carnage on 14 November 1965 that Solid Old Snake Plisskin Crandall really made a name for himself as a stone-cold hardass who didn\'t flinch in the face of ludicrous amounts of danger and giant raging explosions.&nbsp; Crandall\'s company was in the process of combat-dropping the men of the 7th Cavalry Regiment in the Ia Drang Valley when all of a sudden the entire countryside erupted into a geyser of bullets, rockets, and general suckitude.&nbsp; The infantry came under intense fire, seemingly from all directions at once, and within seconds the entire valley was completely littered with dying and wounded American soldiers.&nbsp; Crandall himself was in an extremely exposed position &ndash; at one point a squad of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops occupied a position less than 30 yards from the landing zone, opening up at Crandall\'s chopper with a burst of gunfire that wounded three men inside the bird &ndash; but this ice-water asskicker didn\'t freak out and haul his shit full-throttle outta there like the MiGs in Top Gun just because a bunch of dudes with assault rifles and RPGs were hurling massive amounts of incredibly lethal substances at him in an angry and threatening manner.&nbsp; No, this guy waited for wounded men to be loaded into his Huey, refusing to take off until he had filled the cargo bay with soldiers in desperate need of medical attention, and only then did he burn rubber back home.</p>\r\n<p>Now this in and of itself is pretty badass.&nbsp; I mean, this guy was flying around in an unarmed, unarmored chopper that didn\'t even sport a door-mounted machine gun and was basically about one step removed from the Channel 5 Newscopter, yet he was determined to save these men even at the cost of his own life. While this alone makes him a hero, it\'s just the beginning of this insane story.</p>\r\n<p>As Crandall was heading back to base, he started hearing radio chatter from the infantrymen on the ground.&nbsp; These guys were badly outnumbered, facing thousands of enemy soldiers, were getting pretty fucked up by NVA troops who were flipping out hard.&nbsp; The 7th Cav was taking some of the highest casualties the U.S. had seen since World War II, and even worse, they were running low on critical supplies of water and ammunition.&nbsp; Now, you don\'t really need to be a brilliant goddamned military commander to realize that hydration and bullets are two things that are relatively important if you want to continue fighting and/or being alive, so as soon as Crandall landed back at base, he unloaded his wounded and ran to tell the medevac chopper pilots to get their asses out there and start evacuating casualties.&nbsp; The douchenozzle medevac commander responded by saying that the landing zone was too dangerous (in his defense, it totally was), and that there was too much ground fire for him to risk his pilots and helicopters on a suicide mission flying full-speed into a crazy goddamned warzone.</p>\r\n<p>Bruce Crandall nodded, turned around, walked back to his men, and said something along the lines of, \"Fuck these guys.&nbsp; I\'m going back.&nbsp; Who\'s coming with me?\"</p>\r\n<p>One man stepped forward:&nbsp; Big Ed Freeman, an old buddy of Crandall\'s and his wingman dating back to their days mapping the now-seemingly-not-so-formidable wilderness of the planet\'s jungles, deserts, and frozen tundras.&nbsp; The two men fired up their rotors, stocked up on as much water and ammo as their birds could carry, and tore ass back to the front.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/crandall2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"There was never a consideration that we would not go into those landing zones.<br />They were my people down there, and they trusted in me to come and get them.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Big Ed and Old Snake &ndash; neither of whom had been formally trained in helicopter medical evacuation &ndash; flew back to the landing zone, right in the middle of the shit, bringing water and ammo to keep the men upright and save them a fighting chance to defend themselves and keep being completely moked the eff out.&nbsp; After they\'d dropped off the supplies, they loaded their Hueys up with wounded men and bolted back to the hospital.&nbsp; They returned to base, dropped off the wounded, took on more supplies, and then went BACK into the battlefield AGAIN.&nbsp; They did this <em>22 more times</em> over the course of the next 16 hours.&nbsp; Honestly, I don\'t think I have the energy to play an Xbox game about flying helicopters for 16 hours straight, but these guys were so pumped up about rescuing wounded men that they didn\'t even give a shit.&nbsp; Their somewhat-reckless tactic was to go balls-out and fly extremely low to the ground &ndash; this helped them avoid detection by the enemy, but put themselves dangerously close to the tops of the trees and made their unarmored transport helicopters dangerously vulnerable to ground fire from anything larger than a slingshot.&nbsp; Their insane actions ferrying troops and supplies back and forth to the war-torn battlefield without any regard for their own safety quickly inspired the rest of the men of Company A to perform similarly daring feats of awesomeness, and before long a massive train of choppers was rolling back and forth to the Ia Drang Valley, supporting the 450 men of the 7th Cavalry as they battled against a relentless onslaught of over 2,000 NVA soldiers.&nbsp; Crandall and Freeman landed in zones less than 200 yards from the front lines, putting their birds well within range of the enemy\'s AK-47s and RPGs, but neither man flinched in the face of this extreme danger.&nbsp; From 6am to 10pm they continually went back and forth, and Crandall himself had to change helicopters 3 different times because his shit was getting shot up so badly by NVA forces.&nbsp; By the time the day was over, Crandall was so exhausted he couldn\'t walk from the helipad to the barracks without falling down and barfing all over the place, but he and his men had brought in enough supplies for the infantry to hold off the attack.&nbsp; What\'s even more admirable is that they\'d rescued more than 70 wounded men who would almost certainly have died on the battlefield of Ia Drang.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/crandall3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Over the course of the Vietnam War, Bruce Crandall flew over 900 combat missions in both transport and attack roles &ndash; not bad, considering that there are some stories out there claiming that the average lifespan for a helicopter pilot in Nam was about three days.&nbsp; On another mind-bendingly dangerous mission, Crandall twice dropped his chopper down through dense canopy jungle in the middle of the night, using only his spotlight to guide him, and rescued twelve wounded men from a firefight, a brave action that won him a Distinguished Flying Cross.&nbsp; He was eventually shot down by the North Vietnamese in January 1968, breaking his back in the crash, but a little thing like a fractured spine wasn\'t going to stop this asskicker from doing his thing.&nbsp; He rehabbed and went on to serve as a commander of engineers for the Army, and after the war he trained the next generation of military helicopter pilots in the fine art of aerial badassitude.&nbsp; For his actions during Vietnam, Bruce Crandall was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and the Congressional Medal of Honor, and stands as the perfect example of what it means to be completely balls-out and disregard ridiculous amounts of danger in order to save the lives of your friends.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/crandall.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"Major Crandall\'s actions were without question the most valorous I\'ve observed of any helicopter pilot in Vietnam.<br />Without Crandall, this battalion would almost have surely been overrun.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/crandall/\">Army.mil Medal of Honor page</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,127134,00.html\">Military.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-22-vet-honor_x.htm\">USA Today story</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_P._Crandall\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Other Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">We Were Soldiers Once... and Young</span>.&nbsp; Random House, 1992. </span></p>','2009-10-16','491070018989','crandall4.jpg','crandall4 - Copy.jpg','Bruce Crandall','Gutsy helicopter pilot repeatedly flew into a hot LZ to save his men.','\"The officer commanding the medevacs looked me up to chew me out for having led his people into a hot LZ, and warned me never to do it again.  I couldn\'t understand how he had the balls to face me when he was so reluctant to face the enemy.  If several of my pilots hadn\'t restrained me, that officer would have earned a righteous Purple Heart that night.  From that day forward, I planned every mission in such a manner that the infantry would never have to rely on anyone but my unit for evacuation of their wounded.\"'),('Darius I','550 BC','October 486 BC','Bactria, Persia','Ancient Persian General','<p>The Persian Empire gets a bad rap.&nbsp; Despite the fact that these guys went out and forged one of the largest, wealthiest, and most ridiculously powerful land empires ever assembled, it seems like every time we read about them they\'re getting brained over the head by some random iteration of the Greek phalanx or kicked in the nuts by a large screaming European with an out-of-control beard and a six-pack of abs so cut it looks like it was chiseled from a solid chunk of the planet Krypton.&nbsp; Seriously, it seems like the only time you really hear any reference to the badassitude of the Persians is in the preface to a book about how Alexander the Great came in and conquered their asses without breaking a sweat.</p>\r\n<p>This is total bullcrap.&nbsp; Back before the Macedonian conqueror was a twinkle in his psychotic mother\'s evil, pulsating eye, ultra turbo hardasses like Darius of Persia were out there using their insane powers of colon destruction to lay waste to the countryside and exert their utter and complete dominance over the Middle East in the most violent and awesome ways imaginable.</p>\r\n<p>It all started with a crazy asskicking maniac named Cyrus the Great.&nbsp; Cyrus earned such a munificent moniker by unifying the lands of Near Asia in the 6th century before Jeebus, uniting the disorganized tribes by benevolently grinding his heel into the faces of their chieftains, smashing their armies in the junk with a sledge hammer, and exerting his will like crazy all over the place.&nbsp; It was in this manner that Cyrus crushed the Kingdom of the Babylonians, united the lands of Mesopotamia under one ruler, and crafted the Persian Empire out of the blood of his slain foes.&nbsp; When he wasn\'t kicking people in half with his sandals Cyrus also freed the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, let them re-locate back to their ancestral homelands, and helped re-build the Temple in Jerusalem &ndash; a feat which earned him mega-mad props in the Bible &ndash; so that\'s pretty dope as well.&nbsp; Cyrus was eventually killed by the barbarian Queen Tomyris, a moderately-nuts chick who cut off the Persian king\'s head and turned it into a macabre coffee mug, but that didn\'t really slow down the massive Persian war machine as much as you might think.&nbsp; Cyrus\' son Cambyses took over, added the once-powerful lands of Egypt to the Persian repertoire, and then arbitrarily biffed it all of a sudden when he accidentally stabbed himself in the leg and died of gangrene.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/darius1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Immediately after Cambyses kicked it, some jerk showed up claiming to be the late Emperor\'s long-lost brother Smerdis &ndash; the Prince of Persia and legitimate, honest-to-crap rightful heir to the throne.&nbsp; Unfortunately, the problem here is that Cambyses\' brother Smerdis was actually dead, having been assassinated by jackasses several years prior to the death of Cambyses.&nbsp; One of the few men who knew this was a Persian military officer known as Darius &ndash; a rock-hard commander of the Immortals who had served on the front lines during the conquest of Egypt, and a larynx-smashing neckpuncher who was far too badass to and honorable to just sit around while some jacknut usurped the throne.&nbsp; Darius, being the humorless classical-age warrior that he was, instead decided to take action - he put together a group of pissed-off nobles, charged the palace, destroyed the usurper, and took the crown for himself.&nbsp; With his first acts in office, Darius restored land that had been confiscated by the government, rebuilt the temples that had been destroyed by the false emperor, and married the daughter of the real Smerdis to further legitimize his place as King.&nbsp; Of course, I should mention that nowadays there\'s actually some debate among historians as to whether this now-dead ex-Emperor was actually the real Smerdis or a pretender.&nbsp; While we may never know whether Darius was a righteous savior of his people liberating his subjects from the reign of a usurper king or an evil bastard who simply killed the Emperor, stole his throne, and married his daughter, I would argue that either interpretation of the guy is equally badass.</p>\r\n<p>Once Cyrus and his line were officially regicided, the miscellaneous tribes of the Middle East foolishly thought they could just run off and do their own thing without having to worry about any kind of ultra-gory retribution.&nbsp; Immediately after Darius took office he was confronted with nine open revolts, and all of a sudden he found himself needing to almost completely re-conquer the Persian Empire.&nbsp; Well whereas it took Cyrus and entire lifetime to forge Persia into a mighty empire Darius required just eleven months to complete the seemingly-daunting task and bring the traitorous tribes back into the fold.&nbsp; This is pretty damn impressive, especially considering that even Alexander the Great needed nine years to conquer Persia, and he was pretty much just fighting one army, let alone nine.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/darius3.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Achaemenid Persian Empire.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The secret to Darius\' success was one part brilliant leadership, one part straight-up military assbeatery on the part of his infamous Immortals, and one part Mafia-style coercion.&nbsp; After destroying a rebel army, Darius had their so-called \"liar-king\" brought before him, stripped of his war gear and bound in chains.&nbsp; Darius would cut off the guy\'s nose, ears, and tongue, poke out an eye, stuff him in a small cage, and leave him outside the gates of the palace to rot for a while and think about what he\'d done.&nbsp; After being sufficiently subjected to the ridicule of random passers-by and appropriately humiliated, the deposed king was crucified outside the city gates.&nbsp; Once he was dead his skin was cut off, stuffed with straw, and the creepy messed-up scarecrow was hung outside the liar-king\'s former castle as a testament to what it meant to screw with Darius.</p>\r\n<p>After conquering an empire the size of the continental United States in roughly the amount of time it takes most kids to apply to medical school, Darius then went around and killed all the Persian tribal chieftains who didn\'t help him put down the rebellion, replacing them with G\'s he knew would have his back when he needed it.&nbsp; He also re-stabilized the Empire, built roads, trade routes, and bridges, established postal and judicial systems, standardized the currency, and sent a very clear message that anyone who effed with him was going to die screaming.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/darius6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>I have no idea what\'s happening here, but I like it.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After cementing his reputation as the most bitchin\' Emperor in the Fertile Crescent, Darius went about further expanding the already-ginormous Persian Empire.&nbsp; His first opponents were the Saka Scythians in Central Asia &ndash; badass warrior tribesmen known for their powers of face-stabbing.&nbsp; Despite being significantly outnumbered, Darius defeated them with an ingenious tactic;&nbsp; he built a massive fleet of ships in the Caspian Sea, sailed around behind the enemy lines, unloaded his troops, attacked them from the rear, and, according to Darius\' own account, \"smote the Scythians exceedingly\".&nbsp; Afterwards he marched on India, captured the Indus Valley, and began mining donkey-loads of gold from the wealthy region.&nbsp; He even conquered the long-standing Greek settlements in Asia Minor and Thrace, marched across the Hellespont on a bridge made out of 600 wooden ships tied together, and campaigned against his enemies in Macedonia, Bulgaria, and the present-day Ukraine.</p>\r\n<p>A few years later the Asia Minor Greeks, many of whom didn\'t realize how awesome Darius was, decided to go nuts and stage a huge ridiculous revolution.&nbsp; Our boy Darius wasn\'t about to stand for this crap, obviously, so he marched his troops around the Mediterranean coast burning and destroying everything he came across in a giant fiery death-orgy.&nbsp; He regained control over Asia Minor and Thrace, invaded and conquered several Aegean Islands, and even attempted to torch the mighty Greek city-state of Athens.&nbsp; The Athenians turned Darius\' armies back at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, but the Persian King had already made his point.&nbsp; He retained control over the rebellious Greek city-states, and oh yeah still occupied the entire Middle East and most of Central Asia. He died four years later, one of the richest and most powerful emperors on Earth.</p>\r\n<p>Under Darius, the Persian Empire reached the pinnacle of its power and the fullest extent of its size.&nbsp; His domain consisted of over 40 different ethnic tribes, stretched from India to the Balkans, and covered almost three million square miles &ndash; almost twice the size of Caesar\'s Rome, and the largest empire of Antiquity.&nbsp; In his 36-year reign, Darius re-built this mighty Empire into one of the world\'s foremost powers, married six different women, and was pretty much righteously awesome in all possible respects.&nbsp; He kicked asses, took names, ruthlessly destroyed anyone who pissed him off, and fought all of his duels \"to the pain.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/darius5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>P.S. his tomb is carved out of the side of a mountain, which is sweet.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_I_of_Persia\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.livius.org/da-dd/darius/darius_i_0.html\" target=\"blank\">Livius.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.iranchamber.com/history/darius/darius.php\" target=\"blank\">History of Iran</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /> <span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Boardman, John.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Cambridge Ancient History.</span>&nbsp; Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988.<br /><br /> Curtis, John, Tallis, Nigel, and Andre-Salvini, Beatrice.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Forgotten Empire.</span>&nbsp; Univ. of California Press, 2005.<br /><br /> Farrokh, Kaveh.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Shadows in the Desert.</span>&nbsp; Osprey, 2007.<br /><br /> Gabriel, Richard A.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Culture of War.</span>&nbsp; Greenwood, 1990.<br /><br /> Gershevitch, Ilya, and Fisher, William Bayne.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Cambridge History of Iran.</span>&nbsp; Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985.<br /><br /> Herodotus.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Histories.</span>&nbsp; Trans. Macaulay, G.C. Spark, 2004.<br /><br /> King, L.W., and Thompson, R.C.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Sculptures and Inscription of Darius the Great.</span>&nbsp; British Museum, 1907.</span></p>','2009-10-09','356743919085','darius.jpg','darius - Copy.jpg','Darius the Great','Bloody ruler of the powerful Achaemenid Persian Empire.','\"Within these lands, whosoever was a friend, him have I surely protected;\r\nWhosoever was hostile, him have I utterly destroyed.\"'),('Rukhsana Kauser','1991','N/A','Upper Kalsi, India','21st-century Indian Vigilante','<p>Abu Osama was a bad guy.&nbsp; For the last five years, this assault-rifle toting terrorist dick-monkey had tormented the Indian countryside, tearing shit up, blowing the hell out of innocent bystanders, and generally just epically wrecking the lives of anyone that thought they wanted a piece of 7.62 millimeter lead punched through their torsos at high velocity from the barrel of a Kalashnikov assault rifle.&nbsp; As if it wasn\'t bad enough that this irrationally-angry punk-ass bitch popped caps in people\'s stupid faces just for looking at him cross-eyed (and I heard he never washed his hands after using the restroom), this freedom-hating guerrilla jerkburger was also a commander in a particularly bastardly organization of anti-everything douche canoes known as <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashkar-e-Taiba\">Lashkar-e-Taiba</a> - a notorious criminal organization that has claimed responsibility for everything from the horrific terrorist attacks in Mumbai to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings in New York City.&nbsp; Think of these guys as Al-Qaeda\'s AAA minor league affiliates, and Abu Osama was like the cleanup hitter on their all-time asshat squad.&nbsp; He was on many countries\' Most Wanted Dillholes lists, and had a bounty on his carcass of about $6,000.</p>\r\n<p>Well, on Monday, September 28th, 2009, Abu was wandering around the Jammu region of India, an ultra-rural province near the chaotic Kashmir region, just looking to have some fun by creating a bunch of murder-carnage for no reason other than to satisfy his raging death-boner.&nbsp; He knew about a cute girl that lived in this particular village he happened to be gracing with his sinister presence, so he decided to pay her a visit and ingratiate himself to her relatives by beating the holy living crapballs out of them with a large stick and dragging her off by her hair Neanderthal-style.</p>\r\n<p>So, he got together five of his closest terrorist buddies, charged a clip into his AK-47, and went over to the humble farmhouse where 18 year-old Rukhsana Kauser lived.&nbsp; Abu politely knocked on her door, and greeted her loving father when he came out to see what was going on by jamming a gun barrel in his face:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kauser5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>WHAT UP I\'VE COME TO BONE YOUR DAUGHTER</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As you can probably imagine, Mr. Kauser wasn\'t all that thrilled about the idea of his daughter being carried off to serve as a harem girl in some kind of jacked-up terrorist swinger\'s club, so it\'s pretty understandable that he told this bitchtard to go hump a football.&nbsp; Unfortunately, this was just the answer Osama was looking for.&nbsp; He and his cronies immediately started pummeling the barf out of Mr. Kauser and his wife, because apparently when you\'re a big, tough, ass-wrecking terrorist commander the best way to prove how hardcore you are is by putting a posse of goons together, arming yourself to the teeth, and beating the shit out of a couple of defenseless farmers twice your age.</p>\r\n<p>Well, 18 year-old Rukhsana Kauser wasn\'t far away &ndash; she and her 19 year-old brother had been hiding under the bed in her room, and they were now receiving a front-row seat to the severe beating of their parents at the hands of Rukhsana\'s soon-to-be terrorist rapist and five of his best friends.&nbsp; Needless to say, this didn\'t sit well.&nbsp; However, while staring across the room at six masked men carrying fully-automatic assault rifles would have left most people paralyzed by some combination of fear and/or pants-wetting hopelessness, Rukhsana Kauser felt no such compunction.&nbsp; She did what any real badass would have done in this situation &ndash; she got super fucking mecha pissed.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kauser1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\" I couldn&rsquo;t bear my father&rsquo;s humiliation...<br />I thought I should try the bold act of encountering militants before dying.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Rukhsana and her brother reached over and grabbed the first thing they could find &ndash; which just so happened to be a matching set of giant-ass hatchets &ndash; climbed out from under the bed, and charged forward in an effort to find out how these terrorist sons-of-a-bitches liked it when someone sucker-punched <em>them</em> in the throat with a heavy object when they weren\'t looking.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kauser3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Dramatization.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ruksana Kauser charged out, grabbed the notorious terrorist Abu Osama by his head, and in one badass judo MMA move slammed the back of his skull up against the wall of her living room with enough force to crack a cue ball.&nbsp; Then, as he was backed up against the wall, she smashed him with the axe (just for good measure).&nbsp; As he slowly started to slump down, badly jacked up by this brutally insane balls-out sneak-attack, Rukhsana reached down, grabbed his AK-47 assault rifle, and forcefully wrenched it out of his hands in one motion.