('Willem III van Oranje','November 4, 1650','March 8, 1702','The Hague, Netherlands','17th-century Dutch King','<p>Hopefully you guys had a good Saint Patrick\'s Day, and that all you guys out there celebrated it the same way me and the rest of America did &ndash; by shamelessly wringing every last drop out of our one-thirty-second Irish ancestry in the most unabashed excuse for public drunkenness this side of Cinco de Mayo.&nbsp; Because, when it comes down to it, there is truly no better tribute to the proud, glorious, occasionally tragic and consistently badass history of the heroic Irish people than to hit every bar in your city woofing barrels full of green Guiness in a \"Kiss Me I\'m Irish\" shirt while discussing how you once had a great great half uncle twice removed who might have lived in Dublin at some point in the past, then finishing your evening by starting&nbsp; bar fights with strangers while speaking in your best approximation of what the Lucky Charms guy would sound like if he was drunk as fuck doing a Boondock Saints impression.</p>\r\n<p>Anyway, now that we\'ve had our fun it\'s time to <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ\">troll all of you massively</a> by posting the story of a man who is the ultimate arch-nemesis of all Irishmen south of Ulster &ndash; William of Orange, the Dutch ruler and career warrior who overcame countless impossible obstacles to seize power of the English Crown, hold it against all comers, and set the precedent for a Protestant-Catholic divide that pisses off people in Northern Ireland to this day.</p>\r\n<p>Hopefully all the actual legit Irish readers of this site are still hungover enough that I can sneak him in this week, because, William of Orange is seriously fucking rad.&nbsp; Sorry dudes.&nbsp; I\'ll get you back soon.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Today\'s my birthday so hold all angry comments<br /> and hate mail until tomorrow please.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>William of Orange was born on November 14, 1650 in The Hague, Netherlands.&nbsp; I know very little about this place, but I assume it is probably the most awesome town in the world, because aside from just being the place where they convict people of war crimes it\'s also the only city I can think of that begins with the word \"The,\" and I\'ve played enough D&amp;D to know that this means it\'s super significant.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Even though William was the son of the <em>Stadtholder, </em>the head of the Dutch Republic, the royal deck was stacked pretty hardcore against him right from the beginning.&nbsp; For starters, his dad died eight days before his birth, meaning that a regent had to be appointed to rule on his behalf... and the regent, a guy named Johan de Witt, was one of those regents who seizes power and doesn\'t really feel like giving it back once the kid becomes old enough to rule.&nbsp; If that\'s not enough, Wililam\'s mom died when he was ten, and he was pale, in poor health, and suffered from asthma attacks.&nbsp; His grandfather on his mom\'s side was King Charles I of England, a dude who was such a tyrannical asshole that the British Parliament started the English Civil War to overthrow him, and a year before William was born Charles had been executed for treason.&nbsp; William\'s other grandpa was William the Silent, who was basically the George Washington of Holland.&nbsp; This is a guy so big time over there that the fucking national anthem of the Netherlands is called \"The William\" and talks about how great he is.&nbsp; Do you ever think it\'s weird that the fucking Dutch area always wearing orange at the Olympics even though that color doesn\'t appear on their national flag?&nbsp; It\'s because they love the House of Orange, their traditional rulers, and William the Silent was the first of them.&nbsp; So yeah, he\'s a big deal.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange2b.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>William of Orange was pretty much held back by Johan de Witt, but shit got real in 1672 when the Netherlands were hardcore invaded by a rampaging French army under King Louis XIV.&nbsp; William was just 22 years old, but when Johan de Witt shit a brick at the attack, William grabbed his rapier and swung into action in the most awesome way possible &ndash; by fucking destroying the dams and dikes of Holland, flooding the entire countryside, and basically <em>single-handedly turning Holland into an island</em>.&nbsp; The French attack was stalled, since they weren\'t expecting to encounter lakes and rivers where they thought there were supposed to be farms, and this bought William time to organize his troops, build up defenses, and launch counterattacks to defeat the enemy.&nbsp; When England joined the war on the side of France, William didn\'t freak out, he got even &ndash; he sent hardcore naval motherfuckers like <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=579429818534\">Michiel de Ruyter</a> out to defeat the British Navy and set fire to London, then he allied with the Germans and liberated the city of Bonn from Louis\' Frenchmen.&nbsp; England made peace in 1672 and France in 1678, yet Louis XIV and William of Orange remained mortal enemies and constantly threw shade at each other any time they possibly could.</p>\r\n<p>On his 27<sup>th</sup> birthday, William of Orange cemented peace with England by agreeing to marry an English princess named Mary who just so happened to also be his first cousin, which is gross, and who also just so happened to be physically repulsed by William and not really want to marry him or move to the friggin\' Netherlands of all places (although she eventually came around on all points and is said to have had a happy marriage/life/etc.).&nbsp; You know the College of William &amp; Mary?&nbsp; They\'re not in the NCAA tournament this year, but it\'s the second-oldest university in the United States, and it was founded by a massive endowment from these two happy Dutch lovebirds.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>King Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland (they were all together at this point) died in 1685 and was succeeded by his brother James (who was also Mary\'s dad).&nbsp; Now, James was an OK guy, but he made the English nobles nervous because he was Catholic and the rest of England was mostly Protestant and this was a big deal for some reason back in 17<sup>th</sup>-century Europe and also to a lesser degree today.&nbsp; James suspended the writ of Habeas Corpas, arrested a bunch of Anglican bishops for not being Catholic, tried to form an alliance with France, and had the indecency to spawn a human male child who was also Catholic, so the nobles wrote William of Orange a letter telling him and Mary to get their Protestant asses across the Channel and seize the throne from the Papists.&nbsp; William was totally super into it, but he didn\'t want to be some conquering tyrant asshole &ndash; instead, he asked that he be selected king by Birthright, through his wife\'s claim as James\' daughter (you still with me on this?).&nbsp; The nobles were like yeah sure whatever, so in November of 1688 William arrived off the coast of Dover with 600 ships packed full of badass Dutch soldiers and hired professional Euro mercenaries.&nbsp; They were immediately joined by everyone from British nobles to peasant warriors from the English countryside.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>James formed up his armies, took one look at the heat William was packing, and immediately decided, fuck this, maybe we can make peace.&nbsp; William refused.&nbsp; James ran for it.&nbsp; He was caught, but William was a good son-in-law and let his wife\'s dad move to France to live in exile so he could celebrate mass with the rest of the Catholics there.&nbsp; William was coronated King William III of England, Ireland, and Scotland in 1688, and the English called the whole thing the \"Glorious Revolution\", because it pretty much went down without so much as a fight (although there was one particularly-awesome skirmish where William\'s forces in some town were supported by English citizens firing muskets and shotguns out the windows of their houses).</p>\r\n<p>Well, instead of kicking back, chilling with saints, and trying to remember not to eat meat on Fridays during Lent, James borrowed a few thousand of King Louis XIV\'s most badass French heavy cavalrymen, caught a boat to Ireland, and raised an army of Irish Catholic peasant warriors who were determined to re-take the British crown in the name of King James.&nbsp; They seized Dublin, drove out the Protestants, and mobilized 30,000 men for war.</p>\r\n<p>Shit was about to get real.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange51.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><em>poppin locks</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Say what you want about William of Orange\'s asthma and weak constitution, but this guy was a hardcore soldier who fought front and center at the heart of his soldiers like something out of the glory days of the Lord of the Rings middle ages.&nbsp; Even though he was the fucking King of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Holland, this guy personally went to deal with his father-in-law and this Catholic army nonsense himself, sailing &nbsp;36,000 English and Dutch soldiers head-long into the action in 1690.&nbsp; He met James\' army at the Boyne River, 30 miles north of Dublin, on July 1, 1690, for an epic ultimate deathmatch to determine who was the Rightful King and whose slightly-different interpretation of Christ\'s \"love your enemies and turn the other cheek\" teachings would reign supreme.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The night before the battle, William of Orange personally rode along no man\'s land surveying the battlefield and scouting the terrain to help him strategize his attack.&nbsp; While he was out there, he was shot in the chest by an Irish sniper, the bullet drilling him and knocking him from his horse.&nbsp; When his closest advisor asked if he was ok, the King replied, \"The ball came close enough, but it\'s nothing.\"</p>\r\n<p>The next morning he was at the head of his forces, deployed in the teeth of the enemy formation.<br /><br /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It took William\'s army, let by the elite Dutch Blue Guards, four hours to force their way across the Boyne river in the face of brutal, determined fire.&nbsp; When his exhausted troops finally forced their way to the other side, James sent his French cavalry shock troops in to hammer them, redeploying them from another part of the field.&nbsp; It was exactly what William was waiting for.&nbsp; At that moment, while his Blue Guards calmly formed infantry squares and fixed bayonets to repel the French cavalry, William rushed out his reserves of Hugonout, English, and Irish Protestant troops across a fordable pass he\'d already scouted (with a bullet in his chest, no less), and sent them head-on into the less-defended opposite flank.&nbsp; They rolled up the Catholics, who, to their credit, fell back in good order, but the battle was over and the ending was decisive.&nbsp; James ran for it, William either wiped out, deported, or otherwise \"pacified\" any continued Irish resistance to his ultimate hardcore no-holds-barred Protestant kingliness, and the victory at the Boyne is celebrated by Northern Ireland Protestants to this very day.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><em>BARF</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>From that point on, William pretty much made life miserable for Catholics in England, but him and Mary did do some good stuff as well.&nbsp; They founded the Bank of England so that they could rack up tons of national debt to fund their wars, they established the College of William &amp; Mary in Virginia, and they send supplies and weapons to the American colonists so they could invade Quebec (they failed). &nbsp;Despite being all-powerful rulers, William &amp; Mary also relinquished autocratic control to Parliament, setting up a Bill of Rights that took a lot of power away from the monarchy and set up a government system that\'s a lot more like the one in England today, which is cool and chill of them.&nbsp; To further illustrate their coolness and chillness, they passed the Toleration Act, an act that said they would tolerate pretty much anything except rebellious Catholic Scotsmen, who they would quite honestly just ruthlessly massacre without hesitation (and did once or twice).&nbsp; Oh they also wouldn\'t tolerate Kilts, so those were banned, probably because of excessive balls/dong action.</p>\r\n<p>But this whole King of England thing was just another step for William towards his ultimate goal of beating the shit out of King Louis XIV of France, and basically as soon as James was taken out he took his army and went right back to Mainland Europe for more war.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Look men, more war!</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Commanding the Grand Alliance of England, Holland, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire, William launched into the Nine Years\' War against France.&nbsp; There was massive, heavy fighting all across the continent, as William captured towns in Luxembourg, fought off a few naval attacks on England, bombarded Normandy cities and marched troops through the south of France.&nbsp; He commanded able generals like the Duke of Marlborough and went into combat at the head of newly-formed (and now super-famous) British military regiments like the Scots Guards, Coldstream Guards, Grenadier Guards, and the Royal Irish Regiment.&nbsp; By 1697 he\'d kicked so much ass in nearly a decade of fighting that France sued for peace and agreed to give back the lands Louis XIV had taken from Spain, Holland, Germany and Belgium.</p>\r\n<p>William went home to England, content that he\'d stomped a sufficient amount of asshole, and in 1702 he died at the age of 51 when his horse stepped in a molehill, threw him face-first into the turf, and his broken collarbone got fatally infected.&nbsp; He\'d been king of the Dutch for 51 years &ndash; literally his <em>entire </em>life.&nbsp; And while he\'s a true hero of the Netherlands and a mighty avenging war hero to the Protestants of Ulster, most Irish Catholics across the realm celebrated his death by toasting a glass to the mole that killed him.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>And, sure, while it\'s awesome to be remembered as a hero to your people, I\'d argue that it\'s also equally awesome to be so hatefully despised that people drink a toast to the creature responsible for your death.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/426755214433/williamoforange7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><em>Pimpin\' ain\'t easy</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon51.html\">http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon51.html</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_iii_of_orange\">http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_iii_of_orange</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.entoen.nu/willemvanoranje/en\">http://www.entoen.nu/willemvanoranje/en</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Books:</p>\r\n<p>Cawthorne, Nigel.&nbsp; <em>Military Commanders</em>.&nbsp; Enchanted Lion, 2004.</p>\r\n<p>McNally, Michael.&nbsp; <em>Battle of the Boyne</em>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2005.</p>\r\n<p>Sellar, W.C. and R.J. Yeatman.&nbsp; <em>1066 and All That</em>. Methuen, 1930.</p>\r\n<p>Weigley, Russell F.&nbsp; <em>The Age of Battles</em>.&nbsp; Indiana Univ. Press, 2004.</p>','2015-03-20','426755214433','williamoforange.jpg','williamoforange-small.jpg','William of Orange','Career soldier, hero of the Netherlands, bane of the Irishmen and one tough son of a bitch.',''),('Athena','N/A','N/A','Mount Olympus, Greece','Mythological Greek Goddess','<p>Yo so I&rsquo;m at Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle, WA, USA, Earth-616 all weekend, where I&rsquo;ll be stone-cold kicking it in Booth W-12 with BADASS book illustrators Matt Haley and Brian Snoddy, a flask of straight-up lighter-fluid-infused Soviet-era vodka, and&nbsp; a fat stack of free pre-release copies of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Guts-Glory-Vikings-Ben-Thompson/dp/0316320560/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1427398045&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=guts+and+glory+vikings\">my new book about Vikings</a> to hand out to all the boys and girls and other humans who shall remain gender-indeterminate because they&rsquo;re rocking bulky costumes that involve rubberized lycra and elaborate full-face helmets forged from some combination of plastic, steel, and miscellaneous spray-painted household objects.&nbsp; Typically I like to kick these weekends off in two ways &ndash; first, by taking a leak at a urinal next to a guy dressed as Chewbacca; and second, by writing about badass fictional heroes whose stories are so over-the-top hardcore that entire mythological tomes, rad graphic novels, and ancient creepy toga-wearing goat-sacrificing cults have to be crafted over the course of generations to fully contain all of their ass-obliterating murder-glory.&nbsp; So here&rsquo;s the tale of the mightiest heroine from the glory days of Ancient Greece and the Patron Deity of All Things Badass &ndash; the Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, art, literature, honor, reason, &ldquo;intelligent activity&rdquo;, philosophy, heroic combat, and military tactics, and a constantly-armored warrior babe who brought glory to those who supported her, mercilessly crushed anyone who dared to slight her, and is always depicted in full damn battle armor surrounded by cool shit like owls and snakes and weaponry.</p>\r\n<p>Athena was so awesome that back in the days before Comic-Cons the Ancient Romans held a five-day festival in the month of March to honor her and thank her for helping them conquer the entire known world and stomp on the throats of every civilization in the Western World.&nbsp; And the Ancient Romans were fucking badasses, so you know that&rsquo;s some good shit.&nbsp; Also, to further tie all this together with a pretty little blood-stained ribbon, it&rsquo;s also Women&rsquo;s History Month, and March 25 is actually National Medal of Honor Day in the United States.&nbsp; Have you ever taken a really close look at the U.S. Army Medal of Honor?&nbsp; Guess who&rsquo;s helmet-clad face is stamped on it in gold-plated bronze:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Yup, Grey-Eyed Athena.&nbsp; The Navy version of the USA&rsquo;s top award for bravery in combat shows Pallas Athena using a fistful of arrows to open a heroic can of godly ass whupping on the Goddess Discord, who is shown cowering in fear at the impending rain of blows that are about to bludgeon her fucking senseless.&nbsp; This <em>literally </em>kicks ass.&nbsp; The Air Force Medal of Honor uses the Statue of Liberty&rsquo;s face, but I guess that&rsquo;s the Air Force for you.</p>\r\n<p>Anyway, here&rsquo;s the origin story for the Goddess Athena.&nbsp; One day <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=455814220561\">Zeus</a>, the king of the Greek Gods, was sitting around on Mount Olympus thinking about badass awesome shit and suddenly he started getting this righteous migraine headache.&nbsp; Since they were all out of Tylenol, Zeus&rsquo;s bro Hephaestus tried to help Zeus out by hitting him in the head with an axe, and as soon as he made contact BANG fucking Athena EXPLODED OUT OF ZEUS&rsquo;S HEAD IN FULL FUCKING ARMOR.&nbsp; Now, Zeus is a pretty epic chick-humper who could <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana%C3%AB\">get women pregnant from golden showers</a>, so it&rsquo;s not like he needed help having kids all over the place, but Athena was too good for that shit &ndash; she much preferred to just show up to the party in her wargear so that zero seconds of her lifespan were wasted not completely beating the snot out of all who dared oppose her.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As a goddess of war, Athena is pretty much universally shown in the full military regalia of a Spartan-style hoplite.&nbsp; She was the only god who had permission to use Zeus&rsquo;s weaponry &ndash; including his Thunderbolt &ndash; and in art she looks awesome decked out in chest armor, the cool helmet with the Mohawk hair on it, and typically carrying a spear and a badass magical shield called the Aegis that has Medusa&rsquo;s fucking head bolted on to it.&nbsp; She&rsquo;s ferocious in battle, never backs down from an enemy, and never shows fear, but she also is honorable as hell and only participates in just, honest wars to defend her people from harm.&nbsp; She&rsquo;s basically the Jedi Knight Light Side version of Ares, the Greek God of War who is way more about blind fury and rage and feel the hate flow through you blood lust in combat.&nbsp; Instead of blindly rolling around in the blood of her slain enemies, Athena is all about military tactics, out-thinking your enemy, and winning the war with your mind before you&rsquo;ve even drawn your weapon.&nbsp; So it&rsquo;s no surprise she wrecks Ares&rsquo; shit on the battlefield when the two gods choose opposite teams during the Trojan War.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Pretty much immediately after basically parachuting onto the scene like an Army Ranger skydiving into Normandy, Athena plunged head-long into the sort of epic earth-destroying war you really only get in ancient mythology.&nbsp; During the War against the Giants, Athena single-handedly took out the Giant named Pallas, flayed his skin from his body with a hunting knife, and turned it either into a suit of leather armor or a cloak (sources vary), wearing it around so much that nowadays Pallas is just another nickname for Athena.&nbsp; After that, during the war with the Titans, Athena helped her dad to sword-to-face with a horrific assortment of Godzilla-sized monsters intent on destroying the universe.&nbsp; When the leader of the Titans, the towering behemoth Typhus, showed up on the scene, everyone took one look at this giant fire-breathing monster with multiple gross animal heads, arms, and wings and lost their shit.&nbsp; Of all the gods and heroes, only Athena and Zeus were brave enough to face the creature.&nbsp; Naturally, they beat it&rsquo;s ass, threw Typhus into Hell with the rest of his buddies, and then forced the titan Atlus to spend all of eternity holding the sky up on his shoulders as punishment for being a fucking asshole and almost killing everyone on the planet.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As a goddess of purity, Athena was a virgin deity who never once humped a dude.&nbsp; This is one of those weird classical double standards where it&rsquo;s totally cool high five town for an action hero dude to bang twenty seven chicks at the same time, but if it&rsquo;s a girl at the center of that kind of action suddenly they&rsquo;re charging your credit card ten bucks a month and your IT guy has to set up a meeting with you to discuss your internet usage at work.&nbsp; The closest she got was this one time when the blacksmith god Vulcan got a little handsy with her so she beat his ass, which made him jizz all over the place because he was a weird freak like that.&nbsp; Anyway, the jizz turned into a human child when it hit the ground, so Athena adopted it as his son and he became the First King of Athens, and this is an actual story that you can read in Ancient Greek mythology.</p>\r\n<p>Further down her asskicking resume, Athena is also a badass knitter and the goddess of crafts, arts, sewing and other DIY-type Pinterest stuff.&nbsp; And she took this shit REALLY seriously.&nbsp; Like, one time there was this annoying twat named Arachne who was going around being all like &ldquo;I should be the goddess of weaving shit because I&rsquo;m awesome at this, check out my fuckin&rsquo; Etsy store sales numbers,&rdquo; and pissing everyone off with her bullshit mortal hubris.&nbsp; Athena appeared to Arachne as an old woman and was like, &ldquo;hey, uh, I heard Athena was the goddess of sewing,&rdquo; and when Arachne was like &ldquo;fuck that,&rdquo; the old woman threw off her robes and was all like SIKE BITCH I&rsquo;M ATHENA NOW ITS TIME FOR A STITCH OFF.&nbsp; Arachne still wasn&rsquo;t impressed enough however, and while Athena started weaving a badass tapestry of the Acropolis, Arachne started working on a bullshit troll tapestry that depicted the gods crying and cowering like a bunch of assholes.&nbsp; And, sure, while you gotta admire the balls on Arachne, Athena was like FUCK OFF SKANK and turned Arachne into the world&rsquo;s first spider, cursing her and all her spider baby descendants to spend their entire lives constantly weaving only to have annoyed husbands smash their work with a broom and then squish them.&nbsp; And yeah, that&rsquo;s why we to this day refer to spiders as Arachnids.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Hey, here&rsquo;s a little quiz for you &ndash; what does Amazonian girl power ultimate modern independent female superhero Wonder Woman have in common with the grim family-murdering ultra-bloody babe-humper <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=21214026831\">Kratos</a> from God of War?&nbsp; ATHENA.&nbsp; And, as badass as Athena is herself, this is what truly sets her apart from the other badass figures of world mythology &ndash; she is the patron god of every single great hero in Ancient Greek and Roman mythology.&nbsp; She guided the blade of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diomedes.html\">Diomedes</a> in the Trojan War, contributed to the invincibility of Achilles, and guided <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=715623125429\">Odysseus</a> during his long horrible journey home.&nbsp; She gave Jason and the Argonauts the tools they needed to find the Golden Fleece, led Kratos on his quest to kill Ares, and woke Theseus after he&rsquo;d killed the Minotaur so that the hero could escape before King Minos captured him.&nbsp; She gave <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=270155699\">Hercules</a> guidance on his Twelve Labors, then knocked the most powerful demi-god in Greek myth stone-cold unconscious by chucking a rock at his head to stop him from murdering his own dad during one of Herc&rsquo;s insane little blood-rage murder sprees.&nbsp; She helped <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=106660220452\">Perseus</a> defeat the Medusa and save his girl, sent Dante to heaven in the <em>Inferno, </em>and gave you the quest in Kid Icarus for the NES.&nbsp; One time she gave a chick a magic flute that was so rad she beat the Music God Apollo in a Charlie Daniels <em>Devil Went Down to Georgia </em>music duel. &nbsp;&nbsp;She even occasionally helps out the Avengers, for crying out loud, and I think one time in the 80s she beat Thor in a fistfight.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Basically, any time things look really damn bad, your girlfriend is in the hands of a horrible monster, your family is held hostage by an evil king, and your only chance of salvation lies in being able to single-handedly kill a dragon made out of lava, and you&rsquo;re just sitting there staring at the ground hopelessly thinking to himself <em>what the fuck do I do now, </em>Athena is the goddess that materializes out of nowhere with a lava-dragon-slaying hand grenade, a winged horse, and a motherfucking ham sandwich and tells you to get your shit together, suck it up, and be a goddamn hero.&nbsp; This goddess is legit, folks.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In addition to being awesome and supporting awesome in all of its forms, Athena is also vengeful as hell and holds a fucking grudge with the best grudge-holders that Eastern Europe has to offer.&nbsp; Like, for instance here&rsquo;s the initiation process for Priestesses of Athena in the city of Troy.&nbsp; At the end of the Trojan War one of the Ajaxes burned down the city&rsquo;s temple to Athena, which obviously pissed her off.&nbsp; She allowed the troops to get home OK (after splintering a few of their ships with a hurricane of course), then struck down the city with a fucking death plague, telling the hapless residents that the only way they&rsquo;d escape with their pathetic miserable lives was if they agreed to send two virgin maidens as tribute to the City of Troy every year for the next thousand years.&nbsp; So every year, the Lokians would draw lots, and two girls would have their heads shaved, be stripped down to their nightgowns, and then be forced to walk from Lokis to Troy, where the Trojan city guard would immediately kill them on sight for being Lokians.&nbsp; Those girls smart enough to avoid being insta-killed and sneak their way into the city alive were immediately grabbed by Priestesses of Athena, who took them to the temple to be trained in the priestesshood.&nbsp; Because if you weren&rsquo;t clever, resourceful, or badass enough to escape your impending certain death and do something to help yourself, Athena didn&rsquo;t fucking have time for you.</p>\r\n<p>And while we&rsquo;re on the subject of holding grudges, Athena actually fought in the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks simply because one time Prince Paris of Troy said that Aphrodite &ndash; the <em>goddess of sex and love </em>&ndash; was hotter than Athena.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Athena is the namesake for the Greek city of Athens, a city-state that was the most powerful political and military entity in the world for decades.&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s the story on that.&nbsp; One day there was some town and the people were like, hey, let&rsquo;s name it after the most badass god.&nbsp; So <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/poseidon.html\">Poseidon</a> and Athena were like, yeah, it&rsquo;s probably one of us, so let&rsquo;s have a showdown to prove it.&nbsp; Poseidon made the people a lake, but because he&rsquo;s the sea god it was a salt lake so they couldn&rsquo;t drink from it, which was totally lame.&nbsp; So Athena was like, fuck if you guys are into food check this shit out, BANG OLIVE TREE BITCHHHHHHHH and made a humongous olive tree explode up out of the ground in the middle of town and people freaked out because olives are fucking awesome, then they spent the rest of the year drinking martinis and eating newly-improved baked potatoes, pizzas, and I guess house salads or something.&nbsp; The town was called Athens, and the ruling elite there, owing in no small part to their dedication to the goddess of wisdom, reason, philosophy, and intelligence, set up their city-state to become the first democratic societies in world history.</p>\r\n<p>Yeah, that&rsquo;s right, Athena is the PATRON GODDESS OF DEMOCRACY.&nbsp; AND JUSTICE.&nbsp; AND ASS KICKINGS.</p>\r\n<p>After that she dropped a huge rock in the middle of town and that became the basis for the Parthenon, which is pretty much the single most recognizable landmark in the history of Ancient Greece.&nbsp; The people were so pumped they put a big ass fucking statue of Athena right in the dead center, but unfortunately it&rsquo;s not there any more so if you wanna see what it looked like you have to go to <a href=\"http://www.tnvacation.com/vendors/the_parthenon/\">Nashville, Tennessee</a>.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Even though it doesn&rsquo;t sound like it,<br /> Mycenae and Thebes were also named after Athena</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Even though Athena was the goddess of intelligence and astronomy, she still got criminally fucking hosed by scientists when it came to naming awesome celestial bodies after her.&nbsp; I mean, this is the goddess that invented shipbuilding, horse-taming, irrigation, the plow, the chariot, the flute and the trumpet and all she gets is the <em>third</em>-biggest asteroid in the solar system named after her.&nbsp; Pallas-2, a 338-mile-long chunk of rock in the asteroid belt just beyond Mars, is basically all that bears her name out there.</p>\r\n<p>With the way this badass goddess could hold a grudge, I can only assume what it&rsquo;s going to be like when Pallas-2 crashes head-on into Earth and knocks our planet off its axis.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/199503532062/athena8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.mythweb.com/gods/athena.html\">http://www.mythweb.com/gods/athena.html</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Athena.html\">http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Athena.html</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40681/Athena\">http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40681/Athena</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/p/Athena.htm\">http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/p/Athena.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>','2015-03-27','199503532062','athena.jpg','athena-small.jpg','Athena','The Greek goddess of wisdom, honorable combat, and democracy, and the patron deity of every worthwhile hero in Greek mythology.','\"She caught up a powerful spear, edged with sharp bronze, heavy, huge, thick, wherewith she beats down the battalions of fighting men, against whom she of the mighty father is angered.\"  - The Odyssey'),('The Battle of Gettysburg','July 1, 1863','July 3, 1863','Gettysburg, PA, USA','19th-century American Battle','<p><em>(Hey guys, I&rsquo;ve been massively busy with overwhelmingly time-consuming year-end projects at my day job over the last two weeks, plus I&rsquo;ve been copyediting my new book and was also laid out sick for like five days with some horrific post-ComicCon illness.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll be back in the swing of things next week, but for now I&rsquo;d like to recognize the 150<sup>th</sup> Anniversary of General Robert E. Lee&rsquo;s surrender at Appomattox by publishing my chapter on the Battle of Gettysburg from my book <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Badass-Deathmatch-Skull-Crushing-Fistfights-Engagements/dp/0062112341/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1428703771&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=badass+ultimate+deathmatch\">Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch</a>.&nbsp; I should also mention that you should check out my book on the Civil War, <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Guts-Glory-American-Civil-War/dp/0316320501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1428703777&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=guts+and+glory+the+american+civil+war\">Guts &amp; Glory: The American Civil War</a>, because it&rsquo;s awesome.)</em></p>\r\n<p>The first two years of the American Civil War of Northern Aggression Between the States are basically the story of Confederate General Robert E. Lee\'s Army of Northern Virginia more or less kicking the unholy ballsack off of a seemingly brain-dead succession of increasingly-less-competent Union commanders until such point that nearly every person north of the Mason-Dixon line was wondering why the hell they were being led into combat by a bunch of assclowns who were unfit to serve as cast members on <em>Sesame Street</em>.&nbsp; Despite constantly being outnumbered by better-equipped Federal Armies with almost unlimited resources, manpower, and weaponry, Lee somehow repeatedly overcame ridiculous odds, won battle after battle against the Yanks, and kicked their asses up and down Northern Virginia in a display of raw asskicking prowess that has never been seen again on American soil.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">By July of 1863 Lee was getting a little bored of repeatedly bludgeoning his enemies to death with their own incompetence on his own turf, so he opted for a change of scenery and decided to invade the North instead, taking the fight to the enemy.&nbsp; He marched his men through Maryland and Pennsylvania with a simple plan &ndash; wreak havoc, capture Union supply depots, cut Yankee railroad ties to the Western front (where a Union General named Ulysses S. Grant was doing a far superior job of stomping out Rebel sedition), encircle Washington, DC, and deal the North a crushing blow that would destroy their will to fight once and for all.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><br /> <br /> <img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Lee wasn\'t really looking for a fight in the quiet Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg.&nbsp; The Southern commander was flying a little blind, since his master cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart was out raiding enemy depots instead of providing basic reconnaissance, so when Lee dispatched elements of A.P. Hill\'s Corps to Gettysburg to execute a raid on a shoe factory (many of the badly-undersupplied rebs had marched all the way from Richmond to Pennsylvania barefoot... not exactly ideal conditions when you\'re looking at 20-mile hikes every day for a week), he didn\'t realize that he\'d be kicking off the largest and most epic battle ever fought in the Western hemisphere.</p>\r\n<p>Defending Gettysburg on June 1, 1863 were the troopers of General John Buford\'s 1<sup>st</sup> U.S. Cavalry.&nbsp; Buford was a tough-as-nails old soldier with a bushy Sam Elliot mustache who\'d leveled up his stats fighting the Sioux Indians out west, and when this saw rebel troops heading into his town he immediately ordered his men to dismount, take cover behind a stone wall, and open fire.&nbsp; He was badly outnumbered, sure, but Buford \'s weaponry helped level the playing field a little &ndash; the First Cav was armed with breech-loading rifles that allowed them to fire almost twice as fast as the standard infantryman, and his fearless men immediately started laying down a field of death on the advancing enemy.&nbsp; It took the Confederates a few minutes to regroup and mount a more organized attack, buying Buford a little time for reinforcements to arrive.&nbsp; He was reinforced by a division commanded by John Reynolds, a guy who was shot to death immediately upon arriving at the battlefield and was subsequently succeeded by Abner Doubleday, the dude who invented baseball.&nbsp; But Doubleday was only a stopgap middle-reliever, and when Confederate reinforcements continued to roll in he was forced to retreat and take positions just outside the town at a place appropriately known as Cemetery Ridge.&nbsp; He\'d eventually be pulled in favor of the right-hander from Pennsylvania, Winfield Scott Hancock.