&nbsp; Clutching the captured weapon in both hands, she cracked him in the face with the stock of the rifle, flipped it around, and unleashed a burst of automatic weapons fire that pumped twelve rounds into the criminal mastermind\'s head and torso at point-blank range, killing him instantly in a thick spray of crimson.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kauser4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN<br />HO &ndash; HO &ndash; HO<br /><br />(image courtesy of <a href=\"http://www.olegvolk.com/\">olegvolk.net</a>)</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now these guys were fucked.&nbsp; They\'d been caught off-guard, blindsided by a blur of whirling steel and awesomeness, and now found themselves being stared down by a really pissed-off teenage girl with an assault rifle.&nbsp; Rukhsana did her best Rambo impression and went off like Princess Vespa ouside the penal colony on the Planet Spaceball, spraying hot lead at anything moving in front of her and blasting the fail out of those jacknut terrorist dickfaces who foolishly thought they could come into her small farming village and treat her family like a particularly brutal round of whack-a-mole.&nbsp; In the few seconds that followed, she wounded two more terrorists, and sent the rest running outside the house looking for cover.</p>\r\n<p>The terrorists tried to return fire, but Rukhsana wasn\'t having any of it.&nbsp; She and her brother (who had picked up a rifle that one of the militants dropped while bravely fleeing for his life) exchanged gunfire with these assfaces for a while before the masked bullies finally decided they\'d crossed the wrong chick and beat a hasty retreat out of there as quickly as possible.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kauser6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\" I had never touched a rifle before this, let alone fired one -<br /> but I had seen heroes firing in films and I tried the same way.&nbsp; Somehow I gathered courage.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Rukhsana Kauser is fucking awesome.&nbsp; This chick stood up to defend her family from some of the most notorious criminals in Northern India, and the result was akin to having the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mcclane.html\">first Die Hard</a> movie localized entirely within the confines of her living room.&nbsp; When the smoke cleared and the empty shell casings were swept away, she and her brother had fought off six terrorist by themselves, killing one and wounding a couple more.&nbsp; Abu Osama, one of the most dangerous criminals in the world, was lying dead at her feet.&nbsp; In addition to saving every member of her family, including herself, from certain death, she also managed to rid the universe of the closest thing to COBRA Commander that the international terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba had to offer.&nbsp; She has since been relocated to a witness protection program, nominated for the highest award for civilian bravery offered by the Indian government, and awarded the $6,000 bounty that had been placed on the head of the fallen terrorist leader.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kauser.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Rukhsana Kauser, shown here carrying the captured weapon.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8279929.stm\">BBC News</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://ibnlive.in.com/news/brave-jammu-girl-takes-on-six-terrorists-kills-one/102344-3.html\">IBN Live</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6244076/Farmers-daughter-disarms-terrorist-and-shoots-him-dead-with-AK47.html\">Telegraph</a></p>','2009-10-02','187849319675','kauser.jpg','kauser - Copy.jpg','Rukhsana Kauser','18 year-old Indian farmgirl takes on six terrorists armed with AK-47s.',''),('Fionn mac Cumhaill','N/A','N/A','County Kildare, Ireland','Mythological Irish Warrior','<p>A few years back I wrote about the mythical Irish warrior <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cuchulainn.html\">Cuchulainn</a> and his adventures hurling sea monster bones at unsuspecting dumbshits, but honestly, any discussion regarding the great badasses of Ireland\'s folklore has to mention the man believed by many to be the biggest, toughest, and most epic hero to ever grace the Emerald Isle with his size 47 shoes and unbelievably-foul temper &ndash; Finn McCool.</p>\r\n<p>It all started back in the 3rd century AD.&nbsp; Finn\'s pops, a dude named Cumhaill, was a pretty badass warrior who served in an asskicking association of knights and soldiers known as the Fianna.&nbsp; Well one day Cumhaill decided he wanted to marry the daughter of a powerful, high-ranking Druid, so the Druid responded to this request by giving Cumhaill the finger and whacking him in the crunch really hard with a shillelagh.&nbsp; Cumhaill, being the fearless, face-wrecking hardass that he was, wasn\'t going to be dissuaded by something as pathetic as a bone-shattering cudgel blow to the family jewels, so he busted into the Druid\'s house in the middle of the night, grabbed the girl, and carried her off into the darkness.&nbsp; In my research I wasn\'t able to determine whether or not the blushing bride was a willing participant in this home invasion / eloping, but I suppose that when you\'re dealing with medieval marriages this is really only a minor detail.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mccool1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately for poor Cumhaill, the Druid was in tight with the High King of Ireland &ndash; a guy who went by the moniker Conn of the Hundred Battles &ndash; and the bride-stealing Irishman would soon discover that it\'s never a good idea to step to a guy who has a badass epithet describing how many different military engagements he\'s somehow managed to survive.&nbsp; Conn expelled Cumhaill from the Fianna, declared him an outlaw, and sent the fearsome, unstoppable brotherhood of knights out to capture and kill their former member.&nbsp; The commander of the Fianna personally tracked Cumhaill down, kicked him head-first into a ditch, and promptly introduced his skull to the pointy end of a lance a few dozen times.</p>\r\n<p>Even though Cumhaill had been successfully killed the hell out of, there was still a little bit of a problem.&nbsp; You see, not long after the absconded Druish princess returned home, it sbecame obvious that she had contracted a rather noticeable case of pregnancy.&nbsp; Her dad, being the virtuous religious leader that he was, concluded that the only possible way of resolving this unfortunate situation was to tie the poor girl to a stake and set her on fire until she died from it.&nbsp; Conn of the Hundred Battles disapproved of the daughter-torching idea for some strange reason, issued an order of protection, and when the baby was born he had the kid sent off to live with a couple crazy-ass warrior women in the middle of the woods somewhere.</p>\r\n<p>Young Finn McCool (who, by the way, is also known as Fionn Mac Cumhaill &ndash; I of course chose this spelling because it is probably one of the most awesome names ever) spend his formative years growing up in a magical forest surrounded by insane man-eating monsters and being trained in the arts of war and hunting by his face-melting Druid priestess aunt and her best friend, the blademistress Liath Luachra.&nbsp; As you can imagine by his slightly-unorthodox childhood, Finn had a bunch of weird adventures growing up.&nbsp; Like one time, he saw some chick crying tears of blood because her kid was slain by a badass warrior from the Fianna, so of course Finn McCool went out there, snapped the guy in half with his bare hands, and stole all of his treasure.&nbsp; Another time he helped a wise and powerful sage catch the Salmon of Wisdom, a magical fish that granted the gift of supreme intelligence to the first person that ate it (as a bizarre side note, the Salmon of Wisdom got its interesting powers super-geniusness by eating the Nuts of Wisdom.&nbsp; There\'s no mention of where the nuts came from, but I kind of love the fact that there\'s such a thing as the mythological nuts of wisdom.)&nbsp; Finn was cooking this crazy thing, but burned his finger on it, and when he instinctively put his thumb in his mouth to soothe the flesh-searing agony, the crazy powers of brilliance transferred from the magic salmon to him.&nbsp; From that point on, Finn McCool was able to divine the correct solution to any question simply by sticking his thumb in his mouth.&nbsp; It was like his entire finger became a fleshy magic eight ball.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mccool2.png\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>So not only was Finn McCool as super mecha mastermind capable of calculating the rotation of the Earth down to the nearest degree per minute simply by quickly jamming his thumb in his mouth, but he was also a tough-as-hell giant who stomped balls all across the Emerald Isle.&nbsp; When this guy grew up, he decided he wanted to restore honor to his family name and prove himself as a shit-wrecking destroyer of faces who exploded the brains of anyone foolish enough to stand within two hundred yards of his sword arm, so we went out to the capital, Tara, and decided to save the town from a badass monster known as Aillen the Burner.</p>\r\n<p>Aillen was kind of like a 3rd century Irish version of Trogdor the Dragon-Man.&nbsp; Once a year, this bastard-faced demon crawled his way out of the horrible depths of the underworld, wailed out a flaming solo on his harp so powerful that it put everybody to sleep, and then burninated the town into cinders.&nbsp; Well Finn decided to put an end to that shit like quick. He visited the town, kept himself awake through the harp-playing by stabbing himself in the face repeatedly with his own poisoned spear, and then ran out to confront Aillen the Burner as soon as the creature appeared.&nbsp; Aillen tried to breathe a huge fireball onto Finn, but the Irish giant smothered the flame by throwing his cloak over the demon\'s head and sucker-punching him in the chops.&nbsp; The pyromaniacal monster, displeased by this unforeseen turn of events, turned around and started running full-speed away from the crazy face-smashing Celt with a bad attitude.&nbsp; Well, Finn wasn\'t going to let this medieval terrorist-monster get away with nothing more than the old \"coat-over-the-head, punch-in-the-face\" routine, so he took two steps towards the fleeing beast, hucked his spear at it, and impaled it from long range with enough force to puncture concrete.&nbsp; Then he casually walked over and kicked it in the head until it died.</p>\r\n<p>After witnessing this pretty righteous display of badassery, the High King of Ireland (Conn\'s grandson) immediately promoted Finn to commander-in-chief of the Fianna.&nbsp; Finn was pretty pumped up about bouncing the man who killed his father out of his prestigious position, and would go on to lead the Fianna to victory in tons of battles against everything from Viking marauders to armies of goblins from the underworld.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mccool5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Fianna were pretty awesome, if you ask me.&nbsp; These powerful, head-cleaving knights were independent contractors under the nominal command of the King, sort of like Blackwater with huge beards and battle axes, and they did whatever they wanted to whoever they wanted whenever the hell they felt like it.&nbsp; These guys spent their summers hunting and camping out in the wilderness, and then their winters chilling with the king and eating giant hocks of beef and pork.&nbsp; They carried the fabled Weapons of the Gods, were pretty much unbeatable in combat against even the most battle-hardened ass-kickers, and they were all capable of pounding enough Guiness and whiskey to send most normal men into a coma. Of course, when you\'ve got an organization like this you can\'t just go around letting any idiot with a sword into your frat, and the Fianna had a pretty insane entrance examination.&nbsp; For starters, you would be buried in a waist-deep hole armed only with a shield, and you had to defend yourself while nine berserkers attacked you relentlessly with spears.&nbsp; If you were wounded in the melee, you were sent packing.&nbsp; If you somehow survived the pointy onslaught, you were set loose in the forest, and had to escape while the rest of the knights of the Fianna tried to hunt you down like an animal.&nbsp; If you were caught, stepped on a branch, or messed up your hair, you were expelled (these guys took their hair VERY seriously.)&nbsp; If you succeeded, you were rewarded by being sent off to battle against a bunch of gnarly otherworldly monsters.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mccool3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As commander of this Order of Assbeatery, Finn went on a bunch of crazy adventures all across Eire.&nbsp; He defended his homeland from invaders several times, had a bunch of crazy parties, killed his own nephew in an argument over a babe, owned a pair of totally sweet battle dogs, and married a goddess who could turn into a deer.&nbsp; According to some legends, he also defeated the Celtic God of War in single combat by pummeling him senseless with a car battery, and you have to think that defeating the Irish equivalent of Ares is an accomplishment you really can\'t take lightly.&nbsp; Another story claims that he created the Giant\'s Causeway by throwing a bunch of rocks from Ireland to Scotland so that he could fistfight another giant over there, and in a similar geography-related incident he also created the Isle of Man by trying to hurl a giant chunk of Ireland at a guy who was pissing him off.&nbsp; Finn just didn\'t give a shit.</p>\r\n<p>All good things must come to an end, however, and for Finn McCool, that end came in the form of a story now known as \"The Violent Death of Finn\".&nbsp; It seems that over the years, McCool let all the praise go to his head and kind of turned into a total jackass.&nbsp; The King turned several members of the Fianna against him, and at the Battle of Gabhair he was jumped by a bunch of jackasses and murdered exceedingly.&nbsp; The Fianna was then disbanded, because without Finn they were substantially less interesting.&nbsp; Finn\'s grandson went on to write a bunch of epic poems about him and party with Saint Patrick, which is pretty sweet, and nowadays McCool\'s sweet name lives on in that he has a bunch of eccentric Irish pubs named after him.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mccool4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Giant\'s Causeway.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://nirishirishhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_legend_of_finn_mccool\" target=\"blank\">Legend of Finn McCool</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/fianna.html#Finn\" target=\"blank\">Timeless Myths</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/index_irish.html#fionn\" target=\"blank\">Full Texts for the Fenian Cycle</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fionn_Mac_Cumhaill\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">1000 Facts on Myths &amp; Legends</span>.&nbsp; Miles Kelly Publishing, 2004.<br /><br /> MacKillop, James.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Fionn Mac Cumhaill</span>&nbsp; Syracuse University Press, 1986. </span></p>','2009-09-25','381892619772','mccool.jpg','mccool - Copy.jpg','Finn McCool','Legendary Irish warrior and world-reknowned asskicker.',''),('Edward Low','1690','1724','London, England','18th-century English Pirate','<p>As we all know, tomorrow is <a href=\"http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html\">International Talk Like a Pirate Day</a>; a magical, mysterious time where we all harvest our inner scalawags, hoist the mainsails, drink a bunch of rum, and celebrate our love of piracy by ruthlessly plundering the shipping vessels of our least-favorite European nations.&nbsp; Well, as all of you are no doubt planning on attending massive ITLaPD costume/raiding parties, it is the moral obligation of this website to provide you with some badass pirate-related material to talk about with your mateys while you\'re gimping around on peg legs, yelling at parrots, and making your enemies walk the plank into a river of molten-hot magma.&nbsp; So this year, don\'t simply emulate the more mainstream sea-dogs like Blackbeard, Black Bart, and pretty much anybody else with the word \"black\" in their names, but consider mixing it up a little bit and busting out some shit about the man who, at the time, was almost universally recognized as the most ruthless, most bloodthirsty, and most sadistic bastard to ever hoist the black flag and fling a couple dozen cannonballs into someone\'s crotch for no good reason:&nbsp; The infamous Captain Edward Low.</p>\r\n<p>Low &ndash; who evidentially during his lifetime was simply known by any combination of the names Ed, Edward, Eddie, Edmund, Ted, Ned, Nedly, or Nedsworth and Lo, Loe, Low, Lowe, Loewe, or Loewewewe &ndash; was a hard-working, enterprising connoisseur of felonious behavior who started his career at the bottom of the criminal scumbag ladder and worked his way all the way up to the top through a tough combination of back-stabbing, face-punching, and general bastardship.&nbsp; His formative years were spent enjoying his favorite pastimes, which generally involved roaming the streets of Westminster, England, beating people up, mugging wealthy aristocrats, and snatching handbags from the shoulders of unsuspecting dames.&nbsp; Eventually he got bored of making a living by cracking people in the face with homemade knuckle sandwiches, so he moved to Boston, Massachusetts and found work as a ship-rigger.&nbsp; Of course, old habits die hard, and while on a trading trip to South America in 1722 Low had a falling out with his commanding officer (who, in Low\'s defense, was actually kind of a giant raving dickhead) and tried to blow his face off with a pistol.&nbsp; Well, here\'s a fun tip: when you flip out and try to frag your commander in the brain with a flintlock handgun, it\'s important that you don\'t miss.&nbsp; Low did.&nbsp; For his loyal service to his captain, Eddie and twelve of his fellow mutineers were put overboard in a crappy little rowboat and left in the Gulf of Honduras to die.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/edwardlow4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Have fun with that, suckers.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>This is where things get interesting.&nbsp; While most people would have rowed for a few hours and then passed out and died from exhaustion/lameness, Low took charge and declared that these twelve men were all going to sack up and go pirate.&nbsp; It wasn\'t very long before they came across another sailing vessel, and despite having no cannons, no sails, and very little in the way of food, ammunition, or weapons, Edward Low and his twelve men managed to board the ship, kill their captain, and take the helm.&nbsp; Low ordered his men to hoist the black flag from the main sail, and officially \"declared war on all the world.\"</p>\r\n<p>Seeing as how this crazy scurvy bastard was able to capture a full-size sailing ship with nothing more than a dinky little rowboat and his own two fists, you can imagine how successful he was once he got his hands on some shipboard artillery.&nbsp; Low and his hearty band of scurvy knaves cruised the Antilles for the next two years, capturing ships, recruiting/capturing sailors into their service, destroying everything they came across, and punctuating their sentences by randomly exclaiming the word \"yearghhhh!\" at seemingly-arbitrary occasions.&nbsp; Aboard his flagship, the 80-ton, 10-gun schooner <em>Fancy</em>, which generally sailed at the head of a small fleet of pirate ships, Low was notorious for capturing vessels along the coasts of New England and the Caribbean, killing everyone on board in exceedingly violent manners, plundering their treasure, and then torching the ships when he was done.&nbsp; He also had a pretty sweet pirate flag:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/edwardlow1.png\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>What up.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While he was definitely an expert at kicking ass and blowing ships into flotsam with some combination of cannonballs, fireballs, and regular balls, what really sets Edward Low apart from his pirate brethren was the fact that he really got his roger jolly by committing insane acts of brutality on those sailors unfortunate enough to find themselves in his custody.&nbsp; This guy was completely insane, and quickly became notorious and appropriately-feared by men across the Atlantic for his penchant for finding new and colorful ways to torture those captured sailors who were unwilling to voluntarily join his vicious, lawless crew of pirates. This guy would cut peoples\' ears and noses off, set fire to their hands and feet (Jom Gabbar style), burn them alive, decapitate them, throw them off the yardarm of his ship, and whip them relentlessly with pistols, cat o\' nine tails, rubber hoses, and/or large wet noodles.&nbsp; While he mostly did this crazy, borderline-kinky shit to people just for the hell of it or because he had nothing better to do, he reserved his most barbaric tortures for people who had the dumbass audacity to hid their treasures from him.&nbsp; For instance, one time this dude threw a chest full of gold and jewels overboard to prevent Low and his crew from taking them, so Edward \"Get\" Low apparently responded by cutting off the dude\'s lips (how the eff do you cut off someone\'s lips anyways?), boiling them, force-feeding them to him (how did he eat them without lips?), and then personally murdering his entire crew with a cutlass.&nbsp; Another time he boarded and captured a warship, arbitrarily killed all 53 men on board, and then had the ship torched into ash just for good measure.</p>\r\n<p>As you can probably imagine, this horrible shit, combined with his skill in capturing merchant vessels laden with gold, rightfully earned Low a reputation as pretty much the baddest dude on the seven seas.&nbsp; It also helped that he had a totally gnarly scar on his face from one time when he got his mouth slashed open by a cutlass, which made him look incredibly menacing despite the fact that he wore breeches, silk leggings and a funny tri-corner hat.&nbsp; Interestingly, Low had actually been a loving family man back in Boston, but lost his wife and their son in childbirth.&nbsp; It is noted in a couple places that because he never got over the loss of his beloved, Low always let women and married men go free unharmed when he captured them.&nbsp; Of course, you shouldn\'t let this fool you in to thinking that he wasn\'t a total bastard.&nbsp; Because he totally was.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/edwardlow2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Just another day on board Low\'s flagship.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Being a badass murderous pirate doesn\'t make you a whole lot of friends, however, and eventually this guy\'s insane brutality and hate-filled, murderous temper finally caught up with him.&nbsp; One day in 1724, he had an argument with his first mate about something ridiculous, so Low responded by sneaking into the dude\'s cabin that night and shooting him in the balls with a pistol until he died from it.&nbsp; When the men woke up the next morning and found that their captain had just murdered the first mate in cold blood, they all decided they\'d had enough of his bullshit.&nbsp; So, once again Edward Low was put into a longboat and tossed overboard without any kind of food or provisions.&nbsp; Just as before, Low was picked up by a merchant ship, only this time instead of taking over the ship and running off to continue his demented life of bloody sociopathic adventures, the sailors on board the vessel instantly recognized Low as the infamous bastard-pirate that he was.&nbsp; Ed was thrown in the brig, shipped back to the French-controlled island of Martinique, and promptly executed.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/edwardlow3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Cayman Islands still printed a postage stamp in his honor for some reason.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.thepirateking.com/bios/low_edward.htm\">PirateKing.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.thepiratesrealm.com/Edward%20Low.html\">Pirate\'s Realm</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Low\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Cordingly, David.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Under the Black Flag</span>.&nbsp; Harcourt, 1997. <br /><br /> Defoe, Daniel.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A General History of the Pyrates</span>.&nbsp; Courier Dover, 1999. <br /><br /> Ellms, Charles.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Pirates Own Book</span>.&nbsp; BiblioBazaar, 2009. <br /><br /> Johnson, Charles.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates</span>.&nbsp; Globe Pequot, 2002.<br /><br /> Seitz, Don Carlos.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Under the Black Flag: Exploits of the Most Notorious Pirates</span>.&nbsp; Dover, 2002. </span></p>','2009-09-18','113240319839','edwardlow.jpg','edwardlow1.png','Edward Low','The Caribbean\'s bloodiest and most brutal pirate.','\"Of all the pyratical crews that were ever heard of, none of the English name came up to this in barbarity.  Their mirth and their anger had much the same effect, for both were usually gratified with the cries and groans of their prisoners;  so that they almost as often murdered a man from the excess of good humour as out of passion and resentment;  and the unfortunate could never be assured of safety from them, for danger lurked in their very smiles.