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><br /> <img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>With elements of their forces now committed, the two armies &ndash; who were a hell of a lot closer to each other than either had previously realized &ndash; converged on Gettysburg, and before you know it a dispute over Reeboks suddenly became an epic battle involving 150,000 men in a timeless struggle for life, liberty, and the pursuit of tasteful footwear.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>On the morning of the battle\'s second day the U.S. forces were deployed along Cemetery Ridge, entrenched behind a stone wall on an embankment that overlooked about a mile of open field.&nbsp; The ridge was anchored by large hills on either side &ndash; Culp\'s Hill to the right, and Little Round Top to the left.&nbsp; Lee had ordered one of his Corps commanders, \"Old Baldy\" Richard Ewell to take Culp\'s Hill on the night of the first day, but Ewell didn\'t really feel like it so he sat back and let the Union dig fortifications there instead.&nbsp; Ewell had recently taken over for the amazingly-hardcore General Stonewall Jackson, a seemingly-invincible Virginian who was so good at killing Yankees that the only way he could be stopped was when some of his own men accidentally shot him to death.&nbsp; Having Ewell filling in for Stonewall at Gettysburg was kind of like bringing Ryan Leaf into an overtime playoff game after Peyton Manning goes down with a season-ending musketball-related injury. &nbsp;Meanwhile, as a side note, \"Old Baldy\" was also the name of Union Commander George Meade\'s horse, a beast that was arguably about as effective an officer as Ewell during this battle.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Old Baldy.<br /> Yeah, I know.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Faced with this situation Lee decided that rather than marching across the open field like a dumbass he\'d launch a two-pronged attack on Culp\'s Hill and Little Round Top, hitting both sides simultaneously while keeping A.P. Hill\'s Corps back to ensure the Union didn\'t send too many men to reinforce their flanks.&nbsp; If the operation was executed quickly, and was done right, it could theoretically have flanked the Federal Army, driven them from the field, and left nothing standing between the Army of Northern Virginia and a running groin-kick of Abraham Lincoln\'s Oval Office.</p>\r\n<p>The hardest fighting on the second day took place on the Little Round Top side of the field.&nbsp; It started when an overly-ambitious Union General named Dan \"The Man\" Sickles saw the Confederates advancing on him, disobeyed orders, and moved his troops forward, taking up positions in a wheatfield with a peach orchard anchoring one flank and a large group of rocks known as Devil\'s Den on the other.&nbsp; In some of the most brutal fighting of the entire war, the rebs threw everything they had at Sickles\' troops. For several hours men from Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Arkansas hurled themselves against men from New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, fighting, attacking, capturing the enemy positions, then being driven back by counterattacks.&nbsp; The battle was so gruesome that at one point the 1<sup>st</sup> Minnesota suffered 82% casualties when they attacked a force twice their size to prevent the position being overrun.&nbsp; Sickles got his leg blown off by a cannonball, and his Corps was shattered by relentless attacks forcing Sickles to eventually pull back to Cemetery Ridge.&nbsp; Awesomely enough, Sickles limped over to his blown-off leg, picked it up, and now you can see it and the cannonball that demolished it in the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington DC.&nbsp; So, yeah!</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While all that was going on, some Rebel troops under General Evander Laws swung around Sickles\' flank, captured Devil\'s Den, and then surprisingly noticed that when Sickles had moved up he\'d unwittingly left Little Round Top completely undefended.&nbsp; Since LRT overlooked the entire Union Army it was a pretty bitchin\' place to set up cannons, so Laws logically ordered his men on an all-out charge to take the hill.&nbsp; Union commander George Meade noticed this unfortunate development at almost exactly the same moment as Laws, and sent five regiments from his reserves running off on a King of the Hill race to the top.</p>\r\n<p>The Union troops got there first, and they had roughly ten seconds to prepare for the onslaught.&nbsp; On the extreme flank of the Union Army was the 20<sup>th</sup> Maine Infantry &ndash; some 360 men under the command of schoolteacher Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who now had almost instantaneously gone from chilling out in the back of the battle to holding the line against a force that outnumbered them almost ten to one.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Chamberlain ordered his men to take cover behind boulders and pile up rocks where they could, but within minutes a terrifying Rebel Yell came up through the woods as Laws\' Alabama boys appeared through the brush.&nbsp;&nbsp; The 20<sup>th</sup> Maine fired everything they had into the onslaught as the Rebels scrambled over boulders, racing up the hill into the teeth of withering fire, charging full-speed towards the 20<sup>th</sup> Maine like an army of hard-charging SEC linebackers looking to decapitate an unsuspecting QB and then do a hilarious sack dance over his headless corpse.</p>\r\n<p>At first, the Alabama boys were pushed back by the unexpectedly-strong resistance &ndash; after whupping up on the bluebellies for the last two years they didn\'t actually have any respect for the Yankees\' fighting spirit and were caught off guard, but it was going to take more than that to keep those dudes down.&nbsp; Four more times the exhausted-yet-determined rebels charged up the steep hill, straight into the enemy, firing their rifles and shrieking like wildmen.&nbsp; On a couple occasions, the Alabamans crashed into the Union lines, but on all occasions were thrown back by fierce hand to hand combat as men swung fists, bayonets, car batteries, tin pots and rifle butts in a desperate attempt to club their hated enemies into bone dust.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After an hour and a half of non-stop asskickings all around on Little Round Top, things really weren\'t looking great for Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain &ndash; half his men were dead, the other half was wounded, and those survivors still in fighting shape were so low on bullets that they were taking rounds off of dead soldiers.&nbsp; What\'s worse was that somewhere unseen at the bottom of the hill, the rebels were re-organizing for yet another attack, one designed to break the line and possible end the war in one push.&nbsp; The 20<sup>th</sup> Maine was brave, but they knew they weren\'t going to be able to hold off another charge like the ones they\'d just miraculously survived.</p>\r\n<p>So Colonel Chamberlain, a schoolteacher in his regular life (kind of like Tom Hanks in <em>Saving Private Ryan</em>), completely out of ammo and with the entire fate of the Civil War hinging on his ability to hold the flank, ordered the most kickass thing he could think of &ndash; he told his men to fix bayonets and prepare to stab their way into American history.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As the bloodied men from Alabama reformed their lines and began making their sixth full-speed charge &nbsp;up Little Round Top, they were greeted by the last thing they thought they\'d ever see &ndash; 100 guys from Maine running screaming towards them in a makeshift battle line, hollering like madmen, bayonet points glinting in the afternoon sun.&nbsp; This was the last straw for the Alabama boys &ndash; these exhausted warriors had already marched 24 miles that morning, reaching G\'burg just in time to be sent straight into the battle and charge up a damned mountain five times in a row while guys shot bullets in their faces, and the sight of 100 bayonet points was enough to break their spirits.&nbsp; The entire 15<sup>th</sup> Alabama was killed or captured on the slopes of Little Round Top.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Old Baldy, meanwhile (the man, not the horse), didn\'t even get going on his end of the pincer attack at Culp\'s Hill until 6:30pm, well after the fighting was over on Little Round Top and the fate of the day had been decided.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>On the third day of the battle, Robert E. Lee made the biggest tactical mistake of his otherwise-untarnished career.&nbsp; Lee, who may or may not been having a stroke at the time of the battle, decided that if the Union was as strong on the wings as they seemed, they had to be soft in the middle like an Everlasting Gobstopper, so he reasoned that a full-on attack by three divisions of infantry launched at the dead-center of the Union lines would split their forces and pulverize the Yankees once and for all.&nbsp; So, after a two-hour artillery barrage by 143 Confederate guns did its best to dislodge the Union troops on Cemetery Ridge, Lee ordered 15,000 troops from Virginia and North Carolina to form a battle line a mile long, fix bayonets, and march a mile and a half across open ground towards hardened enemy infantry and artillery positions.&nbsp; Along the way, they could expect to be fired on not only by the 20,000 troops across from them, but also to be hit with cannon fire from Little Round Top. &nbsp;Every man out there knew casualties would be high, but that victory in the war would depend on their success here.</p>\r\n<p>With the battle cry, \"Up men and to your posts &ndash; Don\'t forget that you are from Old Virginia!\", General George E. Pickett assembled his troops.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At three PM on July 3, 1863, a sea of gray marched out from the woods and began its 1.5-mile suicide charge towards a wall of blue-clad guys with heavy rifles.&nbsp; Marching in total silence, staying in lock-step with parade-ground precision, their battle flags waving in the breeze and bayonets shining in the hot Pennsylvania sun, the brave men of the Army of Northern Virginia looked out at an immovable wall of blue uniforms across the battlefield.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At 600 yards the Union artillery opened up, ripping the Confederate troops with giant cannonballs from Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top.&nbsp; The Confederates closed their gaps, men stepping up to take the place of their fallen comrades.</p>\r\n<p>At 300 yards, Union riflemen &ndash; stacked six ranks deep &ndash; stood up as one from behind the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge and opened fire in one hellacious volley.&nbsp; They were joined by more cannons, this time firing canister shot, which is basically the cannon equivalent of a shotgun blast.&nbsp; Entire companies of men disappeared, but the Confederates still pressed on.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At 200 yards, the rebels picked up the pace, their badly-mauled units determined to charge the length of two football fields right into the teeth of withering fire and cannons capable of spraying dozens of fist-sized pellets with every blast from their muzzles.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg10.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Confederates only reached the wall in one place &ndash; a small clump of trees known as The Angle.&nbsp; Led by daring Virginia general Lewis Armistead, who personally charged up the hill at the head of his men, rallying his troops by placing his hat on the end of his sword and holding it high above him, the rebels crashed into the Yankee lines, desperately fighting with sabers, pistols, bayonets, punches, and point-blank rifle shots to the face.&nbsp; The Union troops fell back under this unremitting onslaught, as the furious rebels battled to avenge the horrific destruction they\'d just marched through.&nbsp; The front rank of Union infantry fell beneath their attack, as did an artillery battery, but despite their bravery it was too little too late &ndash;Union gunfire had crippled Pickett\'s Charge, and there were no Confederate reinforcements left to help Armistead exploit the breach.&nbsp; Armistead\'s men were counter-attacked by the 72<sup>nd</sup> Pennsylvania, 19<sup>th</sup> Mass, and 42<sup>nd</sup> New York (marking the first and only time in history that people from Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania ever agreed on anything), Armistead was shot as he was trying to turn the captured union cannons around, and his entire force was wiped out or captured.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg11a.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>There were no Confederate officers left to order a retreat &ndash; every brigade and regimental commander involved in Pickett\'s Charge was dead, dying, or captured.&nbsp; Of the 15,000 men who marched out, only 5,000 stragglers returned, most of them badly wounded.&nbsp; The hardened core of the Army of Northern Virginia had been completely wiped out.&nbsp; As the shattered units limped back to Confederate lines, Lee himself rode out to meet them, telling his men, \"It\'s all my fault.\"</p>\r\n<p>Despite this brave yet horrific death charge, the casualty numbers at the Battle of Gettysburg are actually somewhat comparable &ndash; 23,000 U.S. to 28,000 Confederate.&nbsp; But, much like the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra, the Southern states were so badly hurting for manpower (there were 13 million more people living in the North than the South) that they simply could not afford to take losses on that scale.&nbsp; Pickett\'s Charge would be the Confederate Crecy &ndash; their losses were too great to replace, and, while the war would go on for three more years, the South would never have a chance of invading the North again.&nbsp; The tide of the war &ndash; and U.S. history -- had dramatically shifted.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/795200120204/gettysburg12.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>','2015-04-10','795200120204','gettysburg.jpg','gettysburg-small.jpg','The Battle of Gettysburg','The epic turning point of a war to  determine the fate of America forever.','\"The hoarse and indistinguishable orders from commanding officers, the screaming and bursting of shells, canister and shrapnel as they tore through the struggling masses of humanity, the death-screams of wounded animals, the groans of their human companions, wounded and dying and trampling under foot by hurrying batteries, riderless horses, and the moving lines of battle… a perfect hell on earth never perhaps to be equaled, certainly not to be surpassed, nor ever to be forgotten in a man\'s lifetime.  It has never been effaced from my memory, day or night, for 50 years.\"\r\n\r\n- Pvt. Robert H. Carter, 22nd Massachusetts Infantry\r\n'),('Thomas Ward Custer','March 15, 1845','June 25, 1876','New Rumley, OH, USA','19th-century American Soldier','<p>Pretty much everyone who has even the slightest interest in anything involving badass cowboy shit probably knows the tragic, bloody, and badass tale of United States Army Cavalry commander <a href=\"http://www.jokeindex.com/joke.asp?Joke=197\">George Armstrong Custer</a>.&nbsp; Long-haired, awesomely-mustached, and so ultra-confident of his unstoppable asskicking credentials that he could have had probably starred in his own over-the-top reality TV series, &nbsp;Custer graduated last in his class at West Point yet still went on to become the youngest General in the United States Army during the Civil War.&nbsp; Leading the 6<sup>th</sup> Michigan Cavalry (&ldquo;Custer&rsquo;s Wolverines&rdquo;) on dozens of epic, daring saber charges straight-on into the teeth of Rebel cannons time and time again, this guy had unshakeable faith in his gigantic steel balls and glorious 80s hair metal blonde mane and (correctly) figured that there wasn&rsquo;t a whole hell of a lot that he couldn&rsquo;t solve by personally leading a death-defying charge aimed at killing hundreds of enemy riflemen with a fucking sword.&nbsp; Despite Custer&rsquo;s lifetime of hardcore, balls-out heroism in engagements on blood-soaked fields from from Virginia to Montana, unfortunately nowadays he&rsquo;s best known for becoming an overconfident primadonna and foolishly getting five companies of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry completely annihilated by thousands of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/crazyhorse.html\">Crazy Horse</a>&rsquo;s hardcore Sioux warriors at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.</p>\r\n<p>Well people usually put the apostrophe in the wrong place when they talk about the Custers&rsquo; Last Stand, among of the 268 men who fought to the death on the fields of Little Bighorn were two of George Armstrong Custer&rsquo;s brothers as well as a nephew and a brother-in-law.&nbsp; And, as it turns out, despite all of his brazen heroics on the field of combat, George Armstrong isn&rsquo;t even the most badass person in his nuclear family &ndash; that honor goes to his younger brother, Thomas Ward Custer.&nbsp; The United States Army&rsquo;s first two-time Medal of Honor recipient and man so badass that his corpse at Little Bighorn was so fucked up from battle wounds that had to be identified by its tattoos &ndash; one of the Goddess Liberty, and another of the United States flag with his initials inscribed overtop of it.</p>\r\n<p>In true badass fashion, Captain Thomas Ward Custer wasn&rsquo;t found among the bodies of the soldiers in the company he commanded.&nbsp; He was found further up the hill, beside the body of his brother.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s believed that he was the last man to survive his unit, and fought his way through the swirling melee of Sioux to die defending his family.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Thomas Ward Custer was born on March 15, 1845, in New Rumley, Ohio.&nbsp; He was six years younger than his significantly-more-famous brother, making him just 15 years old when the United States put out a call for men to come help Abe Lincoln kick the shit out of some uppity rebel Southerners.&nbsp; Even though Tom wouldn&rsquo;t even be old enough to get into an R-rated movie today, he immediately rushed down to the local recruiting office, told the guy he was 16 (the minimum age to enlist in 1861), and tried to join up.&nbsp; Tom&rsquo;s dad was like &ldquo;fuck that&rdquo; and put the kibosh on the underage enlistment, but on Tom&rsquo;s sixteenth birthday he was right back in the same spot, enlisting as a Private in the 21<sup>st</sup> Ohio Volunteer Infantry.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Even though his bro was already riding around with bars on his shoulders as a Cavalry officer, Private Tom Custer was the first member of his family to see front-line combat in the American Civil War, when he participated in the capture of Nashville, Tennessee from rebel forces and out-of-control Elvis impersonators in February 1862.&nbsp; Fighting with the rank-and-file riflemen in the infantry Corps of ultra-badass Union General George Henry Thomas, Custer ramrodded his way into rebel forces, holding the line in a desperate defense against hordes of enemy forces at the Battle of Stones&rsquo; River on New Years&rsquo; Eve 1862.&nbsp; Thomas had given his men an appropriately-awesome pump-up speech, saying, &ldquo;Gentlemen, I know no better place to die than right here,&rdquo; yet despite repeated bayonet attacks and hand-to-hand combat that killed 159 men from his Regiment, Custer swung his rifle and stabbed with his bayonet and helped the Union hold the line in some of the toughest up-close-and-go-fuck-yourself fighting on the Western Front.&nbsp; A few months later he found himself in a similar situation at the Battle of Chickamauga, when he was part of a rag-tag group of Union soldiers who had been thrown together to fend off an attack that outnumbered them five-to-one and simultaneously hit them in the front and from both flanks, and later, in the Battle of Chattanooga, Custer and the 21<sup>st</sup> Ohio charged up a hill into Confederate rifle fire and participated in the decisive attack that broke Braxton Bragg&rsquo;s Confederate forces in the West once and for all.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After taking part in basically every single major battle in the Western Theater of the Civil War and somehow clubbing his way through the fray despite routinely being outnumbered by impossible odds, Custer was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant and sent out to serve with his brother in the 6<sup>th</sup> Michigan Cavalry.&nbsp; Part of Sheridan&rsquo;s Cavalry Corps, Tom and the Wolverines fought in some of the most decisive battles in the East at the end of the Civil War, cutting off Robert E. Lee&rsquo;s Army of Northern Virginia at Five Forks and Dinwiddie Courthouse.&nbsp; Armed with badass Spencer Repeating Rifles (one of the first rifles in history to use a magazine that could hold multiple bullets), the Custers rode hard into combat, hurtling through fields of gunfire with their sabers drawn, their pistols blazing, or their Spencers machine gunning into enemy lines.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It was in the final months of the war, at the Battle of Namozine Church in Virginia, that Tom Custer performed the towering act of heroic badassitude that would earn him his FIRST Medal of Honor.&nbsp; Lee&rsquo;s forces had been defeated at Petersburg and were now on the run, and it was up to Sheridan&rsquo;s cavalry to make sure they didn&rsquo;t get away and regroup.&nbsp; The Wolverines were sent in to battle a brigade of Confederate cavalry, and the Custer brothers were right there on the forefront leaping their horses over obstacles and ripping off fire with their awesome six-shooters.&nbsp; Tom Custer, racing ahead of his unit, dove headlong into the enemy cavalry, swinging and hacking with this saber and firing his pistol point-blank into the enemy.&nbsp; Tom&rsquo;s horse ended up being shot out from under him, but Tom proceeded to fight on foot, stabbing and shooting left and right as he raced towards the flag of the 2<sup>nd</sup> North Carolina Cavalry.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>To understand the importance of Tom Custer&rsquo;s badassitude, it&rsquo;s important to understand that unit flags were a really big fucking deal in ancient warfare.&nbsp; Back in the days before radios, HUDs, GPS satellites and helpful video game minimaps, the only way for your average soldier to know what the fuck was going on would be to have him look for the flag of his unit and make sure he was somewhat near it.&nbsp; If things went to hell and everyone was just running around beating the fuck out of each other, a trooper could scan the sky for his unit&rsquo;s flag, and he&rsquo;d know that he could run over there and he&rsquo;d have a bunch of his buddies waiting to get his back.&nbsp; Also, unit flags in the Civil War were typically stitched by the women of the Regiment&rsquo;s hometown, meaning that this thing might as well have been a bullet-riddled version of that one fancy old tablecloth your grandma made that you&rsquo;re not allowed to fucking spill orange juice on for any reason ever.</p>\r\n<p>Having your flag captured by the enemy was the greatest humiliation a Regiment could endure.&nbsp; Likewise, stealing one of these things from the enemy was the military equivalent of lining up the entire enemy regiment and kicking every single man square in the balls as hard as you can.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At the Battle of Namozine Church, Tom Custer, already wounded and thrown from his now-dead horse, sprinted into the fray on foot, killed a couple of the enemy with a sword and pistol, single-handedly captured the flag of the Second North Carolina, and took nearly a dozen men and officers prisoner by himself.&nbsp; For his actions, he received the Medal of Honor.</p>\r\n<p>Three days later he did it again. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>I don&rsquo;t know how many people in U.S. history have received two Medals of Honor, but I think it&rsquo;s less than a dozen.&nbsp; Thomas Ward Custer was the first.&nbsp; And he&rsquo;s probably the only one to get both Medals in the same calendar week.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The second Medal came at the Battle of Sayler&rsquo;s Creek, the last engagement of the Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War, on April 6, 1865.&nbsp; The rebels were on the ropes, making a last desperate break to escape the Union vice, but the hard-riding Wolverines had cut off a large portion of Lee&rsquo;s men and were eager to deal a final death blow to the Confederacy.&nbsp; Once again leading a daring cavalry charge, Thomas Ward Custer (still recovering from his wounds at Namozine Church!) raced ahead of his Company and jumped his horse over a barricade head-on into a line of Rebel infantrymen, completely ignoring the rifle fire and bayonets jamming up into his face.&nbsp; Shouting a rallying cry to his troops, he pulled two pistols and dual-wielded them from horseback, ripping off rounds in every direction like a goddamn berserker.&nbsp; When he saw a Sergeant trying to rally troops to his flag, Custer ran over and grabbed the flagpole.&nbsp; The Sergeant drew a pistol and shot Tom in the face, drilling him in the jaw with a fucking .44-caliber bullet at point-blank range, but a fucking bullet in the face only succeeded in making Custer even more righteously angry.&nbsp; Tom drilled the Sergeant with a bullet, wrenched the flag from the dying man&rsquo;s hand, and then hopped his horse back over the barricade and galloped back to U.S. lines.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When he arrived, he handed the flag to his brother, then immediately turned to go back into the battle.&nbsp; George Armstrong was like, &ldquo;Yo, bro, you fucking got shot in the face dude!&nbsp; You should probably get that checked out by a medic or some shit,&rdquo; but Tom was like &ldquo;Motherfucker I ain&rsquo;t got time to bleed,&rdquo; and George had to literally put him under arrest and have him restrained by three MPs in order to keep his brah from sprinting into combat with a bullet hole in his face.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After the Civil War, Thomas Ward Custer became a Captain in the Seventh U.S. Cavalry and joined his brother in the Indian Wars out West.&nbsp; He was shot in the hand by Sioux in 1868, participated in the Yellowstone Expedition in 1873, and fought on the front lines of the Black Hills Expedition in 1873.&nbsp; His ferocity in battle, unwillingness to back down from the enemy, and extensive collection of Washington Redskins memorabilia made him a much-hated foe to several Sioux chiefs, many of whom swore to avenge themselves on the man who was wreaking havoc on their forces.</p>\r\n<p>They eventually got their chance on June 25, 1876, at the battle I discussed at the beginning of this article.&nbsp; Commanding Company C of the 7<sup>th</sup> Cavalry, 31 year-old Thomas Ward Custer valiantly died fighting back-to-back with his brother, Winchesters in hand, using their dead horses as cover from the circling enemy hordes.&nbsp; Surrounding their bodies were the corpses of 163 enemy warriors.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/302468225474/tomcuster7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://custerlives.com/custer9.htm\">http://custerlives.com/custer9.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent?file=ML_tcuster_bkp\">http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent?file=ML_tcuster_bkp</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://bismarcktribune.com/news/columnists/curt-eriksmoen/tom-custer-won-two-medals-of-honor/article_28af05c6-c808-11df-ba30-001cc4c002e0.html\">http://bismarcktribune.com/news/columnists/curt-eriksmoen/tom-custer-won-two-medals-of-honor/article_28af05c6-c808-11df-ba30-001cc4c002e0.html</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.nps.gov/libi/learn/historyculture/capt-tom-custer.htm\">http://www.nps.gov/libi/learn/historyculture/capt-tom-custer.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Custer\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Custer</a></p>','2015-04-17','302468225474','tomcuster.jpg','tomcuster-small.jpg','Thomas Ward Custer','George Armstrong Custer\'s younger brother was the first man in American history to receive two Medals of Honor.  He earned them both in the same week.','\"Armstrong, the damned rebels shot me, but I\'ve got my flag.\"'),('Avigdor Kahalani','June 16, 1944','N/A','Ness Ziona, Israel','20th-century Israeli Soldier','<p>Of the four men inside the burning M48 Magach 1 main battle tank, only the vehicle&rsquo;s commander, 23 year-old Captain Avigdor Kahalani, managed to crawl through the flames and escape the roiling inferno that consumed his tank from the inside.&nbsp; Ammunition cooked off and exploded as he was pulled from the wreck, the only surviving crewman from a tank that had served bravely throughout the ruthlessly-bloody Arab-Israeli Six-Day War.&nbsp; Rushed to the hospital, where he would remain for many months, it would require seventeen painful operations and countless skin grafts to treat the massive burns that covered every part of Captain Kahalani&rsquo;s body.&nbsp; Doctors weren&rsquo;t sure the young officer would survive, let alone walk or go forward with anything resembling a normal life.</p>\r\n<p>You know that old expression about getting knocked off your horse and then hopping right back on again because you&rsquo;re a fucking badass and it&rsquo;s going to take more than some asshole horse to make you piss your pants and quit like a little baby?&nbsp; Well despite being roasted alive inside of a steel death tank while his friends died around him, Avigdor Kahalani not only survived, he refused a free medical discharge from the Israeli Defense Force on the grounds that he wasn&rsquo;t done stomping balls across the Middle East just yet.&nbsp; Less than a year after literally coming nose-to-nose with the 100mm armor-piercing shell of a Soviet-constructed T-55A main battle tank, Captain Avigdor Kahalani was right back in the commander&rsquo;s hatch of a heavily-armored IDF armored fighting vehicle.</p>\r\n<p>He&rsquo;d go on to be one of the greatest tank warfare heroes not only in Israeli history, but of all time.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Avigdor Kahalani was born in June 1944, ten days after the World War II Allied Invasion of Normandy.&nbsp; He was born in a place called Ness Ziona, a small Jewish settlement in present-day Israel, although at the time it was still known as British Palestine.&nbsp; His family emigrated from Yemen, where they&rsquo;d lived for generations, but they&rsquo;d come to Ness Ziona hoping to build a new life for themselves, and the Kahalanis were counted among the first citizens of Israel when it was officially recognized as a self-governing country in 1948.&nbsp; Kahalani studied mechanics, history, political science, and other cool stuff like how to kill things with a tank, went to the Israeli National Defense College, entered the IDF as an armored warfare officer, and was assigned to the 7<sup>th</sup> Brigade of the IDF Armored Corps.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For a variety of reasons I have absolutely no interest in covering in detail on this website, Israel is in a weird situation where basically every single country that shares a border with it is actively trying to completely eradicate it off the face of the planet with bullets and explosions.&nbsp; This kind of living situation isn&rsquo;t really ideal, and in 1967 the country of Israel, fearing an all-out invasion by her neighbors, launched a controversial surprise pre-emptive strike when they simultaneously declared war on every country in the Middle East and attacked them all at the same time.&nbsp; Without warning, IDF tanks, jets, and infantry surged into Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon all at the same time, catching the Arab countries completely unaware and sucker-punching them in the chops with high-explosive destruction.&nbsp; In the opening hours of the war, Captain Kahalani and his Magach 1 (an IDF modification of the American M48 Patton tank) were right there on the front lines against Egypt, rolling through the Sinai peninsula with their cannons blazing.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ripping through the disorganized enemy, Kahalani and the IDF Armored Corps plowed across Sinai, leaving shattered remnants of enemy armor in their wake.&nbsp; In a fierce battle against Egyptian T-54 and T-55 tanks outside the city of El Arish, capital of Sinai, Kahalni and his crew showed so much bravery and badassitude that he was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service, the IDF version of the Silver Star, and was given the honor of being the first IDF tank to roll into town after the fight.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The war of 1967 was an incredible success.&nbsp; In just six days, the IDF overran dozens of key enemy positions and forced all of the defenders to sue for peace.&nbsp; The Arab countries were humiliated, and swore vengeance, but for Kahalani the victory was bittersweet.&nbsp; In the closing hours of the war his tank was hit by enemy fire, which ignited the ammunition stores in his vehicle, lighting the entire thing up in a blazing fire.&nbsp; He was the only survivor from his crew, and required tons of surgery to recover from his wounds, but it was going to take a hell of a lot more than some hideous third-degree burns to keep Avigdor Kahalani from fragging enemies with a goddamn tank.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Six-Day War was a humiliating embarrassment for the Arab countries, and, just in case you needed me to remind you, the Arabs are a hardcore centuries-old badass warrior culture, and they are basically masters at exacting bloody vengeance against their enemies.&nbsp; For six years, they waited.&nbsp; Rebuilt.&nbsp; Bided their time.&nbsp; Planned.</p>\r\n<p>Arab Vengeance came to Israel on October 6, 1973.&nbsp; It was Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and a day when Jews are supposed to stay home to pray and fast and not get into gunfights.&nbsp; Military reservists were on standby.&nbsp; Checkpoints operated with only skeleton crews.&nbsp; Everything was quiet on the IDF defensive line.</p>\r\n<p>Then, rumbling in the distance, were the sound of Arab tanks.&nbsp; Tons of them.&nbsp; Full divisions of Soviet-built armored vehicles barreling full-throttle ahead straight towards the lightly-defended Israeli border, supported by helicopters, MiG fighter jets, and artillery.&nbsp; In the south, Egyptian infantry launched a balls-out full-scale crossing of the heavily-defended Suez Canal, storming through fields of machine gun fire, crossing the waterway, and diving bayonet-first into defensive positions on the other side.&nbsp; In the Golan Heights, a heavily-disputed plateau that had belonged to Syria until Israel captured it during the Six-Day War, Iraqi commando teams fast-roped to capture communications outposts while over a thousand Syrian T-62 and T-55 tanks swarmed ahead across a 36-mile-long attacking front, surrounding and blasting the unprepared and massively-outnumbered IDF front-line forces.&nbsp; The IDF scrambled F-4 Phantom attack aircraft to bomb the onrushing armored troops, but Syrian anti-aircraft trucks ripped out an impenetrable field of flak and guided missiles that destroyed 25 IDF aircraft in the matter of hours.</p>\r\n<p>The bloodiest war since Israel&rsquo;s creation was about to come crashing down like a torrential downpour of blood and revenge.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Avigdor Kahalani was a 29 year-old Lieutenant Colonel in the 77<sup>th</sup> Armored Battalion when the frantic calls came on the radio that holy fuck the Syrians are goddamned in our base killin our d00ds get your ass over here game over man game over, but this battle-hardened warrior didn&rsquo;t even fucking blink.&nbsp; He strapped on his helmet, ordered his driver to fire up the engines, jumped into the cupola of his Sho&rsquo;t Kal Centurion tank, and got ready to drive straight towards the sounds of enemy heavy artillery.&nbsp;&nbsp; Despite having just a small percentage of his unit immediately available, he threw together any IDF tank crew he could find and cobbled it all together in a makeshift unit with one purpose &ndash; to slow down this massive onslaught long enough for Israeli reserves to be called up and arrive on the battlefield.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Kahalani&rsquo;s orders were to hold a critical last-ditch defensive position atop a plateau in the central Golan Heights.&nbsp; Despite having just 40 Centurion and Patton tanks in his command, he would be solely responsible for keeping an entire Division of Syrian armor from breaking onto the plateau, because if he let them get up there they would have free run to strike targets deep beyond the Israeli border.&nbsp; The survival of his country literally depended on his actions and those of his men.</p>\r\n<p>The Sho&rsquo;t Kal tank&rsquo;s engines roared as Kahalani ordered his driver to advance to the ridgeline.&nbsp; When he rolled into position overlooking the valley below, he basically shit a brick.&nbsp; Below him, stretched out as far as he could see, were over 500 tanks, supported by hundreds of trucks, troop carriers, and artillery pieces.&nbsp; As the enemy formation slowly rumbled forward, al that stood between this sea of armor and Kahalni&rsquo;s 40 tanks was a large minefield backed up with a wide anti-tank ditch that spanned 20 miles across &nbsp;the bottom of the hill.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani6.gif\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Avigdor calmly ordered his men to get hull-down on the ridgeline, choose their targets, and open fire on his command.&nbsp; When he ordered his tank&rsquo;s gunner to fire the first shell, the gunner went into standard IDF armored corps protocol.&nbsp; &ldquo;What is the range?&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p>Kahalani&rsquo;s eyes stayed fixed on the enemy.&nbsp; He shook his head.&nbsp; He calmly said no, there&rsquo;s no time for that.&nbsp; Just fire.