\"\r\n\r\n- Daniel Defoe, A General History of the Pyrates'),('Ryan Cooper','1977','N/A','Lake Mary, FL, USA','21st-century American Humanitarian','<p>As much as I love to write about hardcore, ball-shattering military commanders who completely flipped out and slaughtered tens of thousands of enemy combatants using nothing more than a claw hammer, a loaf of incredibly-stale French bread, and their own uncontrollable blood rage, it definitely bears mentioning that pretty much every human being on the face of the planet universally recognizes the fact that firefighters are unequivocally some of the greatest (and toughest) heroes alive.&nbsp; Seriously, have you ever heard anyone ever say something like, \"I don\'t know man, firefighters are kind of pussies?\"&nbsp; Hell no!&nbsp; That\'s because even though these guys don\'t spend their days punching fugitives\' faces off, everybody knows that when the shit hits the fan and then spontaneously combusts into a massive fireball, these are the folks who are going to swoop in, plow through your front yard in a bright red truck, smash your window out with an awesome giant ladder, and save you from a painful, <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/joanofarc.html\">Joan of Arc</a>-style demise.</p>\r\n<p>I suppose it\'s probably inaccurate to say that firefighters \"kick ass\", since the main difference between firefighters and Vikings is that when you see a firefighter coming after you with a giant axe you generally feel relieved rather than terrified (that\'s usually a good thing), but the fact remains that these are the men and women who show up at the scene of pretty horrific shit, kick in the door with their giant fire-proof boots, and run screaming into a raging inferno of flaming to and save innocent people from pretty nasty cases of fatal smoke inhalation and/or death by burning.&nbsp; Sure, rescuing people from crushed automobiles, wrenching idiot swimmers from riptides, and plucking frightened housecats out of neighborhood trees doesn\'t always make for as interesting a story as the afore-mentioned master of baguette-related homicide, but nobody can deny the fact that while any dumbass with a set of matches and a can of lighter fluid can start a fire, it takes real cast-iron guts and ball-busting courage to run into a burning building, throw a bunch of injured and dying people out the window, escape with your life, and then turn around and fight the towering, out-of-control Conflagration of Death armed with nothing more than an oversized rubber hose and a thin plexiglass face shield.</p>\r\n<p>Plus, I have it on pretty good authority that most women think that firefighters are pretty hot, and I\'m not just talking about the dudes who are standing in the middle of these burning buildings.&nbsp; This may not have any bearing on anything, but I thought I\'d throw that out there anyways, because it\'s my unsubstantiated assumption that firemen probably have little to no trouble meeting girls.&nbsp; I mean, there just aren\'t a whole lot of professions out there that can make you instantly attractive simply by going to work, so when you do come across something like that it\'s generally worth noting.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cooper5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Just another day on the job.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It was July 10, 2007, when Florida Firefighter Ryan Cooper came back home from a tough day on the job.&nbsp; This hard-working fireslayer was just hanging out, getting ready to chill on the couch, crack open a cold one, and watch some baseball, when all of a sudden he heard a plane swooping in low over the tops of the trees above his neighborhood.&nbsp; Cooper\'s heart jumped a beat as he ran to the window, looked outside, and saw a twin-engine Cessna plow right into two houses down the street from him.</p>\r\n<p>Ryan Cooper, being the hardass, fearless firefighter that he was, didn\'t even blink.&nbsp; He called 911, ran to his truck, threw on his firefighter\'s coat, and sprinted over to the scene of the accident, ready and willing to start yanking people out of the rubble like a one-man Jaws of Life running amok amidst a twenty-car pileup like the one at the end of the <em>Blues Brothers</em> - and he wasn\'t going to be slowed down by a little thing like burning jet fuel or insane temperatures hot enough to flash-fry a Thanksgiving Day turkey in five minutes or less.</p>\r\n<p>When Ryan got over to his neighbor\'s house, he found a lady standing outside screaming hysterically that her husband and ten year-old son were still stuck inside the smoke-filled burning building.&nbsp; Cooper took one look inside and then charged balls-out into the raging inferno without even giving a shit.&nbsp; This dude didn\'t even have a breathing mask or oxygen tank, but he just unhesitatingly sped into the middle of a giant fireball completely surrounded by burning jet fuel, smashed plane debris, and thick black smoke.&nbsp; This stone-cold, borderline-insane hardass with no apparent sense of self-preservation smashed through the door, ran in, and grabbed the boy from the clutches of certain death.&nbsp; He carried the kid outside to safety, then turned around and went BACK into the burning building looking for the husband.&nbsp; After picking his way through the smoke and fire, surrounded by a flaming structure that could have collapsed at any moment, he found the dad lying face-down on the carpet, almost completely obscured by nearly-impenetrable clouds of gray-black smoke.&nbsp; Ryan Cooper was a badass firefighter with unmeltable ice water in his veins, though, and he\'d spent his entire professional career training for shit like this.&nbsp; He leaned over, his lungs already full of enough toxic fumes to asphyxiate most inanimate objects, hoisted this guy up onto his shoulders, and hauled the unconscious dude to safety outside.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cooper4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, saving two people from a fiery death with nothing more than your bare hands and a set of flame-retardant nuts is something that most regular humans will never accomplish in their entire lives, but for Ryan Cooper it wasn\'t even enough life-threatening adventure for one afternoon.&nbsp; Instead, this crazy fire-breathing maniac ran next door and busted into the OTHER house that had been hit by the airplane, desperately in search of more survivors.&nbsp; He got through a couple of rooms, searched around, and didn\'t see or hear anybody, so he fought his way back outside to safety.&nbsp; Once he got out, however, a neighbor said that she was certain more people were trapped inside, so Ryan Effing Cooper made his <em>fourth trip into a burning building without any kind of supplemental oxygen</em>.&nbsp; He couldn\'t get past the flames and smoke that had overtaken the building, however, and realizing that he didn\'t have much time left before he lost consciousness he reluctantly turned back, barely escaping with his life moments before the entire house went up in flames.</p>\r\n<p>Well apparently being half-dead from the thick black layer of poisonous smoke now coating the walls of his lungs STILL wasn\'t enough to stop Ryan Cooper from doing his job, because once he emerged from Fiery Inferno of Death #2, he went back to the people he had saved from the first house and started giving them emergency first aid, stabilizing them to the point where they could be safely transported to a local area hospital.&nbsp; His work finally done, he collapsed and was taken to the ER, where he was then treated for excessive smoke inhalation and a near-terminal case of badassitude.</p>\r\n<p>I honestly can\'t think of any job I\'ve ever had that I would perform voluntarily outside of the regular nine-to-five workday, but firefighters are just a different breed of individual.&nbsp; I guess when saving lives is your job it gives you a career ambition that far surpasses that of your typical corporate wage slave.&nbsp; Ryan, and the people he saved, all made full recoveries and lived to tell the tale.&nbsp; For his insane valor, this seemingly fire-proof madman also received numerous awards and honors from societies that give awards to heroes, and went on the Today Show to talk to Katie Couric or Ryan Seacrest or whoever the hell it is that hosts the Today Show.&nbsp; Oh, and he also got a cup in his honor at Firehouse Subs, which is a place that makes pretty badass sandwiches.</p>\r\n<p>Despite all the accolades, in true self-effacing tough guy fashion, Ryan maintains that he was just doing his job, and that anybody else in his position would have done the same.&nbsp; Personally, I kind of doubt that\'s the case.</p>\r\n<p><br /> <img style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cooper1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>','2009-09-11','663612619889','cooper.jpg','cooper1.jpg','Ryan Cooper','Off-duty firefighter charged into a burning building to save two people.','\"Everybody that goes to work, every 24 hours at every fire station across the country, it\'s their job to do it.\"'),('Maria Salomea Sk&#322;odowska','November 7, 1867','July 4, 1934','Warsaw, Poland','20th-century Polish Scientist','<p>Allow me to begin this week\'s article by making some attempt to adequately explain my intense distain for the scientific discipline of physics.&nbsp; It blows.&nbsp; I\'d honestly rather perform open-face surgery on myself with those colorful plastic safety scissors you get in kindergarten than read about wave-particle duality, and the coefficient of friction can pretty much lick my balls because it\'s a bastard from hell (and apparently that\'s what bastards from hell do from time to time). Of course, my virulent, seething hatred of this particular branch of science stems from a very logical and reasonable source &ndash; I suck at it.&nbsp; Hard.&nbsp; Seriously, I have about as much chance of winning the Nobel Prize in Literature for this website\'s innovative work in the field of penis jokes as I do of successfully calculating the acceleration of an object in space, and the mere mention of the Law of Thermodynamics causes me to spontaneously combust into a raging inferno of blathering idiocy and itchy hives and barfing.</p>\r\n<p>Maria Sklodowska had no such difficulty in comprehending this incredibly complex field of study.&nbsp; The most famous female physicist in history was an insane supergenius who made this brain-immolating discipline her prison bitch, discovered the secrets behind technologies that lead to discoveries such as chemotherapy and nuclear warfare, and generally just went out at a time when most women were expected to be little more than childbearing snuggle factories and flipping blew the minds of the entire intellectual community like an unstoppable mushroom cloud of face-melting science.</p>\r\n<p>Sklodowska was born in Warsaw in 1867, at a time when her beloved homeland of Poland was basically being neck-stomped into submission by the jackboots of the Russian Empire.&nbsp; Her family had tried to make a stand against the oppression of their people (and had subsequently lost all of their wealth and property due to their involvement in a rebel Polish nationalist society), but I guess you can\'t blame them for trying.&nbsp; Maria herself worked in the secret underground \"free university\" as a teenager, where she went around and read to Polish women who were working in factories in an effort to try and educate them to do something awesome with their lives.</p>\r\n<p>Eventually Maria moved to Paris to study physics.&nbsp; It was there that she met a fellow scientist, a dude named Pierre Curie, and together they decided to get hitched and start a career in husband-wife sciencery.&nbsp; She changed her name to Marie Curie, and worked towards her Ph.D. in Physics by doing a bunch of research on freaking radioactive nuclear materials.&nbsp; They were both broke as hell, working as teachers full-time and spending their nights and weekends in a homemade laboratory they constructed out of an old shed in their spare time, but substandard conditions didn\'t even slow these people down.&nbsp; Sustaining her family solely on the 19th-century equivalent of Maruchan Ramen and microwaveable gruel, Marie couldn\'t afford graduate assistants, supplies, materials, or food, but she still somehow figured out how to separate gamma rays from radioactive materials while simultaneously discovering two new elements &ndash; Radium and Polonium &ndash; in the process.&nbsp; Not only did Curie lay the groundwork for the entire field of nuclear physics using nothing more than a bullshit setup she <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/macgyver.html\">MacGyvered</a> out of an old sock and a few pieces of PVC pipe she dumpster-dived out from behind the Home Depot, but she also invented the word \"radioactivity\", revolutionized the field of chemistry, and was so selfless that she didn\'t patent her ideas, leaving them in the public domain so that other scientists could advance the field without having to worry about stupid copyright bullcrap.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/curie2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>1903 was a pretty sweet year for Madame Curie &ndash; she was awarded her Ph.D. and also the Nobel Prize &ndash; which is probably a combination of awards that most people don\'t generally achieve in the same calendar year.&nbsp; I guess that\'s what you call a pretty solid thesis paper.&nbsp; She became the first woman to win the Nobel, and when she was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry a couple years later she became the first person of any gender to win two prizes in two different fields.&nbsp; To this day she remains the only human to win it for two different sciences.&nbsp; In case that\'s not enough, Curie\'s science-master genes were so powerful that her daughter Irene also went on the win the award in Chemistry as well, meaning that, in the history of award, 66% of all female laureates of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were Curies.&nbsp; That\'s a pretty decent track record of awesomeness.</p>\r\n<p>While this is an epically huge achievement for anyone to accomplish, it\'s also important to keep in mind the fact that Madame Curie was winning Nobel Prizes for working with radioactive materials back in 1900, a time when women couldn\'t even vote and most of the scientific community didn\'t know the difference between their dicks and a short-wave radio.&nbsp; For her to have been uncovering the secrets of nuclear medicine is mind-porkingly insane.&nbsp; She went up against a male dominated industry in a world that tried to convince women that they were little more than property, and told them all to blow it out their collective asses with a potato cannon, which is something I think everybody can respect.</p>\r\n<p>She also looked the part of a crazy mad scientist, which is pretty sweet:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/curie1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well Pierre died in 1906 when a horse-drawn carriage ran over his face, and Marie took over his chair at the Sarbonne Academy in Paris, becoming its first female professor.&nbsp; She dedicated her life to furthering their research, building labs and institutes, and melting peoples\' faces with gamma radiation whenever possible.&nbsp; She was pretty bummed about Pierre, but a few years after her husband\'s death she allayed some of that depression by cougaring it up with one of his former graduate assistants, which is pretty cool if you\'re down with getting it on with hot college students.</p>\r\n<p>When World War One broke out in Europe, Marie left her post, donated her and her husband\'s gold Nobel Prize medals to be melted down to support the war effort, jumped in a mobile radiation therapy truck, and drove out to the battlefield to help wounded and dying men in the trenches.&nbsp; She used gamma rays to try and alleviate the pain of battle-wounded soldiers (using a process that was essentially the beginning of chemotherapy), and won the Legion of Honor from the French government for being a selfless, radiation-blasting hardass who didn\'t take shit from anybody.</p>\r\n<p>Eventually, Curie figured out that working on nuclear materials without any sort of protective gear was hazardous to her health, but she didn\'t even give a crap.&nbsp; She warned other people not to screw with gamma rays without taking the appropriate precautions, but decided that she was going to take one for the team, and became the scientific equivalent of those insane old-school hockey players who refused to wear helmets or pads or get their teeth fixed.&nbsp; On any given day you could find her goggles-deep in enough radioactive material to make a Geiger counter sound like a jet engine, working out the secrets of atomic energy like some kind of crazy person with no regard for their own safety.&nbsp; She eventually died from radiation-related sickness at the age of 66 (not a bad lifespan considering the fact that she spent her entire career getting pelted with enough harmful rays to take the hair off a Yeti), and everything in her home had been so exposed to radiation that nowadays it all has to be stored in lead boxes.&nbsp; Seriously, you can\'t even handle her cookbooks without wearing protective anti-radiation gear that somewhat resembles the power armor used by the Brotherhood of Steel in <em>Fallout</em>.&nbsp; Legend has it that simply reading her recipes exposes you to so many ultra-concentrated gamma rays that you have a 10% chance of mutating into the Incredible Hulk of French-Polish Cuisine.</p>\r\n<p>Marie Curie was the queen of radiation, and she dropped more science on peoples\' asses then they knew what to do with.&nbsp; The Curie (Ci) also became the name of the standard unit of radiation, so I guess in the future when you\'re out wandering around a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland you can think to yourself, \"Shit, there\'s like a thousand Curies out here &ndash; my brains are going to melt out of my ears any minute now!\", thus making her name synonymous with head-scorching death.&nbsp; Her research, as I\'ve said, also led to chemotherapy and atomic bombs, representing the ultimate duality of her legacy... and while <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7963581.stm\" target=\"blank\">this guy</a> may not be super happy about the situation, I think that the rest of us can appreciate how sweet this is.</p>\r\n<p>If you were into really cheesy puns, you might even say that Marie Curie was \"totally rad\", but that of course would be ridiculous.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/curie3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Curies looking like badasses on the 500 Franc bank note.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-bio.html\" target=\"blank\">NobelPrize.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.radiochemistry.org/nuclearmedicine/pioneers/curie_m.shtml\" target=\"blank\">Radiochemistry.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5715220/Marie-Curie-voted-greatest-female-scientist.html\" target=\"blank\">The Telegraph</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Curie, Eve.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Madame Curie: A Biography</span>.&nbsp; Da Capo Press, 1937.<br /><br /> Quinn, Susan.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Marie Curie: A Life</span>.&nbsp; Da Capo Press, 1996. </span></p>','2009-09-04','964022420021','curie - Copy.jpg','curie.jpg','Marie Curie','Invented the science behind chemotherapy and nuclear warfare.',''),('Zeus (aka Jupiter)','N/A','N/A','Crete, Greece','Mythological Greek God','<p>From <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/odysseus.html\">Odysseus</a> to Aeneas, Greek Mythology is filled with heroic stories and epic tales of asskicking warriors, gods, and monsters doing all sorts of legendary, ridiculous shit.&nbsp; Every myth is filled with feats of unrivaled strength and determination, and the entire religion just oozes things that are badass ike a festering wound of awesomeness.&nbsp; However, among the towering acts of peerless greatness that dominate the entire mythological system, there is one figure that transcends these heroes and stands on a plane of righteous badassitude all by himself &ndash; the almighty Zeus, the powerful, petty, pimp-tastic Ruler of Mount Olympus.</p>\r\n<p>It all started back in the days before the gods as we know them came to power.&nbsp; Zeus\' dad was a dude named Cronus.&nbsp; Cronus was the king of the Titans and generally just an all-around bastard, but things really got out of hand in his household when one day he heard some random prophecy claiming that one of his own children would overthrow him and take over as the head honcho of all existence.&nbsp; So Cronus, being the afore-mentioned bastard that he was, came to the rational and logical conclusion that the best course of action to prevent his own violent overthrow was to eat his children as soon as they were born:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zeus4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>NOM NOM NOMZ</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>(True story:&nbsp; An old roommate of mine insisted on hanging a print of this painting in the dining room of our old apartment.&nbsp; When the rest of us objected, he argued that it was the perfect place for such a work of art because \"it was a picture about eating\".&nbsp; Needless to say, this resulted in quite a bit of awkwardness whenever one of us wanted to invite a new girlfriend over for dinner.)</p>\r\n<p>Well, Mrs. Cronus eventually got sick of popping out babies just to have them horked down by some crazy baby-eating dipshit, so when she gave birth to baby Zeus she wrapped a rock in some baby clothes and fed that to Cronus instead.&nbsp; Apparently King Cronus was so hungry he didn\'t even give a crap, because he wolfed that shit down like it was a pan of my wife\'s delicious homemade spanakopita and didn\'t seem to notice the subtle textural and flavoral difference between a newborn infant and a large inanimate granite boulder.&nbsp; Zeus\' mom then snuck her son off to the island of Crete, where he was raised to adulthood by a celestial goat in a cave full of mythical bees.&nbsp; It was... weird.</p>\r\n<p>Cave life among the crazy goat-bees was apparently somewhat fruitful, however, because Zeus grew up with one thought on his mind &ndash; vengeance.&nbsp; Zeus trained himself rigorously, day after day, and when the time was right he ran out and punched his dad so hard in the balls that Cronus barfed up all of the kids he\'d eaten.&nbsp; The kids all got together and revolted against the Titans, and under the able command of Zeus the Olympians kicked the Titans\' asses off the face of Greece forever.&nbsp; Cronus and his defeated buddies were banished to a place called Tartarus, a horrible vortex of suck that was pretty much like the Ancient Greek equivalent of Satan\'s bunghole.&nbsp; Seriously, if Hell was the original Death Star, Tartarus was like that awful, sewage-filled trash compactor room with the evil swimming penis eyeball thing and the walls that closed in and smashed Wookies into bloody pulps for no reason at all.</p>\r\n<p>Well, even though the Titans lost the war, some folks still had their backs, and there were a couple revolts against Zeus early on in his reign.&nbsp; For the most part he kicked faces and took names, but the Big Z got quite a test when the horrific monster known as Typhon showed up looking to avenge the fallen King Cronus.&nbsp; Typhon was pretty much the most insane of all the legendary Greek beasts &ndash; this towering hydra/dragon/lizard thing was like <a href=\"http://d20npcs.wikia.com/wiki/Tiamat,_Great-Great-Great_Wyrm_Polychromatic_Dragon\">Tiamat</a> on steroids mixed with the <a href=\"http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm\">Tarrasque</a> and the <a href=\"http://www.beijingservice.com/greatwall.htm\">Great Wall of China</a> &ndash; and one day this thing showed up and started eating cities and throwing giant boulders around in an effort to eradicate all life on the material plane.&nbsp; Needless to say, everybody was pretty worried about that whole situation.&nbsp; Well Zeus didn\'t give a shit about this roid-raging beast from some ungodly, narcotics-induced Final Fantasy summon spell.&nbsp; He nut-shotted Typhon with a couple dozen lightning bolts and then bodyslammed a mountain on top of him before shipping his ass off to Tartarus to enjoy an eternity of ball-sucking agony with his good buddy Cronus.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zeus3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The landmark court case of Zeus v. Tartarus.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After all the threats to his rule were effectively face-smashed into the seventh circle of the next thing worse than Hell, Zeus took over as the head boss of everything ever.&nbsp; He sent his bro Poseidon to rule the ocean and his other brother Hades to oversee the underworld, while the Z-man climbed up to the top of Mount Olympus and spent his days enjoying scenic views and having topless nymphs hand-feed him Ambrosia and grapes and methamphetamines.&nbsp; He just hung out up there ordering around gods and mortals and smashing peoples\' asses with lightning bolts whenever they pissed him off.&nbsp; As they say, it\'s good to be the king.</p>\r\n<p>In addition to being the patron saint of lawgivers, Kings, and oracles, Zeus was also tasked with upholding the morality of the people as well.&nbsp; This is pretty ironic, because Zeus was a total man-whore who had more adulterous affairs than a Lifetime Original Movie marathon.&nbsp; I mean, you can\'t pick up a book on mythology without reading some story of how the King of the Gods was out there giving golden showers to bored housewives or seducing comely young maidens with his insanely good looks or generally just getting it on with a veritable army of chicks and dudes and anything else that moved.