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For the next fifty hours &ndash; over two full days without rest &ndash; Avigdor Kahalani and the 77<sup>th</sup> Armored fought a brutal last stand against odds they had absolutely no chance of overcoming.&nbsp; Artillery and enemy tank fire ripped through the skies all around as the 105mm cannon of the Sho&rsquo;t Kal raked the enemy positions, blasting them apart in fiery explosions.&nbsp; Under covering fire from artillery, Syrian mineclearing vehicles and bridgelaying equipment rolled up to clear the defenses, navigating wrecked hulks and incoming IDF fire to try and pave a path for the Syrians.&nbsp; Some of the more balls-out Syrian tankers, frustrated with the delay in bringing up equipment, simply drove into the minefields, resolved to either find a safe passage or sacrifice their vehicle to clear one for their comrades.&nbsp; All the while, Kahalani issued orders and called out targets to his gunner and his battalion, who rained death onto the advancing enemy.</p>\r\n<p>It wasn&rsquo;t until after dark that the Syrians crossed the trench, but once they did they had a massive advantage against their hated enemies.&nbsp; T-55 and T-62 tanks were equipped with infrared rangefinders, making them effective at fighting at night, whereas the IDF only had night-vision binoculars for their vehicle commanders.&nbsp; In the dark, with enemy forces swarming as close as 20 meters from IDF lines, the destruction was catastrophic to the badly-outnumbered defenders.&nbsp; Kahalani, fighting for his life against a superior enemy he couldn&rsquo;t even see, ordered his gunner to aim for searchlights or muzzle flashes when he saw them and tried to direct an organized fighting withdrawl among his troops.&nbsp; In extreme situations he popped the fucking hatch on his tank &ndash; in the middle of a gunfight &ndash; and manually looked around with his night vision goggles.&nbsp; He realized he could see the IR beams in night vision, and on more than one occasion this dude literally <em>saw Syrian IR beams hitting his tank and then ordered his gunner to blind-fire in the direction they were coming from</em>.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When dawn arose on the Golan Heights, the situation was bad.&nbsp; The IDF had been pushed off the ridgeline, and the Syrians were advancing.&nbsp; Kahalani was down to just a handful operational tanks.&nbsp; Still, he refused to back down.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>With just a few enemy holding the ridge ahead of him, Kahalani ordered his tanks to advance.&nbsp; Driving in the lead, he surged forward towards the enemy, continuing to drive even after he saw that he was the only one of his men who were actually moving up.&nbsp; Reaching the line, he took out two of the three T-55s on the line, but as he swung his turret to aim for the fourth, the cannon jammed and wouldn&rsquo;t extract the shell casing.&nbsp; The T-55 swung its gun to face him, but the second it reached position, it burst into flames as two more IDF Centurions rolled up into formation alongside Kahalani and dove back into the fray.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani9a.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For 50 hours, the men of Kahalani&rsquo;s 77<sup>th</sup> Armored Battalion held the line against over 500 Syrian tanks and armored vehicles.&nbsp; They were eventually relieved when IDF reserve units were called up and rushed ahead into combat, and in their wake they left the wreckage of 260 Syrian tanks and 400 trucks and vehicles.&nbsp; The area of his engagement became known as &ldquo;The Valley of Tears.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani11.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <br /> <img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani11a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For his actions in turning the Syrian advance into a huge field of destruction, Kahalani received the highest award for bravery offered by the country of Israel &ndash; the Medal of Valor.&nbsp; He retired as a Brigadier General in 1992, and was elected to Parliament as the Minister of Public Security in 1996.&nbsp; More recently, in 2013, he received the President&rsquo;s Medal of Distinction for his work with charitable organizations that work to improve the quality of life and look after the well-being of IDF soldiers and veterans.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/801585610651/kahalani10.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.historynet.com/yom-kippur-war-sacrificial-stand-in-the-golan-heights.htm\">http://www.historynet.com/yom-kippur-war-sacrificial-stand-in-the-golan-heights.htm</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/kahalani.html\">https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/kahalani.html</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Kahalani-to-receive-Presidents-Medal-for-war-heroism-326052\">http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Kahalani-to-receive-Presidents-Medal-for-war-heroism-326052</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.jewishpostandnews.ca/israel/1348-meeting-one-of-israel-s-greatest-heroes-of-the-yom-kippur-war-avigdor-kahalani\">http://www.jewishpostandnews.ca/israel/1348-meeting-one-of-israel-s-greatest-heroes-of-the-yom-kippur-war-avigdor-kahalani</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_Tears\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_Tears</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Kahalani\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Kahalani</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>','2015-04-24','801585610651','kahalani.jpg','kahalani-small.jpg','Avigdor Kahalani','One of the greatest armored warfare heroes in history, he held of an entire enemy tank brigade with just 30 tanks.','\"It wasn\'t the tanks that made the difference.  It was the men.\"'),('Andrew P. Busic','c. 1982','N/A','Michigan, USA','21st-century American Soldier','<p>When a huge-ass motherfucking explosion rattled the windows in the rec room at the NATO Forward Operating Base in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, the perpetually-chillin&rsquo; dudes of the United States Army First Special Forces Group just yawned, cracked their knuckles, and went back to chewing their gum and using combat knives to clean dirt out from under their fingernails.&nbsp; Yeah, sure, whatever, it was probably just another Taliban mortar or rocket detonating in the general vicinity of the FOB, and freaking out about it like a fucking nerd just because someone is trying to drop a bomb on your head is like the Green Berets equivalent of living in downtown New York City and fleeing your apartment building like you&rsquo;re running from a Godzilla attack just because a cop car happened to drive by your window with its sirens on.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When they looked out the window and saw a gigantic mushroom cloud of black smoke and a towering jet of flame engulfing the eastern wall of the base, however, shit got real serious real quick.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/364288832201/busic1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It was the afternoon of August 28, 2013, and Taliban fighters had just crashed an ungodly-huge 4,000-pound car bomb into the outer defenses of FOB Ghazni, ripping a 40-foot breach in the base&rsquo;s defenses.&nbsp; Now dozens of enemy warriors, each strapped with a suicide bomb vest and carrying grenades, RPGs, and AK-47s were streaming in through the rubble, firing indiscriminately like assholes with the murderous intent of randomly killing as many of the base&rsquo;s 1,400 soldiers and civilians as possible.&nbsp; As they stormed ahead, a second group of Taliban initiated a diversionary attack off to the West of the base to draw off the defenders there.</p>\r\n<p>All that stood between the attackers and their primary objectives &ndash; most likely the mess hall and base housing &ndash; was a narrow airstrip and a half-dozen U.S. Special Forces operators who had been off duty until about twenty seconds ago.&nbsp; But the Taliban assault team was about to find out the hard way why it&rsquo;s probably not a good idea to fuck with a base full of Green Berets.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/364288832201/busic2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Chief Warrant Officer Mark Colbert was one of the first on the scene.&nbsp; The 45 year-old Chief from Spokane, Washington grabbed his rifle and ran from the rec room the moment he saw the smoke, and basically immediately after he got outside a fucking Navy SEAL rode up on an ATV, Colbert jumped on, and they peeled out towards the sound of gunfire.&nbsp; And yes, I realize this sounds like the cover art for the new <em>Call of Duty</em> game or one of those obnoxiously over-the-top fucking webcomics where Gandhi rides a motorcycle mounted on the back of a Stegosaurus in outer space or some shit but this really happened in real fucking life and apparently fully-armed Navy SEALs riding by on ATVs offering rides to pissed-off Green Berets isn&rsquo;t such a weird thing to see in FOB Ghazni because the news articles I read on this give it like one line and write it off like he&rsquo;s hailing a fucking cab or some shit.</p>\r\n<p>Anyway, Colbert and the un-named SEAL speed towards the fighting, hop off their ATV, and find themselves in a point-blank firefight against hardcore enemy warriors armed with full-auto AKs and with enough explosive strapped to their nuts to craterize a McDonald&rsquo;s.&nbsp; And you can say what you want about the Taliban&rsquo;s methods, beliefs, morality, or whatever, but these guys aren&rsquo;t pussies.&nbsp; They&rsquo;re battle-tested warriors who are cunning, savage, resourceful, well-armed, and fight with a downright-terrifying lack of concern for their own mortality.&nbsp; These dudes are tough as shit, and I don&rsquo;t care how many times you&rsquo;ve passed SEAL school, you don&rsquo;t want to be outnumbered by these guys and have them spraying bullets in your face from thirty feet away (which is how far they were from Colbert)</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/364288832201/busic3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Colbert and the SEAL dropped three of them, but when they went to maneuver to a better defensive position they turned a corner and found themselves face-to-face with six more Taliban, who opened fire immediately.&nbsp; Caught in the open, the SEAL took a bullet to the helmet and one to the leg, dropping him to the ground with non-lethal injuries.&nbsp; Colbert, a stone-cold fucking hardass who gave zero shits, turned back, exposed himself full-on to the enemy, and grabbed his wounded buddy to pull him out of the line of fire.&nbsp; Colbert took a bullet in the leg in the process, but shrugged it off like an FPS hero and still managed to wrench his wounded ally into cover.&nbsp; But now these guys were pinned down by six guys at extreme close range, with only his M4 service rifle and a pistol to hold them off.</p>\r\n<p>It was around this time that he heard the 236-horsepower 4.0-liter V6 engine of a stock Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro pickup truck hauling fucking ass towards him.&nbsp; At the wheel, in true badass fashion, was Sergeant First Class Andrew Busic of the 1<sup>st</sup> Special Forces Group, barreling ahead while two other Green Berets fired their rifles out the windows like something out of a goddamned Mad Max commercial.</p>\r\n<p>I picture this happening in slow motion, with the truck in mid-air and an explosion behind it, while &ldquo;America, Fuck Yeah&rdquo; plays super loud (even though it&rsquo;s a Japanese car).</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/364288832201/busic4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Left to right:&nbsp; Sergeant First Class Busic, Staff Sergeant Earl Plumlee, <em>Chief Colbert, </em><br />and Sergeant First Class Nate Abkemeier with their Battle Pickup.<br /> Because Humvees are for n00bs.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Andrew Busic, a 33 year-old from Michigan, slammed down the gas, barely flinching as a 7.62mm bullet punched through the windshield just inches above his head.&nbsp; Within seconds, every gun the Taliban had was focused on him, riddling his truck with fire from two directions, and bullets penetrated into the crew cabin and pinged off the chassis.&nbsp; One well-placed 30mm grenade from a Taliban grenade launcher scored a direct hit, embedding itself next to the passenger side headlight, but luckily it didn&rsquo;t explode and Busic kept careening ahead like an unstoppable murderous vengeance force of patriotism.&nbsp; When the pickup truck full of gunslinging Green Berets got near Colbert, one of Busic&rsquo;s passengers, Sergeant First Class Nate Abkemeier, quickly dismounted the truck and started spraying the enemy with covering fire, but Busic and his other passenger, Staff Sergeant Earl Plumlee, kept going <em>even motherfucking closer to them,</em> closing to within 50 feet of the enemy.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Busic then slammed the e-brake Vin Diesel style, spinning the truck sideways to provide additional cover to the men behind him, and Busic and Plumlee sprang out of the truck.&nbsp; Busic opened fire with his M4, but Plumlee&rsquo;s gear became entangled in the door as he exited the truck (we&rsquo;ve all been there, dude), so he was like &ldquo;fuck this fucking bullshit,&rdquo; left his shit stuck in the car door, pulled his pistol like goddamned Wyatt Earp, and started <em>fucking running fifty feet across open ground towards guys with AK-47s and bomb vests shooting his goddamned pistol like a fuckin boss</em>.&nbsp; Busic was right there with him, and both men pressed straight on at the enemy, who all pretty much died on the spot just from a heart attack of seeing something that awesome happen in real life right in front of them.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/364288832201/busic5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The immediate danger was dealt with, but more Taliban were streaming in, and the fight was just getting going.&nbsp; For the next hour or so, battle raged across the airstrip, Busic directing fire teams to eliminate the enemy, force them back, and secure the breach against any possible reinforcements.&nbsp; With grenades and bullets flying everywhere, the Green Berets pressed the attack, Busic fighting on even after a mortally-wounded enemy soldier detonated his suicide vest at close quarters and shredded the American soldier with shrapnel at point blank range.&nbsp; Hell, the fucking shit was so intense that it&rsquo;s not possible for doctors to remove it (the shrapnel is still embedded in Busic&rsquo;s leg to this day), but in the middle of a firefight with lives on the line this white-knuckle assbeater just walked it off and rubbed some dirt on got right back to the business of planting 5.56mm rounds into the enemies of America.&nbsp; More NATO forces arrived as well &ndash; including a team of five men from Polish Special Forces and a couple soldiers from the U.S. 10<sup>th</sup> Mountain Division &ndash; and before long the entire Taliban attacking force was annihilated, the determined enemy warriors fighting to the last man. &nbsp;Not one to leave a job unfinished, Busic immediately jumped back in his truck and raced to the other side of the base to help fight off the diversionary attack that was still going on over there.</p>\r\n<p>Once the smoke and dust finally cleared, there were nearly a dozen enemy dead on the East side of FOB Ghazni, and only one American &ndash; Staff Sergeant Michael Ollis of the 10<sup>th</sup> Mountain Division, who was killed when he dove on a grenade that had landed next to a Polish Lieutenant (Ollis would receive the Silver Star and the Polish Army Gold Medal for his sacrifice&hellip; the Lieutenant would <a href=\"http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/01/polish_baby_named_after_hero_s.html\">name his firstborn</a> son after him).&nbsp; But thanks to his sacrifice, and the badass actions of Busic, Colbert, Plumlee, and the rest of the defenders, the enemy forces, hell-bent on a mass-casualty homicide, never reached the other edge of the airfield.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/364288832201/busic6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Busic, for his part, wrote a letter to Toyota of North America thanking them for building such a good truck.&nbsp; Because he&rsquo;s a classy dude like that.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve included the letter in the links because it\'s fucking fantastic and you should read it.</p>\r\n<p>He and Colbert each received Silver Stars in February.&nbsp; Plumlee was nominated for either a Distinguished Service Cross or a Medal of Honor, but the final decision is still pending.&nbsp; Naturally, all Busic has to say on the subject is this:</p>\r\n<p>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t do our job for awards or accolades.&nbsp; We just do it to serve.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/364288832201/busic71.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>http://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/we-don-t-do-our-job-for-awards-1.288012</p>\r\n<p>http://www.northwestmilitary.com/news/people-rule/2014/02/JBLM-soldiers-awarded-silver-stars-for-saving-lives-in-afghanistan/</p>\r\n<p>http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=39817</p>\r\n<p>http://toyotadriverseat.com/products/toyota/afghanistan-tacoma-grace-under-fire.htm</p>\r\n<p>http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=140932</p>','2015-05-01','364288832201','busic.jpg','busic-small.jpg','Andrew Busic','When Taliban attacked his forward operating base in Afghanistan, he drove straight at them in a pickup truck.','“We don’t do this to earn valorous awards. We do this because it’s our job. I’m just glad I made it home.”'),('Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov','December 1, 1896','June 18, 1974','Strelkova, Russia','20th-century Russian General','<p>Today is &ldquo;V-E Day&rdquo;, which is the cool guy 1940s newspaper man way of taking the phrase &ldquo;Victory in Europe Day&rdquo; and making it sound like an event some hospital put together to raise awareness for gonorrhea.&nbsp; Exactly seventy years ago today, the last shattered fragments of the Wehrmacht leadership sat in the demolished ruins of their burned-out capital and signed documents unconditionally surrendering to Allied Forces, thus marking the end of World War II in Europe and the final destruction of Nazi Germany once and for all.&nbsp; Naturally, the United States and U.K. immediately went to work jerking each other off about how they&rsquo;d single handedly won the war by riding a Surfboard of Freedom into Normandy and then ruthlessly dick-slapping Nazis with their unstoppable Capitalist boners, even though anybody with a working knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System and/or an iPad can probably tell you that a vast majority of the heavy lifting in World War II was undertaken by the Fascist-demolishing warriors of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.</p>\r\n<p>Well the USSR hasn\'t exactly forgotten about the twenty million casualties they suffered in their inexorable grinding onslaught towards Berlin &ndash; there&rsquo;s a reason the Russians refer to WWII as &ldquo;The Great Patriotic War&rdquo; &ndash; and every year since 1945 they&rsquo;ve chosen to celebrate the anniversary of their victory in one of the most badass ways possible: by having those huge-ass awesome parades where they drive tanks and nuclear missile trucks right through the heart of Red Square in a formal and coordinated display of their giant armor-plated nutsacks:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><br /><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov1a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Moscow Victory Parade is an awesome thing to behold, and holding such a balls-out display of military force in such close proximity to that one building from Tetris honestly scared the fucking piss out of most Americans for the vast majority of Cold War.&nbsp; So, as the Russians prepare to hold the 70<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the event tomorrow, it&rsquo;s probably as good a time as any to talk about the man who, among all the soldiers and commanders who served in any capacity for any country during World War II, probably contributed the most to making Victory in Europe a possibility:&nbsp; Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>And if you have any questions as to whether or not the man who engineered some of Hitler&rsquo;s most crushing military defeats was a hardcore badass in his day-to-day life, take a look at this and judge for yourself:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/cover-Time-19550509-74248.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><br /><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>This is actually his bathing suit</em></p>\r\n<p>While that second one is an awesome picture, don&rsquo;t let it deceive you &ndash; the gold stars in the top-right corner of that ridiculous twenty-seven pound sea of medals indicate Zhukov was a three-time Hero of the Soviet Union, but in reality that isn&rsquo;t true.&nbsp; He was actually a <em>four-time Hero of the Soviet Union</em>, meaning he received the Soviet Union&rsquo;s Medal of Honor more times than I&rsquo;ve received one of those lame green \"Good Job, Participant!\" ribbons you get for actually handing int a project for the high school Science Fair.&nbsp; This portrait was simply painted before he earned the fourth medal and he was too modest of a guy to ask for it to be updated.</p>\r\n<p>For such an impressive-looking motherfucker, Georgy Zhukov actually came from jack shit.&nbsp; He was born in 1896 in a small village south of Moscow, to a peasant family who barely had enough cash to keep their kids from starving to death.&nbsp; Living as a peasant in Imperial Russia wasn&rsquo;t super amazingly fun back in the time when Tsarist aristocrats ran shit like it was still the Middle Ages, and in order to keep himself from dying of exposure and starvation Zhukov had to quit fourth grade, move out of his house, and get a job at a fur coat factory in the Moscow suburbs, where he worked twelve hour shifts seven days a week and slept on the floor of his workstation.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Get a job, you damn punk kids</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In 1915 Zhukov was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army to fight World War I against the Germans, and you know your job sucks a fat one when you&rsquo;d rather be murdered with a machine gun than clock in for your shift.&nbsp; Zhukov happily went off to war, and was assigned to a cavalry regiment.&nbsp; Riding a horse into battle is a pretty terrible idea when the enemy has artillery and fully-automatic machine guns, but Zhukov&rsquo;s assignment was even extra shitty because in Imperial Russia only aristocrats could be officers and most of those assholes were ragingly incompetent and/or a bunch of self-important ultra-entitled elitist pricks.&nbsp; Despite being put in a bunch of terrible situations where he had to attack uphill into German fortified positions, Zhukov performed heroic acts of bravery, was decorated twice with the St. George&rsquo;s Cross, and eventually promoted to Sergeant.&nbsp; He was wounded in battle on more than one occasion but always kept fighting, and before long he was known for his efforts to bolster the fighting spirit of the enlisted men and getting them to work together in combat.</p>\r\n<p>World War I led to the Communist Revolution in Russia, and Zhukov became a commander of cavalry forces for the Red Army.&nbsp; Fighting against the hated Tsarists who had oppressed the fuck out of him for his entire life, Zhukov received the Order of the Red Banner for leading a horseback saber charge head-on into enemy riflemen like he just couldn&rsquo;t give a fuck.&nbsp; By 1923 he was a Colonel in charge of a cavalry regiment.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>WWI Zhukov.<br /> Shaving the Hitler stache was a good idea.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Red Army triumphed, and during the break between World Wars Zhukov spent a lot of time reading cool books about armored warfare and writing treatises on how to kick asses in combat.&nbsp; When Stalin became Premier of Russia and started purging the shit out of the entire general staff of the Red Army &ndash; whacking nearly 40,000 supposedly-&ldquo;disloyal&rdquo; military officers, including three of the five top members of the Soviet military &ndash; Zhukov started carrying around an emergency bag full of guns and fake IDs so he could fight his way out if the KGB or whoever showed up to murder him.&nbsp; KGB spy assassins are cool and all, but my money would have been on Zhukov.</p>\r\n<p>Despite earning a reputation for being a dude who didn&rsquo;t mind talking back to superior officers, Zhukov somehow survived the Purges, and in 1938 he was sent to Mongolia to command fucking Mongols in a war with Japan along the Chinese border.&nbsp; Japan had taken over Manchuria in \'35 and was trying to start shit with the Soviets in Mongolia, so naturally Georgy Zhukov had to roll in there like a 1940s Genghis Khan and start handing out dickpunches like they were double-scoop waffle cones at a Baskin-Robbins.&nbsp; After hopping off the Trans-Siberian Railroad in slow motion like a badass, Zhukov immediately ordered a three-pronged counterattack straight up the Japanese Army&rsquo;s urethra.&nbsp; Using a combined force of tanks, aircraft, and artillery (one of the first times this was done in modern warfare), Zhukov outflanked the Japanese, caught them completely off-guard, and drove them back in disarray.&nbsp; The Japanese tried to regroup at the Khalkin Gol, figuring they were probably save from Zhukov&rsquo;s wrath if they picked a meeting point that was 400 miles away from the closest Russian train station, but naturally they were really fucking wrong, and they ended up getting cold-cocked by machine-gun-toting Mongols riding on Soviet tanks.&nbsp; Which is awesome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov51.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><em>WWII Soviet Mongolian cavalry</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After convincing one of the most warlike civilizations on earth not to fuck with him, Zhukov went back to Moscow just in time for Hitler&rsquo;s Nazis to start royally beating the ever-loving shitballs out of the Soviet military repeatedly and without mercy.&nbsp; With hardcore panzers storming through Soviet lines in every sector and Russian resistance disintegrating, Zhukov suggested falling back from the front lines and regrouping in better defensive positions.&nbsp; Stalin told him to fuck off with that bullshit, instead demanding that the Soviet Army fight a series of dumb unwinnable battles against an enemy that massively overpowered them.&nbsp; Zhukov, furious, told Stalin &ldquo;if you feel that the Chief of the General Staff talks only rubbish, my place is not here. Better to give me a command at the front where I can be of better use!&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p>Which is a nuts thing to say to a guy who just killed 40,000 of his own soldiers because he suspected maybe they weren&rsquo;t 100% on the same page as him.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But, nevertheless, Zhukov&rsquo;s request to stand in front of panzers was granted, and he was shipped to Leningrad, a city that was completely surrounded by Nazis and being slowly starved to death by a relentless German siege.&nbsp; Thanks to Zhukov&rsquo;s efforts, however, Leningrad was able to evacuate 1.5 million civilians, and his efforts to organize the defenses allowed the city to hold out for an insane 900 days (!!!) despite being completely besieged and surrounded by Germans the entire time.&nbsp; He&rsquo;d come back in &rsquo;43 to liberate it.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov6.png\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Personally sighting a machine gun at Kursk<br /><br /><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukovdefensadeleningra.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br />About to burst into song on the parapets of Leningrad.<br /></em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Zhukov was called back to Moscow, and Stalin put him back in charge of the Red Army.&nbsp; The situation was bad.&nbsp; German forces were 23 miles from the Kremlin.&nbsp; They were closing in on Stalingrad.&nbsp; The Soviet troops were starving and demoralized.</p>\r\n<p>No problem.&nbsp; Zhukov&rsquo;s got this.</p>\r\n<p>Winter is what stopped the Germans in their tracks, but Zhukov is what got them moving backwards.&nbsp; This peasant worker turned military badass, seeing the Germans freezing to death in the dead of winter, took iron-willed and forceful command of his troops &ndash; who up to this point had been getting their heads kicked in for six months straight against a seemingly-invincible enemy &ndash; and made them believe that this was a war they could win.&nbsp; He had them attack, in the dead of December, charging forward in frozen temperatures so cold that some German tanks and machine guns were rendered inoperable, and launched a 200-mile-wide counterattack that kicked the Nazis square in the junkbags, driving them back and putting them on the defensive for the first time since Hitler took over.&nbsp; The attacks staggered, the Germans stumbled, and Marshal Georgy Zhukov was starting to win the greatest war of the modern era with a bunch of conscript soldiers he could barely afford to feed or equip with important things like fucking guns and ammunition.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> They were used to easy victories. This deprived them of flexibility on the one hand, <br /> of tenacity on the other. For them, war was merely maneuvers. <br /> They have neither cavalry nor skiers, their tanks cannot pass over the snow.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Using quick maneuvers, artillery, air support, T-34 tank attacks, and railway lines to ferry troops from across the USSR, Georgy Zhukov and the Soviet Union slowly began to turn back to massive German onslaught.&nbsp; At Stalingrad his men held the line, then he personally oversaw the forces that arrived to encircle the Fascists and crush the entire German Sixth Army.&nbsp; He broke the siege of Leningrad.&nbsp; He organized anti-tank positions and personally sighted in weapons to turn back Nazi Panthers and Tigers at Kursk.&nbsp; Slowly, brutally, he drove the Nazis out of Mother Russia.</p>\r\n<p>As a commander, Zhukov was fucking rad.&nbsp; His presence inspired the men to fight, and even though his tactics sometimes had about as much finesse as a two-hand sledgehammer blow to the face, he got shit done no matter what.&nbsp; When he needed men to take one enemy city, he released all the prisoners at a local jail, promised them complete freedom, then ordered them to charge across a minefield and spearhead an assault.&nbsp; Another time he needed to drop troops behind enemy lines but didn&rsquo;t have any airborne soldiers available, so he just put regular infantry in the back of a cargo plane, had it fly real low, and ordered them to jump out into a snow-covered field without parachutes.&nbsp; Sure, some of those poor bastards plummeted to their deaths, but enough of them survived to take the objective and hold it until reinforcements arrived.&nbsp; Which is fucked-up but awesome.&nbsp; Basically, he&rsquo;s the Ulysses S. Grant of the Soviet Union &ndash; plenty of people out there (probably correctly) call him a butcher, but he got shit done and his men loved him for it.</p>\r\n<p>Oh yeah, and he also started hooking up with one of the female junior officers in his command, which is straight up Enemy at the Gates awesome shit.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>&ldquo;I need that objective taken by 0800 tomorrow, Lieutenant.&nbsp; No excuses.<br /> Also what are you doing for dinner on Friday?&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Zhukov and the Soviets pushed the Germans back through Ukraine, into Germany, and it was Zhukov himself who personally oversaw the final assault on Berlin itself.&nbsp; Calling down artillery and driving heavy tanks through the streets of the Nazi capital, Zhukov organized and planned he battle, winning so completely that Hitler capped himself out of shame.&nbsp; The Russians flew a red flag over the Reichstag, the Germans surrendered exactly 70 years ago today, and Zhukov went out to grab beers with Patton because they were two of the toughest motherfuckers on earth and it&rsquo;s only fitting they should pound a fifth of vodka together and smoke cigars like Real Men.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>If I could attend one party in the history of the world&hellip;.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After the war, Zhukov was by far the greatest and most well-known military hero in all of the Soviet Union.&nbsp; Known as &ldquo;The Man Who Never Lost a Battle,&rdquo; the Marshal actually started getting a little nervous, mostly because his popularity kind of started to rival that of Stalin himself.&nbsp; Stalin got pissed, demoted Zhukov to a minor post way the hell out in Odessa, and Zhukov started going out and saying things to newspapers about how Stalin planned everything and Zhukov was just following orders when he won all those battles.&nbsp; Sure, that sucks, but when your boss is a psychopathic mass murderer you kind of have to do stuff like that sometimes to avoid pissing them off too much.&nbsp; He pretty much laid low until Stalin&rsquo;s death in 1953.</p>\r\n<p>Zhukov became popular again after the death of Stalin, and was choses to be the Minister of Defense in the USSR in 1955.&nbsp; He would be fired two years later for &ldquo;putting the military before the party,&rdquo; which kind of sounds like it would be part of the job description for the Minister of Defense, but whatever, fuck politics, and Zhukov retired.&nbsp; He lived to be 78 years old, passing away in 1974.&nbsp; Nowadays the Russian Federation offers a medal in his honor &ndash; the Order of Zhukov.</p>\r\n<p>It&rsquo;s awarded for using tactical genius to win battles you&rsquo;re not supposed to win.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/18699086166/zhukov10.gif\" alt=\"\" /><br /> \"Where you find Zhukov, you find victory\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/georgy_zhukov.htm</p>\r\n<p>http://worldatwar.net/biography/z/zhukov/</p>\r\n<p>http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/zhukov_georgi.shtml</p>\r\n<p>http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=27<br /> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Zhukov</p>','2015-05-08','18699086166','zhukov.jpg','zhukov-small.jpg','Georgy Zhukov','The man who won World War II.','\"Here they found real war, but they were not ready for it.\"'),('William Marshal, 1st Earl Pembroke','c. 1146','May 14, 1219','Berkshire, England','Medieval English Knight','<p>William, the fourth son of John the Marshal, was an insignificant child born to a minor English baron of no great importance.&nbsp; He grew up in a decently-adequate castle, sure, but this kid was so far down the line of inheritance in his own family that it was obvious from his birth that he would receive precisely jack shit after his dad died, and could expect nothing out of life except what he was able to forge with his own two hands out of the still-beating hearts of his enemies.&nbsp; He would never inherit land, title, or wealth.&nbsp; He would never be important enough to receive training in the arts of warfare or battle.&nbsp; In short, William&rsquo;s unlucky position in his family&rsquo;s birth order left this poor bastard doomed in the ranks of the knights errant, those masterless noble warriors left to wander the countrysides of Medieval England D&amp;D player-character style looking to create their own legends through sheer determination, cleverness, and, occasionally, brute force applied liberally to the skulls of anyone stupid enough to fuck with them.</p>\r\n<p>By the time his life had run its course, William had personally served as the trusted military advisor of five English Kings, knighted two of them, captured over 500 enemy knights in battle, survived a Crusade and a couple wars with France, kicked Richard the Fucking Lionheart&rsquo;s ass in a fight to the death, and married a millionaire countess babe half his age who also kicked ass commanding armies on the field of battle herself.&nbsp; At William&rsquo;s massively-attended state funeral in London almost exactly 798 years ago today, the Archbishop of Canterbury &ndash; the highest-ranking Church official in England &ndash; referred to William Marshal, First Earl of Pembroke, as &ldquo;The Great Knight Who Ever Lived.&rdquo;&nbsp; Which is a big-ass deal back at a time when you couldn&rsquo;t huck a crucifix without clanking it off the plate armor of some would-be Crusader.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal1.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At the age of fifty, white-haired William Marshal single-handedly scaled the walls of a French castle in full fucking plate armor, killed the Captain of the Guard with a single massive blow from his epic broadsword, and then held the walls alone against an onrushing horde of fanatical enemy soldiers until reinforcements could arrive to back him up.&nbsp; But something that would make or break the legends of lesser men barely warrants mentioning in Marshal&rsquo;s biographies, since at that point in his life he was already a 45-year veteran of over-the-top badass medieval siege warfare.&nbsp; His first encounter came at the age of five, back when William&rsquo;s dad was involved in a civil war against King Stephen of England.&nbsp; William&rsquo;s dad had supported Stephen&rsquo;s sister as the true claimant to the Throne of England, so naturally Stephen attacked, surrounded the castle with his army, captured William, and held the boy for ransom.&nbsp; &nbsp;While John the Marshal watched from the walls of his castle, King Stephen took five year-old William, loaded him into a goddamned catapult, and said he would launch the kid full-speed into the walls of the castle if John didn&rsquo;t surrender immediately.&nbsp; John, not giving a royal half-shit about his own fucking kid, screamed back, &ldquo;I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge yet more and better sons!