&nbsp; During his wild escapades across Greece this guy also fathered badass gods like Ares, Apollo, Dionysus, Hermes and Hephaestos, and produced heroes like <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/perseus.html\">Perseus</a>, Hercules, Helen of Troy, Orion, and King Minos.&nbsp; Hell, even <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/alexander.html\">Alexander the Great</a> claimed to be descended from this guy, and Zeus was such a divine pimpenstein that nobody really even questioned it.&nbsp; This guy was so virile that one time he was just sitting around thinking about something awesome and all of a sudden the ridiculously badass warrior-goddess Athena spontaneously busted right out of his head wearing her full battle armor.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zeus2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Temple of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.<br />This thing was made of gold, silver, and marble and stood about forty feet high.<br />It eventually fell apart when it imploded from the insane gravitational pull generated by Zeus\' general bitchin\'-ness.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As the head of the Greek pantheon, Zeus was also the most widely-worshipped of the Gods, and was the focal point of many crazy religious cults.&nbsp; Of course, it was a good idea to worship this guy, because he was a totally petty bastard who wasn\'t above making your life miserable for no reason at all.&nbsp; Sure, he gave great rewards to good people &ndash; if you were virtuous and cool you could find yourself getting morphed into some sweet animals or receiving Time Extends on your lifespan or something &ndash; but if you were a dickhead you could expect some pretty harsh vengeance to be laid down upon your ass with the realness.&nbsp; Like one time a dude named Salmoneus wanted to show everyone his badass Zeus impression so he went out and started riding around in a bronze chariot yelling \"BOOM!\" really loud, pretending that he could shoot lightning or something, so Zeus fragged that dumbass straight to Hades with a bolt of electricity so huge it would have made <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tesla.html\">Tesla</a> jizz. Another time, a dude named Prometheus gave the secret of fire to humans so Zeus chained him up to a rock and had rabid, pissed-off eagles disembowel him every day from that point until forever.&nbsp; Yet another time, a rather ambitious fellow named Ixion tried to seduce Zeus\' wife Hera (a badass goddess who, in my opinion, is probably the most compelling of all the Greek deities), so Zeus responded by strapping the guy to a wheel of fire and having him raked over a bed of hot coals, condemning that poor bastard to an eternity of agonizing, skin-melting pain.&nbsp; The King of the Gods obviously transcended that whole \"eye for an eye\" thing.</p>\r\n<p>Of course, in the Roman tradition Zeus was known as Jupiter, a name that nowadays makes most people thing of the fifth planet from the Sun.&nbsp; Well, it\'s no coincidence that Jupiter is named what it is &ndash; it\'s definitely the most badass of the planets in the Solar System.&nbsp; Not only is this massive beast the system\'s biggest planet &ndash; 11 times the size of the Earth (and with over 16 times the number of moons) &ndash; it also sports an insane permanent storm that rocks the planet like a hurricane all day long.&nbsp; The Great Red Eye of Jupiter is the size of Earth and constantly maintains insane sustained winds of 225 miles per hour, which is roughly enough velocity to take Dorothy and Toto and blow them out of Kansas, past the Emerald City, and into a wormhole leading to the Delta Quadrant.&nbsp; Its gravity also kicks the ass of Earth gravity, and is so powerful that the entire planet generates a gravity well that sucks in asteroids and any other space shit stupid enough to get close to the planet\'s inescapable atmosphere.&nbsp; The crazy gravity is so awesome that it compresses Hydrogen into liquids and solids, which kicks ass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zeus5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Mighty Zeus was the God of Lightning and the King of the Gods &ndash; kind of like Odin and Thor together with a toga and a year\'s supply of weapons-grade Viagra - and one of the craziest and most vengeful deities this side of the Old Testament.&nbsp; Generally appearing as a totally ripped old guy with a sweet, flowing white beard and a washboard stomach so over-the-top that it could only be described as a 24-pack of MetRx protein shakes, this guy not only appears in an obscene number of completely epic-looking sculptures and paintings and provides the namesake to the craziest planet in our corner of the universe, but he also served as the head honcho for two of the most badass classical civilizations on Earth &ndash; the Greeks and the Romans.&nbsp; He lived rough, partied hard, and didn\'t think twice about destroying anyone who stood in his way.&nbsp; As far as I\'m concerned, that\'s a pretty sweet legacy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zeus.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Zeus chills while some babe falls all over him.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Apollodorus.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Library of Greek Mythology</span>.&nbsp; Trans. Hard, Robin.&nbsp; Oxford Univ. Press, 1999.<br /><br /> Hesiod.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Theogany and Works and Days</span>.&nbsp; Trans. West, Martin L.&nbsp; Oxford Univ. Press, 1999.<br /><br /> Homer.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Iliad</span>.&nbsp; Trans. Lattimore, Richmond.&nbsp; Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951.<br /><br /> Willis, Roy G.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">World Mythology</span>.&nbsp; Macmillan, 1993. </span></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/jupiter_worldbook.html\">NASA.gov</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.pantheon.org/articles/z/zeus.html\">Pantheon.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2009-08-28','455814220561','zeus1.jpg','zeus1 - Copy.jpg','Zeus','King of the Gods.',''),('Robert Craig Knievel','October 17, 1938','November 30, 2007','Butte, MT, USA','20th-century American Athlete','<p>On New Year\'s Eve 1967, professional daredevil/badass Evel Knievel revved the angry-sounding engines of his Triumph motorcycle, tore ass down a makeshift ramp at the vehicle\'s maximum speed without even blinking, and sailed the 300-pound hog 151 feet over the massive, iconic fountains outside Caesar\'s Palace as astonished onlookers and camera crews from <em>ABC\'s Wide World of Sports</em> looked on.&nbsp; He hurtled majestically through the air in a completely face-meltingly awesome mid-air wheelie, clearing the fountain in an impressive fashion, before unceremoniously smashing dome-first into the unforgiving Las Vegas asphalt, brutally fracturing his skull, then skidding fourteen feet across the sidewalk and crashing head-on into an immovable brick wall.&nbsp; The daring adventurer was knocked unconscious and hospitalized for twenty-nine days, but his audacious, completely balls-out attitude had already captured the hearts of viewers across the world.&nbsp; The Legend of Evel Knievel was born.</p>\r\n<p>While becoming a bloody smear across the hot Nevada blacktop might have convinced most people with even a shred of sanity or self-preservation instinct to take up a profession that perhaps didn\'t involve routinely suffering catastrophic injuries on a regular basis, the fearless, near-mythical iron man Evel Knievel instead just checked himself out of the hospital, strapped on another red, white, and blue leather jumpsuit, and got right back on his bike.&nbsp; A little over a month later, he hauled ass up a wooden ramp at a hundred miles an hour and jumped over a pile of fifty-two wrecked cars in front of a roaring crowd at the Los Angeles Coliseum.</p>\r\n<p>This guy just didn\'t give a crap.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/knievel2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Original Gangsta of Crazy Shit and the Godfather of Being Totally Xtreme to the Max stole his first motorcycle at the age of thirteen, and thus began a long and illustrious career in fiery carnage.&nbsp; As a young man growing up in Butte, Montana, Knievel was routinely busted for speeding, stealing hubcaps, fighting, kidnapping the woman who became his wife (twice), and doing a bunch of other insane, ridiculous things all of the damn time.&nbsp; Eventually, this guy decided that he needed to calm down and stop getting arrested all the time, so he became an all-state caliber sprinter, pole vaulter, and ski jumper. That wasn\'t physically taxing enough for Knievel, though, so he dropped out of school, volunteered for the US Army Paratroopers (he completed 30 jumps during his military career), raced motorcycles professionally, and founded and starred on a semi-pro hockey team.&nbsp; His team, the Butte Bombers (which is an awesome name BTW), eventually folded, but they did play the Czech National Hockey Team once, which is pretty sweet if you ask me.&nbsp; Knievel also once lobbied to save 5,000 Yellowstone elk from slaughter by hitchhiking from rural Montana to Washington, DC and personally arguing his case to John F. Kennedy\'s administrative assistant. So yeah, he was pretty nuts.</p>\r\n<p>Well apparently none of that ridiculous shit was dangerous or life-threatening enough, however, so eventually Evel got involved in the lucrative and painful business of jumping over crazy things on a Harley and horrifically injuring himself in flaming, twisted wreckage for the entertainment of others.&nbsp; The Caesar\'s Palace jump was his big break, but during his mind-shatteringly insane career as a professional crazy person, he jumped over everything from seemingly-endless strings of parked cars to giant towering fireballs to cardboard boxes full of rattlesnakes.&nbsp; He jumped 19 cars in a single row, 14 Greyhound busses, a cage full of mountain lions, and once broke his collarbone trying to jump an aquarium filled with man-eating sharks for some bizarre reason.&nbsp; On another occasion he successfully cleared 13 London busses in a single jump, lost control on the landing, and subsequently walked out of Wembley Stadium on a shattered pelvis solely on principle and force of will alone, saying, \"I walked in, and I want to walk out.\"</p>\r\n<table cellpadding=\"15\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/knievel1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n<td><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/knievel5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>Sure, this sort of work is completely effing insane, but the man dubbed \"The Last of the Gladiators\" also happened to be a marketing genius who was able to turn his painful agony into a life of wealth, sex, and power.&nbsp; During his career, Knievel sold nearly $300 million worth of toys and merchandise to a planet full of adoring fans, and turned that money into a pretty decadent/awesome lifestyle.&nbsp; The guy partied hard, drank a half a fifth of whisky a day, chased it with beer, and then went out to chill on one of his many homes and/or pleasure yachts with cooing throngs of hot, drunk 1970s bikini babes.&nbsp; Almost every kid growing up in the States idolized his unwavering bravery, every man respected the fact that he didn\'t give a crap about anything, and every woman wanted to jump on his bozack.&nbsp; If you could just get past all the hospital stays, broken bones, and permanent physical disfigurement, it was a pretty sweet life.</p>\r\n<p>Well, since there was no stunt too foolhardy for this intrepid daredevil to attempt, Knievel eventually went out and applied for a permit to jump the goddamned Grand Canyon in a crazy homemade rocket-powered motorcycle, which, in my opinion at least, is probably one of the most over-the-top things you could possibly petition for.&nbsp; His application was denied by the Feds, so, never one to back down from anything in his life, in 1974 Evel instead went out to Snake River, Idaho, and made six million dollars by strapping himself into a giant-ass rocket, taking it up a 158-foot ramp at 350 mph, and trying to fly across a 2,000-foot wide canyon.&nbsp; He didn\'t make it &ndash; his parachute opened prematurely, sending him floating harmlessly down to the riverbed below &ndash; but you really have to respect the giant, surgical steel nuts required to voluntarily attempt such a borderline-suicidal undertaking.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/knievel3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Of course, it\'s not like Evel Knievel was ever afraid of injuring himself or anything &ndash; the ultimate daredevil, this guy routinely gave the Grim Reaper the finger and lived to tell the tale.&nbsp; This guy looked at death-defying stunts the same way you and I think about backing our cars out of the driveway, and if \"almost dying in a fire\" was a Facebook status update, he would have \"Liked\" it.&nbsp; During his wild career, Evel broke 37 bones, went through 15 major operations to put steel plates and/or pins in his body, and then went out and got in wrecks that broke the steel plates.&nbsp; He fractured his nose, skull, pelvis, ribs, legs, collarbones, shoulders, and hips &ndash; any one of those injuries is enough material for most old people to incessantly complain about for their entire lives &ndash; and spent nearly three years of his life lying in hospital beds.&nbsp; By the time he retired in 1980, Knievel was quoted as saying that at this point he was, \"nothing but scar tissue and surgical steel.\"&nbsp; He still holds the Guinness record for \"Most Bones Broken in a Lifetime.\"&nbsp; He never whined about it once.</p>\r\n<table cellpadding=\"15\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/knievel4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n<td><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/knievel6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>Evel\'s retirement was hastened by the fact that he spent six months in prison in 1977 for taking an aluminum baseball bat to some douchebag who talked smack about him in a book.&nbsp; Knievel and only got into more trouble in prison when he started paying for chauffeured limos to take prison inmates to and from their work-release jobs.&nbsp; While this is pretty sweet/awesome/ridiculous, Evel still lost his endorsements, and when no one was willing to pay him money to injure himself any more he decided to settle down to a life that involved slightly less blunt force trauma and road rash-induced third degree burns.&nbsp; He spent his later years traveling around with his son Robbie, helping his kid become a well-known daredevil in his own right.&nbsp; Evel Knievel died of pulmonary fibrosis in 2007 at the age of 69 &ndash; not bad, considering that few people thought he could have possibly survived that horrific wreckage outside Caesar\'s Palace forty years earlier.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/knievel7.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links/Sources:</span><br /><br /> Barker, Stuart.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Life of Evel</span>.&nbsp; Macmillan, 2008.<br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.evelknievel.com/\">EvelKnievel.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/us/01knievel.html\">New York Times</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2007-01-02-knievel-cover_x.htm\">USA Today</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evel_Knievel\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2009-08-21','660114320603','knievel.jpg','knievel - Copy.jpg','Evel Knievel','The crazy daredevil whose insanity has become the stuff of legend.',''),('Henry Talmage Elrod','September 27, 1905','December 23, 1941','Rebecca, GA, USA','20th-century American Marine','<p>The charred, twisted wreckage of the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was still burning on the morning of December 8, 1941, when the first U.S. Marine lookouts on Wake Island noticed a couple strangely warship-shaped outlines looming ominously on the cloudy gray horizon.&nbsp; &nbsp;The lookout took a deep breath, swallowed hard, radioed the contact in to their commanders, and kept their eyes fixed on the cloud of low-flying fighter-bombers that were silently silhouetted against the sky in almost perfect formation.</p>\r\n<p>The five hundred Marine defenders of Wake Island &ndash; a tiny Pacific atoll measuring less than three miles in total area &ndash; were about to become the first Americans to come face-to-face with enemy soldiers in World War II.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Marine Corps Captain Henry T. &ldquo;Hammerin&rsquo; Hank&rdquo; Elrod was circling high above the cloud cover in his Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat when he heard the frantic call over the radio to scramble all remaining fighters.&nbsp; His squadron, VMF-211, was deployed to Wake just a few days earlier, and had been flying patrols in anticipation of something big going down, but the last thing he probably expected was to single-handedly end up facing the entire goddamn Japanese Navy on half a tank of gas.</p>\r\n<p>But Elrod was a pro.&nbsp; A fourteen-year vet.&nbsp; And he wasn&rsquo;t about to just sit there in his cockpit like an asshole when there were motherfuckers to fight.</p>\r\n<p>He slammed the stick forward, dove down from the clouds, and came face to face with a formation of twenty-two Japanese aircraft, ranging from Nell-class bombers to the infamous and ultra-deadly A6M Zero.<br /><br />He flipped the safety off his guns and opened fire.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod2.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Careening propeller-first into an epic aerial shitstorm at speeds in excess of 300 miles an hour, Hammerin&rsquo; Hank ferociously, single-handedly charged the entire swarming field of deadly bombers and fighters, weaving through tracer fire and spewing out an ungodly stream of fire from a six-pack of Browning .50-caliber machine guns mounted in the wings of his aircraft.&nbsp; Living a real-life World War II <em>Ikaruga </em>or <em>1942</em>, Elrod picked out targets and avoided a bullet hell of gunfire, doing his best to disrupt the enemy formations even as they were unloading their explosives on the Marine positions across the island.&nbsp; He was soon joined by the shattered remains of VMF-211 &ndash; of the squadron&rsquo;s twelve Wildcats only four remained operational after the initial Japanese attack.&nbsp; The rest had been blown to shit on the tarmac without ever even firing a bullet in anger.</p>\r\n<p>The Marines dove and weaved through the Japanese formation, picking out targets and strafing them, then trying to get the hell out of there before the faster, more maneuverable, and all-around-just-better Japanese Zeroes closed in on them.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In the furious, high-intensity battle that raged high above the exploding tropical paradise below, Hammerin&rsquo; Hank Elrod managed to score two confirmed kills on Japanese aircraft, knocking out a pair of Zeroes and scoring the first air-to-air kills the Marines would achieve in the Second World War.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Despite the heroics of Elrod and VMF-211, it wasn&rsquo;t nearly enough to stall the onslaught.&nbsp; The shelling and bombing plastered Marine positions for days.&nbsp; Before they&rsquo;d even had a chance to get up in the air and take the fight to the enemy a second time, eight the island&rsquo;s twelve fighter aircraft were destroyed on the ground, lit up by enemy fire.&nbsp; Ammo dumps burst into massive explosions as thousands of coastal artillery shells and .50-caliber bullets exploded simultaneously in an amazingly-dangerous fireworks display, hardcore Japanese bomber pilots expertly nailing their targets with high-explosive bombs delivered at speeds that would melt your brain.</p>\r\n<p>Then, at five AM on the morning of December 11, the Japanese began their full-scale assault of the island.&nbsp; Elrod hopped out of his rack and scrambled to the tarmac once again.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Streaming towards the coast of Wake Island in the early hours of December 11 were nearly a dozen hardcore, full-modern Japanese destroyers, each one barking fire from a battery of 5-inch cannons.&nbsp; Six Marine artillery positions on the coast returned fire with ruthless efficiency, doing their best to make life miserable for these warships and the transport ships and aircraft supporting them, many of these repurposed guns (they\'d been pulled off of scrapped battleships) scoring direct hits and making the attackers think twice about getting within firing range of the Marine guns.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Careening ahead at 318 miles an hour, with a pair of 100-pound bombs strapped under his Wildcat (having high explosives strapped to your wings doesn\'t exactly do much for his maneuverability), Hammerin&rsquo; Hank Elrod and his two wingmen charged into the fray yet again.&nbsp; Flying in low, he began making strafing runs at the enemy warships, screaming head-first into a storm of bullets that were being sprayed from dozens of Japanese ship-mounted anti-aircraft guns across the fleet &ndash; all of which were trained on one of the only three targets they had available.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/zWyz8PEAp5E\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\"></iframe><br />This shit is terrifying.&nbsp; Nerves of steel.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Swerving and barrel-rolling around like a fucking madman, Elrod avoided danger, but before long one of the enemy gunners found his mark.&nbsp; With a sickening clank, a bullet ripped into the fuel line of Elrod&rsquo;s Wildcat, sending off alarms and klaxons and other annoying bullshit all through the cockpit.&nbsp; Pushing on, Elrod made one more pass, this time at the Japanese Destroyer <em>Kisaragi</em>, a 1,468-ton warship that was unloading on the coastal Marine positions with a quad of heavy 120mmguns &ndash; weapons that fired a high-explosive shell that was roughly the same weight as a fully-grown German Shepherd.&nbsp; Diving down through a stream of 7.7mm machine gun fire, Elrod lined up his bombs (a manually-operated iron sights type of thing, fuck this HUD new-fangled guided weapons bullshit), and released them onto the stern of the Japanese warship.</p>\r\n<p>The <em>Kasaragi</em>, which happened to be carrying a double-load of depth charges to deal with any possible American submarines, exploded, cracked in half, and sank.&nbsp; Elrod would be the first American fighter pilot to take out an enemy warship in the war.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The damage to Elrod&rsquo;s plane forced him down, but accurate fire from the Marines and a determined resistance drove the Japanese attack back.&nbsp; The enemy fleet withdrew to the Marshall Islands to regroup, letting Elrod get the first sleep he&rsquo;d had in three days.</p>\r\n<p>They came back on December 23<sup>rd</sup>.&nbsp; And they had reinforcements.</p>\r\n<p>Repeated attacks between the 11<sup>th</sup> and the 23<sup>rd</sup> had destroyed all of the Marine ships and aircraft on Wake Island, leaving just a little under 500 men to try and hold out against an invasion fleet featuring two aircraft carriers, a couple heavy cruises, and a fucking shit-ton of destroyers and escort ships.&nbsp; The Marines had heard that reinforcements were coming &ndash; Task Group 14 was assembling at Pearl Harbor and preparing to come to their aid &ndash; but it was pretty obvious when the Marines were staring at a sea of transports loaded with more than 2,500 hardcore Japanese troops from the Special Naval Landing Force that this was going to be Wake Island&rsquo;s Last Stand.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;<img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Even though he didn&rsquo;t have a plane to fly, Elrod was the perfect example of how every Marine is a rifleman before he&rsquo;s anything else.&nbsp; As one of the few surviving Marine Corps officer on the island, Elrod was assigned to command a platoon of infantry and hold the extreme flank of the American position against the inevitable Japanese attack.&nbsp; His makeshift group consisted of surviving crew members and pilots of his squadron, a handful of Marine artillerists whose guns had been destroyed, and a couple Wake Island civilians that weren&rsquo;t particularly interested in seeing their homes overrun by the Japanese Empire, all of whom were now finding themselves forced to fight like front-line infantry.&nbsp; They dug trenches, set up firing positions, and sighted down their machine gun barrels as the first wave of enemy transports approached the shore.</p>\r\n<p>The Japanese hit the beach hard, and fought like fucking samurai.&nbsp; Officers charged through the surf with goddamn <em>katanas</em>, leading battle-hardened warriors who screamed into the fray with rifles and bayonets.</p>\r\n<p>Hammerin&rsquo; Hank was there to meet them.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod0.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ordering his gunners to fire and keep fucking firing and for the love of god never stop firing that fucking gun, Elrod urged his Marines on, repositioning them to defend the flank and meet the Japanese assault at all directions.&nbsp; He ordered his civilian troops to constantly sprint back and forth between the front lines and the ammo dump to ensure that the Marines working the machine guns always had a steady stream of bullets and supplies, and he made it is personal mission to make sure those civilians were given adequate covering fire while they made their ultra-deadly 100-meter dashes to and from the lines.