&rdquo;, which is something I hope to God was said while demonstratively grabbing his crotch.&nbsp; Then, after basically daring King Stephen to pull the trigger, John ordered his men to attack, knowing full well that this was a death sentence for William.</p>\r\n<p>Well King Stephen didn&rsquo;t launch the kid, partly because he&rsquo;s not a fucking horrible monster, and partly because he liked that young William didn&rsquo;t cry or complain or beg for his life but was totally ready to careen head-first into a fucking brick wall at high velocity and take his horrible death like a man.&nbsp; So, after King Stephen was done defeating John in battle and forcing the surrender of his castle, he let William go free to return home.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At the age of 12, William left home and sailed across the Channel to France, where he lived with his uncle in a rad Norman castle.&nbsp; He spent the next seven years training in combat with the sword, lance, and mace, became an expert at horseback riding and archery, and grew to be six feet tall at a time when the average man stood significantly shorter than that.&nbsp; Unfortunately, the fun couldn&rsquo;t last, and in 1168 a rival noble ambushed William and his uncle while they were out hunting &ndash; William&rsquo;s uncle was killed in the fighting, and William was severely wounded.</p>\r\n<p>Now nineteen years old with no lord, no inheritance, and nothing of value to speak of, William decided to make a name for himself with his primary marketable skill &ndash; being able to beat the fucking shit out of people with a sword.&nbsp; He started signing up for Tournaments, which are like the most badass sporting event of all time, and began competitively testing his skill in combat against the knights of France and England for money like some kind of awesome medieval UFC Fight Club.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>No matter how hard your friend&rsquo;s obnoxious girlfriend might insist otherwise, Medieval Tournaments in 12<sup>th</sup>-century England were nothing like a Saturday afternoon at the Ren Faire.&nbsp; Knights weren&rsquo;t at the whole &ldquo;gentlemanly jousting&rdquo; stage of things just yet&hellip; these Tournaments involved something called the <em>melee</em>, which is where a shitload of fucking mounted knights just crash into each other and start pounding on one another as hard as possible in a gigantic clusterfuck of armor and swords.&nbsp; Designed as a way of keeping sharp when there wasn&rsquo;t a good war to fight, these spectator sports centered around one principle &ndash; you charged out there with your sword, kicked the fucking piss out of your enemy, force him to yield to your superior might, then make him pay you money not to kill him.&nbsp; People died at these things all the time, sure, but mostly it was training, and it was a way of basically Racing for Pinks.&nbsp; Think of it like Team Sports Mugging, or a gang fight in a dark alley, only it&rsquo;s with warhammers and you do it on a soccer field in front of thousands of screaming fans. <br /> And William Marshal was the fucking Michael Jordan of that shit.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> A <em>melee</em>.</p>\r\n<p>Standing a head taller than his enemies, tactically brilliant, and with a humongous iron &ldquo;hammer and anvil&rdquo; package that made him utterly fearless, William Marshal quickly became a superstar in the organized asskicking circuit.&nbsp; Leading a team of warriors into battle, his signature move was to charge up to a guy on horseback, grab the reigns of the dude&rsquo;s horse, and then bring the horse and guy down to the ground by yanking on it.&nbsp; Then he&rsquo;d jump down, kick the dude in the ribs, put a sword in his face, steal the guy&rsquo;s wallet, and move on to the next, careful to conserve his energy for the end when all of his foes were too exhausted to withstand more than one or two epic crushing blows to the skull from his ten-pound iron-headed war mace.&nbsp; His team deathmatch Clan won tournament after tournament, earning him tons of fame, glory, and gold.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well one dude who was super into Tournament fighting in the 1170s was Prince Henry, the eldest son of King Henry II of England and his wife, the awesome-as-hell Eleanor of Aquitaine.&nbsp; Henry II invited William to London, and recruited him to be the leader of the Royal Tournament Team and also the personal fighting instructor and mentor to Prince Henry.&nbsp; William spent 12 years in the household of the King of England, winning battle after battle and earning the trust of the Royal Family.&nbsp; In Tournaments, he let the teenage Prince fight it out on his own, but was careful to step in with some groin-kicking badassitude if it looked like the kid was getting himself into trouble.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Prince Henry died of dysentery in his twenties, tragically crapping himself to death in 1183.&nbsp; On his deathbed, the Prince wept because he had never had an opportunity to take up the Cross and fight in the Crusades.</p>\r\n<p>William Marshal, kneeling by the Prince&rsquo;s bedside, swore to his friend that he would fight on the Prince&rsquo;s behalf.</p>\r\n<p>In 1183, Marshal sailed the Mediterranean to Jerusalem, joined the Knights Templar, and served two years battling on the frontiers against Muslim forces in the Levant.&nbsp; He was fortuitously called home by King Henry II in 1185, leaving the region just two years before the Templar were almost completely annihilated by the hardcore warriors of Saladin at the Battle of Hattin in 1189.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>William had been called back because Henry II needed his help dealing with a threat to his rule &ndash; a revolt by Henry&rsquo;s son Richard, a dude you and me now know as Richard the Motherfucking Lionheart.&nbsp; Richard the Lionheart isn&rsquo;t on this site, but I have a chapter on him in <em>Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch</em>, and, long story short, he&rsquo;s tough as shit.&nbsp; This guy was gigantic, wielded a massive two-handed greatsword, and used to disguise himself as an anonymous knight, enter tournaments, and beat the shit out of everyone just for fun because he didn&rsquo;t like it when they took it easy on him because they knew he was king.&nbsp; One time he got a debilitating case of malaria and still took potshots at his enemies with a crossbow from his sickbed because even a 105 temperature wasn&rsquo;t going to keep him from killing his foes.&nbsp; Another time he launched a one-man amphibious attack on a coastal fortress by stripping off his leg armor so he could run through waist-deep water.&nbsp; He was quite possibly one of the toughest men in European history.</p>\r\n<p>But on a rainy afternoon in Normandy, charging at the head of a formation of heavily-armored Norman knights, Richard the Lionheart found himself face-to-face with the steely-eyed gaze of Sir William Marshal.</p>\r\n<p>Lionheart attacked.&nbsp; Marshal parried, disarmed him, and threw him from his horse.&nbsp; Before Lionheart could get up, there was a sword point two inches from his eyes.</p>\r\n<p>William Marshal took one look at Richard, gave him a badass &ldquo;do ya feel lucky punk&rdquo; Eastwood stare, then wheeled, beheaded Lionheart&rsquo;s horse, and rode away, leaving the rebellious Prince laid out on the battlefield, hurt but alive.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But the story doesn&rsquo;t end there.&nbsp; Just two days after this battle, King Henry II of England died of unrelated causes.&nbsp; The Throne of England passed to the next legitimate heir, which was &ndash; you guessed it &ndash; Richard the Lionheart.</p>\r\n<p>He immediately called for Sir William Marshal.&nbsp; Marshal proudly stood before the new King.</p>\r\n<p>Richard the Lionheart told him he was hereby Sir William Marshal, First Earl of Pembroke.&nbsp; He bestowed his worthy adversary land, wealth, and a bride &ndash; an incredibly wealthy countess named Isabel de Claire who was one of the richest noblewomen in the land.&nbsp; She was also 17, and he was 43, but that&rsquo;s pretty normal for the Middle Ages and they seem to have been pretty happy together in so much as medieval history takes the time to talk about that sort of thing.</p>\r\n<p>It helps that they had some of the same hobbies, I guess &ndash; in 1208 a rival Irish lord attacked the Marshals&rsquo; lands with a small army while William was out fighting in France.&nbsp; Isabel gritted her teeth, grabbed a sword, organized the household guard, and crushed the invaders mercilessly.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Richard left for the Third Crusade in 1190, William Marshal was one of a few high-ranking nobles left behind to run shit while the King was gone.&nbsp; He managed the day-to-day operations of the Kingdom, oversaw the war in France, and when Richard was captured by Germans William was a big part of the Robin Hood resistance that stood strong and fought against Richard&rsquo;s mega-historical-asshole brother John illegally seizing power.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Richard the Lionheart died in 1199, passing the crown to King John, and William Marshal was a good loyal knight and went along with it because those are the rules when you&rsquo;re a knight.&nbsp; John, of course, super fucking sucks.&nbsp; Known as &ldquo;Lackland&rdquo; and &ldquo;Softsword&rdquo;, John was weak, misguided, and a super mega asshole to everyone, and before long he was excommunicated by the Church and like 90% of the English nobility was ready to burn him at the stake.&nbsp; William himself was hot-and-cold with John, but when King John was on his deathbed in 1216 he asked William Marshal to be regent for John&rsquo;s young son Henry.&nbsp; Naturally, William agreed, and when King Henry III was coronated, William Marshal was basically the Hand of the King.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately, the Nobles still weren&rsquo;t happy, and they attacked against the king.&nbsp; Worse yet, they had enlisted the help of the French King, who arrived on the coast of England with a huge-ass motherfucking army.</p>\r\n<p>William Marshal went on the offensive.&nbsp; He attacked.&nbsp; Personally.</p>\r\n<p>When the French Army and the rebellious barons took the field at the Battle of Lincoln in 1217, the first thing they saw was the figure of 70 year-old legendary warrior William Motherfucking Marshal charging head-on towards them, an inspired army of ultra-pumped English knights riding hard behind him.&nbsp; Marshall&rsquo;s attack smashed into the French lines, battering them back, and it didn&rsquo;t stop until the Barons surrendered and the French were driven out of England.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal10.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>William wisely pardoned the Barons, telling them it was all good in the hood as long as they recognized Henry III as the King and stopped trying to put French Kings on the Throne of England.&nbsp; They agreed.&nbsp; Henry&rsquo;s grandson ended up being Edward Longshanks, the bad guy in Braveheart.&nbsp; His great-great grandson won the Battle of Crecy in the Hundred Years&rsquo; War.&nbsp; Basically, this kid&rsquo;s descendents would run shit in England for the next 250 years, and if it wasn&rsquo;t for William Marshal the would have been sliced and diced like goose liver pate and everyone in England (and by extension America) might possibly be speaking French today.</p>\r\n<p>Two years after the war, William Marshal, First Earl of Pembroke, fell sick.&nbsp; The greatest knight in English history passed away exactly 796 years ago yesterday, dying&nbsp; on May 14, 1219 at the age of 72.&nbsp; Upon hearing the news of his death, even his long-time enemy, the King of France, said that Marshal had been a great man, and a worthy adversary.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/14584301105/williammarshal11.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/William-Marshal-Knights-Tale/</p>\r\n<p>http://www.medievalwarfare.info/marshal.htm</p>\r\n<p>http://www.historyinanhour.com/2014/06/29/william-marshal-historys-greatest-knight/</p>\r\n<p>http://www.castlewales.com/marshall.html</p>\r\n<p>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/449508/William-Marshal-1st-earl-of-Pembroke</p>\r\n<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke</p>','2015-05-15','14584301105','williammarshal.jpg','williammarshal-small.jpg','William Marshal','\"The Greatest Knight that Ever Lived\", he survived his first siege at age 5 and served as the main asskicker to five English kings.',''),('Benjamin L. Salomon','September 1, 1914','July 7, 1944','Milwaukee, WI, USA','20th-century American Soldier','<p>At 5 o&rsquo;clock in the morning on July 7, 1944, a 30 year-old Jewish dentist from Milwaukee head-butted a Japanese infantryman straight- up in the fucking face and then shanked him with the knife he&rsquo;d taken off another enemy soldier he&rsquo;d just killed two seconds earlier.&nbsp; All around him, the surgical tent of the 105<sup>th</sup> Infantry Division was in chaos &ndash; wounded men were scrambling to their feet, nurses were urgently barking directions to troops, and the sounds of heavy machine gun and rifle fire ripped through jungle from every direction &ndash; but Captain Benjamin L. Salomon had officially morphed from a mild-mannered surgeon to an utterly-unstoppable one-man destroyer of worlds.&nbsp; Surrounded by the bodies of nearly a dozen enemy troops who had dared to threaten the lives of his patients, Salomon grabbed a fresh rifle off a table, fixed a bayonet on the end, slammed a clip into the breach, and rushed out of the tent.&nbsp; His final order before racing bayonet-first into the frenetic sounds of gunfire was to tell the wounded to get the fallback position ASAP.&nbsp; He&rsquo;d cover their retreat himself, one man against a battalion of Japanese Imperial Infantry, and buy his patients as much time as he could.</p>\r\n<p>Captain Salomon knew the odds for his survival weren&rsquo;t good.&nbsp; But he was a soldier, and it was his job to protect his comrades.&nbsp; If he could save just a few men with his actions, he was going to do it without hesitation, and never regret it for a second.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon1p.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Benjamin L. Salomon graduated Dental School at USC in 1937, but this guy wasn&rsquo;t your stereotypical mild-mannered dentist who collected stamps and helped little kids in the waiting room find the answers to Highlights word searches.&nbsp; This guy was an Eagle Scout, had an iron constitution, and could run for days without tiring.&nbsp; When he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1940 he left his private dentistry practice, rated Expert Marksman during rifle and pistol qualification, and was declared the &ldquo;best all-around soldier&rdquo; in the 102<sup>nd</sup> Infantry Regiment according to his commanding officer.&nbsp; By the time World War II actually started for the U.S. at the end of 1941, Salomon was a Sergeant in command of a machine gun section.</p>\r\n<p>Despite his mad chops with the .30 cal, when the Army went full-on &ldquo;let&rsquo;s fuck these guys up&rdquo; mobilization the brass decided that Salomon&rsquo;s skills with a scalpel were more crucial to the war effort than his precision with a Colt .45.&nbsp; He was given a promotion to First Lieutenant and issued a transfer to the Dental Corps in 1942, meaning basically that after a two year hiatus, this guy could now finally go back to being a practicing dentist again.</p>\r\n<p>Except Ben Effin&rsquo; Salomon didn&rsquo;t want to go back to being a dentist.&nbsp; He wanted to fight the enemy face-to-face.&nbsp; He declined the transfer.&nbsp; The Army told him, yo, this is the Army, you do what we say, and made him be a dentist anyways.&nbsp; Even after being appointed Dental Officer of the 105<sup>th</sup> Infantry Regiment, Salomon still went on all the unit&rsquo;s runs and hikes and routinely won regimental physical fitness competitions even though he was a doctor competing against front-line infantrymen.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The 105<sup>th</sup> saw its first combat in June 1944, when they landed on the island of Saipan in the Marianas.&nbsp; The troops immediately found themselves in some of the most intense, up-close and downright horribly brutal fighting witnessed on any front of World War II, battling an ultra-intense, take-no-prisoners enemy that was absolutely determined to make the Americans pay in blood for every inch of ground they gained.&nbsp; Together with the 4<sup>th</sup> Marine Division, the soldiers of the U.S. Army 27<sup>th</sup> Division brutally clawed their way off the beaches of Saipan, but the fighting was so fucking intense that they lost half their men killed or wounded in the first few days of the battle.&nbsp; Ben Salomon wasn&rsquo;t exactly thrilled to be stuck in a medical tent scratching his balls, hoping someone needed their wisdom teeth extracted while his fellow soldiers were out there fighting and dying, so with his buddies out there engaged in mortal hand-to-hand combat with a brutal enemy he offered to transfer to surgical service and help fix up the wounded.</p>\r\n<p>Captain Salomon was granted his request, and the good doctor was sent ashore to work at a military emergency surgery field hospital just 50 yards behind the front line entrenchments.&nbsp; With machine gun fire ripping up the jungle less than a football field beyond him, Salomon worked tirelessly night and day to triage severely wounded men, reattach limbs, clamp down bleeding arteries, and set broken bones. &nbsp;It was bloody, precise, life-saving work, and it was all done while enemy bullets whizzed through the tent, attack aircraft screamed overhead, and naval artillery barrages shook the earth beneath him.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Americans had suffered horrifically on Saipan, but the battle was also going even worse for the Japanese. &nbsp;The Imperial Japanese Army&rsquo;s 43<sup>rd</sup> Division landed on the island &nbsp;three months ago with 30,000 men, but by July 6, 1944 only 5,000 remained.&nbsp; Those that were left were starving, exhausted, wounded, low on supplies, and running short of ammo.&nbsp; But these warriors knew that a U.S. airstrip on Saipan Island would give the Americans direct bomber access to the Japanese Home Islands, and every single survivor of the 43<sup>rd</sup> Division would have gladly sacrificed their lives to prevent that from happening.&nbsp; Each man was prepared to stare death in the face and fight to the end, no matter what.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>That night, the order came down from General Saito Yoshitsugu to the 43<sup>rd</sup> Division:</p>\r\n<p>\"We will advance to attack the American forces and will all die an honorable death. Each man will kill ten Americans.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Tenno Heika Banzai.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Flares lit the night sky at 0500 hours on the 6<sup>th</sup> of July, 1944, followed immediately by determined screams and the thumping of weapons fire.&nbsp; Mortars rained down all across the U.S. lines as an almost endless wave of enemies a mile wide came charging out through the brush, bayonets held high, in a final suicide charge teeth-first into the suddenly-badly-outnumbered 105<sup>th</sup> Infantry Regiment.&nbsp; The Americans returned fire, sweeping the field with murderous storms of bullets, but the Japanese attack pressed on relentlessly, grenades flying in every direction, explosions and shouts rocking the battlefield in seemingly every direction at once.&nbsp; In his medical tent, Ben Salomon worked feverishly.&nbsp; No sooner did he stop one guy from bleeding than another, even more badly-injured man rolled up onto a gurney needing immediate attention.</p>\r\n<p>Despite taking insane numbers of casualties, the Japanese attack finally reached U.S. trenches, and swarms of soldiers dove in, bayonets at the ready.&nbsp; Salomon, just 50 yards behind the U.S. machine gun nests, reached over for a scalpel, and looked up in time to see a Japanese Imperial Army soldier storm through the tent flap and immediately bayonet an unarmed, wounded American soldier as he lay out on his stretcher.</p>\r\n<p>Ben Salomon instinctively grabbed an M1 rifle off a nearby table, crouched, and fired.&nbsp; The Japanese soldier was dead before he hit the ground.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Ben Salomon was first nominated for the Medal of Honor, there was a lot of debate because the Geneva Convention states that no medical officer wearing a red cross armband is allowed to bear arms in combat.&nbsp; Also I&rsquo;m pretty sure that shooting a guy violate the Hippocratic Oath, but I&rsquo;m not 100% on that.&nbsp; But this was a fucked-up, brutal, no-holds-barred war to the death, and Ben Salomon wasn&rsquo;t about to sit there and offer goddamned sandwiches and lemonade to a dude who was running around bayonetting all of his fucking patients, and I don&rsquo;t blame him for a second.&nbsp; This guy is a goddamn hero and I don&rsquo;t care what anyone has to say on the subject.</p>\r\n<p>Well, shit, it was fucking on now, because the enemy was swarming through the base and it was total kill or be killed time.&nbsp; Salomon turned back to the operating table only to see two more Japanese troops bust into the tent, guns at the ready.&nbsp; They were so close that Salomon just swung his fucking rifle like a baseball bat, clubbing the first guy, jamming the butt of the rifle in the second guy&rsquo;s stomach with lightning speed, then killing the first guy with a bullet and the second with a bayonet.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon6.gif\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But that wasn&rsquo;t it &ndash; four more guys were crawling under the damn tent from the sides, two on each side, in an effort to flank the dentist and catch him by surprise.&nbsp; One of the guys had a knife in his hand, so Salomon ran over and kicked that shit right out of the dude&rsquo;s hand before he could get to his feet.&nbsp; Salomon sighted his rifle and fired, killing the attacker, and by the time he heard the distincting <em>ping</em> of an empty clip ejecting from an M1 Garand he was already in full on motherfucking blood rage mode and something lame like not having bullets wasn&rsquo;t going to stop him from wrecking shit.&nbsp; Salomon bayonetted one dude, dropped the rifle, picked up that knife, and spun to face the other two infantrymen who were rushing in on him.&nbsp; Salomon killed one with a knife and straight-up fucking headbutted the other guy, staggering him back, and he was shot and killed by one of Salomon&rsquo;s patients who had finally managed to dig out his .45 pistol.</p>\r\n<p>At that point a radio transmission came in to fall back and regroup in the village that was a few hundred yards up the hill. &nbsp;Salomon grabbed a fresh rifle and told the guys in the tent to get on their feet and bust ass back there.&nbsp; Most of them were badly wounded and needed extra time to get to safety, and Captain Ben Salomon was going to give it to them.&nbsp; He pulled back the slide, loaded a round in the chamber of his rifle, and rushed out through the tent flap.</p>\r\n<p>Most of the 30+ men in the hospital were able to get out of there with their lives.&nbsp; When the last orderly left the hospital tent, he looked back over his shoulder to see Captain Benjamin Salomon single-handedly manning a heavy belt-fed .30-caliber machine gun, spraying fire in sweeping arcs while enemy troops swarmed around him from every direction.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>On the afternoon of July 8, 1944, the United States Army retook the positions along the beach, finally sweeping aside the last remnants of the defending Japanese force on Saipan Island.&nbsp; When Captain Edward Love surveyed the scene after the battle, he discovered Captain Benjamin L. Salomon&rsquo;s body slumped over his machine gun.&nbsp; He counted 98 &nbsp;dead enemy soldiers sprawled out before him.&nbsp; &nbsp;Looking at the scene, it was clear that Salomon had single-handedly repositioned the incredibly-heavy .30-caliber machine gun four separate times, each move being required because enemy dead had piled up so high in front of him that he couldn&rsquo;t get a clear line of fire through the stack of corpses.&nbsp; He did this despite being wounded no fewer than 24 times by enemy bullets, bayonets, and artillery shrapnel.</p>\r\n<p>Captain Ben L. Salomon killed more than a hundred enemy soldiers not because he loved death, or because he loved killing, or because he hated Japanese people or held some weird personal grudge against any man on the other side of his gun barrel.&nbsp; He did this because he was a soldier.&nbsp; And this is what soldiers do. &nbsp;They routinely put their lives on the line for their friends, their country, and their beliefs, and they do it willingly, without hesitation.</p>\r\n<p>This is why we have one day every year where we take a moment to remember the actions of every man and woman who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country.&nbsp; Keep this in mind on Memorial Day.</p>\r\n<p>Captain Benjamin L. Salomon was nominated for the Medal of Honor on five occasions for his actions on the beaches of Saipan.&nbsp; In 2002 he became just the third Jewish soldier from World War II to receive the United States&rsquo; highest award for heroism in battle.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/587622426994/bensalomon-small.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>One could easily visualize Ben Salomon, wounded and bleeding, <br />trying to drag that gun a few more feet so that he would have a new field of fire. <br />The blood was on the ground, and the marks plainly indicated <br />how hard it must have been for him, especially in that last move.</em><br /><br /><em>- Cpt. Edward Love</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>http://history.amedd.army.mil/moh/Salomon.html</p>\r\n<p>https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Salomon2.html</p>\r\n<p>http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=44104</p>\r\n<p>http://articles.latimes.com/2002/may/05/local/me-medal5</p>\r\n<p>http://www.j-grit.com/military-and-spies-ben-salomon.php</p>\r\n<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_L._Salomon</p>','2015-05-22','587622426994','bensalomon.jpg','bensalomon-small.jpg','Ben L. Salomon','U.S. Army dentist turn surgeon who head-butted an enemy soldier for threatening one of his patients.','Ben Salomon was the best instructor in infantry tactics we ever had. He gave everybody who ever met him a real lift. He had a way of inspiring people to do things that they might not have done otherwise. '),('King Solomon','c. 1002 BC','c. 922 BC','Jerusalem, Israel','Biblical Jewish King','<p>King Solomon, son of David, leader of the Israelites, is without a doubt one of the most fully-rad to the max rulers in all of Biblical history, and if you can&rsquo;t wrap your head around that just yet then it&rsquo;s time for me to drop some seriously hardcore shit on you like a B-29 Superfortress carpet-bombing baby grand pianos keys-first into the lame community garden where your annoying neighbors are always trying to grow organic vegetable bullshit that you can readily buy at any grocery store in America for like ninety-nine cents.&nbsp; An ultra mega-hero to the Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, Solomon was super-pimp Boss Hogg old man who banged literally a thousand wives and concubines (including the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh), wrote half the Bible, built the holiest place in Jewish history, ruled over the largest kingdom the Israelites would ever construct for more than 40 years, and spent a bizarre majority of his spare time apparently flying around the heavens on a robotic gold-encrusted Lion Throne while wearing a ring that commanded MOTHERFUCKING GENIES to do his bidding BECAUSE HE WAS JUST INSANELY RAD LIKE THAT.</p>\r\n<p>Shit, dude, he also tried to chop a baby in half once, and he was an indirect inspiration for the ultra-awesomebad movie <em>Congo</em> where Bruce Campbell and Tim Curry get eaten to death by sentient monkeys that can only be killed by turning a GPS satellite transceiver into a monkey-incinerating laser and then blowing up an entire city by willingly triggering a volcanic eruption.&nbsp; And if you can&rsquo;t find it in your cold miserable heart to get down with that it&rsquo;s time to <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItKM2zmfC-0\">GET ON MY LEVEL</a>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><em>GENIE RAGE</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>There isn&rsquo;t a ton of archaeological evidence supporting any of the Bible&rsquo;s claims about King Solomon, but who fucking cares.&nbsp; He was born around 1,000 BC to the similarly-awesome Israelite <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kingdavid.html\">King David</a>, and Solomon was so wise and capable that even though he was like the fifth son of David he&rsquo;s the kid that got tapped to succeed dad as the future King of Israel.&nbsp; Well, apparently Solomon&rsquo;s older brother Adonijah wasn&rsquo;t down with that, because once David got sick and started laying around in bed dying all day, Adonijah put on a crown and started telling everyone he was the king so just get used to that idea.&nbsp; David was like, &ldquo;nope, sorry, fuck that, dude,&rdquo; had Solomon anointed in water, and then Solomon grabbed a big-ass sword and, boom, two seconds later Adonijah was prostrating himself on the Ark of the Covenant begging his bro not to decapitate him.&nbsp; Solomon was like, ok bro, you can go, and then Adonijah went home and Solomon was like PSYCH and sent a dude to brain him with a sword until he died from it.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Solomon&rsquo;s early days were spent consolidating his power, mostly by killing pretty much anyone who could potentially want to think about fucking with him, but also by killing people that his dad wanted him to as well.&nbsp; Which is an awesome story, by the way &ndash; I guess King David had been screwed over a couple of times by his own men, but he&rsquo;d said to them something like, &ldquo;I should totally kill you for what you just did, but you were a good man and I swear to you I will not kill you while I am king.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he didn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; And I guess those guys forgot about it or something.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, guess what, buddy &ndash; <em>badasses always live for revenge.</em>&nbsp; So, on his death bed, David&rsquo;s last words to his son were to list off all the people he promised not to kill, and to ask Solomon to have them all killed after David was finally dead.&nbsp; So that&rsquo;s what he did.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon2.JPG\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Solomon sent a guy named Benaiah to carry out the assassinations.<br /> Benaiah was the top general of the Israelite army under King David,<br /> a 20+ year military veteran, and he once killed a lion with his bare hands.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>One day Solomon set 1,000 animals on fire as burnt offerings to God, so when he went to sleep Yahweh came to him in a dream and was like, &ldquo;ok, new King, if you could have one wish what would it be?&rdquo;&nbsp; Solomon thought, and instead of money or girls or annihilation of his enemies he said he wanted ultimate wisdom.&nbsp; God was down with this, &ldquo;opened the 49 Gates of Wisdom to Solomon,&rdquo; then said he&rsquo;d throw in gold, girls, and bloody vengeance as freebies anyways.&nbsp; Solomon became immediately known for being basically the wisest and most Lawful Neutral just ruler ever.&nbsp; He built cities, extended the walls of Jerusalem, planted gardens, managed a massive empire stretching from the Euphrates River to Egypt, and set up a trade network throughout the Middle East that imported things like cedar wood, gold, diamonds, copper, spices and apes (?!) and brought in exactly 666 (!!) talents of gold to his coffers his year, which is a number that works out to about 43 tons of pure gold.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s the weight of a New York City subway car, and he brought it in every year, like goddamn clockwork.&nbsp; He also somehow found time to write 3,000 proverbs, 1,000 songs, two Psalms, and author the Old Testament Bible books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.&nbsp; Which ain&rsquo;t bad.</p>\r\n<p>Solomon&rsquo;s most famous act of wisdom came one day when these two women showed up at his court complaining about which woman was the real mother of some baby they had with them.&nbsp; I guess one of the moms accidentally killed her baby by rolling over on it in her sleep, so she swapped it out with her next-door neighbor&rsquo;s baby and took the alive baby as her own.&nbsp; Well, back in the days before shit like Maury Povich paternity testing, the best way to figure this kind of thing out was to take the mystery kid to the King and let him decide who be the baby-mama.&nbsp; Solomon listened to these women arguing for like two seconds and was like &ldquo;fuck this&rdquo; and ordered his guard to pull a sword, chop the baby in half, and give one chunk of baby to each mom.&nbsp; One lady was like &ldquo;yeah, pop that sucker open,&rdquo; and the other was like &ldquo;woah I&rsquo;m not going to be cool with that, she can just have the baby,&rdquo; so King Solomon gave the baby to the lady who wasn&rsquo;t a complete douchebag advocating the murder of an infant.&nbsp; Even if she wasn&rsquo;t the real baby-mama, holy crap it&rsquo;s not like you could let the kid leave with the lady who was cool with baby-murder, right?</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>King Solomon built tons of cool shit, but his most significant project was the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem &ndash; the single holiest site in the history of Judaism.&nbsp; Using an army of slave-labor foreigners, local stonemasons, and (depending on who you ask) magical genies, Solomon spent 7 years building a big elaborate stone temple to house the Ark of the Covenant.&nbsp; The place was completely plastered in gold and jewels, and at the dedication ceremony Solomon gave such an awesome pump-up speech that a column of flame came down from the sky and set a bunch of cattle on fire (Solomon was so jacked up by this that he personally sacrificed a thousand sheep on the spot).&nbsp; The temple stood as the home of the Ark until 587 BC, when Nebudchanezzar II of the Babylonians smashed it.&nbsp; The Jews rebuilt it, the Romans smashed it again, and the Jews never rebuilt it, because, as we all know, the Ark is now in that warehouse at the end of the first <em>Indiana Jones </em>movie.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Solomon also spent 13 years using slave labor to build himself a fully-rad and super insanely awesome palace out of cedarwood, stone, gold, and jewels, and his personal ivory-and-gold throne was decorated with solid-gold sculptures of twelve pissed-off-looking lions that allegedly operated on a mechanical system that Transformered around him when he sat on the throne and surrounded him like Iron Man&rsquo;s armor.&nbsp; Legend has it that Nebudchanezzar crippled himself trying to sit on the throne, because he didn&rsquo;t know how that steampunk shit worked and he got his ACL clipped by a golden robot lion head.&nbsp; Which is awesome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon41.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Solomon cemented most of his alliances with marriage, and by marriage I mean he hooked up with every single princess on earth whenever possible.&nbsp; The dude apparently had 700 wives, women from all different parts of the Middle East and North Africa, and when he got bored of humping enough women to fill a <a href=\"http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/0/6/7/0177760.jpg\">747 airliner</a> to maximum capacity, he also had 300 concubines on the site that he could call at a moment&rsquo;s notice.&nbsp; His main wife was the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh, but assuming he spent every night with a different girl he probably only hung out with her once every 2.74 years.&nbsp; He was nice enough to build some temples and shrines to the gods of the foreign women he was married to, but this of course totally pissed off his subjects and the Israelites accused him of not being devout enough to Yahweh and forsaking their god (the Muslims don&rsquo;t really feel this way about him).</p>\r\n<p>Solomon&rsquo;s most celebrated female relationship was with The Queen of Sheba, a super insanely-rich African kingdom in present-day Ethiopia/Eritrea.&nbsp; Apparently the Queen heard that Solomon was a really wise guy, so she went to Jerusalem with a huge caravan of goods and spices and stated asking him a bunch of really hard riddles Alec Trebek style.&nbsp; The Bible doesn&rsquo;t specifically say they hooked up (the phrase they use is that he &ldquo;gave the Queen of Sheba her every desire, even more than she had brought for him&rdquo;, which admittedly does have sort of a &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what she said&rdquo; vibe to it), but the Ethiopian religion of Rastafari claims that they got it on and every Emperor of Ethiopia from the days of Solomon to current Crown Prince Zera Yacob Amha Selassie is descended from Solomon himself.&nbsp; Of course, there&rsquo;s a lot more to Rastafari than that, but most people outside Africa don&rsquo;t really seem to have a problem with boiling 2,900 years of African culture down into a blacklight poster of Bob Marley smoking reefer, so, hey, if you wanna think of King Solomon as the Prophet of Bong Hits 420 I guess have fun with that.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well if any of that shit sounded weird, you should know that we&rsquo;re just getting started here, because once you start talking about Islamic, Kabbalah, and Medieval occult literature Solomon gets even more awesome.&nbsp; According to those sources, he can control the wind, speak to animals, and commands an army of genies and devils who obey his every whim without hesitation.&nbsp; His morning jog is a month&rsquo;s journey for most men, and he flies through the Heavens on a throne of light that&rsquo;s pulled by two golden eagles so he can asked chained-up Fallen Angels to answer his questions about the universe.&nbsp; The animals of the earth serve him and dance for him, and they&rsquo;re so crazy for King Solomon that they would literally run into a kitchen and jump head-first into a pot to boil themselves alive so Solomon could eat them, which is like the Old Testament version of McDonald&rsquo;s.&nbsp; He eats dinner at a table of pure iron, which is like kryptonite to genies apparently, and he wears a special magical Genie-controlling ring called the Seal of Solomon that was given to him personally by none other than <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/stmichael.html\">Saint Michael the Archangel</a>.</p>\r\n<p>The Seal is a copper and iron magic ring engraved with a badass pentagram and set with a diamond, and in Islamic and Jewish mysticism Solomon used it to brand the necks of Jinn and Devils control them to do his bidding.&nbsp; He apparently had absolutely no fear of them, and would constantly threaten these big towering demons with &ldquo;The Penalty of Blazing Fire,&rdquo; which sounds awesome even if I don&rsquo;t fully understand what the hell that means.&nbsp; I do know that in the Muslim apocalypse, The Beast of the Earth (a horrible Godzilla-like super-Devil destined to destroy the world), comes to the surface of the world wearing the Seal of Solomon on its right middle finger, and when it punches non-believers in the face the words &ldquo;Destined For Hell&rdquo; appear written on the doomed person&rsquo;s forehead, which honestly is the MOST FUCKING METAL THING EVER and I think there are like six Judas Priest album titles in that last sentence alone.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon6p.png\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Get down.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Solomon is also attributed as the writer to pretty much every weird Grimoire Necronomicron book from the Middle Ages, and the Key of Solomon was a bizarre text that talked about demons and witchcraft and all this other stuff that makes you want to go out into the forest with a sacrifice-worthy goat and start playing second-edition Dungeons &amp; Dragons with your co-workers at the movie theater.&nbsp; The Freemasons, who rule the world and run the Illuminadi, also look toe Solomon as a founding inspiration, and the secret, undiscovered underground African copper mines where he kept his treasure are the basis for the badass 1880s novel <em>King Solomon&rsquo;s Mines</em> starring notable awesome literary dude Allan Quatermain.&nbsp; <em>King Solomon&rsquo;s Mines </em>were the inspiration for Michael Crichton to write <em>Congo </em>exactly 100 years later, and it was also allegedly the inspiration for a weird NES game that doesn&rsquo;t really have anything to do with King Solomon, mines, keys, or the book <em>King Solomon&rsquo;s Mines</em>.&nbsp; Or laser-monkeys either, come to think of it.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ok, well I guess it&rsquo;s possible that the real-life historical King Solomon of the Israelites didn&rsquo;t control Jinn with a magic ring, answer riddles from African queens, and fly through the Heavens on a robotic Voltron-style Lion Sled, and it&rsquo;s also quite possible that his empire was actually quite a bit smaller than the Bible originally lets on, but the fact remains that King Solomon kicks ass.&nbsp; This is a guy who is known to all three Abrahamic traditions as the ultimate religious king, an inspiration for competent leadership and unbiased justice, and he was able to run a successful kingdom with a thriving economy and hold it together firmly at a time of crazy anarchy and an age when the Ancient Greeks were still living in huts made out of animal hides and clubbing each other with rocks.&nbsp; While he was able to hold his people together for 40 years as King until his death around 922 BC at age 80, his sons didn&rsquo;t have his managerial prowess and the Kingdom eventually split into two separate parts, which were then curbstomped by Nebuchadnezzar in the 5<sup>th</sup> century BC.</p>\r\n<p>According to some stories, the only plant to grow overtop of King Solomon&rsquo;s burial site was&hellip;.. cannabis.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/53851771340/kingsolomon8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Solomon.html</p>\r\n<p>http://thebricktestament.com/king_solomon/index.html</p>\r\n<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon</p>','2015-05-29','53851771340','kingsolomon.jpg','kingsolomon-small.jpg','King Solomon','The King of Israel built the holiest place in Jewish history, and also allegedly commanded an army of Genies and could talk to birds.','Mobilized in the service of Solomon were his obedient soldiers of jinns and humans, as well as the birds; all at his disposal.  – Qu’ran 27:17'),('Harald Halfdansson','c. 850','c. 932','Vestfold, Norway','Medieval Viking King','<p align=\"center\"><em>Dudes!&nbsp; I have an <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316320560/ref=s9_newr_gw_d45_g14_i4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_s=desktop-3&amp;pf_rd_r=0MPHVVNPBP4DG1WP2B2T&amp;pf_rd_t=36701&amp;pf_rd_p=2084660942&amp;pf_rd_i=desktop\">awesome book about Vikings</a> coming out NEXT WEEK, and I encourage all of you to go out and buy it.&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s the original draft of the chapter on Norwegian King Harald Fairhair, who is awesome.<br /> <br /> <br /><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316320560/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_s=desktop-3&amp;pf_rd_r=077T8RVZ58BR7HASW9NX&amp;pf_rd_t=36701&amp;pf_rd_p=2084660942&amp;pf_rd_i=desktop\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/fairhair-book.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></a><br /></em></p>\r\n<p><em>&nbsp;</em></p>\r\n<p>Harald Fairhair was the first true King of Norway, the national hero of his country, and a man known not only for a mighty propensity for cleaving through his enemies like a psychotic escaped mental patient carving a Thanksgiving turkey but also for rocking a head of epically glorious glam metal hair so righteous it\'s the primary way violence-loving Viking skalds chose to remember his name.</p>\r\n<p>Seeing as how this guy never really bothered to write anything down because he was a little busy launching campaign after campaign to unify his country under the iron fist of one mighty axe-swinging ruler, many of the details of Harald\'s reign are cloaked in mythology, folklore, and awesome, hopefully-true anecdotes about his incredible 80&rsquo;s Camaro Axl Rose style golden feathered mullet.&nbsp; We know for sure that he was a real guy, that he was the father of his country, that he subjugated all the jarls of Norway under his rule, and that he founded a dynasty that would rule the northern Viking lands off and on throughout the entire Viking Age.&nbsp; Which is enough on its own, I suppose.&nbsp; But his story is too good not to tell in a little more detail. &nbsp;So for that we go to the sagas, one of which was written by a guy named Hornklove, which is awesome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As I\'ve mentioned previously, Norway wasn\'t actually a country or a kingdom back in the 800s AD.&nbsp; Known simply as the \"North Way\", this part of the Scandinavian Peninsula was really just a mish-mash of minor little Viking kingdoms, each ruled by a different guy.&nbsp; There was no national identity, no overarching king, and no Norwegian Olympic downhill skiing team &ndash; it was all just a loosely-associated group of crown-wearing bearded dudes ruling little towns and villages and generally just pretending they were a heck of a lot more important than they actually were.</p>\r\n<p>Young Harald Fairhair came from a long line of these minor kings, most of whom had met gruesome, untimely, and historically-unlikely ends.&nbsp; One great-great-great grandpa passed out and drowned in a vat of mead.&nbsp; Another was captured by the Swedish and offered to the gods as a human sacrifice.&nbsp; One was burned alive.&nbsp; Another was allegedly attacked in his bed and suffocated by demons, although this seems unlikely.&nbsp; Most met their ends the old-fashioned Viking way, either dying in combat or being murdered by their brothers, cousins, neighbors, or wives.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The most recent fatality in the unlucky history of Harald Fairhair\'s geneology was his pops, Halfdan the Black, who drowned when the Santa Claus-style sleigh he was driving crashed through the thin ice of a partially-thawed lake and dumped him into freezing-cold water.&nbsp; Harald was 10 years old when this happened.&nbsp; Now he was the ruler of the small kingdom of Vestfold.</p>\r\n<p>Now, as you can probably imagine, your typical big, strapping, hardcore Viking warrior wasn\'t exactly thrilled about the idea of having to take orders from a 10-year-old kid who hadn\'t even grown a decent beard yet, so a lot of Vestfold\'s jarls rose up and tried to gank power away from Harald.&nbsp; Luckily for the young king, he had a secret weapon &ndash; his father\'s chief military advisor and Captain of the Vestfold Royal Guard, a mega-tough human killing machine known as Duke Guthorm.&nbsp;&nbsp; Together with Guthorm, Harald (who was, it turned out, a whole lot tougher than his enemies expected) responded to the Jarls\' insubordination by mobilizing his troops and preparing for war.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>His first opponent was King Gandalf &ndash; yes you read that correctly &ndash; who tried to act quick and seize power right away before Harald could organize.&nbsp; But Harald wasn\'t the sort of man who hesitated, ever.&nbsp; He and Guthorm got the drop on Gandalf\'s army, ambushed him, cut off their escape, and killed both Gandalf and his son in a single battle.&nbsp; Then, when he heard some other guy was trying to overthrow Harald, the young king sent Viking warriors to sneak into that dude\'s city and set fire to his castle in the middle of the night.&nbsp; When the wannabe future king and his men ran outside to escape the blaze, they ran right into the spears of Harald Fairhair\'s warriors.</p>\r\n<p>A few years later, after cementing his power, Harald Fairhair decided he wanted to get married, so he sent his men to talk to the princess of a neighboring kingdom called Hordaland.&nbsp; The princess, whose name was Gyda, wasn\'t impressed by Harald or his hair.&nbsp; She was like, yeah, I don\'t think so.&nbsp; She told Harald\'s men that she was worthy of a mighty kingdom, like how Gorm the Old had united all of Denmark under a king and how Erik Weatherhat (yes, Weatherhat) had united Sweden a few years back, and if his Harald dude was so marriage-worthy how come all he had was some puny little nothing kingdom?&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>can you even dance, bro?<br /></em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Harald\'s men came back and relayed her message to their king, they politely asked if they should just burn down her castle and carry her away, but the king said no.&nbsp; He liked her spirit.&nbsp; He would be the man she deserved.&nbsp; He would rule Norway as one kingdom.</p>\r\n<p>That day, King Harald of Vestfold swore he would not cut or comb his hair until he had accomplished his epic mission &ndash; the conquest of every minor kingdom in Norway.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>check this shit out</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Very little is known of the bloody, ten-year-long campaign that ensued, except that no man could stand against the furious might of Harald\'s ridiculous, never-ending hair.&nbsp; His long, flowing locks blowing in the breeze behind him, the king charged across the coastal districts and fjords of Norway, into the Uplands, across dales and tundras, winning battle after battle, conquering obscure kingdom after obscure kingdom, destroying all who would dare oppose him on the field of battle.&nbsp; Outside Trondheim he defeated eight kings in eight battles to seize the city.&nbsp; Another time he killed three enemy kings in a single battle when they tried to team up against him.&nbsp; Before long, enemy kings were running the white flag up their castle walls as soon&nbsp; as they saw Harald\'s banners fluttering on the horizon.</p>\r\n<p>Unstoppable, strong-willed, and energetic, King Harald was also fair.&nbsp; He respected and upheld the laws passed at the Things, the parliaments held by the people.&nbsp; He let people do their own thing, and left the Jarls alone to run their territory untouched.&nbsp; He only asked for two things &ndash; he placed a Land Tax on the freemen, demanding them pay him for the priviledge of being theier king.&nbsp; The Jarls collected the money, kept one-third of it (which made them happy), and gave the rest to Harald.&nbsp; From the Jarls, Harald demanded 60 warriors for the national army, plus an additional 20 men from each of the Jarl\'s hersirs (lesser nobles that served under the jarl).&nbsp; This wasn\'t too tough &ndash; men from all over Norway, hearing the great tales of Harald\'s dominating victories, came from every corner of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden to seek glory, treasure, and excitement fighting for the hero-king and his dreadlocked uncombed mega-hair and matching floor-length beard.&nbsp; Before long, Harald became much-feared for personally charging into combat at the head of a super-scary force of over 60 hardcore shield-biting Viking Berserkers frothing at the mouth with uncontrollable rage and tearing their enemies\' armor apart with their bare hands.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Eventually, all of Norway was divided into two factions &ndash; the Kingdom of Harald Fairhair and a huge alliance of Norwegian rulers who would rather have been kings of tiny kingdoms than subordinates of Harald.&nbsp; At the Battle of Hafrsfjord around 880 AD, Harald Fairhair sailed his fleet into a fjord and crashed his ships into an enemy armada commanded by rulers with names like Solvi Bandy-Legs, Kjotvi the Rich, Tore Hagalang, and Hadd the Hard.&nbsp; Harald\'s ships lashed themselves to their foes and unloaded shiploads of berserkers, men battling hard across the ships and they burned and sank and broke apart, filling the harbor with shredded masts, broken shields, and terrified enemy warriors swimming for their lives.&nbsp; The battle was hard-fought, lasted all day, and left lots and lots of men at the bottom of the fjord.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At the end of the day, Harald Fairhair stood atop the prow of his dragon-headed longship, surveying the ultimate destruction of the enemy fleet.&nbsp;&nbsp; After ten years of war, he had finally conquered.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Harald, who at this point was named Harald Tanglehair thanks to his rat\'s nest of a head, finally cut his hair.&nbsp; The result was so incredible that he became known as Harald Fairhair, or, alternately, Harald Greathair.&nbsp; He married Princess Gyda and had five kids with her, but thanks to his awesome new hair women from all over the place were falling in love with him the second they saw him, and Gyda was one of like ten women who bore him somewhere between 16 and 20 kids during his lifetime.&nbsp; His favorite of these wives was Ragnhild the Mighty, a Princess of Denmark who captured Harald\'s heart so intensely that he divorced nine women before he married her.</p>\r\n<p>As King of Norway, Harald Fairhair went to work defending his borders and his kingdom against enemies from across the North Sea.&nbsp; Most of his foes, seeking to flee his wrath, had moved to Iceland, the Shetland Islands, the Orkneys, and the Hebrides in a desperate mass exodus, but now they were using their old Viking tricks to launch longship raids on Harald\'s territory in the summers.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>This wouldn\'t fly.&nbsp; Harald responded by sending fleets to all of these places and laying waste to anyone who would dare authorize a Viking raid on Norway.&nbsp; Before long, people chilled out.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Harald Fairhair ruled Norway as a fair, just, and powerful king for over 50 years, passing away around 933 AD at the age of 83, and today is revered as the father of his people, the greatest king in Norwegian history, and a central figure of the Viking Era.&nbsp; He was buried on the grounds of his favorite palace, and today his epic victory at Hafrsfjord is marked by one of the most hardcore monuments ever &ndash; a set of three gigantic Viking-style swords, each measuring over 30 feet tall, embedded side-by-side in the rocky cliff overlooking the fjord where the battle was fought.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/303556515876/haraldfairhair8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><strong><br clear=\"all\" /> </strong></p>\r\n<p><strong>&nbsp;</strong></p>','2015-06-05','303556515876','haraldfairhair.jpg','haraldfairhair-small.jpg','Harald Fairhair','Badass Viking ruler with amazing hair who refused to cut his locks or trim his beard until he\'d conquered every minor kingdom in Norway.','\"She has reminded me of those things which it now seems strange I have not thought of before.  And I make this vow, and the god who made me and rules all things shall be my witness, that never shall my hair be cut or combed till I have possessed myself of all Norway in scot, dues and rule –or else die.\"'),('Erik Thorvaldsson','c. 950 AD','c. 1005 AD','Rogaland, Norway','Medieval Viking Explorer','<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Hey guys, I&rsquo;m still working hard to promote <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316320560/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d3_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_s=desktop-4&amp;pf_rd_r=11V8H60247EQX9T80ZQR&amp;pf_rd_t=36701&amp;pf_rd_p=2090149782&amp;pf_rd_i=desktop\">my book on Vikings</a>, which is awesome and totally worth the ten bucks Amazon is trying to charge you for it, so this week I&rsquo;m presenting another chapter on one of the most badass Viking warriors to ever take down a Polar Bear with a hatchet &ndash; Erik the Red.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>I hope you like it, and I&rsquo;ll be back next week with something less Viking-related (probably).<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Also, if you live in the greater Seattle area, I&rsquo;m doing a book reading/signing and answering at <a href=\"http://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/lfp-ben-thompson-guts-glory-vikings\">Third Place Books </a>in Lake Forest Park on Wednesday, June 17<sup>th</sup> at 7pm.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Hopefully I&rsquo;ll see you there.</em></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik the Red was a gigantic Viking maniac with a humongous red beard, a steady axe-swinging hand, and a ferocious, rageful temper who completely flew off the handle and mass murdered his neighbors on more than one occasion.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was banished from two different Viking countries for being too over-the-top with his homicidal behavior, and in his exile from civilized society ended up braving the uncharted wilderness of a previously-unexplored land, somehow convinced like 400 people to follow him into the settlement of an unknown island that was blanketed by glaciers on 90% of its surface, became the ruler of his own private supervillain-style island fortress, and laid the foundation for the Norse people to discover the American continent roughly 500 years before Christopher Columbus led his now-famous voyage to the New World.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik, whose name comes from his red hair and fiery beard rather than his penchant for freaking out berserker-style and planting a hatchet in his next-door neighbors every time they forgot to return the lawnmower they borrowed, first shows up in history at around 980 AD.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>According to the sagas, Erik and his Dad had been forced to sail the 700 miles from Norway to Iceland after being convicted of &ldquo;some killings,&rdquo; probably in one of the family blood feuds the Vikings were so famous for, and both men were outlawed from ever returning.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik, already in his 30s by this point, settled down in Iceland, bought a farm, raised sheep, married a woman named Thjoldhild (Erik&rsquo;s mother-in-law was even-more-awesomely known as &ldquo;Thorbjorg Ship-Bosom&rdquo;), probably went on a few Viking raids in the summertime, and did well enough for himself that he was able to afford a bunch of nice stuff like livestock, gold, jewelry, and slaves.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Things were going pretty great until one day some of Erik&rsquo;s slaves were messing around with something and accidentally caused a huge landslide that crushed Erik&rsquo;s neighbor&rsquo;s house with an avalanche of boulders and dirt.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The neighbor, a little ticked-off about this turn of events, clawed his way out of the rubble, got together a couple of his closest friends, and killed all the slaves with an axe.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Bad move.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik returned his neighbor&rsquo;s kindness by knocking on the dude&rsquo;s door and burying a sword in him when he opened it.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>That guy&rsquo;s cousin, a battle-hardened warrior known as Hrafn the Dueler, challenged Erik to a duel, so Erik the Red killed that idiot too.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The dead neighbor&rsquo;s kinsmen, wising up to the fact that Erik the Red was friggin&rsquo; ginormous and knew how to handle himself in an ultra-vengeance<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>showdown, went the more civilized route and brought charges against Erik at the local Thing &ndash; a meeting of townspeople to discuss laws and settle disputes.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik was sentenced to Lesser Outlawry, meaning that he had three years to get the heck out of Iceland, and that he wouldn&rsquo;t be allowed to return for three more years.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Now barred from Iceland and Norway, Erik the Red headed to a small town to try and figure out what the heck he was going to do.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>While he was living there, a neighbor of his named Thorgest asked to borrow some bench boards because he was having some friends over for dinner, so Erik, being the good neighbor that he was, was like yeah buddy no problem of course.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Thorgest borrowed the benches, but then never returned them.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>After a few months had passed, Erik went to see what was going on with those missing boards, and while he and Thorgest were having a civilized discussion all of a sudden weapons were drawn and Erik found himself in a huge brawl where he killed Thorgest&rsquo;s two adult sons and &ldquo;certain other men&rdquo; in hand-to-hand combat with a huge two-handed Viking longaxe.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik found himself in Thing Court once more, and this time he was upgraded from Lesser Outlaw to Full Outlaw.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>This means that now only would he lose all of his land and property and be forced to leave the country immediately, but that it was illegal for any Icelander to help him in any way and any person from Iceland could just run up and kill him on sight without any legal penalty for doing so.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The two families who had suffered murdered family members on account of Erik were pretty happy about this, and immediately formed up vigilante posses to hunt this dude down and kill him beyond recognition.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik the Red, for his part, was done with all this garbage.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was outta here.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Civilized life was for chumps anyways.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik got together his family, a couple friends, and a few slaves and livestock, loaded them onto a rickety old ship, and sailed as far away from civilization as he could get.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Instead of heading East towards England, Denmark, or Europe, he went West in search of an uncharted land mass that had only been discovered about seventy years earlier &ndash; a huge, glacier-covered island we now know as Greenland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Greenland had been accidentally discovered by Gunnbjorn Ulf-Krakson, who found a &ldquo;bleak land of ice&rdquo; when he was looking for Iceland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Unimpressed, Ulf-Krakson turned around immediately and went back home.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>About twenty years after that a guy named Snaebjorn Galti and a group of colonists tried to settle on one of the frozen islands off the coast of Greenland (known by then as &ldquo;Gunnbjorn&rsquo;s Skerries&rdquo;), but that didn&rsquo;t work out so hot &ndash; living in Gunnbjorn&rsquo;s Skerries sucked so bad that all the colonists killed each other a few months after they moved there.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The settlement was never heard from again, and nobody had even tried to sail near there in like fifty years</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">So you can see the appeal for Erik the Red.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sailing five days in an old ship, hammered by storms, evading Titanic-sinking glaciers in the North Atlantic, and riding out high winds and waves in a rickety wooden boat (Icelandic lumber was no good for ship-building, so all the boats in Iceland were old used car-style ships that had been built in Norway many years earlier), Erik and his family made the perilous lone journey through uncharted waters to an island no European had ever set foot on before.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik found nothing of value on the East side of the island, but after he ventured around the cape on the southern end of the island he found a few decent spots on the West side that would be perfect pasture for livestock.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik settled down, unloaded his stuff, and prepared to live the next three years as an awesome survivalist mountain man, living off the land with only his wits and strength to keep himself and his family alive.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered5.JPG\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik climbed mountains, sailed up and down inlets, discovered fjords and forests and green pastures, identified a few good places for settlements, and named almost every geographic feature on the world&rsquo;s largest island after himself.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He survived three years in the hostile, freezing climate of Greenland, fishing for salmon and cod in the fjords, raising goats and cows in the fields, and constantly laughing his butt off because the native animals of the island had never seen people before so you could literally walk right up to them and bop them on the head with an axe and then turn their bodies for everything from stylish fur coats to a delicious Sunday brunch.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">While he was gone Erik somehow apparently managed to get his Full Outlaw status downgraded to Lesser Outlaw (how he did this isn&rsquo;t clear, but it definitely involved another round of sword-on-sword combat with his old neighbor Thorgest), and when he triumphantly returned to Iceland in 985 he had some amazing stories to tell people of how the new, glorious land he had discovered was so completely awesome that everyone should move there.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Even though he knew the place was almost entirely covered by glaciers and solid ice pack Erik told everyone he had named it Greenland because of its sprawling pastures and green fields.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>His reasoning for the incongruous name, according to the sagas, is that \"people would be more eager to go there if it had a good name.\"<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Which is rad.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Inspired by his tales of adventure and his stories of a fantasy land where pretty girls and money and beer literally grow on trees, Erik the Red convinced hundreds of Icelanders to follow him back to Greenland and start a Viking colony there.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>25 ships loaded with men, women, children and livestock set sail in 985.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">By the time they reached Greenland, only 14 of those ships remained &ndash; the rest had been sunk in storms, crashed into ice floes, or turned back due to rough seas and the sheer terror of the insane journey they were making.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The colonists, some of whom remarked that they couldn&rsquo;t see the &ldquo;green parts&rdquo; of the island, still stayed and settled in two villages, with the main settlement, set up at a place known as Eriksfjord (after Erik of course), was home to nearly 400 villagers. <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The people of Greenland did pretty well for themselves.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They hunted reindeer, wild hares, whales and walruses, setting up trade with everyone from the Inuit to the Norwegians.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The main Greenland exports were ivory from walrus tusks and narwhal horns, whalebone crafts, and exotic pelts and furs from previously-unknown creatures like Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Even Erik settled down.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He had three kids, set up a couple churches (at his wife&rsquo;s request&hellip; according to the tales he was &ldquo;greatly annoyed&rdquo; when she gave up the Heathen gods and took Catholicism as her religion), and ruled over the Greenlanders as a Jarl, arbitrating disputes, running the show, and, as far as we know, not flipping out and killing anyone with an axe from some arbitrary reason.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He did such a successful job of managing his colony (who saw that coming?!) that more and more people moved to Greenland over the next few years.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The colony thrived for nearly450 years, and eventually featured over 300 farms, was home to roughly 4,000 people, and had every Catholic religious structure ranging from a cathedral to a convent.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>It would only fall apart in 1450, when a dramatic climate change made the land too cold for livestock and forced the Greenlanders to seek new lives elsewhere.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Nowadays it&rsquo;s populated entirely by the Inuit, and is run as a self-governing community operating under the Danish Crown.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As for the mass-murdering explorer / Viking hero, Erik the Red would rule Greenland for the next 15 years or so.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Even as an old man he tried to accompany his son Leif Ericsson on an expedition that would eventually discover North America (I&rsquo;ll deal with that story later), but while riding to the docks he was thrown from his horse, broke two ribs, and hurt his shoulder, and wasn&rsquo;t able to make the trip to Canada.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He died of illness in 1001 AD, a man who went from violent outlaw to one of the greatest explorers and adventurers of the Viking Age.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/165030126708/erikthered8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\r\n <o:OfficeDocumentSettings>\r\n  <o:AllowPNG/>\r\n </o:OfficeDocumentSettings>\r\n</xml><![endif]-->\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Hey guys, I&rsquo;m still working hard to promote <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316320560/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d3_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_s=desktop-4&amp;pf_rd_r=11V8H60247EQX9T80ZQR&amp;pf_rd_t=36701&amp;pf_rd_p=2090149782&amp;pf_rd_i=desktop\">my book on Vikings</a>, which is awesome and totally worth the ten bucks Amazon is trying to charge you for it, so this week I&rsquo;m presenting another chapter on one of the most badass Viking warriors to ever take down a Polar Bear with a hatchet &ndash; Erik the Red.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>I hope you like it, and I&rsquo;ll be back next week with something less Viking-related (probably).<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Also, if you live in the greater Seattle area, I&rsquo;m doing a book reading/signing and answering at <a href=\"http://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/lfp-ben-thompson-guts-glory-vikings\">Third Place Books </a>in Lake Forest Park on Wednesday, June 17<sup>th</sup> at 7pm.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Hopefully I&rsquo;ll see you there.</em></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik the Red was a gigantic Viking maniac with a humongous red beard, a steady axe-swinging hand, and a ferocious, rageful temper who completely flew off the handle and mass murdered his neighbors on more than one occasion.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was banished from two different Viking countries for being too over-the-top with his homicidal behavior, and in his exile from civilized society ended up braving the uncharted wilderness of a previously-unexplored land, somehow convinced like 400 people to follow him into the settlement of an unknown island that was blanketed by glaciers on 90% of its surface, became the ruler of his own private supervillain-style island fortress, and laid the foundation for the Norse people to discover the American continent roughly 500 years before Christopher Columbus led his now-famous voyage to the New World.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic1&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik, whose name comes from his red hair and fiery beard rather than his penchant for freaking out berserker-style and planting a hatchet in his next-door neighbors every time they forgot to return the lawnmower they borrowed, first shows up in history at around 980 AD.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>According to the sagas, Erik and his Dad had been forced to sail the 700 miles from Norway to Iceland after being convicted of &ldquo;some killings,&rdquo; probably in one of the family blood feuds the Vikings were so famous for, and both men were outlawed from ever returning.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik, already in his 30s by this point, settled down in Iceland, bought a farm, raised sheep, married a woman named Thjoldhild (Erik&rsquo;s mother-in-law was even-more-awesomely known as &ldquo;Thorbjorg Ship-Bosom&rdquo;), probably went on a few Viking raids in the summertime, and did well enough for himself that he was able to afford a bunch of nice stuff like livestock, gold, jewelry, and slaves.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Things were going pretty great until one day some of Erik&rsquo;s slaves were messing around with something and accidentally caused a huge landslide that crushed Erik&rsquo;s neighbor&rsquo;s house with an avalanche of boulders and dirt.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The neighbor, a little ticked-off about this turn of events, clawed his way out of the rubble, got together a couple of his closest friends, and killed all the slaves with an axe.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Bad move.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic2&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik returned his neighbor&rsquo;s kindness by knocking on the dude&rsquo;s door and burying a sword in him when he opened it.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>That guy&rsquo;s cousin, a battle-hardened warrior known as Hrafn the Dueler, challenged Erik to a duel, so Erik the Red killed that idiot too.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The dead neighbor&rsquo;s kinsmen, wising up to the fact that Erik the Red was friggin&rsquo; ginormous and knew how to handle himself in an ultra-vengeance<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>showdown, went the more civilized route and brought charges against Erik at the local Thing &ndash; a meeting of townspeople to discuss laws and settle disputes.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik was sentenced to Lesser Outlawry, meaning that he had three years to get the heck out of Iceland, and that he wouldn&rsquo;t be allowed to return for three more years.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Now barred from Iceland and Norway, Erik the Red headed to a small town to try and figure out what the heck he was going to do.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>While he was living there, a neighbor of his named Thorgest asked to borrow some bench boards because he was having some friends over for dinner, so Erik, being the good neighbor that he was, was like yeah buddy no problem of course.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Thorgest borrowed the benches, but then never returned them.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>After a few months had passed, Erik went to see what was going on with those missing boards, and while he and Thorgest were having a civilized discussion all of a sudden weapons were drawn and Erik found himself in a huge brawl where he killed Thorgest&rsquo;s two adult sons and &ldquo;certain other men&rdquo; in hand-to-hand combat with a huge two-handed Viking longaxe.