&nbsp; Personally standing in full view of the enemy, laying down a curtain of suppressive fire with a captured Japanese machine gun (Elrod had already given his M1 rifle and pistol to other Marines earlier in the campaign), Elrod defiantly stood against the enemy attack, inspiring his troops to fight for everything they had.</p>\r\n<p>With enemy troops clawing their way through the withering fire, closing in on Marine positions from every direction, a bullet struck Elrod in the chest, dropping him into the sand.&nbsp; The Japanese swarmed over the trenches, capturing or killing the defenders, and seizing the island.&nbsp; They would hold Wake Island throughout the course of World War II.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For single-handedly taking on two full-strength squadrons of Japanese aircraft, killing two enemy planes, blowing the fuck out of a destroyer, and then bravely commanding a valiant stand against impossible odds, Captain Henry T. Elrod was posthumously promoted to Major and he became the first Marine Corps aviator to receive the Medal of Honor.&nbsp; Today the main road leading to Marine Corps Officer Candidate School is named in his honor, as is a really awesome-looking guided missile frigate.</p>\r\n<p>When Arlington National Cemetery has its annual event to honor American war dead on Memorial Day this Monday, Major Henry T. Elrod\'s gravestone will be just one among a seemingly-endless row of brave soldiers who fell in combat.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/692386618169/elrod91.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-e/h-elrod.htm\">http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-e/h-elrod.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/htelrod.htm\">http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/htelrod.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.mclbbarstow.marines.mil/News/NewsArticleDisplay/tabid/9411/Article/157394/defender-of-wake-island-henry-t-elrod.aspx\">http://www.mclbbarstow.marines.mil/News/NewsArticleDisplay/tabid/9411/Article/157394/defender-of-wake-island-henry-t-elrod.aspx</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/npswapa/extContent/usmc/pcn-190-003119-00/sec2.htm\">http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/npswapa/extContent/usmc/pcn-190-003119-00/sec2.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.warbirdalley.com/f4f.htm\">http://www.warbirdalley.com/f4f.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwari1/p/wakeisland.htm\">http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwari1/p/wakeisland.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._Elrod\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._Elrod</a></p>','2014-05-23','692386618169','elrod.jpg','elrod-small.jpg','Henry T. Elrod','WWII Marine Aviator takes on 22 planes by himself over Wake Island, then leads infantry in a desperate last stand.','\"Every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman. All other conditions are secondary.\" - Gen. Alfred M. Gray, 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps'),('Juliane Margaret Koepcke','1954','N/A','Lima, Peru','20th-century German Adventurer','<p>On Christmas Eve 1971, in the skies above the desolate, remote jungles of Peru, LANSA Flight 508 got its ass rocked like a hurricane by a ginormous bolt of lightning that blew the entire fuselage apart like a humongoid human-filled flying pipe bomb with wings.&nbsp; Juliane Koepcke, a quiet seventeen year-old high school senior on her way to visit her father, fell two miles out of the sky, without a parachute, crunching into the dirt floor of the Amazon Rain Forest with enough velocity to fracture the skull of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamut\">Bahamut the World Fish</a>.&nbsp; When she somehow miraculously awoke and came to her senses (a feat which few of her fellow passengers managed to accomplish), she was still strapped in to her seat.&nbsp; She had a broken collarbone, a severe concussion, deep cuts in her arms and legs, and one of her eyes had been swollen shut like Stallone the end of <em>Rocky II</em>.&nbsp; You know, the sort of injuries you\'d expect from someone who just plummeted through a few thousand feet of freefall and splashed down in a goddamned rainforest.</p>\r\n<p>Juliane unbuckled her apparently-indestructible airline seat belt (she was obviously paying attention when the flight attendant was going through that whole \"here\'s how you properly fasten your safety belt\" portion of the spiel) and briefly surveyed the wreckage.&nbsp; All she saw were corpses and empty seats. She was alone in the Amazon, with the thick canopy jungle above her preventing her from signaling for help, and effectively crotch-stomping any hope for a successful or timely rescue.&nbsp; Juliane Koepcke had no food, no tools, no gear, no powerbars, no means to make fire, no maps, and no compass.&nbsp; Shit, she only had one shoe, having lost the other one during that whole \"careening through the atmosphere\" thing, which I guess is understandable.&nbsp; It was just her and the wilderness, mano-e-womano.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/koepcke7.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Amazon.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, I touched on the Amazon River Basin somewhat in my article on <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/titanoboa.html\">EL TITANOBOA MONSTRUO</a>, but perhaps this would be a good time for me to get into this in a little more detail.&nbsp; The Amazon is one of the most insane, hardcore jungles ever devised &ndash; a ghastly hellhole of unrighteous suckitude filled with horrors beyond that which most hack basement-dwelling sci-fi authors could ever dream up in their wildest LSD-inspired psychotic delusions.&nbsp; This place is right up there with the Congo, rural Siberia, and the Sahara Desert in terms of \"terrible places you would only really want to visit if you enjoy being miserable and suffering a slow and painful death\".&nbsp; It is home to thousands of species of venomous creatures, dozens of other non-poisonous things with large, pointy, flesh-rending teeth, revolting man-eating monsters, and giant evil gorillas that can face-punch people so hard their necks explode.&nbsp; It\'s the home of the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru\">Candiru Fish</a>, a sick reject from God\'s murderous asshole that makes its living by swimming up peoples\' urethras and embedding itself with a couple of horrific, groin-cringingly sharp spines.&nbsp; I mean, this place almost killed <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/roosevelt.html\">Teddy Roosevelt</a>, a guy who is pretty much widely believed to be one of the most badass men to ever take a dump in the bathroom of the Oval Office, so you KNOW it\'s not something you should really jerk around with if you can help it.&nbsp; Shit, the fact that I even need to reference the TITANOBOA when talking about this place should give you a good idea of how retardedly insane this place is.&nbsp; You&rsquo;d have better odds for survival working as a custodial technician in Ravenholm or sweeping out air ducts on LV-426.</p>\r\n<p>Well, as I mentioned previously, Juliane Koepcke was just a young high school senior, but I should also say that she was working towards a degree in flippin\' zoology at a school in Lima, Peru, so it wasn\'t like she was awkwardly terrified of a little bit of torrential rain or knee-deep mud or giant carnivorous predators or anything.&nbsp; It also didn\'t hurt that both of her parents were famous German biologists, either.&nbsp; In fact, she\'d grown up living in a number of different research stations in the middle of this godforsaken jungle, so I guess I don\'t have to tell you that this ridiculously tough broad wasn\'t going to give up and start digging her own grave with a broken set of chopsticks just because she was lost and alone in one of the cruelest and most inhospitable jungles on the planet.&nbsp; Forget that.&nbsp; She wasn\'t going down without a fight, and she had every intention of giving this nightmarish deathzone a giant barefooted roundhouse kick right in its horrible dripping serrated mandibles.&nbsp; Juliane searched through the wreckage, grabbed the few pieces of candy and food that she was able to scrounge up from the debris, and started walking off into the jungle.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/koepcke6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Good times.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Though she was disoriented and concussed, Juliane kept her wits about her and didn&rsquo;t just go running around screaming and falling down all over the place like some slutty bimbo in a bad horror movie. &nbsp; This unbreakable survivor knew that her best chance of making it out of this craptastic situation was to link up with civilization as quickly as possible, and that most people tend to live near waterways of some form or another, so she pressed through the underbrush until she found a small creek, and she just started following it downstream. &nbsp; When the creek ran into a larger body of water, she followed that. &nbsp; When the vegetation on the river bank was too thick, she waded through knee-deep, piranha- and candiru-infested waters without even giving a crap. &nbsp; She just constantly pushed herself on, fighting forward, driving ahead through sheer force of will alone.</p>\r\n<p>For eleven days (!) Juliane Koepcke trudged through the Amazon Rain Forest without any gear or food, smashing her way through the snarls of vegetation and plant life, avoiding the man-eating crocodiles she routinely encountered, and fighting off insect swarms, clouds of leeches, and other disgusting creatures of blood-sucking and/or multi-legged insanity. &nbsp; She drank river water, battled through infection and disease, foraged for whatever scraps of food she could get her hands on, and did a bunch of other badass <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/grylls.html\">Bear Grylls</a>-types of shit just to stay alive long enough to find help.</p>\r\n<p>Finally, after a week and a half of this hellish, ball-sucking death march, the semi-conscious, zombie-esque Koepcke shambled into a remote, makeshift logging camp on the edge of the rain forest. &nbsp; She fell down, curled up, and waited for help, which arrived the following day. &nbsp; The loggers gave her some very rudimentary first aid (part of which involved pouring gasoline on her to clean out her wounds, which sounds like it was probably a whole lot of fun), and took her on a seven-hour canoe trip to the nearest town, where a local pilot then flew her to the hospital for treatment. &nbsp; Of the 92 people on board Flight 508, this unassuming 17 year-old woman was the only one who walked out of the wilderness alive.</p>\r\n<p>Of course, Juliane Koepcke wasn\'t done yet. &nbsp; She went on to get a PhD in Zoology, proving that this survivor could take the most horrible shit mother nature could throw at her and it wasn\'t even going to slow her down. &nbsp; Nowadays she studies bats in Germany or something, which is pretty sweet if you ask me. &nbsp; Her survival story remains one of the most badass demonstrations of human endurance that I\'ve ever come across.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/koepcke3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Kopcke returned to the debris-riddled crash site in 2000 to film a documentary.<br />She\'s just hard like that.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/07/02/germany.aircrash.survivor/index.html\">CNN.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200409/top_survival_stories_4.html\">Outside Online</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Aviation/Disasters/71-12-24%28Lansa%29.asp\">Super70s.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_K%C3%B6pcke\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Gonzales, Laurence.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Deep Survival</span>.&nbsp; W.W. Norton, 2004.<br /><br /> Herzog, Werner.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Wings of Hope</span>.&nbsp; Directed by Werner Herzog.&nbsp; Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, 2000.<br /><br /> Leslie, Edward E., and Sterling Seagrave.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls</span>.&nbsp; Houghton Mifflin, 1998. </span></p>','2009-08-07','841089820803','koepcke1.jpg','koepcke3.jpg','Juliane Koepcke','17 year old German girl survives a horrific plane crash and escapes the Amazon rain forest.',''),('Fazal Din','July 1, 1921','March 2, 1945','Punjab, India','WWII Indian Soldier','<p>When you think about hardcore Indian men of the mid-twentieth century, one iconic name comes to most Western peoples\' minds - Mahatma Gandhi.&nbsp; And yes, I will in no way contest the assertion that Gandhi was a badass dude - he was a skinny, seemingly-innocuous old guy who probably couldn\'t have bench-pressed a deep dish pizza yet he somehow engineered a non-violent revolution that liberated the second most populous country in the world from the most powerful empire on Earth - but thoughts of bespectacled old pacifists starving themselves into oblivion doesn\'t exactly equate to the sort of insane, head-smashing, <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7amxE3RLAzQ\">motorcycle-texting</a> asskickers you generally see routinely hero-worshipped here on this website.&nbsp; For that sort of thing, you need to look to guys like Fazal Din, a man whose story is so ridiculous that it sounds like something out of a half-demented import anime about sword guns, robo-boobs and humorless guys in long ponytails spray-painting the sides of skyscrapers with mountainous towering blood geysers.</p>\r\n<p>Fazal Din was born in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, a province on the border between present-day India and Pakistan, and served in World War II as part of the 10th Baluch Regiment of the Indian Army.&nbsp; The twenty-three year old Naik (Corporal) had fought bravely throughout the Burma campaign, when the Japanese attempted to drive through Southeast Asia and launch an invasion of British India.&nbsp; The Imperial forces had been defeated and turned back, and by March 1945 the Allies were finally preparing to launch a decisive counter-attack designed to kick the Japanese in the junk so forcefully that it would send Hirohito\'s legions sailing through the stratosphere until such time as they descend crotch-first onto an active volcano located somewhere in the Ring of Fire region of the Pacific Ocean.&nbsp; So, on 2 March 1945, on the brutal battleground outside the Burmese city of Meiktila, Fazal Din was ordered to lead his squad on a full-speed charge up a hill and attack two heavily-fortified bunkers loaded up with pissed off soldiers just looking for one reason to use automatic weapons to groin-kick the nutsacks off of anyone who thought it was a good idea to step to them.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/fazaldin4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>A WWII Japanese bunker like the ones Fazal Din led his men against.<br />Picture this, only with more machine guns.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Of course, Fazal Din and the men of the 10th Baluch Regiment weren\'t about to start crying into their hookahs just because an entire company of battle-hardened Japanese soldiers with heavy machine guns were spraying a few billion bullets in their faces, and he jumped up, grabbed his rifle, and ran ahead of his men screaming blood-curdlingly obscene death threats in whatever language it is that people speak in India.&nbsp; He and his squad charged up, didn\'t get shot to death, and leapt into the bunker with their rifles and bayonets at the ready.&nbsp; Thanks to Fazal Din\'s ability to use high-explosive grenades and large-caliber bolt-action rifles with surgical precision (well, the sort of surgical precision you\'d expect from an insane, questionably-ethical back alley chop doc with an MD he obtained from an online university in some obscure third-world country), the entire crew of the Japanese bunker was pretty much detonated like a giant red paintball almost immediately.</p>\r\n<p>But Fazal\'s work wasn\'t done yet - the dude dusted himself off and immediately went rushing towards the second bunker.&nbsp; Well the defenders there decided they weren\'t going to stick around and suffer a similarly-gruesome fate as that of their associates, so as Fazal was running across the open field, eager to frag the dicks off of some n00bs, he was suddenly greeted by the sight of six equally-pissed-off Japanese troops charging straight towards him with bayonets fixed and at the ready.&nbsp; As if it wasn\'t bad enough that this guy was about to go gun-jousting with a full squad of desperate Japanese infantrymen with nothing left to lose, two of the dudes were Imperial Japanese officers - badass face-stabbers who usually carried huge, gleaming samurai swords as part of their standard-issue wargear.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/fazaldin1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Protip:&nbsp; You really want to try to avoid being on the receiving end of something like this.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Fazal Din gritted his teeth and charged in, not realizing that the rest of his squad had fallen back behind cover (they were understandably intimidated by the copious pointiness to the point where they were unwilling to continue the attack).&nbsp; So this guy, on his own, now found himself facing down a bunch of psychos with goddamned longswords and rifles and a bunch of other ridiculous shit all over the place.&nbsp; Fazal ran in, fired the round that was in the chamber of his Lee-Enfield, and swung wildly with the butt of his rifle.&nbsp; The Japanese commanding officer, an expert fighter well-trained from birth in the art of classical swordfighting and kenjutsu, met Fazal Din\'s powerful blow, parried the rifle swing, side-stepped over like something out of a <em>Soulcalibur</em> game, and impaled the Indian soldier on his bloodthirsty <em>katana</em> blade.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/fazaldin2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Dramatization.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For a moment, the air was still.&nbsp; Both men stood motionless, their eyes locked in defiant surprise, the sword pressed in to the hilt, sticking out the back of the mortally-wounded Allied soldier.&nbsp; The Imperial officer allowed a slight smirk of satisfaction to cross his lips before withdrawing the blade with one fluid movement.</p>\r\n<p>But Fazal Din wasn\'t done yet.</p>\r\n<p>This insane, kill-hungry warrior wasn\'t going to let this motherfucker get away with dealing him a fatal blow and then waltzing off feeling smug and satisfied with himself.&nbsp; Through sheer force of will alone, Fazal Din snapped his eyes open, reached out with his bloody hands, grabbed the hilt of the officer\'s katana, and, with one powerful stroke fueled by sheer adrenaline and anger alone, wrenched the weapon from the hands of its startled owner.&nbsp; The Allied berserker then lifted the sword above his head, and struck his nemesis down with one earth-shattering blow.</p>\r\n<p>Now it was fucking on.&nbsp; Fazal Din, horrifically wounded and presumably bleeding profusely from a vicious chest wound, flipped the hell out and started going nuts on everyone in his general vicinity.&nbsp; The second officer attacked with his sword, but Fazal countered this attack by impaling the guy in the face.&nbsp; Then the crazy blood-raging face-smasher charged over, hacked his way through a couple other dudes, and cleaved another Japanese soldier in half from neck to groin.</p>\r\n<p>The surviving members of the Japanese assault team, almost all of whom had been wounded in the span of just a few seconds by a seemingly-invincible sword-swinging crazy person with a giant sucking chest wound, had seen enough.&nbsp; They broke ranks and ran for it, leaving Fazal Din standing triumphantly among a large pile of blood and severed appendages.&nbsp; The probably-terrifying-looking warrior turned back to the rest of his team, held the captured sword above his head, and screamed for his soldiers to press the fucking attack.&nbsp; His squad got totally pumped up, charged out, and won the battle.&nbsp; Fazal Din stumbled back to Allied lines, dutifully filed an after-action report with his superior officer, and then promptly collapsed and died.&nbsp; He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross - Great Britain\'s highest honor for valor in combat.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/fazaldin3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 600px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><center>When I punched \"Bollywood Swordfight\" into a Google Image Search all I got was this and a bunch of pictures of really hot Indian women.&nbsp; I don\'t feel like the pic fully articulates the badassitude of this story, but I\'m using it anyways because I find the incongruity strangely hilarious.</center></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.victoriacross.co.uk/descrip_f.html\">Victoriacross.co.uk</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazal_Din\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Smith, Melvin Charles.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Awarded for Valour</span>.&nbsp; Macmillan, 2008.<br /><br /> Young, Edward M.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Meiktila 1945</span>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2004 </span></p>','2009-07-31','427854620836','fazaldin.jpg','fazaldin - Copy.jpg','Fazal Din','Indian soldier won the VC for killing a Japanese officer with his own sword... after being impaled with it.','\"Naik Fazal Din rushed to the assistance of his stricken comrade but the Japanese ran his sword through his chest. As he withdrew the sword, Fazal Din, despite his terrible wound, seized the sword from the Japanese officer and killed him with it. He then killed two more Japanese soldiers with the sword.\"\r\n\r\n- Victoria Cross Citation'),('Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.','January 20, 1930','N/A','Glen Ridge, NJ, USA','20th-century American Pilot','<p>I know I\'ve been kind of clubbing you guys over the head with a seemingly-endless stream of badass American aviators over the last couple of weeks, but with the 40th anniversary of the moon landing now upon us, I feel morally obligated to mention at least one member of the Apollo 11 crew on this website - if for no other reason than simply because the first manned mission to land on an extraterrestrial body featured three of the United States\' all-time greatest badasses; Neil Armstrong, a man whose qualifications are beyond reproach (rest assured, he will be featured on the site in due time), Michael Collins, a West Point grad who made his way into the Apollo program despite having had two vertebrae fused together during a horrific test piloting accident, and Buzz Aldrin &ndash; one of the toughest and most undersung heroes in American history, and a crazy kickasstronaut who routinely (and boldly) goes where no man has gone before and face-punches the hell out of anyone who isn\'t down with it.</p>\r\n<p>Edwin Aldrin was born in New Jersey in 1930, the son of an Air Force Colonel (also named Edwin Aldrin) who had been good buddies with our crazy aviatrix friend <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/earhart.html\">Amelia Earhart</a>.&nbsp; Aldrin soon realized that \"Edwin\" wasn\'t really as mega-extreme of a name as it could be, so he started going by \"Buzz\" instead.&nbsp; Now, Buzz is a serious-ass name.&nbsp; It\'s the sort of name you can really set your watch to.&nbsp; I mean, it\'s a well-known rule that many things that are hardcore start with Buzz: buzzsaw, buzzcut, buzzbomb, etc.&nbsp; These are all things that don\'t screw around, and Buzz Aldrin is no exception to this rule.</p>\r\n<p>Aldrin graduated third in his class at West Point and became a badass fighter pilot who flew 66 combat missions during the Korean War and shot down two Soviet MiG-15s while tearing ass through the skies in a crotch-blasting F-86 Sabre.&nbsp; He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in combat, and then, just to prove that he wasn\'t all asskicking and no brains, he went out and got a Ph.D. in Astronautics from goddamned MIT.&nbsp; Now, not only is it probably somewhat difficult to pass classes like Rocket Propulsion and Astrodynamics at one of the world\'s premier engineering schools, but his 1337 book-learning skillz were so mad that his doctoral thesis on manned space rendezvous techniques was actually incorporated into NASAs manual of standard operating procedures.&nbsp; So, that\'s not to shabby I guess.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, around this time the greatest scientists in the US and the Soviet Union were smashing their massive heads together in epic head-butting action as both countries were fighting to be the first world superpower to fling a man up onto the surface of the Moon, and Buzz Aldrin decided he wanted to get in on that intellectual deathmatch.&nbsp; He\'d already shown the Russkies that he could jack their shit up from the cockpit of a fighter jet, so why not find a couple new and interesting ways to groin-shot the enemies of Democracy?&nbsp; He signed on with NASA (who, by the way, only took the most elite pilots into their space flight training program), and went to work training as an astronaut &ndash; a job which, of course, is undisputably one of the most badass professions this side of \"pirate\" or \"ninja\".</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aldrin3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Buzz\'s first mission was the last flight of the Gemini Program, when he went up in Gemini XII with Jim Lovell, a dude you probably know better as Tom Hanks\' character in the movie <em>Apollo 13</em>.&nbsp; The objective was to figure out how long humans could survive in space without losing muscle coordination, or, you know, dying a horrific death, so you can pretty much see how crazy it is that a dude like Aldrin went out and volunteered for this insanity.