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic3&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik found himself in Thing Court once more, and this time he was upgraded from Lesser Outlaw to Full Outlaw.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>This means that now only would he lose all of his land and property and be forced to leave the country immediately, but that it was illegal for any Icelander to help him in any way and any person from Iceland could just run up and kill him on sight without any legal penalty for doing so.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The two families who had suffered murdered family members on account of Erik were pretty happy about this, and immediately formed up vigilante posses to hunt this dude down and kill him beyond recognition.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik the Red, for his part, was done with all this garbage.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was outta here.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Civilized life was for chumps anyways.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik got together his family, a couple friends, and a few slaves and livestock, loaded them onto a rickety old ship, and sailed as far away from civilization as he could get.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Instead of heading East towards England, Denmark, or Europe, he went West in search of an uncharted land mass that had only been discovered about seventy years earlier &ndash; a huge, glacier-covered island we now know as Greenland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic4&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Greenland had been accidentally discovered by Gunnbjorn Ulf-Krakson, who found a &ldquo;bleak land of ice&rdquo; when he was looking for Iceland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Unimpressed, Ulf-Krakson turned around immediately and went back home.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>About twenty years after that a guy named Snaebjorn Galti and a group of colonists tried to settle on one of the frozen islands off the coast of Greenland (known by then as &ldquo;Gunnbjorn&rsquo;s Skerries&rdquo;), but that didn&rsquo;t work out so hot &ndash; living in Gunnbjorn&rsquo;s Skerries sucked so bad that all the colonists killed each other a few months after they moved there.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The settlement was never heard from again, and nobody had even tried to sail near there in like fifty years</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">So you can see the appeal for Erik the Red.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sailing five days in an old ship, hammered by storms, evading Titanic-sinking glaciers in the North Atlantic, and riding out high winds and waves in a rickety wooden boat (Icelandic lumber was no good for ship-building, so all the boats in Iceland were old used car-style ships that had been built in Norway many years earlier), Erik and his family made the perilous lone journey through uncharted waters to an island no European had ever set foot on before.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik found nothing of value on the East side of the island, but after he ventured around the cape on the southern end of the island he found a few decent spots on the West side that would be perfect pasture for livestock.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Erik settled down, unloaded his stuff, and prepared to live the next three years as an awesome survivalist mountain man, living off the land with only his wits and strength to keep himself and his family alive.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic5&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Erik climbed mountains, sailed up and down inlets, discovered fjords and forests and green pastures, identified a few good places for settlements, and named almost every geographic feature on the world&rsquo;s largest island after himself.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He survived three years in the hostile, freezing climate of Greenland, fishing for salmon and cod in the fjords, raising goats and cows in the fields, and constantly laughing his butt off because the native animals of the island had never seen people before so you could literally walk right up to them and bop them on the head with an axe and then turn their bodies for everything from stylish fur coats to a delicious Sunday brunch.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">While he was gone Erik somehow apparently managed to get his Full Outlaw status downgraded to Lesser Outlaw (how he did this isn&rsquo;t clear, but it definitely involved another round of sword-on-sword combat with his old neighbor Thorgest), and when he triumphantly returned to Iceland in 985 he had some amazing stories to tell people of how the new, glorious land he had discovered was so completely awesome that everyone should move there.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Even though he knew the place was almost entirely covered by glaciers and solid ice pack Erik told everyone he had named it Greenland because of its sprawling pastures and green fields.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>His reasoning for the incongruous name, according to the sagas, is that \"people would be more eager to go there if it had a good name.\"<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Which is rad.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic6&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Inspired by his tales of adventure and his stories of a fantasy land where pretty girls and money and beer literally grow on trees, Erik the Red convinced hundreds of Icelanders to follow him back to Greenland and start a Viking colony there.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>25 ships loaded with men, women, children and livestock set sail in 985.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">By the time they reached Greenland, only 14 of those ships remained &ndash; the rest had been sunk in storms, crashed into ice floes, or turned back due to rough seas and the sheer terror of the insane journey they were making.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The colonists, some of whom remarked that they couldn&rsquo;t see the &ldquo;green parts&rdquo; of the island, still stayed and settled in two villages, with the main settlement, set up at a place known as Eriksfjord (after Erik of course), was home to nearly 400 villagers. <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic7&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The people of Greenland did pretty well for themselves.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They hunted reindeer, wild hares, whales and walruses, setting up trade with everyone from the Inuit to the Norwegians.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The main Greenland exports were ivory from walrus tusks and narwhal horns, whalebone crafts, and exotic pelts and furs from previously-unknown creatures like Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Even Erik settled down.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He had three kids, set up a couple churches (at his wife&rsquo;s request&hellip; according to the tales he was &ldquo;greatly annoyed&rdquo; when she gave up the Heathen gods and took Catholicism as her religion), and ruled over the Greenlanders as a Jarl, arbitrating disputes, running the show, and, as far as we know, not flipping out and killing anyone with an axe from some arbitrary reason.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He did such a successful job of managing his colony (who saw that coming?!) that more and more people moved to Greenland over the next few years.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The colony thrived for nearly450 years, and eventually featured over 300 farms, was home to roughly 4,000 people, and had every Catholic religious structure ranging from a cathedral to a convent.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>It would only fall apart in 1450, when a dramatic climate change made the land too cold for livestock and forced the Greenlanders to seek new lives elsewhere.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Nowadays it&rsquo;s populated entirely by the Inuit, and is run as a self-governing community operating under the Danish Crown.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As for the mass-murdering explorer / Viking hero, Erik the Red would rule Greenland for the next 15 years or so.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Even as an old man he tried to accompany his son Leif Ericsson on an expedition that would eventually discover North America (I&rsquo;ll deal with that story later), but while riding to the docks he was thrown from his horse, broke two ribs, and hurt his shoulder, and wasn&rsquo;t able to make the trip to Canada.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He died of illness in 1001 AD, a man who went from violent outlaw to one of the greatest explorers and adventurers of the Viking Age.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&lt;pic8&gt;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\r\n <w:WordDocument>\r\n  <w:View>Normal</w:View>\r\n  <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>\r\n  <w:TrackMoves/>\r\n  <w:TrackFormatting/>\r\n  <w:PunctuationKerning/>\r\n  <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>\r\n  <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>\r\n  <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>\r\n  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Locked=\"false\" Priority=\"33\" SemiHidden=\"false\"\r\n   UnhideWhenUsed=\"false\" QFormat=\"true\" Name=\"Book Title\"/>\r\n  <w:LsdException Locked=\"false\" Priority=\"37\" Name=\"Bibliography\"/>\r\n  <w:LsdException Locked=\"false\" Priority=\"39\" QFormat=\"true\" Name=\"TOC Heading\"/>\r\n </w:LatentStyles>\r\n</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>\r\n<style>\r\n /* Style Definitions */\r\n table.MsoNormalTable\r\n	{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\r\n	mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\r\n	mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\r\n	mso-style-noshow:yes;\r\n	mso-style-priority:99;\r\n	mso-style-parent:\"\";\r\n	mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\r\n	mso-para-margin:0in;\r\n	mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\r\n	line-height:115%;\r\n	mso-pagination:widow-orphan;\r\n	font-size:8.0pt;\r\n	font-family:\"Arial\",\"sans-serif\";}\r\n</style>\r\n<![endif]-->','2015-06-12','165030126708','erikthered.jpg','erikthered-small.jpg','Erik the Red','A convicted Viking mass-murderer somehow convinces 400 people to follow him to Greenland and let him rule as their Jarl.','\"The people will be more easily persuaded to move there if the land has an attractive name.\"'),('Classified','c. 1973','N/A','Iraq','21st-century Iraqi Guerilla','<p>Here is a picture of a gigantically-jacked bald motherfucker with a huge beard stomping through the bullet-riddled streets of Tikrit, Iraq during one of the largest and most brutal urban street warfare the Middle East has ever seen.&nbsp; He is wearing tactical kevlar body armor packed with grenades, has a grenade-launcher-equipped M4 assault rifle slung from his back, and is carrying a goddamn fucking <em>old-school scimitar</em> in a manner that indicates he&rsquo;s probably swung one of these things in anger before.</p>\r\n<p>This picture was taken three months ago, during the height of the Battle of Tikrit.&nbsp;&nbsp; It is of a man known as Abu Azrael &ndash; the &ldquo;Angel of Death&rdquo; &ndash; and he is a national hero of the brave, determined resistance the Iraqi people are putting up against the brutal onslaught of ISIS.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>If I&rsquo;m completely honest with you guys, there really isn&rsquo;t much I can tell you with certainty about the Angel of Death.&nbsp; As can be the case with some of the great mysterious badass motherfuckers from history, there exist only rumors about his history, and since this dude is basically sitting at the top of ISIS&rsquo;s &ldquo;People We Need to Behead on Twitter&rdquo; list, he&rsquo;s not exactly thrilled about the idea of writing down his phone number and home address on a Post-It and sending it to a group of rampaging homicidal Jihadis on a paper airplane.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Some claim that he used to be a lecturer at a university somewhere in Iraq, and that he was once the Iraqi national Taekwondo champion, but that he left his home at age 37 after he saw some ISIS dudes behead a Shi&rsquo;ite with an axe in the streets outside his house.&nbsp; This is the story I prefer, mostly because it&rsquo;s weird and awesome, and also because when he re-tells the story he off-handedly comments that he personally tracked down the leader of the beheaders a few days later, grabbed him by the throat, took away the guy&rsquo;s axe and &ldquo;butchered him into gravy,&rdquo; which is such an awesome pump-up expression that it makes me want to get KFC on the way home from work tonight and eat it straight out of the Styrofoam container like some kind of fucking barbarian.&nbsp; Other folks claim that this dude is actually an experienced Special Operations soldier with decades of combat experience in locations from Lebanon to Syria, and that he could potentially even be a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who has received additional training from Hezbollah, the Mujahideen, and American Green Berets.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know, maybe he&rsquo;s some combination of the two.&nbsp; Whatever the case, here&rsquo;s a picture of him holding the fucking axe I was just talking about.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br />FUCK YEAH DECAPITATIONS</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Since I assume most people these days get their news by half-assedly skimming poorly-researched clickbait headlines while scrolling their Facebook feed for Grumpy Cat pictures, here&rsquo;s the deal with ISIS.&nbsp; These guys are a bunch of assholes who are looking to overthrow every legitimate government in the Middle East and build some humongous fundamentalist empire that basically combines every Muslim country from Indonesia to Morocco under one big black pirate flag where nobody can smoke pot and it&rsquo;s totally OK to punch women in the head whenever you want.&nbsp; These radical dudes (and I use radical in a &ldquo;Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs&rdquo; way and not a cool Ninja Turtles way) like to think they are the modern-day successors to the great Islamic Caliphates of the Abbassids and the Umayyads during the Middle Ages, and typically like to spread their message by loading Humvees full of C4 and then driving them into army checkpoints.</p>\r\n<p>For reference, here is a contemporary illustration depicting Baghdad in 1200 AD, at the height of the Caliphate:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>You know what?&nbsp; A return to the Golden Age of Islam wouldn&rsquo;t be a bad thing!&nbsp; During an incredible and unprecedented age of thought, literature, art, and culture that flourished across the Middle East between 700 and 1300 AD, Islamic scholars performed amazing works of advancement in mathematics, science, astronomy and medicine.&nbsp; The astronomer al-Battani accurately calculated the solar year and created numeric tables charting the course of the moon and planets through the night sky (these tables would later be used by guys like Copernicus and Galileo), then further developed these tables using complicated astrolabes invented by other Arab scientists.&nbsp; The mathematician al-Kwarizmi created Arabic numerals (those numbers across the top of your keyboard) and invented algebra, setting up other Islamic mathematicians to later create trigonometry and calculus.&nbsp; The physician and researcher al-Razi wrote a 23-volume work assembling all the combined medical expertise of Ancient Greece, China, India and the Middle East into one cohesive tome.</p>\r\n<p>What&rsquo;s ISIS doing to bring that Golden Age back, you might ask?&nbsp; Well, when they captured the city of Mosul a few months ago they burned every book in the library, crucified all the Christians, beheaded Shi&rsquo;ites, set a few people on fire, and enslaved all of the women they could catch.&nbsp; Oh yeah, and then they set all the cigarettes and beer on fire as well, which is kind of like kicking a dude&rsquo;s dog after you&rsquo;ve just murdered his entire family in front of him.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately, there&rsquo;s not much stopping these fucks either.&nbsp; The Iraqi Regular Army pretty much collapsed when Ramadi fell in May, and now there is a huge, unsettling reliance on minuteman-style militia groups to step up and protect the people of Iraq from an onrushing horde of ultra-fundamentalist mass-murdering maniacs hell-bent on reducing the Iraqi people and their homeland into a fucking pre-Dark Ages smoking ruin.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As it stands right now, the front line of the war in Iraq is just 70 miles north of Baghdad.&nbsp; The barbarians are at the gates, and the Iraqi people need a hero.</p>\r\n<p>What they&rsquo;ve got is Abu Azrael, a dude who looks like a combination of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kratos.html\">Kratos</a> and The Rock and goes into battle with a scimitar, an assault rifle, and two iPhones strapped to his armor.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael5.jpg\" alt=\"\" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael5a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Abu Azrael is the commander of the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/alitalib.html\">Imam Ali</a> Brigade, a rag-tag volunteer militia of Shi&rsquo;ite Muslims who would rather eat beer-battered bacon than watch a bunch of ISIS fucks stomp through Bagdad setting all its citizens on fire.&nbsp; Fighting on the front lines of dozens of battles across the northwest of Iraq (and possibly even into Syria), Azrael styles himself as a defender of &ldquo;all oppressed people&rdquo;, from Christians to Sunni Muslims, rocking a heavy MG and a fucking razor-sharp scimitar as he stomps around the desert looking for ISIS losers to decapitate with extreme prejudice.&nbsp; Backed by everyone from the United States to Iran, Abu Azrael can be found near the battlefront from Fallujah to Tikrit, fighting with everything from RPGs to SAW machine guns.&nbsp; And, unlike a few other Iranian-backed Shi&rsquo;ite militias out there that are committing war crimes and atrocities of their own, Abu Azrael makes a point of ordering his men to avoid injuring civilians of any persuasion at all costs, saying that &ldquo;We are all one country, one Iraq,&rdquo; and that he won&rsquo;t stop until ISIS has been thrown out of there.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><br /><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael7b.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Even getting fucking blown up by a grenade didn&rsquo;t slow this guy down &ndash; Abu was blown out of his pickup truck by an RPG a few months ago, broke his hand in several places, and was still on the front-lines spraying fire from a custom M4 he&rsquo;s outfitted with a 100-round drum magazine and a grenade launcher like he just didn&rsquo;t give a shit.&nbsp; Azrael was also recently called in by the Iraqi Army to help retake the country&rsquo;s largest oil field, which has fallen into ISIS hands, and it&rsquo;s pretty fair to reason that on the mission he&rsquo;s going to be working with a few Green Berets or SEALs or possible some other ultra-black-ops PMC shit as well.</p>\r\n<p>On a completely unrelated note, here&rsquo;s a picture of him laughing at a man-eating tiger that is currently growling at him from less than three feet away.&nbsp; I have no idea what&rsquo;s happening with this but what the hell.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>&ldquo;I welcome death if destiny brings it.&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now here&rsquo;s some weird shit &ndash; every time you read a story about this guy, like half the fucking article is dedicated to telling you that Abu Azrael has a pimped-out Facebook page and it has like a shit-ton of followers or whatever.&nbsp; The first couple times I read this I was like who fucking gives a crap, but honestly this is actually kind of the point of this guy.&nbsp; Abu Azrael is badass not JUST because he kills Medieval Revivalists with a sword in the year 2015 AD, but because he posts videos of it on YouTube and then takes a selfie with an Iraqi Colonel and the decapitated head of his enemies so he can post it as a comment on ISIS&rsquo;s Instagram page.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s the ultimate anti-ISIS propaganda weapon &ndash; a native Iraqi, kicking asses for Iraq, who livestreams the entire battle on Twitch so his people can finally see something morale-boosting on the Internet for once.&nbsp; When you&rsquo;re dealing with an enemy that live-Tweets car bombings and broadcasts the aftermath to the world, the only way to keep your army and your population from being completely demoralized is to strap an iPhone to your chest, grab a woodcutter&rsquo;s axe, and show the Iraqis that there are big scary motherfuckers out there fighting on their side as well.&nbsp; I honestly don&rsquo;t even care if everything about this guy is a total bullshit &ndash; Abu Azrael serves a powerful purpose to the Iraqi people just because he&rsquo;s super famous over there for kicking the shit out of ISIS and not letting a bunch of fucks come in and crush your city without a fight.&nbsp; I mean, every time this guy gets called to an Army base to help with a mission, he&rsquo;s mobbed by troops who want pictures with him or to shake his hand or something.&nbsp; That ability to inspire that kind of morale in an army that is fighting a losing war a dozen miles from their capital is even more valuable than Abu Azrael going Super Saiyan and hosing down hundreds of enemy soldiers with a minigun he just ripped off the door of a Blackhawk.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael7c.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Abu Azrael has a catchphrase: &ldquo;illa tahin&rdquo;.&nbsp; It means &ldquo;into flour.&rdquo;&nbsp; Apparently, in one of his videos Azrael took a walkie-talkie off an ISIS fighter he&rsquo;d just killed with his bare hands by crushing his skull with a gigantic dictionary-sized fist.&nbsp; Azrael talked into the radio, and was surprised to hear an ISIS voice come back asking him for a status update.&nbsp; Abu Azrael introduced himself, did an &ldquo;ooooh, I\'m very sorry Hans. I didn\'t get that message,&rdquo; bit, and then told the guy on the other line that he was going to kill every last ISIS fighter he could find and grind them all into flour.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Nowadays you can&rsquo;t walk down the street in Baghdad without seeing this phrase printed on someone&rsquo;s t-shirt.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/269178232573/abuazrael8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>http://news.yahoo.com/abu-azrael-iraqs-celebrity-anti-fighter-133311351.html</p>\r\n<p>http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-31913278</p>\r\n<p>http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/father-of-the-archangel-of-death-wins-celebrity-status-in-fight-against-is/story-fnjwnhzf-1227269435767</p>\r\n<p>http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/03/angel-death-coming-isil-150318114637222.html</p>\r\n<p>http://www.vocativ.com/world/isis-2/iraqi-angel-of-death-meet-isis-worst-nightmare-in-tikrit/</p>\r\n<p>http://www.vocativ.com/world/isis-2/interview-with-iraqi-father-of-the-angel-of-death-who-fights-isis/</p>\r\n<p>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2993489/Meet-Iraqi-soldier-known-Angel-Death-famous-axe-wielding-Iraqi-former-university-lecturer-fighting-ISIS.html</p>\r\n<p>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Azrael</p>','2015-06-19','269178232573','abuazrael.jpg','abuazrael-small.jpg','Abu Azrael','Iraqi militia folk hero who fights ISIS with a sword.','\"We are bringing victory. We are your hell.\"'),('Ana Lezama de Urinza','c. 1600','c. 1650','Potosi, Peru','17th-century Peruvian Adventurer','<p>Constructed around the foothills of a gigantic mountain that was completely stuff to the balls with silver ore, Potosi, Peru, was one of the most populous and richest cities in the world in the 1600s.&nbsp; It also happened to be one of the most gangsta outlaw cities in the New World, with unscrupulous money-grubbing barons and assholes mining bosses all ruthlessly battling each other for position, hardened manual laborers blowing their new-found riches on booze, gambling, and women, and back-alley ball-shanking banditos seeking to profit from all the horrible illegal shit that goes along with big city living in 17<sup>th</sup>-century frontier South America. &nbsp;The town had a massive rich-poor divide, with the aristocratic Spaniard families throwing humongous Antonio Banderas <em>Mask of Zorro </em>style parties like all the fucking time, while around the corner it was something out of goddamn <em>Desperado</em> with a gang of dudes beating the ever-loving holy shit out of each other with swords and pistols in a badass street-clearing brawl.&nbsp; The massive city had a population larger than London and was home to fourteen dancing schools, thirty-six gambling halls, countless bars and brothels, a Catholic cathedral, a theater, and a bullfighting ring, and this place was so intense that the fucking Town Council members typically held session while wearing chainmail shirts under their clothing (Red Wedding style).&nbsp; According to one man who visited Potosi in the 1650s, &ldquo;nearly [everyone] wore three or four rough leather jackets, one on top of the other, as protection from sword stabs,&rdquo; which honestly kind of makes the place sound like a weird mix between <em>Unforgiven </em>and <em>The Outsiders</em> if it was directed by Robert Rodriguez.&nbsp; One thing was for certain &ndash; adventure, death, vast riches and horrible sword-related piece-by-piece dismemberment awaited adventurers at every turn, and the entire place had a live fast die young mentality that would make it the perfect town if you wanted to run a colonial South America <em>Pathfinder</em> module.</p>\r\n<p>And at the heart of all that sword-swinging drunken street brawl motherfucking mayhem stood two of the most famous warriors in the history of Peru &ndash; Dona Ana Lezama de Urinza and Dona Eustaquia de Sonza, the flamboyant lesbian lover vigilante swordswoman duelists who traveled the land like cowboy Batgirls honing their swordfighting skills against any motherfuckers dumb enough to try and fuck with them.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ana Lezama de Urinza was born on the streets of Potosi, Peru, sometime in the 1600s.&nbsp; All we really know about her background is that she grew up an orphan, fighting for survival in one of the toughest cities on the planet and scrounging her way through life, until one day she somehow befriended the woman who would eventually become her hot girl-on-girl lover &ndash; the Dona Eustaquia de Sonza, daughter of the powerful Spanish aristocrat Don de Sonza.&nbsp; Eustaquia lived in a fucking awesome villa overlooking the city, wore the finest silks and jewels, and basically got to drink solid gold martinis while a half-dozen servants fanned her with giant feather dusters, and the two girls became such close friends that when Ana was 12 she was formally adopted into the household of the Don de Sonza.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ana and Eustaquia spent most of their time being trained by in boring shit like how to sew and cook and plant flowers or whatever the fuck else, but what they were really actually interested in doing was learning how to beat the shit out of people with a sword and then dance a promiscuous tango over their still-warm corpses.&nbsp; Eustaquia&rsquo;s brother was being trained in fencing by an ultra-intense Spanish sword master, and the two girls would always make a point of hanging out so they could watch his lessons.&nbsp; Well, sadly, the brother died one day for some reason that was never really explained to me and that I didn&rsquo;t bother investigating, but the upshot was that the sword master was already basically on the family payroll already so Dad was just like fuck it and had him teach the girls instead.&nbsp; By the time these young women were thirteen, they were already tits-deep in intense fencing lessons under one of South America&rsquo;s most prestigious sword masters.&nbsp; And when this guy wasn&rsquo;t teaching them how to crack skulls with a rapier he was giving them horseback lessons or training them how to load and fire a musket, because these are important skills to have when you&rsquo;re living in a city with a homicide rate that would make Wyatt Earp turn pale.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em>And what do we say to death?&nbsp; &ldquo;Not today.&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, back in the 1600s it wasn&rsquo;t really considered proper or socially-acceptable for women to go roaming the streets and alleys of a city drunkenly trying to get into fights with random dudes and then kicking in their skulls with a cool-looking yet-fashionable pair of leather boots, so Ana and Eustaquia spent most of their time stuck up inside the walls of the villa, which was boring and also sucked balls to the max.&nbsp; Eager to test their skill in combat and get a taste of what the real world had to offer, the two women came up with a plan &ndash; they would disguise themselves as men, tie their hair up under their cool cowboy hats, sneak out of the villa after bedtime and go off to seek their adventures in the city.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, just so you have a little reference here, let me present a couple pictures of what Potosi, Peru looks like:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza3a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza3b.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em>btw that hill was completely FULL of silver y\'all<br /></em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza3c.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>This is some awesome Puss in Boots fucking Once Upon a Time in Mexico shit, and basically every street corner looked like something out of a Danny Trejo movie, where you&rsquo;d expect to see John Woo&rsquo;s white doves flying up in the air while six guys pointed revolvers at each other (I know they didn&rsquo;t have revolvers in 1600, but bear with me on this).&nbsp; Carousing their way through the busy streets of South America&rsquo;s rowdiest city, these two caballeros-in-disguise hit bars, got drunk, picked fights, danced with hot chicks at clubs, bluffed motherfuckers at smoky poker tables, watched matadors battle bulls, and did a bunch of other awesome shit that would have made their Dad have a fucking aneurysm and start shooting blood out of his nose.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>One more than one occasion this Peruvian Xena and Gabrielle ended up getting into sword fights on the streets of Potosi, sometimes against multiple opponents at once.&nbsp; In one of their more famous battles, the two women were up against four banditos who I assume had evil curly moustaches, each of them circling the women in an alley with their blades drawn.&nbsp; The two women, fighting back-to-back, lunged out at their foes, fighting like demons, and battling on despite receiving multiple bloody stab wounds.&nbsp; At one point Ana was cracked in the jaw with a sword hilt and lost consciousness, hitting the cobblestone street hard.&nbsp; Dona Eustaquia went full blood-rage, taking on four men herself to protect her wounded companion, and after deflecting quite a few attacks she was relieved to see Ana finally stagger back up to her feet, her eyes burning for vengeance.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ana lunged at the man who had wounded her, shouting vile obscenities about his parentage and his station in life, and then slashed that douchebag so hard it nearly severed his hand clean off.&nbsp; He dropped his blade and ran for it like a jackass, and his friends followed suit because they knew they had no fucking chance anymore because they only outnumbered the women three-to-two.&nbsp; After the fighting ended, the lovers took off their armor to examine their wounds (even though it&rsquo;s not exactly a cool thing to admit these days I&rsquo;m totally picturing this going down as a softcore porn montage) , and found that Ana had been slashed twice, both wounds being fairly serious, and Eustaquia had three cuts including one large one across her back.&nbsp; But hey, all badasses need a few badass scars, and a few cutlass slashes received while outnumbered two-to-one in a back-alley street duel certainly qualifies for that.</p>\r\n<p>According to legends I couldn&rsquo;t find sources on, the women eventually stopped just looking for fights with easily-agitated caballeros and ended up becoming full-on vigilantes, patrolling the streets in search of motherfuckers who needed their shit rearranged with a sword point.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <br /> <img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza5a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For the next five years, these women traveled the land, winning card games, fighting bulls (usually on horseback!), attending the finest parties with the ultra-rich one day and drinking at the seediest bars with the lowest level of scumbag the next.&nbsp; Eventually it seems that it became known they were actually women, because before long they were known as the &ldquo;Valiant Ladies of Potosi,&rdquo; a name that is still well-known on the streets of the town.&nbsp; What is known for sure is that these women were legendary even in their own time.</p>\r\n<p>The couple eventually returned home after the death of Don de Sonza, sometime it seems in the mid-1600s.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not clear how old the women were when this happened, but it&rsquo;s probably safe to assume they were still fairly young.&nbsp; The Don left the girls his entire estate in his will, so they had to settle down from their life of adventure and start running the household, but it&rsquo;s not like that kept them from getting out into town every so often and raising even more epic levels of hell.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Sadly, Ana died a few years later, passing away from complications of a serious wound she received when a fucking pissed-off bull gored her during a bullfight (just before she shanked him to death).&nbsp; Dona Eustaquia went into deep mourning for her lover, and died just four months later of a broken heart.</p>\r\n<p>The Valiant Women of Potosi remains one of the most popular folk tales in Peruvian history.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/29009176046/urinza7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Sources:</p>\r\n<p>Arzans de Orsua y Vela, Bartolomo.<em> Stories of the Imperial Town of Potosi</em>.&nbsp; Plural Editores, 2000.</p>\r\n<p>Crow, John A.&nbsp; <em>The Epic of Latin America</em>.&nbsp; University of California Press, 1992.</p>\r\n<p>Green, Thomas A.&nbsp; <em>Marital Arts of the World</em>.&nbsp; ABC-CLIO, 2001.</p>\r\n<p>Salmonson, Jessica Amanda.&nbsp; <em>The Encyclopedia of Amazons</em>.&nbsp; Open Road, 2015.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>','2015-06-26','29009176046','urinza.jpg','urinza-small.jpg','Ana Lezama de Urinza','Known as \"The Valiant Ladies of Potosi\", two aristocratic 17th-century lesbian lovers disguised themselves as cowboys and fought to clean up one of the toughest towns in all of South America.',''),('Banastre Tarleton','August 21, 1754','January 15, 1833','Liverpool, England, UK','18th-century British Soldier','<p>Every year on Fourth of July weekend I try to pick some badass freedom fries patriot who spent the latter part of the 18<sup>th</sup> century grinding a bunch of taxatin\'-without-representatin\' redcoats into hamburger sauce with a monster truck shaped like the Statue of Liberty.&nbsp; This is the Fourth of July, Independence Day, the day that we stopped giving a shit about royal weddings and started paying more attention to things like freedom, justice, automatic weapons, and whatever the fuck Kendall Jenner had for breakfast this morning.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, this year, it\'s time for something a little bit different.&nbsp; This year, we talk about the toughest, most ruthless, most hated, and most badass warrior operating against American nationalist interests during the 1780s &ndash; Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton, better known as \"Butcher Tarleton.\"&nbsp; The Darth Vader of Great Britain in the American Revolution, the guy they based the evil guy from <em>The Patriot </em>on, and a man so intensely-hardcore that the patriots used to use the term \"Tarleton\'s Quarter\" to mean \"take no prisoners, ask no prisoners.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/557354616813/tarleton1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>\"Bloody Ban\" was born August 21, 1754, the fourth child of the former Lord Mayor of Liverpool.&nbsp; The Lord Mayor was a pretty successful merchant specializing specifically in slaves and sugar, and Banastre attended Oxford University Law school because of course the most hated man in America was a slave-trading lawyer.&nbsp; Physically smaller than many of the other men in his school, Banastre made up for it by having huge balls, and regularly beat the shit out of the other kids at cricket, boxing, horseback riding, polo, tennis, and all the other sports you\'d expect a privileged Victorian-Era white British kid to be good at.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Tarleton\'s dad died shortly after Banastre graduated Oxford, and since Ban was only a fourth child all he got from dad\'s will was five thousand Pounds Sterling &ndash; a pretty sizeable chunk of change, but not exactly enough to retire on.&nbsp; In true badass fashion, he blew all of his money on gambling, booze, chicks, and other cool things, then spent his last 800 Pounds to buy an officer\'s commission in the British Army\'s First Dragoons Guards Regiment.&nbsp; He was immediately shipped out to the New World to deliver the King\'s merciful justice to some fucking traitorous colonists who dared defy the wishes of His Majesty George III.