&nbsp; Aldrin\'s job was basically to go out on the longest space walk ever attempted and see whether or not it would kill him.&nbsp; Of course, our man Buzz wasn\'t screwing around &ndash; he trained relentlessly in the days leading up to the mission, gaining strength and much-needed conditioning by scuba diving and spending extended periods moving around in underwater environments.&nbsp; It worked.&nbsp; He went out and ran around in the deadly vacuum of space for five and a half hours, and returned to his craft alive and intact.&nbsp; For the record, the last time a NASA astronaut when on a spacewalk, he turned back after thirty-three minutes.&nbsp; Not surprisingly, underwater training is now a key component of NASA astronaut conditioning programs.&nbsp; You can thank the Buzz Saw for that.</p>\r\n<p>Well, as we all know, the pinnacle of Aldrin\'s astronaut career was the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 &ndash; one of the defining moments of the 20th century, and one of the biggest kicks to the junk we gave the Soviets in the entire Cold War.&nbsp; For this momentous, insanely-dangerous mission, Buzz was basically strapped into a giant flying explosion that blasted off, went from zero to 24,300 miles per hour in about two seconds (it took them less than a minute to blow past the speed of sound), and catapulted off to infinity and beyond.&nbsp; 109 hours into the mission, the Lunar Module <em>Eagle</em> left the Command Service Module, determined to carry Armstrong and Aldrin to the surface of the Moon.</p>\r\n<p>Things didn\'t start off so great.&nbsp; Almost immediately, all of these alarms and klaxons started going off in the LM as the on-board computer was becoming fried with an overload of information.&nbsp; But screw that - these guys didn\'t come all the way out there just to turn back become some jackass computer was too much of a wuss to handle a little bit of stress.&nbsp; The two astronauts flipped the lander onto manual control, descended 50,000 feet at 60 miles an hour, and touched down with just twenty seconds of fuel remaining in the LM\'s descent engine.&nbsp; On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin flying side-kicked out of the landing craft and started backflipping around the surface of the freaking Moon.&nbsp; It was so awesome that they both wanted to piss.&nbsp; They ran around, collected forty-seven pounds of moon rocks, planted a flag, looked for any Mooninites who needed to be whacked in the face, and did a bunch of other cool stuff as well probably.&nbsp; They spent two hours flipping out on the surface before running back to the LM, blasting off, and giving each other some badass 360-degree Zero-G High-Fives.&nbsp; The spacecraft turned around, and these dudes burned rubber back home at Warp Factor 2, hurtled into Earth\'s atmosphere at 35,000 feet per second, smashed ass-first into the Pacific Ocean without even breaking a sweat, and rode home on a totally rad U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.&nbsp; All told, these men had spent eight days in space, and when they came back pretty much everyone thought they were thoroughly bitchin\'.&nbsp; They got parades, won a truckload of medals, and even got a couple stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (an estimated 600 million people - one-fifth of the world\'s population at the time - tuned in on their TVs to watch Aldrin and Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface&hellip; that should also probably give you some indication of how big of a deal this shit was).&nbsp; The sweet picture of Buzz Aldrin saluting an American flag on the surface of the Moon was also used as the logo for MTV back in the \"good old days\" when MTV sucked roughly one-half to one-third as much as it does today, so that\'s something too I guess.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aldrin2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But Buzz Aldrin\'s badassitude doesn\'t even end there.&nbsp; After returning to Earth, he served as commander of the Air Force Test Pilot School, ran a non-profit organization, wrote a couple sci-fi novels, overcame severe cases of clinical depression and alcoholism, recorded a rap with Snoop Dogg (!), joined the Freemasons, and got like 175,000 people to follow <a href=\"http://twitter.com/therealBuzz\">his Twitter page</a>.&nbsp; He also was part of the second exploration team that went down to investigate the wreckage of the <em>Titanic</em> , which is pretty sweet because it means that during his insane life pushing the envelope of reality in every possible direction, this dude has been 250,000 miles above the Earth, and 2.5 miles below the waves.&nbsp; Oh yeah, he also went on an adventure to the North Pole just to find out whether he really is ridiculously hardcore.&nbsp; Interesting fact: He is.</p>\r\n<p>So here\'s a funny story.&nbsp; Apparently there are some people out there still think the moon landing was a hoax faked by the government for some bizarre obscure reason that I can\'t really figure out but that probably makes little to no sense.&nbsp; These guys, incidentally, are pretty much the craziest of all the conspiracy theorists out there.&nbsp; Seriously, even the 9/11 people look down on these jokers.&nbsp; The freaking moon landing hoaxists are right up there with Holocaust deniers and <a href=\"http://www.universe-people.com/\">Universe People</a> on the scale of people who are so completely batshit insane that they can make most rational people roll their eyes and groan in five words or less.&nbsp; Ok, buddy, we faked the moon landing, and it went off so well that we replicated it <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_astronauts#Apollo_astronauts_who_walked_on_the_Moon\">six more times</a>.&nbsp; I mean, honestly, you\'d think that if this whole thing was a joke the Russkies would have picked up on it at some point&hellip; the last I checked the Soviet KGB was pretty effective, but whatever.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, in 2005 some crazy nutjob decided he was going to make a revolutionary, earth-shattering documentary proving once and for all that the moon landing was actually shot in a sterilized bathtub in suburban Arizona using old G.I. Joe action figures and a couple pieces of debris from the Lost City of Atlantis that were recovered at a top-secret Area 51 alien sasquatch crash site.&nbsp; In order to most effectively prove his point and act like a rational human being while doing so, this whackadoo amateur film director ran up to the 72 year-old Aldrin and his daughter outside of a hotel and started yelling a bunch of crazy shit at the American astronaut.&nbsp; Basically, the gist of this fucktard\'s ridiculous delusional tirade was, \"yeah right bullshit you didn\'t walk on the moon, Buzz Aldrin &ndash; you are a liar, a thief, and a coward!\"</p>\r\n<p>OK.&nbsp; Now this is the United States, and here in America you are free to believe whatever crazy ridiculous nonsense you want to believe.&nbsp; In fact, guys like Buzz Aldrin have fought wars to defend our right to say whatever the hell we want to say whenever we want to say it, no matter how much it makes us look like complete idiots/toolsheds/jackasses.&nbsp; But when you go up to a man, especially a hardass like Buzz Aldrin, look him in the eyes, and call him a \"liar, a thief, and a coward\" to his face, you also have the right to receive what\'s rightfully coming to you.&nbsp; And in this case, what\'s coming to you is a fucking punch in the mouth.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aldrin.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOo6aHSY8hU\">And that\'s exactly what happened</a>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Buzz took one look at this guy, said nothing, and coldcocked that douche in the chops with a head-shatteringly badass face-punch that left him staggered and dazed.&nbsp; I\'m not entirely sure what happened afterwards, but my guess is that the cops showed up, took one look at Buzz Aldrin, and then maced the shit out of the conspiracy theorist with a bunch of crazy tear gas pepper spray stuff and arrested him for violating every conceivable statute relating to \"Criminal Dumbassery\".</p>\r\n<p>Personally, I don\'t know how anyone can look at that video of the 72 year-old ex-fighter pilot and astronaut busting a dude in the face with some old-school fisticuff action and not agree that this man is a badass.&nbsp; Sure, most people probably don\'t fully understand the extreme physical and mental toughness that goes into the profession of astronauting, but I can assure you that all friends of badassitude can agree that jacking a punk in the face for talking shit to you is one of the most hardcore things you can possibly do.&nbsp; Now Buzz Aldrin has done both.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/aldrin1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://buzzaldrin.com/\">BuzzAldrin.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/aldrin-b.html\">NASA Biography</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090716-moon-landing-buzz-aldrin-pee.html\">National Geographic</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Aldrin\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Aldrin, Buzz and Ken Abraham.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Magnificent Desolation</span>.&nbsp; Harmony, 2009.<br /><br /> Harrison, James Pinckney.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mastering the Sky</span>.&nbsp; Da Capo, 2000.<br /><br /> Jones, Thomas and Michael Benson.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Complete Idiot\'s Guide to NASA</span>.&nbsp; Alpha, 2002. </span></p>','2009-07-24','418091220902','aldrin.jpg','aldrin - Copy.jpg','Buzz Aldrin','Fighter pilot, astronaut, moonwalker, face-puncher.','\"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.  Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.  Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.\"\r\n\r\n- John F. Kennedy'),('Leonardo Da Vinci','April 15, 1452','May 2, 1519','Vinci, Italy','Medieval Italian Scientist','<p>Leonardo Da Vinci invented the sniper rifle.&nbsp; Did you know that?&nbsp; No kidding, in the early 16th century Leonardo Effing Da Vinci was standing on the walls of his besieged hometown of Florence, Italy, firing down at enemy soldiers 300 yards away with a custom-built wheelock rifle he had fitted with a homemade telescopic sight designed to improve accuracy and range.&nbsp; He did lots of other totally sweet stuff too, of course, and it\'s high time we started recognizing this crazy scientific and artistic mastermind for something other than the half-insane notion that he was some kind of ridiculous Knight Templar who enjoyed constructing overly-elaborate puzzles, stealing religious artifacts, and rabbit-punching theology professors in the junkbags when they were least expecting it.</p>\r\n<p>Born in 1452 near a town called Vinci (it appears that \"Da Vinci\" is more than just a clever epithet), Leonardo was pretty much one of the most brilliant human beings ever produced by our species.&nbsp; In addition to the afore-mentioned 16th century headshot-dealing sniper rifle, he also laid out plans for all kinds of other crazy crap, most of which wouldn\'t be actually expounded upon by lesser geniuses until a couple centuries after Leo\'s death.&nbsp; His almost-unbelievable list of inventions includes things like helicopters, bicycles, tanks, pontoon bridges, cameras, solar power, calculators (though evidently not solar-powered calculators), the internal combustion engine, siege engines, a mechanical animatronic lion, a machine that pulls bars off of stone windows, a machine designed to open jail cells from the interior, and a device called the \"Aerial Screw\", which quite honestly sounds like the name of some kind of insane inverted pole dancing maneuver. &nbsp; I can\'t overemphasize how goddamned ridiculous it is that Da Vinci conceptualized the freaking helicopter at a time when most people were riding around on donkeys and using a sundial to approximate the time of day.&nbsp; Seriously, the freaking printing press was considered cutting-edge technology in these days, and Da Vinci was one step away from dusting Versailles in a goddamned <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/davinci-ah64.jpg\">Apache Gunship</a>.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, I guess I should talk a little about his skill as a painter and an artist, even though Art History is generally the sort of thing that causes me to spontaneously break out in hives and start dry heaving into an airsickness bag with the maximum amount of force that can possibly be mustered by my diaphragm.&nbsp; I\'ll suffice it to say that he did the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/davinci-monalisa.jpg\">Mona Lisa</a> and <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/davinci-lastsupper.jpg\">The Last Supper</a>, and those pieces are pretty famous I guess.&nbsp; I mean, last I heard, the Mona Lisa is insured by the Louvre in the amount of something like $800 million, making it the most valuable piece of art ever created, so I suppose that says something about Leonardo\'s talent as a painter.&nbsp; The sweet thing is that Da Vinci never half-assed it when it came to perfecting his skills.&nbsp; For instance, this guy wanted to be able to draw horses and humans, so he dedicated his youth to learning everything he possibly could about biology and anatomy &ndash; he devoted himself to the point where he became one of the world\'s foremost experts on the internal workings of the human body, and only THEN did he start really trying to draw and paint people.&nbsp; I mean, the big deal with the Mona Lisa was that it was so realistic and lifelike, thanks in no small part to Leonardo\'s bitchin\' application of bump-mapping, cell-shading and 3D texture rendering.&nbsp; Think of it this way&hellip; remember the first time you saw a Final Fantasy game on the PS2 and the graphics were so crazy nuts that you were like, \"OMG TOTEZ ROXXORZ WTF\"?&nbsp; It was kind of like that, only rendered on oil and canvas, and with marginally less androgyny and significantly less crazy shit going on in the background.&nbsp; In addition to rocking out with a brush, he was also really into sculpting, metalworking, drafting, and drawing, and he did some of history\'s first intricately-detailed anatomical drawings&hellip; the most famous of which was this dude:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/davinci1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>My guess is that you\'ve probably seen that guy somewhere before, seeing as how it\'s probably the most famous anatomical drawing ever created.&nbsp; LDV also exploded faces with his crazy mathematics, geometry, architecture, and engineering skills, composed a bunch of music, had a beautiful singing voice, played the lyre (WTF who plays the <em>lyre</em>?) and taught himself Latin.&nbsp; Yeah, the same Latin language that includes six cases, three genders, three moods, two voices, two numbers, three persons, and six verb tenses and forces most people stupid enough to subject themselves to it to a world of pain and suffering far more sinister than anything the human mind can comprehend.&nbsp; Sheesh, in freaking Latin you pretty much have to conjugate punctuation marks, yet this ultra-brilliant super-genius taught it to himself for fun after he got bored decoding the secret of the universe and figuring out the best way to transcribe the image of God into a five-digit number.</p>\r\n<p>We don\'t know a whole lot about Da Vinci the man, though the stuff we do know is pretty interesting. Depending on who you ask, (and, if you\'re interested, Sigmund Freud has <em>plenty</em> to offer on the subject) the enigmatic Leonardo was either completely celibate or a heavily-closeted homosexual&hellip; though the fact that he was once incarcerated for sodomy probably provides you with the quick and easy answer. He was also a hardcore vegetarian and animal lover who was known to go around to pet stores, buy a bunch of caged birds, take them outside, and set them free. (This of course was back in the day when being an artist actually provided you with enough money that you could afford to go around doing such things.)&nbsp; Other than that, we don\'t know a whole hell of a lot about the guy, and his enigmatic life really only serves to make him more badass in the long run.</p>\r\n<p>Leonardo also rocked out one some sweet adventures, traveled on campaign with notable tyrant/evil person Cesare Borgia, went out and chugged ales at the taverns with Niccolo Machiavelli, traded snarky verbal jabs with Michelangelo, and served on the committee that forcibly moved Mike\'s famous sculpture of David (against the great artist\'s will - take <em>that</em> Michelangelo!).&nbsp; Another interesting note is that Da Vinci actually coined the word \"nards\" &ndash; according to the legend that I just made up he originally intended to use the term as a one-syllable nickname for \"Leonardo\", but during the 16th century everybody just associated \"Da Vinci\" with \"giant nutsack\", and over the years \"nards\" became more synonymous with balls than with the actual artist himself.&nbsp; I guess that just how it goes sometimes.&nbsp; Anyways, \'nards lived in the Vatican for a while, painted some towering works of artistic genius, created an impractically-large sculpture of an 80-ton bronze horse, and was so mind-flayingly hardcore that King Francis I of France paid him a huge stipend just to sit around in a dark, foreboding castle and think about stuff that was awesome.</p>\r\n<p>Another totally sweet aspect of Leo was that almost everything he ever wrote or drew was put down into several massive, sprawling notebooks filled with an unending stream of brilliant shit. These <em>Tomes of INT +5</em> contained tens of thousands of pages scrawled with drawings, musings, inventions, etc., all compiled in a giant leather-bound journal that somewhat resembled Henry Jones Senior\'s Grail Diary:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/davinci2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Basically, LDV\'s journal contained a bunch of masterfully-drawn pictures accompanied by line after line of small-lettered text written completely backwards&hellip; in cursive.&nbsp; People like to blame this crazy eccentric writing style on Da Vinci being a lefty, but I\'m a lefty as well, and the last time I checked you don\'t need to hold your computer monitor up in front of the bathroom mirror just to read my website.&nbsp; Instead, I prefer to think that Da Vinci was just one of those <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tesla.html\">Tesla-esque</a> mecha-geniuses who was just too earth-shatteringly brilliant for his own good. Writing this mind-bending insanity in backwards cursive was probably the only way that this dude could actually challenge himself intellectually.</p>\r\n<p>Either way, Leo updated his crazy Renaissance LiveJournal daily, adding all sorts of cool shit to it, and it now basically represents the dude\'s entire life work.&nbsp; He only really completed a few paintings, never published any of his over-the-top inventions (he was probably just so far ahead of him time that the prospect of building a goddamned Sherman Tank in 1520 would have just exploded most peoples\' brains) and left most of his work half-finished.&nbsp; And yet he\'s still considered to be one of the most brilliant men to ever live.&nbsp; That\'s pretty damn sweet, if you ask me.</p>\r\n<p>Leonardo Da Vinci died at the age of 67, and his legacy is preserved today in art museums and other snooty places across the world.&nbsp; Perhaps more importantly than that, the leader of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is named in his honor, which is totally radical.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/davinci3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Leonardo_Master_Draftsman/draftsman_splash.htm\">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.mos.org/leonardo/\">Museum of Science: Leonardo</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_vinci\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Abbott, Elizabeth.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A History of Celibacy</span>.&nbsp; Simon &amp; Schuster, 2000.<br /><br /> Euvino, Gabrielle and San Filippo, Michael.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Complete Idiot\'s Guide to Italian History</span>.&nbsp; Alpha, 2001.<br /><br /> Roberts, Craig.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Crosshairs on the Kill Zone</span>.&nbsp; Simon &amp; Schuster, 2004.<br /><br /> Vasari, Giorgio.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Lives of the Artists</span>.&nbsp; Trans. George Bull.&nbsp; Penguin, 1987.<br /><br /> Zollner, Frank.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Leonardo Da Vinci</span>.&nbsp; Taschen, 2000. </span></p>','2009-07-17','844887623778','davinci.jpg','davinci - Copy.jpg','Leonardo Da Vinci','Utterly brilliant inventor, scientist, artist, and crazy person.','\"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing.\r\nKnowing is not enough; we must apply.\r\nBeing willing is not enough; we must do.\"'),('Amelia Mary Earhart','July 24, 1897','January 5, 1939','Atchison, KS, USA','20th-century American Pilot','<p>Amelia Earhart was tied for first place in the inaugural 1929 Women\'s Air Derby going into the final leg of the race.&nbsp; Just as she was preparing to take off from the runway, however, she noticed that something was wrong &ndash; the plane in front of her hit a tractor while it was taking off, and fell nose-first into the ground, where it burst into flames and subsequently exploded.&nbsp; With the clock ticking on the final stage of this super-important race, Earhart did the one thing any real badass with nerves of steel would have done &ndash; she stopped her plane, jumped out of the cockpit, ran through the flames, and pulled the helpless pilot to safety.&nbsp; As soon as she confirmed that the somewhat-scorched woman she just dragged from the jaws of death was conscious and breathing, Earhart jumped BACK into the plane, took off, and finished the race.&nbsp; She came in third;&nbsp; not too bad considering that she had to make a little detour to save someone\'s life in the process.</p>\r\n<p>A.E. is one of those <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tubman.html\">Harriet Tubman</a> sorts of historical figures that seem to dominate all the elementary and middle-school book reports, but never really get the badass cred they deserve.&nbsp; This chick was completely nuts like out of her mind psycho, went out and did all kinds of insane shit that nobody else really had the balls for, and made herself into a larger-than-life superstar in her own time and a role model to aspiring women everywhere.</p>\r\n<p>Even from the early days bagging Womp Rats in her T-16 back home, Amelia Earhart wasn\'t the sort of chump who was going to sit back and let a bunch of antiquated bullshit traditions shoehorn her into a boring life of 1920s farmlife housewifery so insanely boring it would make June Cleaver look like Tony Hawk doing a backside 900 over a nuclear explosion.&nbsp; For starters, her mom was the first woman to ever successfully climb <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/earhart-pikespeak.jpg\">Pike\'s Peak</a>, so you can be pretty fucking sure that Mrs. Earhart wasn\'t going to give herself whiplash by keeping an eye out to make sure that little Amelia didn\'t get mud on her pretty white dress.&nbsp; Earhart raced sleds downhill in the winter, climbed trees in the summer, had a pet toad, and hunted rats in the woods behind her house by capping them in the brain with a .22 rifle.&nbsp; When World War One started producing a copious surplus of dead and wounded Canadians, Earhart drove out and served as a military nurse in Toronto.&nbsp; In 1918 she somehow managed to survive an almost-fatal case of having her head spontaneously implode as a result of the Spanish Flu pandemic &ndash; a REAL pandemic that makes this swine flu garbage seem about as deadly as a severe case of colorblindness.&nbsp; My assumption is that she probably pulled herself along through sheer force of will alone.&nbsp; She also worked as a fucking truck driver, which is a serious job, and once drove from L.A. to Boston in a super-fast sportscar she dubbed \"The Yellow Peril\".&nbsp; So that\'s pretty tight.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/earhart5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well all this crap was totally sweet to the max and all, but almost dying a half-dozen times before her thirtieth birthday really wasn\'t as balls-to-the-wall as A.E. had hoped.&nbsp; So, she went out, worked her ass off, paid for some flying lessons, bought an airplane, and started doing all kinds of crazy aeronautical shit that would make most people start barfing their guts out into their crappy paper airsickness bags.&nbsp; She entered races, pulled some sweet loop-de-loops, and became the first woman to fly an airplane over 14,000 feet in the air.&nbsp; Fourteen thousand feet might not seem that impressive today, but you have to remember that this was in the early 1920s when there was really nothing between the pilot and the harsh, freezing-ass-cold atmosphere except for a pair of scratched-up flight goggles and a badass leather helmet which, while cool looking, wasn\'t going to do a whole hell of a lot of good if you stalled, spun out, and crashed your crappy, barely-airworthy flying machine nose-first into a mountain.&nbsp; You also gotta remember that twenty years before this, most people in the world believed that powered flight was pretty much impossible, so it took some seriously concrete nerves for someone to willingly get into one of these rickety wood-and-canvas jobs and start flying around all over the place like a crazy person.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, in 1929 Amelia Earhart served as the navigator on one of the first transcontinental flights in human history, flying from the mainland of the US to Britain in just over twenty hours of air time.&nbsp; She was the first woman to ever cross the Atlantic in a plane, accomplishing the feat just one year after Chuck Lindbergh made the first transcontinental solo flight ever.&nbsp; Everybody thought that this was a pretty big deal, especially when you take into account the fact that ten years before this flight women in America didn\'t even have the right to vote.</p>\r\n<p>Well, Amelia Earhart wasn\'t quite as pumped up about this shit as you\'d think &ndash; she felt like a fraud because she had just been the navigator and wasn\'t actually flying the plane.&nbsp; So, three years later she went out and soloed it in a Lockheed Vega:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/earhart6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, just take a look at this picture for a minute.&nbsp; I have it on pretty good authority that this thing was a top-of-the-line flying machine in 1929, but to be perfectly honest I probably wouldn\'t trust this thing to get me the 200 miles from Boston to New York without spontaneously bursting into flames and/or having the wings fall off for no reason at all.&nbsp; Well, Amelia Earhart took this bastard across the Atlantic Ocean, through a nasty thunderstorm, and then successfully navigated over the featureless expanses of wide-open ocean and landed successfully even after a goddamned bolt of lightning knocked out all of her on-board instruments.&nbsp; She was just that hardcore.&nbsp; She was the first woman to solo the Atlantic, and the first human of any gender to cross the Atlantic in an airplane twice.&nbsp; For her effort, she won the Distinguished Flying Cross, the French Legion of Honor, and the Gold Medal from the National Geographic Society.&nbsp; A couple years after that, she became the first person to fly from Honolulu to the American mainland, which is kind of a big deal when you consider that ten men tried this feat before her and they all ended up face-planting the Pacific Ocean at lethal velocities.</p>\r\n<p>Earhart wasn\'t done there though &ndash; she set the women\'s world flying speed record, won the award as America\'s Top Airwoman four years in a row, broke a bunch of transcontinental speed records, and became the first woman to compete in the National Air Race.&nbsp; She also got really into autogyros, which are basically like giant helicopter-esque deathtraps with wings that look like something out of a crazy old movie about mad scientists or demented underpants-stealing Gnomes or something.&nbsp; She was hired on by Purdue University in the 1930s as a consultant, she gave public lectures encouraging young women to go to college, she worked as an editor at the magazine <em>Cosmopolitan</em>, and she even found the time to write a couple of bestselling books when she wasn\'t out risking life and limb in a crazy airborne death machine.&nbsp; She also started her own commercial airline company, serving as Vice President of National Airways.&nbsp; Oh yeah, National eventually became Northeast Airlines, which eventually merged with a little company called Delta Air Lines.&nbsp; Maybe you\'ve heard of it.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/earhart3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In 1937 Amelia and some guy attempted to fly around the world, probably because they really had nothing better to do.&nbsp; They got about 22,000 miles into their mission, going from Miami to South America, and then crossing over Africa, India, and Australia.&nbsp; With about 7,000 miles left in the mission, Amelia Earhart became so awesome that she completely blinked out of existence forever.&nbsp; Nobody really has any clue where the hell she went, which is kind of awesome when you think about it.</p>\r\n<p>In her short time doing ridiculous insane shit in the skies over the planet Earth, Amelia Earhart was totally awesome.&nbsp; She kicked ass at a time when \"proper women\" weren\'t supposed to be allowed to kick ass, she gave the finger to anybody who told her what to do, and she is still remembered as the most popular and well-known female aviators of all time.&nbsp; To this day, her legacy continues to live on &ndash; she was the founder (and first president) of an organization called the Ninety-Nines, a group designed to encourage women pilots in America, and aspiring women looking to do some awesome shit with their lives all looked to Earhart as an example of what it was to be a badass chick.&nbsp; This ended up working out pretty well for the US &ndash; when World War II went down three years after Earhart\'s disappearance, these aviatrixes would go on to serve their country as Women Airforce Service Pilots, where they supported the effort to smash Hitler in the junk by relentlessly ferrying bombers and fighter planes from manufacturers in America to the front lines in Europe.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/earhart4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"Women must try to do things as men have tried. <br />When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.ameliaearhart.com/\">AmeliaEarhart.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.ninety-nines.org/index.html\">Official Website of the Ninety-Nines</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Douglas, Deborah G., et al.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">American Women and Flight Since 1940</span>.&nbsp; Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2004.<br /><br /> Duncan, Joyce.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ahead of Their Time</span>.&nbsp; Greenwood, 2002.<br /><br /> Earhart, Amelia.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Fun of It</span>.&nbsp; Brewer, Warren, &amp; Putnam, 1932.<br /><br /> Heinemann, Sue.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Timelines of American Women\'s History</span>.&nbsp; Penguin, 1996.<br /><br /> Lauber, Patricia.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Lost Star: The Story of Amelia Earhart</span>.&nbsp; Scholastic, 1989. </span></p>','2009-07-10','576235423850','earhart.jpg','earhart5.jpg','Amelia Earhart','America\'s most famous aviatrix.','\"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.  The fears are paper tigers.  You can do anything you decide to do.  You can act to change and control your life;  and the procedure, the process is its own reward.\"'),('Kenneth L. Reusser','January 27, 1920','June 20, 2009','Clackamas, OR, USA','WWII American Marine','<p>As those of us here in the States celebrate our nation\'s freedom this weekend by blowing the hell out of stuff with fireworks, incinerating giant slabs of beef on our charcoal grills, and laughing at the disgusting old guys who for some insane reason thought it would be smart/funny/awesome to wear Speedos to the beach, it\'s important that we also take a moment or two to think about the true badasses who dedicated their lives to serving their country. Kenneth L. Reusser was the most decorated Marine Corps aviator in our nation\'s history, serving in 253 combat missions across three wars, and earning 59 medals &ndash; including 2 Navy Crosses, 4 Purple Hearts, and 2 Legions of Merit. Basically, it\'s pretty safe to say that if you melted this guy\'s medals down you could weld them into a giant patriotic android capable of picking up Kim Jong-Il and using him as a javelin with which to impale Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He also survived being shot down five times, which is pretty damn impressive considering that being shot out of the sky in a fighter plane probably carries a pretty low probability of not detonating into a giant meat explosion, and is the only aviator to survive being shot down in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. So, yeah. This guy was pretty tough I guess.</p>\r\n<p>Ken Reusser basically enjoyed doing things that were awesome, and it was bonus points if it was ass-destroyingly dangerous as well. One time he bought a parachute, and decided to test it out by strapping it on and jumping off the roof of a barn. I think we can all agree that this is totally sweet and also xtreme to the max gonzo. He also paid for college and flight school by competitively racing motorcycles, which is probably one of the most badass ways you can pay for your schooling this side of alligator wrestling or professional knife-fighting, so you can be pretty damn sure that when the craziness at Pearl Harbor went down and it was time to kick it into overdrive and take it right into the danger zone, Ken was one of the first ones to hop on a one-way flight to Destructionville. He joined the Corps, hopped into the cockpit of an F4U Corsair, and got busy turning Japanese aviators into giant, gasoline-filled, environmentally-unfriendly coral reefs in the waters of the Pacific Ocean.</p>\r\n<p>(As a side note, I spent a good fifteen minutes here staring blankly at the screen trying to think of a brain-searingly hilarious way to use text-message lingo to tie \"F4U\" into something to the effect of \"saying FU to Japanese pilots\", but so far I\'m coming up completely blank. Please feel free to take this opportunity to laugh hysterically at your computer screen while imagining that I just said something so insanely witty that it completely blew your mind.)</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/reusser1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span style=\"color: #0000cc;\"><strong>REUSSER:</strong></span>&nbsp; <span>F4U LOL</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Operating from the flight deck of American aircraft carriers across the Pacific like a turboprop version of <em>Top Gun</em> was pretty sweet and all, but things were less fun when Ken had his first brush with death in 1942. While screaming through the skies above Guadalcanal, Reusser\'s Corsair was shot down, and he was forced to crash-land on an unfriendly island surrounded by gunfire and hostile soldiers. He somehow managed to make it to an American-friendly village, where the locals nursed him back to health and sent him back to continue blasting faces. His crowning achievement in the Second World War would come a few years later, in the air over Okinawa, when he and his wingman Bob Klingman engaged in a badass dogfight against a Japanese photo reconnaissance plane that was documenting American ship positions and relaying them back to crazy Kamikaze squadrons. This jacknut was tearing ass through the stratosphere at 38,000 feet &ndash; roughly 1,000 feet above the service ceiling for the F4U Corsair &ndash; but Reusser and Klingman didn\'t give a shit about something as trivial as the near-constant threat of spinning out, stalling, and going into deadly death spins of death and destruction. They pulled up behind the Japanese plane, and opened fire with their machine guns. Well, unfortunately when they pulled the trigger, nothing happened. This kind of put a damper on their hopes of tearing this enemy plane a few hundred new assholes, but it\'s not like that was going to slow them down or anything. So flying high above the earth in the thin air and ball-shattering cold (I probably don\'t have to tell you that World War II Corsairs didn\'t come with creature comfort crap like pressurized cabins and hot flight attendants serving roasted peanuts and badass glasses of orange juice), they came up with a completely insane plan &ndash; they were going to ram this bastard and use their propellers to chop up the tail of the Japanese plane. Are you kidding me? They freaking RAMMED THE PLANE 38,000 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, making mince meat of it\'s fuselage and sending it smashing down to earth in a giant puff of gray smoke like something out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. I imagine that then they did a bunch of barrel rolls and give each other mid-air high fives because this was so awesome. They also both won Navy Crosses for this brazen display of raw iron ballsackness.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/reusser2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The smashed propeller on Bob Klingman\'s Corsair</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Any way you <em>slice</em> it, Ken Reusser was awesome. (Pause for groans). After WWII, Ken went on to fight in Korea, where he won yet another Navy Cross while fighting with the famous Black Sheep Squadron. This tough-ass Marine aviator led a flight group that destroyed a North Korean truck depot and tank repair station, took a bunch of hits from ground fire, and returned to his carrier just long enough to get his plane fixed up before heading back out after an oil depot. He blew up the oil facility with his rockets, and when he was done with that, he noticed a camouflaged NK oil tanker trying to sneak out of the harbor. Fuck that. Ken was completely out of rockets, but as we\'ve already seen, this guy was in the business of making do with whatever armament he had available at the time. He dove down, streaked a few hundred feet above the water, and took out the tanker at close range with his goddamned machine guns. The tanker went up in a giant towering inferno, and Ken was so close to the ground that the explosion nearly blew his plane into another dimension, but he somehow managed to return home in one piece. He became the first Marine to win a medal for valor in combat in Korea.</p>\r\n<p>But hell, after busting face in Korea, Reusser STILL wasn\'t done. When America was \"in the shit\" in \'Nam, Ken traded in his Corsair for a helicopter and took command of Marine Aircraft Unit 16. He flew out on night assaults, raids, and rescue missions, saved downed pilots, transported Marines to and from the battlefields, and (by most accounts) loved the smell of napalm in the mornings. That was working out pretty well for him for a while, until while on one particularly dangerous rescue mission, his Huey was hit by ground fire and went up in flames. Reusser was 100% immolated, and required skin grafts on 35% of his body, but still somehow survived and was evacuated back to American lines.</p>\r\n<p>Well, while you might think that being completely set on fire would end most peoples\' careers/lives/etc., it didn\'t even slow Ken Reusser down all that much. He left the Corps as a Colonel, and as a retired Marine (as my e-mailers so love to tell me, \"there is no such thing as an ex-Marine\") he worked to support veterans\' groups, rode around in some sweet parades, and basically just continued being awesome. He died two weeks ago, on June 19, 2009, of natural causes.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/reusser3.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.democratherald.com/articles/2009/06/27/news/local/1loc16_reusser062809.txt\">Albany Democrat-Herald</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.f4ucorsair.com/vmf312/312.html\">F4UCorsair.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/rob_finchthe_oregonian2002us_m.html\">Oregon Live</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_L._Reusser\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2009-07-03','770278723955','reusser.jpg','reusser - Copy.jpg','Kenneth L. Reusser','The most decorated aviator in Marine Corps history.','\"He had a great sense of humor. One time, when the great Gen. Chuck Yeager was visiting, we told him about Ken\'s war record. Yeager just sniffed that he never saw any Marines in Europe. Well, when Ken arrived, we told him what Yeager had said, so Ken said, \'Well, if we had been there, it wouldn\'t have taken you so long to win the war.\' Even Yeager laughed.\"'),('Piankhi the Nubian','Unknown','721 BC','Nubia, Sudan','Ancient Sudanese General','<p>By the time the Egyptian twenty-fifth dynasty rolled around, the once-all-powerful domain of the Pharaohs really wasn\'t what it used to be. Sure, the New Kingdom was still a dominant civilization and a badass culture filled with awesome shit like mummies and pyramids and insane animal-head gods, but all-in-all things were a far cry from the \"good old days\" of Ramses II trampling cattle with his pimped-out war chariots or Thutmose III building giant obelisks out of human skulls, pipe cleaners, and crazy glue. Thanks to a mega-hot mix of apathy, ineffective leadership, and general political bitching/infighting, over the centuries this ancient and powerful civilization had fractured into several smaller kingdoms and provinces, with each one ruled over by some petty warlord or despot or some other such ridiculous nonsense.</p>\r\n<p>As it is with most fractured regions desperately in need of conquest, a would-be tyrant soon arose.&nbsp; One day an ambitious dude named Tefnakht decided he was sick of that bullshit, and came up with the brilliant idea of reunifying Egypt under one ruler, installing himself as the all-powerful Pharaoh, and using his position as a living God-King to pretty much make life epically miserable for all sentient life on the planet. He put his master plan into effect by raising a ball-crushingly mighty army, scarfing down a couple pounds of crocodile jerky, plundering a bunch of cities along the Nile, and telling everyone he met that they basically had two real options &ndash; submit to his evil will, or die horrifically (prefereably screaming and/or in flames). Most people opted for the first of those two enticing alternatives, surrendering to the back-breaking Alpha Male warlord without a fight, and before long this Tefnakht fellow was well on his way to becoming Egypt\'s Next Great Warlord Killmaster.</p>\r\n<p>Well running amok throughout Lower Egypt was great and all, but Tefnakht was a pretty standard-issue classical-age badass, and his kill-boner wasn\'t going to be successfully satiated until he\'d more or less conquered damn near everything on the planet that was even remotely worth conquering. So of course after he forcibly reunified the Nile Delta region into a giant mish-mash of subservient automatons by bashing everyone\'s head in with an iron skillet, he decided it would be totally hilarious if he then marched his armies south and invaded the Nubian Kingdom of Kush for some reason.</p>\r\n<p>What Tefnakht failed to recognize, however, is that Nubia - an ancient kingdom that existed in the northern part of the present-day Sudan - was a pretty badass place, and they didn\'t really respond well to the prospect of being conquered by some megalomaniac douchebag with too much spare time on his hands. These guys had been smashing heads with the Egyptians for centuries, and a few dozen generations of unstoppable assbeatings had established Nubia as a totally hardcore civilization that wasn\'t to be screwed around with. Tefnakht apparently didn\'t get that memo - he marched his massive force directly into the domain of a badass, face-crushing Nubian warlord known as Piye (or, alternatively, as Piankha, Py, &Pi;, and god knows what else). This epic kicker of punk asses had ruled over Nubia for roughly twenty years at this point, and was known as a just, pious, and honorable ruler who stayed off drugs, said his prayers, ate his vitamins, and generally just tried to be totally awesome to everyone all the time - and this dude wasn\'t going to start coughing up blood just because some jerkwad Egyptian dillhole thought he was the hottest shit since unleavened bread.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/piye1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Piye first heard that Tefnakht was invading Nubia, he just laughed. Seriously, the prospect of some flacid, half-assed Egyptian invasion was just so uncontrollably hiliarious that this dude busted out a hearty guffaw so manly that it caused the Great Sphinx of Giza to spontaneously start growing chest hair. Once he got over the ridiculousness of this fucktard thinking he could conquer Piye\'s Kingdom, the Nubian King put together an army, made sacrifices in the name of the Sun God Amun, ordered his soldiers to sprinkle themselves with Holy Water, and then set North to show Tefnakht what it feels like to have your larynx pulled out through your rectum. Piye marched out, faced his army off against a coalition of three Kings and five Princes loyal to the Egyptian conqueror, and smashed them to shit. The enemy nobles and commanders lost their armies, fled the field, and ran off to their home castles, so just to drive home his point, Piye went around one by one besieging them until, in his words, they \"exuded the stench of decomposition\".</p>\r\n<p>Once Piye got on a roll, all bets were off. He was in what we like to call \"The Zone\", and this guy just went nuts and started conquering everything he could find. His strategy was basically just to surround a city and demand that they submit to him. If they did, he would march in, plunder their treasury, and leave. If they crossed him (as was the case with the Egyptian metropolis of Memphis), he would destroy their army, sink their navy, and tear down the walls of their cities. He explicitly forbade his troops from any kind of plundering, pillaging, and raping, but don\'t let that fool you into thinking this guy was some benevolent pushover. Piye wasn\'t playing around - he just knew that he didn\'t need to set a bunch of peasants on fire in order to prove that he had giant stainless steel balls.</p>\r\n<p>Tefnakht had woken a sleeping juggernaut of asskickery, and it wasn\'t long before Piye got the better of the situation, chased Tefnakht out of town (Tefnakht sued for peace soon after getting his nuts royally smashed by Piye, and is quoted as saying, \"Be gracious! I cannot see your face in the days of shame; I cannot stand before your flame, I dread your grandeur.\"), conquered all of the cities Tefnakht had worked so hard to capture in the first place, and installed HIMSELF as Pharaoh. I love this because in the span of just a few years this dude had succeeded where his mortal enemy epically failed, and apparently did it without even really breaking a sweat. It seems that Tefnakht had fucked with the wrong man.</p>\r\n<p>Interestingly, pretty much immediately after making himself Pharaoh, Piye bailed out and headed back home to Nubia. He spent the rest of his days living in his giant palace, never setting foot in Egypt again. He\'d basically shown everyone that he was the toughest motherfucker around, and I guess he didn\'t really feel obligated to prove it to anybody.</p>\r\n<p>What\'s also awesome about this is that when local leaders or officials wanted to have an audience with the Pharaoh, they had to ride all the way out to Nubia, and even embarking on a treacherous, week-long journey wasn\'t a guarantee that you were going to get to speak with the God-King. For instance, one time a group of four Egyptian princes rode out to speak with Piye, but he only let one of them come inside to eat dinner with him. It turns out that the other three dudes were fish-eaters, and Piye hated seafood, so he deemed that those fuckers simply weren\'t worthy of his time. They had to stand outside in the cold while Piye and the other prince chilled out and ate five giant heaping plates of sweet, delicious beef.</p>\r\n<p>That\'s just how Piye did shit. He was a total megalo-egomaniac, which I find endearing. One of the best things about this guy is that when you read his account of the domination and conquest of Egypt, he basically describes his epic victories as unavoidable eventualities rather than towering deeds of awesome. He\'s just like, \"Well, they pissed me off, so of course I utterly destroyed them and made myself Pharaoh. Then I went home and ate a pomegranate.\"</p>\r\n<p>Piye conquered Egypt, ruled benevolently, chilled out in Nubia, carved out his story on a giant stone stele, and was buried in a totally sweet pyramid. Oh, and just in case you thought that bastard Tefnakht got off easy, I should mention that Piye\'s kid would go on to grab Tefnakht\'s kid and have him burned at the stake. So that\'s something.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/piye2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Draper, Robert.&nbsp; <a href=\"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/black-pharaohs/robert-draper-text.html\">\"Black Pharaohs\"</a>.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">National Geographic</span>.&nbsp; February 2008.<br /><br /> Jenkins, Andrew and Jan Assman.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mind of Egypt</span>.&nbsp; Harvard University Press, 2003. </span></p>','2009-06-26','163000224477','piye.jpg','piye - Copy.jpg','Piye','The Nubian king who installed himself as Pharaoh.',''),('Blenda','500 AD','Unknown','Smaland, Sweden','Medieval Viking Warrior','<p>Life as a Viking woman was pretty hard.&nbsp; Sure, Viking women enjoyed more freedom than many of their counterparts in other parts of the world, but Viking men were really really into raiding and plundering and killing and all that good stuff, and as a result they were usually \"away on business\" nine months out of the year doing their whole \"sacking towns and pillaging monasteries\" thing. Sure, a dude\'s got to pay the bills somehow, but if you were a Viking wife you were generally expected to hang out around the homestead, raise the children, fend for yourself, and keep the community running pretty much on your own most of the time.&nbsp; During times of war and raiding, it wasn\'t uncommon for entire villages and towns to be left in the hands of the womenfolk.&nbsp; This was pretty liberating I guess, but it seems like it would kind of blow to have to pick up the slack while you\'re husband is out there partying, feasting, and hitting people over the head with an axe.</p>\r\n<p>Regardless, this was the case one day in the early twelfth century when the King of Sweden decided that he wanted to go off and fight the Norwegians for some reason.&nbsp; He put together a large force of warriors, recruited every able-bodied Swedish Viking worthy of his longaxe, and set out to hack and slash his way into Valhalla one dead Norseman at a time.