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/557354616813/tarleton2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Back in the old days it was totally cool for a British nobleman to buy himself rank in the Army, but Banastre bought himself the lowest rank in the Cavalry (Coronet), and all of his promotions were on sheer merit.&nbsp; He was insanely brave, an excellent horseman and tracker, and had a gigantic nutsack that put all other nutsacks to shame.&nbsp; In December of 1775 he was a 23 year-old Major when he was ordered to take a recon party and investigate the operations of Colonial General Charles Lee &ndash; Banastre Tarlton didn\'t just recon that shit, he <em>captured General Lee</em>, who was in his underwear at the time, then hauled him back to base to be interrogated personally.&nbsp; He fought in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, helped the Brits win the Battle of Brandywine, and was eventually made a Lieutenant-Colonel and given command of his own unit &ndash; it was officially known as the \"British Legion,\" but soon came to be known simply as \"Tarleton\'s Raiders.\"&nbsp; Which is a badass fucking unit name.</p>\r\n<p>Formed in New York in 1778, Tarleton\'s Raiders was a group of around 500 Loyalist Americans who weren\'t down with all that freedom and independence bullshit and thought it was far better to be loyal to the British government than it was to be a bunch of seditious insurgent fighter terrorists.&nbsp; Tarleton put British officer in charge, drilled the Loyalists into a proper fighting force, then took them south to ruthlessly root out traitors in the Carolinas.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/557354616813/tarleton3.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">\"I wish you would get three legions, and divide yourself into three parts: <br /> We can do no good without you.\"&nbsp; <br /> - Lord Cornwallis, Commander of British Forces</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Tarleton did a cool thing and dressed his cavalrymen out in green jackets instead of redcoats, and before long the patriots in Carolina knew that when they saw motherfuckers in green coats they were in some serious shit.&nbsp; Operating a light cavalry, Tarleton\'s Raiders were known for daring attacks, even against greater numbers, and for being complete dicks who burned the homes and farms of anyone who dared talk shit about the King of England.&nbsp; In one particularly-awesome story, Tarleton went to the home of a guy who had been a general in the Continental Army but had been killed in action a year earlier.&nbsp; According to the legend, Tarleton met the dead general\'s wife, had dinner with his family and servants, then stood up, politely thanked the family for dinner, and ordered his men to burn the entire place into fucking traitorous cinders.</p>\r\n<p>The Raiders were also on the front lines of some serious engagements in the Carolinas.&nbsp; In April 1780 their charged helped break American resistance at the Battle of Monck\'s Corner, smashing the last of the U.S. cavalry in South Carolina and opening the door for the British to capture Charleston in May.&nbsp; Only one group survived the battle &ndash; the Third Virginia Cavalry, under Abraham Buford (great-uncle of John Buford, hero of the Battle of Gettysburg).&nbsp; Buford had been ordered to fall back and had a ten day head start on Tarleton, but the British tracker hunted the rebels down, caught up to them, and personally led a charge where he took just 149 men head-on into 380 demoralized American cavalrymen.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/557354616813/tarleton4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Butcher Tarleton had strict orders to root out all sedition in the Carolinas, and this guy wasn\'t in the mood to go easy on a force that outnumbered him two-to-one.&nbsp; At the Battle of Waxhaws, he attacked Buford\'s cavalry, utterly decimated them in hand-to-hand combat, then ordered his men to continue firing even after the Americans surrendered.&nbsp; I guess some U.S. dude shot Tarleton\'s favorite horse out from under him, and he was pretty cheesed off about it.&nbsp; The Continentals lost 113 dead, 203 captured, and the British lost just 19 guys and 31 horses and I\'m sure Tarleton just mentions the horses just because he was still sore about being thrown from his mount while leading a badass saber charge.</p>\r\n<p>After this victory cemented Tarleton\'s reputation as an ultra-level dick who would rather stab a traitor in the crotch than accept his reasonable surrender, the Butcher continued fucking shit up in North and South Carolina.&nbsp; At the Battle of Camden he broke another American force with a well-timed sword charge, then personally led the operations to ride down fleeing U.S. forces and slash them to death from horseback.&nbsp; He performed similar operations at Fishing Creek and Blackstocks, and before long this guy became so terrifying in Carolina that men were actually volunteering for the Colonial Army just because they were so afraid of what he would do if he came to their town.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/557354616813/tarleton5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>With all of these epic victories, it made sense that Tarleton would be a little overconfident going into the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781.&nbsp; The dude was 26 years old and had spent the last three years bludgeoning the fuck out of patriots from NYC to Charleston, and he was basically counting on his reputation to carry the day.&nbsp; He led the attack, which was a crushing failure, the first of his career.&nbsp; However, with his army disintegrating around him, Tarleton did perform one act of crushing badassitude &ndash; he and his 54-man bodyguard were personally attacked by William Washington, who engaged them with 300 of his best troops, but Tarleton fucked their shit up in hand-to-hand combat.&nbsp; Tarleton personally wounded Washington, who was so jacked up he had to call for infantry reinforcements just so he could disengage his men from the asskicking they were receiving.&nbsp; To keep up his spoiled rich punk cred, Tarleton would forever say that his defeat at Cowpens was the fault of his commander for not providing him adequate reinforcements.&nbsp; Which I love.</p>\r\n<p>Tarleton had two fingers shot off during the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, but just a few weeks later he led a raid of Charlottesville, Virginia that captured several members of the Virginia legislature.&nbsp; They almost got Thomas Jefferson as well (some guy rode 40 miles in the middle of the night to save him) but he did capture Jefferson\'s house at Monticello.&nbsp; To his credit, he didn\'t torch this one.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/557354616813/tarleton6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Despite his bravery, Tarleton eventually found himself stuck in Yorktown with Cornwallis, and he was wounded again in a hand-to-hand swordfight with some French cavalry outside the city and didn\'t see action again until after the British surrender.&nbsp; Now, it was customary in the good old days of military gentlemanship for victorious generals to invite their defeated counterparts to dinner following the war, but as an awesome post-war side note Banastre Tarleton was the only British officer who didn\'t receive an invitation to dinner.&nbsp; He probably would have burned the house down anyways, so I guess this makes sense.</p>\r\n<p>Well, unlike many big-time action movies (including <em>The Patriot)</em>, this story awesomely doesn\'t end with the bad guy dying.&nbsp; Far from it.&nbsp; After the Revolution, Tarleton went home, was knighted, promoted, and elected to Parliament for Liverpool, where he became a vocal advocate of not ending the slave trade.&nbsp; Known as Sir Banastre Tarleton, First Baronet as of 1815, he wrote his memoirs, then spent 15 years hooking up with the most famous actress in England &ndash; a woman he only went out with because a friend bet him that he couldn\'t get her.&nbsp; He lived to be 78 .</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/557354616813/tarleton7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>http://www.nps.gov/cowp/learn/historyculture/lieutenant-colonel-banastre-tarleton.htm</p>\r\n<p>http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/tarleton.html</p>\r\n<p>http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/army/p/tarleton.htm</p>\r\n<p>http://www.his.jrshelby.com/kimocowp/tarlton.htm</p>\r\n<p>http://www.revolutionary-war.net/banastre-tarleton.html</p>\r\n<p>http://thehistoryjunkie.com/banastre-tarleton-facts/</p>\r\n<p>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banastre_Tarleton</p>','2015-07-04','557354616813','tarleton.jpg','tarleton-small.jpeg','Banastre Tarleton','The most feared and hated man in the Americas during the Revolution.','“Afterwards, in England, he had the effrontery to boast, in the presence of a lady of respectability, that he had killed more men and ravished more women than any man in America.” – Washington Irving'),('Boeing AH-64 Apache','September 30, 1975','N/A','Mesa, AZ, USA','21st-century American Weapon','<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000; font-size: small;\">Vehicle Statistics</span></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 643px; height: 212px;\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Designation:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">AH-64E Apache Guardian</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Function:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Attack Helicopter</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Nation of Origin:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">United States</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Crew:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">2 (pilot and gunner/co-pilot)</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Power Plant:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Two 1,994-horsepower GE turboshaft engines</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Speed:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">175 mph (284 kph)</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Rate of Climb:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">2,800 feet per minute</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Weight:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">15,075 lbs (6,838 kg)</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"103\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>Armament:</strong></span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n<td width=\"312\">\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">One 30mm M230 Autocannon w/1,200 rounds of ammunition</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Two 70mm Hydra rocket pods w/76 rounds of ammunition</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Four AGM-114 Hellfire rocket pods w/16 rounds of ammunition</span></p>\r\n</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>The AH-64 Apache is a heavily-computerized twenty-million dollar armored flying death tank that shoots high-explosive grenades out of a motherfucking chain gun and can ram a Hellfire missile up the tailpipe of a speeding pickup truck from six miles away in the middle of the night during a rainstorm.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s got seats made out of bullet-proof Kevlar, a cockpit that can withstand a direct hit from a surface-to-air missile, and it&rsquo;s one of the only helicopters in the world that can do a fucking barrel roll at 165 miles per hour while simultaneously acquiring missile locks on up to 128 enemy targets at once.</p>\r\n<p>I was in like fifth grade or something when Desert Storm went down, and I remember I had this awesome book that had photos and stats on all the badass shit the U.S. was going to use to stomp the piss out of Saddam Hussein.&nbsp; Anyway, by far the coolest fucking picture in the entire book was this photo of the AH-64A Apache attack helicopter posing with all its ammo and upgrades:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>There has never been a more American photo ever.<br /> I swear I hear Lee Greenwood singing every time I look at it.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>There are few things in the world more goddamn terrifying than staring head-on at the business end of an air-to-ground attack helicopter.&nbsp; That shit invokes the primal feeling of uncontrollable terror that locks up deer and antelopes and shit so they just end up standing there motionless with a stupid look on their face as a lion charges them or you plow them with the front bumper of your chevy.&nbsp; As scary as the scream of a jet engine might be, combat choppers are even more deadly to a man on the ground because these suckers don&rsquo;t just whoosh by like an attack airplane and try and strafe your ass as they rip past at Mach four &ndash; these are stalking predators, and their pilots have the luxury of just hovering mid-air, kicking back, and chilling with their fingers on the trigger they have visual confirmation that you&rsquo;ve been melted inside-out by a non-stop barrage of fist-sized bullets.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache2a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The AH-64 Apache is the most lethal attack helicopter in United States history, and to this day it remains the front-line ground attack helicopter in the American arsenal.&nbsp; Cruising at 15,000 feet, this twin-engine, four-blade war machine is so badass that it literally carries a weapon known as a Hellfire Missile, which honestly sounds like some fucked-up D&amp;D epic-level artifact shit, and the vehicle itself is named for probably the most badass Native American tribe of them all.&nbsp; Hell, <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/geronimo.html\">Geronimo</a> was the most well-known Apache, and Geronimo also just happens to be the battle cry that people yell right before they do something hella balls-to-the-wall fucking awesome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While we&rsquo;re on the subject of D&amp;D shit, the Apache is such a complex high-tech piece of equipment that piloting it is known as &ldquo;Riding the Dragon,&rdquo; and you know that when your job shares its nickname with a euphemism for smoking heroin you&rsquo;re pretty fucking extreme.&nbsp; The men and women (and there are several women) who fly these suckers are required to have two years of helicopter piloting experience before volunteering for Apache jobs, and even then it takes a full year of training before you&rsquo;re allowed to take this $20 million flying death machine out for a spin.&nbsp; Part of this is because the configuration of the cockpit is a little weird &ndash; the pilot sits in the back seat, not the front &ndash; and also because you fly this thing while wearing a fucking monocle in one eye that is simultaneously giving you instrumentation readouts on twelve systems, feeding you radar information, and manipulating a 30mm chain gun.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Here&rsquo;s a super awesome thing about the Apache &ndash; its main armament is a Vulcan gun that fires 30mm rounds (basically the same size and explosive yield of a standard fragmentation hand grenade) to the tune of 600 rounds per minute, and the pilot aims the gun by <em>looking through the monocle at whatever the hell he decides he wants to kill</em>.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s right &ndash; the gun, mounted under the nose of the aircraft, is wired to the monocle and will turn and spin to point wherever the pilot is looking.&nbsp; You know how a lot of Internet people talk about &ldquo;shooting goddamned lasers out of your eyes&rdquo; when they&rsquo;re trying to be funny?&nbsp; Apache pilots shoot full-auto grenades out of their eyes and they do it in real life on a regular basis.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <br /> <img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache3a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>A British soldier loading 30mm rounds into the Apache</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In addition to the remote-controlled Gatling gun grenade launcher, the AH-64 Apache also carries up to sixteen AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground rockets, each of which can be launched with pinpoint accuracy at targets five miles away and detonate with an explosive force massive enough to smash front-line Soviet battle tanks into metal confetti.&nbsp; It can also mount over seventy rockets, and the fact that goddamn <em>seventy air-to-ground rockets </em>only merits half a sentence in this article should give you some indication of how awesome this vehicle is.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>I&rsquo;m going to go out on a limb here and link in a fairly fucked-up video I found recently. &nbsp;Its cockpit gun-cam footage of an Apache engaging over twenty Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan and ruining their shit in about fifteen seconds. &nbsp;I&rsquo;ll warn you before you play it that this is pretty fucked up, because it shows real people getting blown up, albeit through the lens of a black-and-white thermal scope.&nbsp; Feel free to skip it if you want.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/7TZOxlTwAvA\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"></iframe></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Dude.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s&hellip;. insane.&nbsp; It doesn&rsquo;t even seem fair.&nbsp; These guys are experienced, hardened guerilla fighters, presumably really well-concealed in vegetation and behind rocks in preparation for a dangerous ambush, but to the Apache they&rsquo;re lit up like Christmas trees and it takes about six seconds for the chopper to utterly ruin them with death from above. &nbsp;And while it might seem like such a one-sided battle that you might as well be playing an arcade game on Easy mode, You can also be damn sure the Allied troops on the ground appreciate the fact that there&rsquo;s an armored flying death-copter hovering high above them in the night sky.</p>\r\n<p>If you decide you want to go <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfY3PFBVOUg\">down</a> that <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-07dQuij9U\">rabbit</a> hole there are quite a few <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrNkl8HzPw\">more</a> <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHPURnsNPew&amp;index=37\">videos</a> like the one I posted, or you can just save time and grab yourself a copy of <em>Jungle Strike </em>for the Sega Genesis because it&rsquo;s pretty much the same thing.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache4.png\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>This is the level where you have to use Hellfires<br /> to blow up suicide bomb vans before they hit the White House</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In addition to being able to kill you from the sky out of nowhere whenever it wants, the Apache is also completely immune to pretty much any type of weaponry you could possibly get your hands on.&nbsp; The rotors survive burst fire from a 20mm autocannon.&nbsp; The cockpit canopy can absorb a direct hit from an RPG.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s got a self-sealing fuel system, Kevlar seats, and is so armor-plated that AK-47 bullets bounce off it like the hull was plated with Superman&rsquo;s skin.&nbsp; If you do manage to damage the aircraft, each pilot&rsquo;s seating area is independently armored, so if Snake Eyes uses his Dragon Katana to stab the pilot through the windshield (from what I understand, Japanese swords are the only melee weapons in the world that can damage a helicopter), the co-pilot is still walled off by more bulletproof glass than the asshole behind the counter at the bank.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Pretty much the only thing an Apache needs to worry about are anti-aircraft missiles, and it&rsquo;s got more than enough countermeasures onboard to help protect it there as well. &nbsp;The stubby-looking nose cone at the front of the fuselage might look weird, but it&rsquo;s packed with enough electronics to give your Computer Science nerd friends a spontaneous planet-killing boner.&nbsp; It scrambles enemy communications, jams radar, interferes with enemy scanning frequencies, and bounces laser range-finders.&nbsp; In the unlikely event that you&rsquo;re able to lock on, the Apache immediately sends a warning to the pilot any time it&rsquo;s detected by radar or hit with a laser, and it can deploy flares and other countermeasures to lure incoming missiles away.&nbsp; Basically, it&rsquo;s awesome, and it looks fucking cool.&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s a picture of a goddamn Apache doing a loop-de-loop while deploying chaff and it looks like it should be superimposed over an American flag with some kind of patriotic hymn being played out by a military band in the background.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>I want this shit on a commemorative coin.&nbsp; Football teams should put it on their helmets.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For being such a complicated piece of machinery, the AH-64A Apache was first prototyped in 1975.&nbsp; It went into further development in 1982, and was finally put into production in 1984.&nbsp; It saw its first combat in Panama in &rsquo;89, but really stomped fucking nuts in the desert during Desert Storm in 1991 &ndash; Apaches alone were responsible for over five HUNDRED confirmed kills against Iraqi tanks, APCs, and transport trucks, then escorted U.S. airborne troops during their assaults after the ground war began.&nbsp; Despite being nearly 30 years old, there are still AH-64As in service in the USA, although most models these days are the upgraded versions &ndash; AH-64D Apache Longbows or AH-64E Apache Guardians.&nbsp; The upgraded versions differ from the original AH-64A in that they are better and have newer and cooler stuff on them.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache4a.gif\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>All told, there have been around 2100 Apaches produced, which really isn&rsquo;t that much when you consider the production runs of other types of aircraft or ground vehicles.&nbsp; These 2100 helicopters had logged 3.9 million flight hours in the past thirty years, with about a million of them coming during live-fire combat missions.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a vital part not only of the United States and British Armies, but is also used by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Singapore, Kuwait, Egypt, and the UAE.&nbsp; I mean, it should tell you something about the fucking badass cred of the Apache that even Israel and Saudi Arabia can agree on it.</p>\r\n<p>Despite being the coolest shit ever, the Apache is due to be phased out by 2030.&nbsp; So enjoy her while she lasts.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/913892325649/ah64apache61.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p>http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ah-64.htm</p>\r\n<p>http://www.boeing.com/defense/ah-64-apache/</p>\r\n<p>http://www.military.com/equipment/ah-64-apache-longbow</p>','2015-07-17','913892325649','ah64apache.jpg','ah64apache-small.jpg','The AH-64 Apache','The world\'s deadliest attack helicopter.','“The primary function of the Apache is to deal death and destruction on the battlefield.”'),('John Sidney McCain III','August 29, 1936','N/A','NAS Coco Solo, Panama','20th-century American Pilot','<p>As a rule I typically try to avoid writing about present-day political leaders, because on the whole I find politics to be a petty, divisive, boring and ultimately meaningless exercise that only serves to piss regular people off and give them a reason to be irrationally angry about government workings that they have absolutely no realistic chance of ever legitimately changing.&nbsp; Plus, I have such a diverse reader base that any political statement I make is likely to alienate 50% of my target audience.&nbsp; However, earlier this week, noted Capitalist Bond-villain and self-aggrandizing fuckwit maniac Donald Trump, a man who has never discharged a weapon in anger in his entire pretentious life, came out and publicly said that U.S. Senator John McCain isn&rsquo;t a real war hero because (and I&rsquo;m paraphrasing here) &ldquo;Lol looser any retard can get captured in a war haha, if you think that&rsquo;s hard why don&rsquo;t you try inheriting millions of dollars from your rich parents sometime rofl&rdquo;.</p>\r\n<p>When asked about whether or not he was a hero for being captured by enemy forces in downtown Hanoi immediately after blowing the power to the entire city from the cockpit of an air-to-ground attack jet fighter, McCain gave the kind of response you&rsquo;d expect to hear when you pull the ripcord on the back of a talking POW/MIA Special Edition G.I. Joe action figure:&nbsp; He said, nah, Trump doesn&rsquo;t owe me an apology for this, but he might possibly owe one to the tens of thousands of American POWs who dutifully sacrificed their health and freedom and endured brutal hardships at the hands of cruel enemy captors for their country over the past three hundred years or so.</p>\r\n<p>It&rsquo;s the perfect response.&nbsp; But fuck that.&nbsp; Sure, the typical, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a hero, the real heroes are the guys who are out there blah blah blah&hellip;.&rdquo; is the sort of thing you expect to hear from a badass war hero when he talks about how he single-handedly beat twenty-seven enemy corporals to death with the severed dong of their commanding officer, but this is some serious grade-A bullshit.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t care where you stand on political issues &ndash; saying John McCain isn&rsquo;t a fucking war hero is a top-ten all-time dick move, right up there with those hipster dipshits who get off on telling people they &ldquo;don&rsquo;t see what the big deal is&rdquo; about <em>Escape from New York</em> or who love to boast that <em>Predator </em>is only good because it&rsquo;s ironically funny.&nbsp; This guy volunteered for front-line combat, flew 20+ missions deep into enemy territory, risked his life to pull his comrades out of burning aircraft, survived a six-year nightmare in the most hellish POW camp this side of WWII, and then refused a golden ticket out of there because he didn&rsquo;t want to demoralize the rest of the men in the camp who were heroically resisting some of the most brutal torture you can possibly imagine.&nbsp; Then, after a half-decade of torture in a brutal black hole of soul-crushing misery, the second he was released he <em>requested to be returned to front-line military duty</em>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Born on a naval base near the Panama Canal in 1936, John McCain III comes from a long line of American war heroes who stomped the fucking balls of freedom&rsquo;s enemies from Normandy Beach to the South China Sea.&nbsp; His grandfather was a hard-drinking, gambling, foul-mouthed sailor who commanded a U.S. Navy cruiser escorting convoys to Europe during World War I.&nbsp; During the Second World War, John McCain I also commanded air operations over Guadalcanal (including the Cactus Air Force) and led Fleet Task Forces during the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf.&nbsp; The dude was so fucking important that he was there first-hand to witness the Japanese surrender aboard the USS <em>Missouri </em>in 1945, and he died three days later because his work was done and the country didn&rsquo;t need him to stomp asses any more.&nbsp; Meanwhile, beneath the waves, John McCain II was commanding a U.S. submarine that blasted the shit out of half a dozen Japanese ships off the coast of Tokyo itself.&nbsp; McCain II later went on to command a cruiser during the Korean War, took a couple posts at the Pentagon, and then became overall commander of all U.S. Navy assets in the Pacific Ocean during the Vietnam War.</p>\r\n<p>Rolling into action like an awesome action movie sequel, John McCain III followed in the footsteps of his ancestors (both of whom were four-star Admirals) and attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.&nbsp; A high school wrestler and lightweight boxer with a badass appreciation for Theodore Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln, McCain graduated in 1958 and immediately went to flight school to learn how to bomb the piss out of Commies at Mach One from the cockpit of an awesome-looking fighter jet.&nbsp; Known for going full-throttle balls-to-the-wall all the time, McCain crashed two aircraft trying to push it to the limit, and then he used his R&amp;R shore leave to go off and hook up with (and eventually marry) a chick who was working as a professional model.</p>\r\n<p>Well, this was cool and everything, but McCain realized he was getting some pretty soft postings on account of the fact that his dad was such an important bastard, and he wanted to see some action.&nbsp; So with the Vietnam War really picking up speed in 1967 McCain requested a transfer to a combat posting, and was sent to the Gulf of Tonkin to fly A-4 Skyhawk air-to-ground attack fighters in insanely-daring bombing runs over the heart of North Vietnam itself.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>McCain was stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS <em>Forrestal </em>off the coast of Vietnam, but disaster struck before he&rsquo;d barely had any chance to get shit going.&nbsp; On July 29, 1967, McCain was strapping into his jet fighter when suddenly a nearby U.S. fighter had a malfunction that sent one of its missiles hurtling into the deck of the <em>Forrestal</em>.&nbsp; The blast was so close to McCain that it caught the fuel tanks of his fighter on fire, and within seconds his ammo started to cook off as well, releasing more rockets and explosions into the flight deck.&nbsp; Somehow McCain managed to break his way through the flaming cockpit and climb out, and then, already covered with minor cuts and burns, this guy ran head-first into the inferno to try and rescue a few of his fellow pilots.&nbsp; While helping one pilot, however, a nearby bomb exploded from the heat, racking McCain with shrapnel and knocking him hard to the deck.&nbsp; The blaze cost 134 sailors their lives, making it the worst disaster for the U.S. Navy since the days of World War II.</p>\r\n<p>John McCain&rsquo;s injuries were so bad that he was ordered to be evacuated stateside for additional treatment.</p>\r\n<p>He refused.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In the next few months, Lieutenant Commander John McCain flew twenty-three bombing missions over North Vietnam as part of Operation Rolling Thunder, the U.S. plan to smash the North Vietnamese infrastructure with hundreds of thousands of tons of high-explosive death from above.&nbsp; Hurtling through MiG fighter-infested skies while Communist forces locked on to him with state-of-the-art Soviet Union-produced surface-to-air missiles, McCain barrel rolled his way through intense fields of flak fire and rockets to hammer the North Vietnamese capital day after day.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>McCain&rsquo;s twenty-third sortie came on October 26, 1967, when the thirty-one year old Lieutenant Commander was leading an attack on a power plant in downtown Hanoi.&nbsp; Streaking through the skies, McCain&rsquo;s squadron came under heavy attack from surface-to-air missiles.&nbsp; No fewer than 15 SAMs being launched in his direction, and reports were coming out that MiGs were scrambling to the air as well.&nbsp; McCain juked and banked hard, cranking heavy G&rsquo;s to evade shot after shot, but one heat-seeking missile found its way towards the fuselage, exploding very close to the A-4 Skyhawk and slamming it with hundreds of shards of razor-sharp shrapnel.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>McCain had the option to turn back.&nbsp; He could have pulled out of the attack, made a break for the sea, and hoped that he could ditch close enough that he would be recovered by friendly forces.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But he didn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; He had a fucking mission to do, and he was going to finish this.</p>\r\n<p>He pushed the stick forward and dove in for his attack run.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>McCain unleashed his bombs, slamming them into the North Vietnamese capital&rsquo;s primary thermal power plant, but when he cranked back on the stick to pull up, his controls were unresponsive.&nbsp; Despite his best efforts, was still careening nose-first towards the Earth at a very high speed.&nbsp; Gunners on the ground were spraying his windshield with tracer fire.</p>\r\n<p>With no other options and every sensor in his cockpit screaming out with high-pitched whines, McCain pulled the latch above him and ejected from his fighter.&nbsp; As he slammed up into the cockpit glass, he broke both of his arms and was showered with broken glass.&nbsp; The force of the ejection shattered his knee on the dash on the way out, and the battered, broken aviator parachuted down into a lake less than a mile from Ho Chi Minh&rsquo;s headquarters, severely injured by alive.</p>\r\n<p>He was barely conscious when enemy forces fished him out of the water.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Cut, bruised, disoriented, and injured, with two broken arms and a broken knee, Lieutenant-Commander McCain was brought to Hoa Loa prison &ndash; the infamous &ldquo;Hanoi Hilton&rdquo;.&nbsp; One of the most infamous prisons in the modern world, for good reason.</p>\r\n<p>Despite crippling injuries, McCain was initially denied medical treatment.&nbsp; Instead, his captors tied his wrists, strung him up so he was hanging by his broken arms, and then beat him with bamboo sticks, demanding for him to reveal everything he knew about future American plans to attack Hanoi.&nbsp; McCain said nothing.</p>\r\n<p>When it was obvious he wouldn&rsquo;t talk, McCain was thrown into a cell with a dozen or so other American prisoners of war &ndash; all of them in fucking brutal shape, wasting away to nothing due to constant torture, malnutrition, and dysentery.&nbsp; McCain was among the highest-ranking officers there, however, and he did what an officer is supposed to do &ndash; he told them to keep their heads up.&nbsp; You are Americans.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t tell these fucks anything.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t lose yourselves in here; this will all be over, and we&rsquo;re going to get out of this.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain7a.png\" alt=\"\" /><br /> Fuck anyone who says POWs aren&rsquo;t war heroes.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After two months of nearly daily beatings, McCain weighed less than 100 pounds.&nbsp; He still hadn&rsquo;t received medical treatment.&nbsp; Eventually the NVA realized they had the son of the American Naval commander in Vietnam, however, and they came to McCain and made him a deal &ndash; you can go home, free of charge, and we&rsquo;ll exchange you for a high-ranking NVA officer in U.S. custody.</p>\r\n<p>John McCain, half-dead, in the most hellish prison since the Black Hole of Calcutta, stared his captors in the face and said <em>fuck you</em>.&nbsp; No way were they going to get to use his capture as pro-Vietnam propaganda.&nbsp; No way was he going to violate the U.S. POW code of conduct.&nbsp; And no way was he going to demoralize the rest of the POWs by abandoning them to their fate.&nbsp; By this point, they were all looking to him for guidance, and he wasn&rsquo;t about to turn his back on it.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>McCain remained a prisoner for the next five and a half years.&nbsp; Subjected to extreme brutality, both mentally and physically, he adamantly refused to talk, or to sign any of these bullshit propaganda letters claiming that the U.S. was evil and wrong and killing children on purpose or whatever the hell else.&nbsp; He willed himself through the pain of being beaten with iron rods on his broken leg.</p>\r\n<p>He kept up the spirits of his men, whether it was teaching them stories about Teddy Roosevelt or leading them in daily prayers or creating a secret hand signal codes so they could communicate even when NVA guards were posted at the door of their cell.&nbsp; Eventually he caused so much trouble for his captors that they put him in a box in solitary confinement.&nbsp; He stayed there for three years.</p>\r\n<p>Meanwhile, half a world away, Donald Trump was a 21 year-old recent Ivy League grad who skipped the draft and was now making about $200,000 a year working for his dad&rsquo;s real estate company.</p>\r\n<p>After resisting all attempts at breaking his spirit (McCain did sign one paper once and regrets it to this day, even though it was only done after a week where he was getting beatings every two hours until he agreed) and his will, John McCain was released by the North Vietnamese on March 14, 1973.&nbsp; He had spent 65 months in NVA custody.</p>\r\n<p>The first thing he did after being released from nine months of intensive physical therapy and rehab?&nbsp; He requested a transfer to combat aviation.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>I spent five and a half years in prison.&nbsp; The worst part was coming home<br /> and finding Green Acres had been cancelled.&nbsp; <br /> What the hell was I fighting for?</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While everyone appreciated McCain&rsquo;s gigantic balls, the shit he went through in &lsquo;Nam fucked him up too bad to allow him to get back into the cockpit.&nbsp; For starters, his broken arms were so fucked that to this day he can&rsquo;t raise his arms up over his head.&nbsp; People like to make fun of this on the Internet.&nbsp; These are the people who wouldn&rsquo;t have lasted two seconds in the Hanoi Hilton.</p>\r\n<p>Unable to fight, McCain went to the National War College and became commander of the training squadron at Naval Air Station Jacksonville.&nbsp; Later he became the Navy liaison to the U.S. Senate, where he was able to get funding and modernization funds for the Navy at a time when the last fucking thing anyone wanted to hear about was another war.