</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately, while the Swedish men were all out west trading epic face-punches with the Norwegians, the Danish Kingdom to the south thought it would probably be a good time to invade Sweden and pillage the holy living bejeezus out of some of the towns the King had so graciously left undefended.&nbsp; This was great for the Danes and all, but it kind of sucked if you were one of the women and/or children who just so happened to be standing in the drop zone for the imposing, dragon-headed Viking landing craft.</p>\r\n<p>On this particular instance, the first target in the Danish army\'s line of fire was the border town of Smaland, which, according to legend, was the home to a young girl named Blenda.&nbsp; Blenda was basically your typical sixteen year-old woman &ndash; she more-or-less enjoyed picking flowers, plowing fields, and fighting off full-scale invasions from neighboring militaries &ndash; and when she heard word that the Danes were coming, she took it upon herself to get all the women of the land together to devise a way to withstand the inevitable onslaught of beards, swords, and more (even bigger) beards.</p>\r\n<p>So as I previously mentioned, Viking women were pretty damned hardcore, but Blenda and her buddies honestly weren\'t going to stand much of a chance in a straight-up deathmatch against a rampaging horde of badass, neck-punching Danish berserkers who spent their entire lives cracking people in the faces with axes and stuffing them into garbage bags.&nbsp; Still, that didn\'t exactly mean these chicks were going to sit around and let themselves be plundered and carried off like a bunch of Medieval twenty-inch rims left unattended overnight in downtown Brooklyn.&nbsp; They were from Smaland, which (as far as I can tell at least) is basically a suburb of Geatland &ndash; the home of hardcore, monster-arm-snatching, mother-stabbing ass-wreckers like <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/beowulf.html\">Beowulf</a> - and these tough broads weren\'t going to just kick back and chill while the Danes plundered all their hard-earned crap, killed their children, and dragged them off to wherever the hell it is that Danish people come from.&nbsp; No, these determined women had a plan, and it was a twisted, devious scheme so beautiful in its simplicity and its deviousness that the Danish invaders could never have seen it coming.</p>\r\n<p>The women of Smaland rode out and met the marauding army with a nearly-endless onslaught of low-cut dresses, giant roasted turkey legs, huge hocks of beef jerky, and flowing mugs of sweet, delicious mead.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/blenda3.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>For some reason this is the image that pops into my head when I think about this story.<br />I&rsquo;m pretty sure the real thing was just like this, only with Viking helmets.<br />And, you know, Swedish instead of German.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It\'s a well-known fact that Vikings are unavoidably and irresistibly drawn to mead at all times.&nbsp; They are powerless to resist it.&nbsp; That magical elixir is like a tasty, fermented-honey tractor beam that sucks in all Berserkers within a hundred-foot radius and forces them to consume so much alcohol that they start barfing out of their eyes and fall asleep watching SportsCenter at like two in the morning.&nbsp; The women of Smaland knew this, and that\'s pretty much exactly what happened here.&nbsp; The Danish horde rolled into Wahrend expecting to be chasing terrified women through the burning huts of their pillaged, looted town, but instead they basically walked onto the set of one of those crazy over-the-top 1980s beer commercials where Spuds McKenzie is jumping a surfboard over the Great Wall of China and the Swedish Bikini Team is rocking out to a boom box blasting Brian Adams or Loverboy or some other such ridiculous crap.&nbsp; The big, tough warriors had no clue how to respond to an armada of hot Swedish babes bearing delicious meats and alcoholic beverages, and fawning over their giant man-biceps, so they basically decided to give in, hang out, and have a huge party, because - as we all know - nothing makes guys more retarded than boobs and/or booze.</p>\r\n<p>After a few hours of Blenda\'s cohorts surreptitiously slipping the Danish warriors grain alcohol and/or medieval roofies, the invading army all got wasted and passed out all over the place.&nbsp; It was at this point that Blenda decided it was time to move on to phase two of her evil plan:&nbsp; She and her friends snuck out to their farm houses, grabbed whatever instruments of face-wrecking destruction they could get their hands on, and returned to the party carrying a frightening collection of axes, staves, clubs, weed whackers, hedge trimmers, garden rakes, rubber hoses, and pitchforks.</p>\r\n<p>Now it was on like neckbone.&nbsp; Blenda and the women of Smaland tore the Danes a few new assholes, hacking them all into shark chum in the span of just a few minutes and utterly annihilating the invading army with a few hundred well-placed axe blows directly into the goddamned face.&nbsp; The King of Sweden returned from his campaign to find that Blenda and her girlfriends triumphantly standing on top of a massive heaping pile of dead Vikings, and was so pumped up about the whole thing that he granted the women of Smaland a bunch of totally awesome political and social rights that had been previously unavailable to them.&nbsp; From that point on, all daughters had the right to inherit property, money and land equally with their brothers, and were allowed to wear military-style garments around town and at their weddings.&nbsp; They were also given the prestigious right to wear the Royal Coat of Arms on their clothing &ndash; a tradition that has lasted to this day.&nbsp; Blenda is still recognized as a national hero in Sweden.</p>\r\n<p>And that, my friends, is a pretty badass way to fight for women\'s rights.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/blenda1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenda\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.blendadesign.se/engelska/4_blenda/blenda_en.htm\">Another version of the Legend</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Nilsson, Victor Alfred.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Sweden</span>.&nbsp; P.F. Collier, 1901.<br /><br /> <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Traveler\'s Guide to Sweden</span>.&nbsp; A. Bonnier, 1871. </span></p>','2009-06-19','454977124513','blenda.jpg','blenda - Copy.jpg','Blenda','A young Swedish girl slaughters an entire army of marauding Vikings.',''),('Tom Wanyandie','Unknown','N/A','Prairie Creek, Alberta, Canada','21st-century Canadian Adventurer','<p>I get a lot of email through the website.&nbsp; Most of my communication with BotW readers is generally in the form of suggestions for future articles, and I\'d say in a typical week I probably receive something on the order of 8-10 badass article suggestions a day.&nbsp; Generally, I think this is very awesome.&nbsp; I love that people enjoy the site and want to contact me, and I always appreciate hearing about new and interesting badasses I wasn\'t aware of before.&nbsp; The only problem is that I know I can probably never appease everyone who contacts me &ndash; the list of articles I want to write in the future currently has over 700 names on it, and I\'m pretty much constantly adding new characters to it.&nbsp; Having almost 15 years worth of content queued up is pretty nice, but some people are just bound to be disappointed.</p>\r\n<p>Well, this week is one of the very rare instances in which I can pretty much please everybody.&nbsp; Of all the suggestions I received in the last couple days, roughly two-thirds of them have been in favor of one man &ndash; badass Canadian wilderness master Tom Wanyandie.&nbsp; This isn\'t just a coincidence &ndash; it\'s a testament to how completely awesome this man\'s story is, and how his actions in a brutal, life-or-death situation has made him into what can only be described as a universally-recognized badass.</p>\r\n<p>This week Tom and his son James were wandering through the wilderness near Prairie Creek, Alberta, searching for moose antlers.&nbsp; Now I honestly had no fucking clue that moose actually shed their antlers, but apparently they do, and James really likes to go around in the woods, pick these things up and make them into decorative pieces of art.&nbsp; I kind of envision the final product being something along the lines of those crazy antler chandeliers you see at those kitschy over-the-top \"lodge-style\" family-dining restaurants with the stuffed (hopefully fake?) animal heads hanging on the walls, but I really don\'t know that for sure.&nbsp; I guess it\'s irrelevant in the long run.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, Tom and James are out there doing God-knows-what, just minding their own business, when all of a sudden they see a small Grizzly bear cub hanging out in the woods just being one of the most goddamned sickeningly-cutest things that has ever existed on the Material Plane:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/wanyandie1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, when most people see something like this their first thought is usually along the lines of, \"OMG TOTEZ ADORABLE NEEDS HUGZ LOLOL!!!\"</p>\r\n<p>People familiar with the woods know better.&nbsp; They see these adorable bear cubs as brutal harbingers from the most infernal layers of Hell itself, presaging the doom of all those unlucky enough to see them and the violent, bloody death of all that they hold dear.&nbsp; They know that when they see Mr. Oh-Em-Gee-It\'s-So-Cute-I\'m-Going-to-Projectile-Vomit up there, this isn\'t very far behind:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/wanyandie2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>And they\'re usually right.&nbsp; Big Momma Bears don\'t like it when you fuck with their kids &ndash; or when you\'re in a position where you could <em>theoretically</em> fuck with their kids - and they really have only one way of expression their displeasure:&nbsp; By killing the ever-loving ass out of you.&nbsp; So on this fateful day in the Candian wilderness, Mrs. Totez Adorable saw James Wanyandie standing within the acceptable minimum safe distance of her son, and went completely thermonuclear on him with her giant fuzzy, suddenly-not-so-cute death claws of death.</p>\r\n<p>James barely had a chance to say, \"OH HOLY SHIT BALLS\" before the insane, pissed-off Grizzly was on him.&nbsp; Mrs. Bear ran up, grabbed him with her razor-sharp teeth, and chucked him up into the air like a fucking professional strongman launching a pinata full of Creatine into the stratosphere. Seemingly before he\'d even hit the ground, the Grizzly was on top of him, pinning him to the ground hard with her paws (breaking his arm in the process) and biting the ever-loving crap balls out of him with her giant scary kill-teeth.&nbsp; James, who has a heart condition and wears a pacemaker, was in some seriously deep shit.</p>\r\n<p>Well, Big Tom Wanyandie doesn\'t like it when you fuck with HIS kid, either, and Mrs. Bear apparently didn\'t realize that she needed to worry about this guy just as much as most people need to worry about man-eating killer bears.</p>\r\n<p>Tom is a 78 year-old Cree Indian who spent his entire life venturing through the woods as a hunter, trapper, and wilderness guide.&nbsp; He\'s been hardened by nearly eight decades of badass mountain man survivalist shit, seen everything there is to see, fought everything there is to fight, and even though he\'s pretty much decrepitly old he wasn\'t going to sit around and watch some jackass bear assault his kid like Yogi Bear wolfing down a picnic basket in Jellystone National Park.</p>\r\n<p>Tom grabbed the closest instrument of brain-smashing kill-sanity that he could find, which just so happened to be the broken-off tree branch he was using as a walking stick during the journey, and fearlessly charged balls-out towards the bear without any regard for his own safety or well-being.&nbsp; In lieu of a badass battle cry, he just started screaming an epically-graphic string of Cree profanity so nut-shrivelingly virulent it would make even the most hardcore pirate start weeping tears of blood.&nbsp; After unleashing a verbal assault consisting of goddamned near every swear word ever invented in the history of the Native Americans, the 78 year-old father proceeded to simply bash the fucking bear about the head and neck with this stick.&nbsp; Once he had the bear\'s attention, he jammed the stick into its mouth to keep it from continuing its once-unstoppable toothy assault on his son, and with the stick lodged in the creature\'s grill Tom just started punching the fucking shit out of it with his bare (bear?) hands.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/fanmail-punisher.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>PWND</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well Mrs. Bear was a giant, 600-pound beast from a species that had been genetically disposed to kick ass at brutal hand-to-hand combat, and she certainly wasn\'t going to give up that easily.&nbsp; She turned on Tom, smashing the glasses off his face (thereby rendering him pretty much completely blind), and breaking his hand in her powerful onslaught.&nbsp; Tom STILL didn\'t give a fuck.&nbsp; He\'s a hardcore Canadian mountain man, and it\'s going to take a hell of a lot more than a haymaker face-punch from a giant man-eating Grizzly bear Berserker to keep this dude from heroically saving his son from certain death.&nbsp; Tom tackled the fucking thing (!), and just started whacking it with his stick repeatedly in the head and neck like a crazy face-smashing maniac.&nbsp; The two unstoppable asskickers went at it like a couple of badass heavyweight fighters, each one battling for his life, locked in an epic death match against a formidable adversary.&nbsp; I like to imagine that Tom continued violently swearing at this thing the entire time, but I couldn\'t find anything to confirm that.</p>\r\n<p>Well, finally, after being ruthlessly smashed in the face repeatedly with a stick, the bear decided it\'d had enough and got the fuck out of there as quickly as its four legs could carry it.&nbsp; Tom helped his badly-injured son half a mile back to their truck, where they immediately drove to the hospital.&nbsp; James was admitted with serious injuries, and needed surgery to save his life, but he is expected to make a fully recovery.&nbsp; Tom was treated for a few minor wounds and released the same day.&nbsp; His first plan of action is to go back to the spot of the battle and assess what happened.</p>\r\n<p>He\'s just hard like that.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/wanyandie3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"Tom\'s not the kind of man that would run.&nbsp; He\'d fight no matter what.<br />He\'s not a 78-year-old you might find in an old-folks home.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/feisty-senior-sticks-it-to-grizzly/article1175588/\">Globe and Mail</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=1679279\">National Post</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.edmontonjournal.com/News/Elderly+tackles+grizzly+with+stick/1677391/story.html\">Edmonton Journal</a></p>','2009-06-12','770278724567','wanyandie.jpg','wanyandie - Copy.jpg','Tom Wanyandie','78 year-old man saves his son from a bear by beating it with a stick.','\"I was thinking about God and that he would protect us.\r\nWith God in my head, I took that walking stick and beat the bear, then I shoved it down his throat.\"'),('Unknown','Unknown','February 17, 1931','Unknown, probably Canada','20th-century Canadian Outlaw','<p>Life in the frigid temperatures and untamed wilderness of Canada\'s Northwest Territories, especially in the 1930s - a time when things like \"propane heating\" and \"not getting eaten by bears\" were unheard-of luxuries - was pretty much a miserable experience for anyone who didn\'t enjoy freezing their nuts off and/or being forcibly kicked in the abdomen by a bunch of angry moose.&nbsp; Survival in this hostile, almost-inhabitable environment was far from guaranteed, making the foolhardy venture of frontier life one that was generally only undertaken by those who possessed an iron will, a hardy constitution, a modest arsenal of kill-crazy weapons, and a tenuous grip on their own sanity.&nbsp; Unfortunately for the officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the man known only as Albert Johnson, the infamous \"Mad Trapper of Rat River\" possessed all of these things and more.</p>\r\n<p>Albert moved to the Northwest Territories for some strange reason in July of 1931, and immediately went to work being a total jackass and pissing everyone off with his crazy antics.&nbsp; Living by himself in a log cabin he probably built out of wood he harvested with little more than a series of devastating karate chops and operating a small series of traps on the Rat River, he lived the lonely life of an eccentric badass frontier mountain man &ndash; hunting for food, selling animal pelts, fucking with the natives, and generally rocking out like a Depression-Era Unabomber.</p>\r\n<p>Well, one day the local Inuit tribe filed a formal complaint with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, claiming that some local nut was jerking around with their strategically-placed animal traps, so the Mounties decided to pay Big Al a little visit.&nbsp; On December 26, 1931, two RCMP officers traveled roughly 80 miles by dogsled (a two-day journey in temperatures that hovered between negative-40 and negative-50 degrees) out to the middle of goddamned ass-nowhere to ask Mr. Johnson a few harmless questions about why he was being such a jackoff to the Indians.&nbsp; After banging on his door for a half-hour with no response, the Mounties decided that they didn\'t basically travel half of a fucking Iditarod just to go home empty-handed, and opted to kick down the door and bust their way inside Albert\'s log cabin.&nbsp; This proved to be a tactical error.&nbsp; Mr. Johnson politely declined comment to the nice officer by putting two bullets through the door and wounding one of them.&nbsp; The cops got pissed opened fire on Johnson\'s cabin, but he had strategically drilled gun ports through the walls of the cabin and successfully fought them off in a brief but decisive firefight.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/albertjohnson2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>A crappy log cabin in the middle of nowhere.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>That was fucking it. The RCMP went back, licked their wounds, and put together a totally sweet frontier posse capable of assaulting pretty much anything this side of Omaha Beach.&nbsp; A few days later, nine men, forty-two dogs, forty pounds of TNT, and more handguns than the local NRA chapter arrived outside the home of the Mad Trapper.&nbsp; Once again, Albert Johnson decided to give the RCMP a warm reception by busting a few hundred caps in their direction. For fifteen hours (!) the cops exchanged fire with Johnson, who was firing out of the gun ports, and basically making his unassuming log cabin into an immobile 20th century version of the goddamned <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/heemeyer.html\">Killdozer</a>.</p>\r\n<p>Seeing as how this shitty little log cabin was seemingly impervious to bullets, the Mounties decided to whip out their home-made TNT grenades and shove them up Albert\'s ass with the realness.&nbsp; They thawed out a huge-ass stick of dynamite (remember, this is all taking place in temperatures that make the walk-in freezer at the local liquor store look like Miami Beach in mid-July), lit the fuse, and chucked it through the window of the cabin.&nbsp; In a flash of flame, splintered wood, and billowing black smoke, the entire log cabin went up like the White House in <em>Independence Day</em>.&nbsp; The roof collapsed.&nbsp; Three of the four walls were blown into sawdust.&nbsp; Children and small dogs were weeping silently to themselves.&nbsp; Sad orchestral violin music was playing in the background.&nbsp; Finally, when the fog of war cleared, the Mounties casually strolled up to the wreckage, half expecting to shovel whatever was left of Albert Johnson into an unmarked body bag and call it a day.</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately for the Mounties, this guy had other plans.</p>\r\n<p>As they neared the smoking crater that had once been <em>Chez Johnson</em>, the Mad Trapper jumped up out of a fucking insane bomb-proof foxhole he had dug (by hand) in the middle of his living room, clutching an automatic pistol in each hand.&nbsp; He opened fire, shooting the flashlights out of the Mounties\' hands and basically scaring the ever-loving shitballs out of anyone unlucky enough to witness this insanity.&nbsp; The cops turned around and did their best impression of that thing Shaggy and Scooby-Doo do where they jump up in the air, kick their legs like they\'re running, and vanish in a cloud of smoke.&nbsp; They didn\'t slow down until they\'d reached civilization.</p>\r\n<p>Well the RCMP may wear funny uniforms and ride around on horseback, but that still doesn\'t mean you can arbitrarily go off and start shooting at these guys for no good reason and not expect them to want to shove a boot or two up your ass.&nbsp; These guys always get their man, and a little something like \"almost being fragged into gibs by a bomb-proof lunatic in a homemade nuclear fallout shelter\" isn\'t going to deter them from bringing this nutjob to some righteous Canadian Justice.&nbsp; They put together a massive posse of pissed-off motherfuckers, and went out to show Mr. Johnson what happens to bitches who mess with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.</p>\r\n<p>The problem is, when they arrived at the remains of Johnson\'s cabin, he was nowhere to be found.</p>\r\n<p>You see, Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper of Rat River, took the only possessions he needed to survive in the harsh, unforgiving Arctic climate of the Northwest Territories &ndash; a pair of showshoes, and a couple firearms &ndash; and made a run for it on foot through one of the most inhospitable lands on the Planet Earth in the dead-ass middle of Winter.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/albertjohnson3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Northwest Territories in Winter.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>If this sounds suicidal to you, then you need to learn some shit about Albert Johnson. This guy was fucking nuts - and apparently also unkillable - with like a +10 Resistance to Cold and/or Starvation.&nbsp; In what is now known as \"The Arctic Circle War\", this guy led the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on a wild goose chase that would last for 48 days through temperatures so ball-shatteringly cold that it could probably flash-freeze a polar bear.&nbsp; He covered hundreds of miles, on foot, while being relentlessly pursued by the RCMP, the Candian Army, civilian trappers, dogsled teams, crazy vigilantes, Indian trackers, and goddamned surveillance aircraft.&nbsp; Twice he led the cops on chases through intense blizzards and complete-whiteout conditions, including one time when he somehow avoided capture by scaling a 7,000-foot mountain in a raging blizzard with no climbing gear or extra food.</p>\r\n<p>Even if you don\'t particularly like this guy (you know, because he\'s a crazy criminal whackjob who needlessly opened fire on police officers), you really have to respect the fact that he was the ultimate survivalist.&nbsp; It is believed that this dude, traveling alone on foot, actually covered ground twice as fast as the RCMP dogsled teams.&nbsp; He continually doubled-back on his trail to throw off his pursuers, lived off the land, and caught or foraged all of his food with his bare hands (firing a gun would have given away his position), all the while constantly evading the ever-searching eyes of Canada\'s Finest.</p>\r\n<p>Well, as they say, all good things eventually must come to an end, and after evading the authorities for nearly two months, the fuzz finally caught up with Albert Johnson.&nbsp; He was spotted by an airplane and cornered by the police.&nbsp; He opened fire on them with his rifle, of course (did I mention he was fucking off his rocker?), and was only brought down after the RCMP plugged nine bullets in him.</p>\r\n<p>Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper of Rat River, lives on today in the folklore of the Canadian wilderness. This crazy bastard is notorious for his rampant insanity, and his epic flight from the police - and the fact that he is almost completely shrouded in mystery only helps to bolster his legend.&nbsp; This guy never spoke a single word to police during the entire engagement&hellip; and shit, if it\'s not bad enough that to this day they don\'t even know if he was the guy responsible for tampering with the Inuit traps, the government of Canada can\'t even verify that Albert Johnson was even the man\'s actual name!&nbsp; He\'s like the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/snakeeyes.html\">Snake Eyes</a> of crazy frontier mountain men.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/albertjohnson1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Johnson_%28criminal%29\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/NWT/madtrapper.htm\">Mysteries of Canada</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nwtandy.rcsigs.ca/stories/rat_river.htm\">The Mad Trapper of Rat River</a></p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Ferrell, Ed.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Frontier Justice</span>.&nbsp; Heritage, 1998.<br /><br /> North, Dick.&nbsp; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Mad Trapper of Rat River</span>.&nbsp; Globe Pequot, 2005. </span></p>','2009-06-05','123153524606','albertjohnson.jpg','albertjohnson - Copy.jpg','Albert Johnson','The Mad Trapper of Rat River.',''),