&nbsp; He retired in 1981 with a Silver Star, three Bronze Stars, two Legion of Merit awards, a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Flying Cross, and a Prisoner of War Medal.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain10.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After his military service McCain moved to Arizona and went into politics, serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and then being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986.&nbsp; Now, like I said, I don&rsquo;t want to get too much into politics here, but I do always have a soft spot for politicians who will actually think for themselves instead of just blindly following the party line, and McCain is definitely one of those guys.&nbsp; During his 29 years in the Senate, McCain has negotiated for POW/MIA soldiers being held abroad, put limits on &ldquo;soft money&rdquo; bullshit campaign contributions, tried to tightened EPA standards to reduce carbon emissions, passed a bill prohibiting torturing prisoners at Guantanamo, and set up legislation that protects Native American tribes&rsquo; income from reservation-based casino gambling.&nbsp; These are all things I&rsquo;m cool with.&nbsp; He also overcame skin cancer, adopted one of Mother Theresa&rsquo;s orphans in Bangladesh, has more Twitter followers than any other U.S. Senator, and is one of like six people who have season tickets to the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>We all have our own political beliefs, and every man has his flaws, but if all of these things I&rsquo;ve listed don&rsquo;t qualify a man as a hero, I honestly can&rsquo;t imagine what does.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/37600071225/mccain11.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Link:</p>\r\n<p>http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=23680</p>\r\n<p>http://johnmccain.com/about/</p>\r\n<p>http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/john-mccain-donald-trump-owes-vets-apology-not-me-n394946</p>\r\n<p>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/john-mccain.html?_r=0</p>\r\n<p>http://www.biography.com/people/john-mccain-9542249#pow-in-vietnam</p>\r\n<p>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain</p>','2015-07-24','37600071225','mccain.jpg','mccain-small.jpg','John McCain','U.S. Navy pilot who flew 23 missions over North Vietnam and survived nearly six years as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton, refusing to submit despite some of the most brutal torture in the modern era.','“War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.”'),('Woodes Rogers','c. 1679','July 16, 1732','Poole, Dorset, UK','18th-century British Sailor','<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">On the evening of July 26, 1717, Captain Woodes Rogers arrived at the harbor of Port Nassau in the Bahamas.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He had just been declared Governor of the Bahamas, and he was dispatched from Bristol, England, with two Royal Navy sloops, a transport ship filled with supplies, another ship of colonist civilians, and a writ from King George granting him power over the colony.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was told not to expect reinforcements, extra funding, or any real support from the Crown whatsoever.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As he rolled into the harbor, he noticed the burning wrecks of two Bahamian merchant ships.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They had been stripped of their goods, their crews captured or killed, and set ablaze in a daring twilight attack by one of the ballsiest pirate captains in all of the Caribbean.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Has he got closer, the flagship of pirate Captain Charles Vane crossed right in front of Rogers&rsquo; ship, unleashed a volley of cannon fire at point-blank range, and then immediately sped off into the darkness beyond.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Woodes Rogers&rsquo; mission from the King was simple, straightforward, and utterly impossible:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Clean up the pirate cesspool of Nassau, break the power of sea raiders during the absolute height of the Golden Age of Piracy, and turn the colony from a buccaneer-infested hellhole of face-shanking misery into a respectable colony worthy of the British flag.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Oh, and also build up your <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span>coastal defenses because England is at war with Spain and there&rsquo;s a very good chance the island will be attacked by a fucking gigantic Spanish invasion fleet sometime in the next couple of years.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Most people in this situation would have either quit, gone full-on corrupt pirate-bribed asshole politician, or found themselves shanked to death in their sleep by one of the 2,000 pirates that were believed to be using the Bahamas as a base of operation.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Not Woodes Rogers.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Fuck that.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>By the time this guy&rsquo;s posting was over, he had made a name for himself as the man who single-handedly did more to bring about the end of the Golden Age of Piracy than any other man in the Caribbean.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Rogers was born in Dorset around 1679, the son of a wealthy merchant named Woods Rogers (which does very little to explain why the hell Woodes Rogers has such a weird and unpronounceable first name).<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was a wealthy upper-class Englishman who wore those funny white powdered wigs, buckles on his shoes, knee-high socks, and a big expensive-looking gold-embroidered jacket, and in most of his official portraits, he&rsquo;s shown sitting at a desk writing documents with a feather quill and a big smile on his face &ndash; to the modern observer this dude was about as badass-looking as the trailer for a made-for-TV romantic comedy about Marie Antoinette. He grew up wealthy, apprenticed as a sailor in Bristol at age 18, married a Rear Admiral&rsquo;s daughter (rear admiral huh huh huh) , and when his dad died at sea in 1706 Woodes found himself running the family long-distance shipping merchant business.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Everything was on track for a nice, quiet, uneventful life, when at some point the trading ship Woodes named for his wife was attacked Africa by a group of French pirates off the coast of Madagascar who killed the crew and pillaged every valuable thing on board the ship.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Woodes Rogers lost his fucking shit.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He swore revenge on these assholes who destroyed his ship and robbed him, and he went about hunting them down the way a true badass would &ndash; he fucking single-handedly raised money to build two badass pirate-hunting warships, outfitted them with dozens of heavy artillery cannons, and personally set sail to ruin the lives of any goddamn pirates he could get his hands on.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Using his own money and money he&rsquo;d borrowed from investors, Woodes Rogers purchased the vessels <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Duke </em>and <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Duchess</em>, outfitted them with 36 cannons each, and went straight to the Caribbean on a mission.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Yes, I know the pirates were in Madagascar, but this guy was going to take the long route, kick ass the entire way, and clean up the mean streets of The Ocean.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Before he left England he picked up two things:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>a letter of marque commissioning him as a privateer who was legally allowed to beat the shit out of Spanish shipping, and a badass first mate &ndash; William Dampier, a dude so hardcore he became the first white man to explore the wilderness of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/australia.html\">Australia</a>.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">After beating down an attempted mutiny in the Atlantic (he put the leader in chains and sent him back to England on the first ship they encountered), Rogers started hitting enemy ships whenever he could.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He quickly realized, however, that the Spanish were really good at guarding their shit on the Atlantic side of the ocean, so he the brilliant idea to sail <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">around the south of Chile </em>and attack their shit from the Pacific side where they weren&rsquo;t expecting it.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>After rounding Drakes Passage (he took the turn around Chile so widely that he actually had gone further south than anyone in the world had ever been at this point), and heading up the Western side of South America, Rogers was pretty fucking shocked to see fire coming from the small uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He pulled in, checked it out, and discovered <a href=\"/selkirk.html\">Alexander Selkirk</a>, a Scottish sailor who had been fucking stranded on the island Gilligan-style for the last five years.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Rogers was so jacked to find such an awesome addition to his adventuring party that he soon put Selkirk in command of one of the Spanish ships Rogers had captured along the way.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">From this point on, Woodes Rogers starts fucking shit up.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He attacks and captures the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, and plunders the hell of it, going so far as to have his men snatch necklaces off of the city&rsquo;s noblewomen.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He hits pirate ships in the Philippines.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He plunders two massive galleons off the coast of California.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He takes a saber to the fucking face attacking a Spanish warship, a wound that would give him a gnarly scar that stuck with him for the rest of his life.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">After blasting his way through the Pacific and Indian Ocean badass pirate-style, Rogers stopped over at Madagascar to see if he could figure out how to completely demolish the pirate havens that were set up on the island.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>These guys were his real target, and he wasn&rsquo;t just going to attack and crush them &ndash; he was going to meet the guys face-to-face, pretend to be a slave trader, ask them questions and shit, and figure out their process so goddamn intensely that he could then return to England and present the King with a detailed report on how to utterly destroy all traces of piracy on the island.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">And this is exactly what he did.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He went all the way back to England via the Cape of Good Hope, completed his full circumnavigation of the globe, and submitted his report.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Rogers didn&rsquo;t make a ton of money on his adventure (he owed a lot to the people who had helped him get his ship, plus the British East India Company sued him for &ldquo;undertaking merchant operations in East India Company territory&rdquo; or some shit) and had been permanently and badassily face-scarred in the process, but he was also a national hero and everyone agreed that he was seriously fucking awesome.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He wrote a book about his story, which became a best-seller, and started hanging out with some guys who would eventually become well-known writers themselves &ndash; Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>People attribute both <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Gulliver&rsquo;s Travels </em>and <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Robinson Crusoe</em> to first-hand experiences the authors had talking to Woodes Fuckin&rsquo; Rogers, and inspiring two of the greatest pirate adventure novels of all time is no small achievement of awesomeness.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Oh, and also, one of the guys on Rogers&rsquo; crew ended up getting captured by the Spanish during a battle, escaped, and his story ended up being the basis for the fuckin&rsquo; <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Rime of the Ancient Mariner</em>, which is an awesome epic poem centered entirely around making a dick joke with the poem&rsquo;s final line.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Even though he was a hero and a successful author, Rogers&rsquo; work still wasn&rsquo;t done.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>And it wasn&rsquo;t long before the King, impressed with Rogers&rsquo; report, decided to give him an opportunity to clean up the pirate fortress.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Only it was a different pirate hellhole than the one Rogers was gunning for.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Instead of Madagascar, he got sent to the Bahamas.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As I said, a ship was literally burning in the harbor when Rogers arrived.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Nassau was home to an estimated 2,000 pirates, including guys like <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/blackbeard.html\">Blackbeard</a>, Calico Jack, Charles Vane, and many others.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Rogers was sent with two ships, a writ from the King, and basically nothing else at all.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He could expect no help from the Crown, either in money or reinforcements, and the Spanish were pretty eager to come charging in and blast the British right off the islands.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He faced disease, dangers at home and on the sea, and was immediately the primary target for all of the most vicious pirate captains in the Caribbean.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Instead of buckling under the pressure, Woodes Rogers stepped up.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">His first move was genius &ndash; he offered a King&rsquo;s Amnesty.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Anyone who is a pirate can come forward, one time only, confess your sins, and be forgiven.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>That&rsquo;s it.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>You&rsquo;re free to go.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Sure, this might seem like letting criminals off the hook, but three hundred pirates showed up the first day, signed their names, took vows to abide by the laws, and, by all accounts, went back to leading semi-normal lives that didn&rsquo;t involve torching wooden vessels or marauding or any of that shit.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Rogers sent out a second call for amnesty.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Then he went to work.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers7.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Using an army of private mercenaries, converted pirate captains (including Blackbeard&rsquo;s former captain Benjamin Hornigold), and offering massive bounties for pirates brought in dead or alive, Woodes Rogers went to war with the Pirates of the Caribbean.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Dishing out thousands of Pounds of his own fucking money, Rogers built coastal defenses, purchased cannons, and hired guys to hunt pirates.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He killed them in battle.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He had them executed by hanging.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He sent them back to England to be tried in admiralty courts.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He did everything he could, until finally all the pirates in the area were either dead, hanging in chains, in prison, retired, or suffering some fucked-up pirate fate.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>His defenses convinced the Spanish not to attack.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>His harsh treatment of captured pirates discouraged others from taking up the black flag.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>His no-bullshit attitude cleaned shit up, and it did it over the course of just five short years.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>His personal motto &ndash; <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Expulsis Piratis , Restituta Commercia</em> (piracy expelled, commerce restored), was so fucking effective that it was the official motto of the Bahamas for the next 250 years.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Of course, here&rsquo;s the insane part:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Woodes Rogers had spent so much of his own money making the island safe for commerce that he went massively into debt, was arrested, and was sent to debtor&rsquo;s prison.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>That&rsquo;s right, the dude who single-handedly ended piracy in the Bahamas was thrown in fucking jail because he couldn&rsquo;t pay his goddamn credit card bill.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He sat there for three years before the Crown was finally like <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">what the fuck is wrong with us</em>, released him, and made him Governor again.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He died in 1732 at the age of 53, probably of malaria.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/872650816944/woodesrogers8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">http://www.thepirateking.com/bios/rogers_woodes.htm</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">http://www.republicofpirates.net/Rogers.html</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/famous-privateers/woodes-rogers/</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodes_Rogers</p>','2015-07-31','872650816944','woodesrogers.jpg','woodesrogers-small.jpg','Woodes Rogers','The man most responsible for single-handedly ending the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean.','Expulsis Piratis, Restituta Commercia'),('Oda Nobunaga','June 23, 1534','June 21, 1582','Nagoya, Owari Province, Japan','16th-century Japanese Samurai','<p>Oda Nobunaga was a hardcore, murderous town-burning peasant-smiting samurai-decapitating Japanese feudal badass with psychotic mood swings, zero respect for authority, and an epic sense of entitlement that makes even the most homicidally-insufferable convertible-driving millennial startup CEO look like one of those starving third world kids who try to snatch handfuls of rice being thrown out the window of a UNICEF Urban Assault Humvee.&nbsp; In his countryside-scouring murder-quest to dominate the provinces of Japan with a pencil mustache, a blood-drenched katana, and a raging-hard killboner, Oda Nobunaga burned Buddhist temples to the ground, drank wine out of human skulls, assassinated his own relatives, trained peasants how to shoot the balls off of aristocratic samurai (who he thought were a bunch of privileged delusional fuckwits), and generally just dismembered more appendages than a psychotic sentient malfunctioning industrial limb-ripping thresher.&nbsp; Through a two-decade reign of terror that cemented this man as the primary supernatural villain in basically every work of Japanese fiction produced since 1582, Nobunaga was so ruthlessly fantastic at emotionlessly racking up R-rated 1980s action movie-grade body counts that Japanese history simply refers to him as &ldquo;The Demon King.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p>Nobunaga was born in 1534 in a badass castle full of awesome fucking samurai swords that he got to play with <em>any time he wanted</em>.&nbsp; He was tutored in the Chinese Classics, warfare manuals, archery, horsemanship, and swordfighting by some of the best masters in Japan, but Nobunaga didn&rsquo;t give a shit, was a terrible student, slacked off all the time, and was so arrogant and irreverent that one of Nobunaga&rsquo;s tutors got pissed off and killed himself by <em>seppuku</em>, which is the ancient Japanese custom of dressing up in your best robes and then murdering yourself by sawing your own organs in half with a sword through the midsection.&nbsp; Nobunaga was prone to wild ultra-rage mood swings, didn&rsquo;t give a crap what anyone thought about him, and operated his entire life under the notion that he would just bulldoze his way through anyone that didn&rsquo;t like him until the entire countryside of Japan looked like the cover of a <em>Savage Sword of Conan</em> comic.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Nobunaga&rsquo;s dad died Nobunaga lost his shit, flew into a rage (during the middle of the funeral), threw a bunch of incense into the grave, punched a hole in the wall, and started screaming like a pissed-off maniac.&nbsp; A couple of Nobunaga&rsquo;s relatives thought maybe this kid was a little too over-the-top psychotically-murderous to be running a Clan, and even though Nobunaga was the rightful next ruler of the Oda Clan, these uncles conspired to seize power for themselves instead.&nbsp; It didn&rsquo;t work out great:&nbsp; The 21 year-old Oda Clan ruler broke into one of the would-be usurper uncle&rsquo;s castle in the middle of the night and sliced his head off with a single swing of his razor-sharp blade.&nbsp; Then he went to the other uncle&rsquo;s castle, lured him and his army out with a ruse, then had the guy and his entire family executed as traitors.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>He&rsquo;s a great example of how much Oda Nobunaga did not give a fuck.&nbsp; In 1560, a lord of the Imagawa Clan was marching an army of 25,000 warriors towards Kyoto on a mission to capture the capital and set himself up as the new warlord of Japan.&nbsp; Imagawa&rsquo;s march brought him through Nobunaga&rsquo;s land, and the Imagawa ended up burning a couple towns that were loyal to the Oda Clan.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Oda Nobunaga assembled his army.&nbsp; All 3,000 men.&nbsp; When someone helpfully informed the impetuous soon-to-be Demon King that it was fucking asinine to try and attack an enemy in a battle where victory would require every single one of your soldiers to single-handedly kill 9 enemies, Nobunaga simply said, <em>&ldquo;Do you really want to spend your entire lives praying for longevity? We were born in order to die! &nbsp;Whoever is with me, come to the battlefield tomorrow morning. &nbsp;Whoever is not, just stay wherever you are and watch me win it!&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p>And that&rsquo;s exactly what he did.</p>\r\n<p><em>&nbsp;</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Riding downhill through a driving rainstorm, Nobunaga joined his best 1,500 warriors on a ferocious hellacious death charge through the mud and the wind head-on into the town where the Imagawa Clan forces were camped.&nbsp; Crashing through the enemy, Nobunaga and the Oda Clan armies cut, fired guns, trampled, burned, screamed, and psychotically started spree-killing every single human being they could reach with the blade of their bloody katanas.&nbsp; The Imagawa, not knowing what the dog balls was going on, had no idea they were being beat to shit by a mere handful of big-dicked samurai motherfuckers, and they ran for it.&nbsp; Oda Nobunaga and his bodyguard cleaved through the terrified, routed enemy force, kicked in the door to Lord Imagawa&rsquo;s headquarters, and slaughtered Imagawa and all of his top commanders.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The next day, Oda put out a call to the soldiers of the routed Imagawa Army &ndash; join me, or I will hunt you down and kill you all.</p>\r\n<p>They joined.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>During this time period, the countryside of Japan was divided into 66 provinces, each with its own ruler known as a <em>daimyo</em>.&nbsp; Nobunaga intended to conquer all 66.</p>\r\n<p>He put together a base of power, made some alliances, and went to work on his mission to dominate <em>&ldquo;all the world by force of arms.&rdquo;</em>&nbsp; He recruited some talented generals &ndash; Ieyasu Tokugawa, lord of Mikawa, and <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hideyoshi.html\">Toyotomi Hideyoshi</a>, a fearless sword-swinging peasant warrior &ndash; to come work for him.&nbsp; Together these, three men would be three of the most powerful and revered warriors in the history of Japan.&nbsp; Hideyoshi would continue Nobunaga&rsquo;s work after his death, and Tokugawa would eventually install a Shogunate that would run Japan through a golden age of peace that would last over 250 years.&nbsp; So those were good choices.</p>\r\n<p>In 1565, the rightful Shogun of Japan came to Oda Nobunaga and asked for help retaking the Ashikaga Shogunate from a usurper who had killed the true shogun&rsquo;s dad and stolen his title.&nbsp; Oda, seeing a badass opportunity, immediately assembled 30,000 men and marched on the Capital.&nbsp; He crushed the usurper, installed the Shogun, and then forced that dude to sign a document allowing Nobunaga to issue orders in the Shogun&rsquo;s name without actually asking the Shogun&rsquo;s permission.&nbsp; The Shogun was like, <em>well, dude, maybe I can just make you like my assistant or something?&nbsp; Like deputy Shogun?</em> And Nobunaga was like <em>get humped, dipshit, you do what I say.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m the fucking assistant of anything.</em></p>\r\n<p>The Shogun was kind of over a barrel, seeing as how he didn&rsquo;t actually have an army or anything, and Oda Nobunaga became the de facto ruler over like half of Japan at the age of 35.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As the effective head of state, Oda Nobunaga ruled through fear, intimidation, and raw displays of vengeance and power.&nbsp; He also standardized Japanese coins and measurements, abolished tolls, broke up business monopolies, sent badass ninja spies to gather intel on rivals all over the country, built a 27-story-tall castle, and became a master falconer.&nbsp; Nobunaga also took extra care to make friends with Jesuit priests pretty much right away.&nbsp; He did this not because he particularly loved hearing Jesus stories, but mostly because the Jesuits were Westerners and they had guns and knew how to operate them.&nbsp; Nobunaga bought as many guns as he could, updated his army with matchlock muskets, and then sent his army to capture the only place in Japan where muskets were manufactured.&nbsp; He taught his men how to fire in waves, with one group shooting while the other group reloaded, and laughed his ass off at the idea that he could take a handful of previously-unskilled peasants and turn them into a fighting force capable of mowing down battle-hardened samurai left and right.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As much as he bro&rsquo;d it up with the Jesuits, Oda Nobunaga <em>fucking epically hated </em>the Buddhists.&nbsp; Again, he could have given two shits about religion; he just didn&rsquo;t like that Buddhist warrior-monks were always screwing with him.&nbsp; In 1571 he warned the monks of Mount Hiei to stay the hell out of his way or he would burn their mountain to the ground.&nbsp; They ignored his first-and-final warning, so he climbed the mountain, laid siege to the temple, and then set fire to an 800 year-old temple city that was believed at the time to the the holiest site in all of Japan.&nbsp; Now, obviously it&rsquo;s not really that cool to burn people to death and trash religious artifacts and order your ashigaru to spear, shoot, or torch every living creature you come across, but you have to love that this dude just was so completely devoid of fucks to give that he killed every single person on that mountain and razed every structure until nothing remained.</p>\r\n<p>Nobunaga had so much fun burning monks alive that he did it a couple more times, torching two more temples and laying siege to the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=75213299666\">Ishiyama Hongan-ji</a>.&nbsp; When one rival warlord tried to send 600 wooden ships to aid the Ishiyama monks, Oda showed up with his secret weapon &ndash; seven bullet-proof, sword-proof ironclad warships he&rsquo;d bought from the Portuguese Jesuits.&nbsp; He literally rammed those ironclads up the wood ships&rsquo; poop decks and smashed their entire fleet to flotsam in an afternoon.&nbsp; Then he had his warriors ride up and down the coast stabbing any samurai lucky enough to swim to the shore.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The next losers to feel Nobunaga&rsquo;s sword inside their faces were the armies of the Asai and Asakura Clans.&nbsp; I guess at some point the Shogun found his balls and decided to beg these morons to help him get rid of Nobunaga, and the Asai and Asakura made the very ill-informed decision to try and actively raise an army against Oda Nobunaga.&nbsp; Nobunaga kicked the ever-loving bejeezus out of them with a hail of gunfire, arrows, and stampeding samurai, stood there laughing his balls off while the enemy Clan leaders seppukued themselves in front of him, and then he sliced their heads off, plated the skulls in gold, and used them as sake bowls.&nbsp; Then he headed back to Kyoto, kicked the Shogun back into place, and then levied taxes on the city of Kyoto so that they could pay Nobunaga back for the war he just had to fight.&nbsp; When the residents of Kyoto gave some bullcrap response like &ldquo;we don&rsquo;t have any money&rdquo; or something, Nobunaga sealed off the city and started burning it to the ground one neighborhood at a time until they were saw things his way and decided that yeah, maybe they should probably pay up.</p>\r\n<p>I&rsquo;m guessing none of this helped Nobunaga&rsquo;s reputation as &ldquo;The Demon King&rdquo;.&nbsp; Toasting your own badassitude in a sake bowl you made from the skulls of your defeated enemies while you&rsquo;re burning down the capital city of your own kingdom one neighborhood at a time isn&rsquo;t necessarily something that&rsquo;s always viewed favorably by history, but that&rsquo;s because history is usually written by assholes.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well if Nobunaga ever stopped immolating de-limbed Buddhists long enough to listen to them for a second, he&rsquo;d have learned that karma can kind of be a dick and catch up to you every so often.&nbsp; So, in 1582, Nobunaga was at war with the Mori Clan, some random group of jobbers he was in the process of grinding into broken glass with the heel of his boot.&nbsp; Hideyoshi was leading the attack, but the advance stalled, so Nobunaga ordered another of his subordinates, a guy named Akechi Mitsuhide, to go see what the hell was taking so long with the conquest.&nbsp; Akechi had been paid off by Nobunaga&rsquo;s rivals though, and when he got the order Akechi was like <em>nah, forget that</em> and sent his army after Nobunaga personally.</p>\r\n<p>It should give you some idea of how otherworldly-badass this man was that when Akechi went to sneak-attack assassinate Nobunaga, Akehi didn&rsquo;t march to the Castle of the Demon Lord Alone.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><em>He brought ten thousand men with him.</em></p>\r\n<p><em>&nbsp;</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>I wish I had more details on this, but when Oda Nobunaga realized he was being betrayed by his subordinate he didn&rsquo;t try to bargain, negotiate, or reason with the traitors.&nbsp; He just grabbed his swords, strapped them to his hip, and assembled his 100-man bodyguard of badass swordsmen to last stand this shit.</p>\r\n<p>According to the stories, Oda Nobunaga and his 100 bodyguards held out <em>way </em>longer than you&rsquo;d expect 100 men to last against 10,000.&nbsp; Fighting, slashing, cutting, and hacking at the enemy while the castle burned around them, cannonballs and musketballs whizzed through the air, and enemy soldiers charged in from every direction, Nobunaga grimly dissected balls and shanked faces with blazing speed.&nbsp; Finally, after a long, bloody engagement, with his men dying left and right around him and his strength failing, Oda Nobunaga retired to his chambers and killed himself by seppuku.&nbsp; He wasn&rsquo;t going to let those assholes get the satisfaction (or the XP) of killing him themselves.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Toyotomi Hideyoshi would eventually come back, kill Akechi Mitsuhide, and ceremonially present the traitor&rsquo;s head at Nobunaga&rsquo;s funeral.&nbsp; Hideyoshi would finish Nobunaga&rsquo;s work unifying the country, creating a unified Japan that would live in peace and prosperity under the Tokugawa Shogunate for over 250 years.</p>\r\n<p>Oda Nobunaga had been a minor lord, so violent and rageful that his own family members thought him unfit to run the Clan.&nbsp; By the time of his death in 1582, the Demon King was the unquestioned ruler over 31 of Japan&rsquo;s 66 provinces.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/374648828644/nobunaga10.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>','2016-01-15','374648828644','nobunaga.png','nobunaga-small.png','Oda Nobunaga','The Demon King of Feudal Japan.','\"A tall man, lean, scantily-bearded, with a clear voice, greatly addicted to military exercises… contemptuous of all nobles in Japan whom he addresses brusquely over his shoulder as inferiors.\"  - Luis Fros'),('Yakov Pavlov','October 4, 1917','September 29, 1981','Krestovaya, Russia','20th-century Russian Soldier','<p><span style=\"font-size: medium; font-family: times new roman,times;\"><em>(This week I&rsquo;m posting one of my favorite chapters from my third book, </em><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062112341/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0062112341&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=badofthewee-20\"><em>BADASS: ULTIMATE DEATHMATCH</em></a><em>).</em></span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">The Battle of Stalingrad is the single bloodiest battle in human history.&nbsp; Over the course of sixth months of non-stop, ultra over-the-top-in-a-bad-way combat, this unfathomably-violent blood fiesta ended the lives of two million people, almost single-handedly obliterated an entire generation of Russian and German men, and reduced a modern, sprawling industrial city to shrapnel-riddled rubble unfit for .&nbsp; To put the scale of this carnage in perspective, it\'s like taking every article on Wikipedia, turning that into a person, and then shooting them in the head.&nbsp; It\'s a number that\'s larger than the combined populations of Monaco, Bermuda, Estonia, Iceland, Lichtenstein, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.&nbsp; Yet, despite all of this devastation and tragedy, in the middle of this blood-scorched wasteland of miserable ass-sucking awfulness, one man proved himself a hero equal in epicness to the battle that raged around him &ndash; a lowly sergeant from some unknown village in Russiawho almost single-handedly tipped the scales in the battle that changed the course of World War II in Europe. Jacob Pavlov of the 42<sup>nd</sup> Regiment, 13<sup>th</sup> Guards Division, had been little more than a proud-yet-insignificant peasant farmer at the beginning of the war.&nbsp; But at Stalingrad his iron-willed ability to kick the crap out of Fascist Nazi Deutschbags with a skill that has never been witnessed by human beings before or since altered the course of the battle, and, with it, the course of World War II itself.</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\"><img src=\"/images/506519628414/pavlov1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>BADASS illustration by <a href=\"http://www.artofbriansnoddy.com/\">Brian Snoddy</a></em></span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">On the afternoon of September 28<sup>th</sup>, 1942, Sergeant Pavlov was crouch-running his way across a snow-covered, smoke-swept field towards an ordinary-looking four-story apartment building on the edge of Solechnaya Street, part of what used to be downtown Stalingrad before downtown Stalingrad simply became a festering pile of rubble and Nazis.&nbsp; Facing the burned-out husk of what once was the town square, this sturdy building had somehow withstood the bomb-riddled horribleness that had leveled almost the entire rest of the city, but aside from that (and, you know, the MG42s spewing a steady stream of lead death out of every other window), it was otherwise relatively unremarkable.&nbsp; 7.92mm bullets zipped past his helmet as Pavlov charged across the coverless field, his PPSH submachine gun blaring, while one by one the German machine gun teams methodically cut down his squad as they raced across the open ground.&nbsp; By the time Pavlov got anywhere near the house, all that remained of his 30-man platoon were himself and two other men.&nbsp; This didn\'t seem to bother the sturdy peasant warrior, and he wasn\'t the sort of unstoppable assreaming maniac who would come all the way across a bullet-strewn field just to surrender to the enemy like some total dumbass (plus it\'s not like he could have expected mercy from the Germans, either).&nbsp; Another couple bursts of fire from his submachine gun (and a few close calls) later and he slammed his back up against the brick and mortar exterior and lobbed a pair of expertly-placed grenades right through the windows of the building, dropping them conveniently on the enemy weapons emplacements.&nbsp; The Germans that weren\'t gibbed into bite-sized morsels dropped their rifles and ran for it, and Pavlov, by virtue of the fact that he was the only non-commissioned officer that wasn\'t currently either dead or screaming for a medic, was now the senior ranking member of his unit. He ordered his two surviving men to sweep the building while he began administering first aid to the wounded Russian POWs and civilians he found inside.&nbsp; Within minutes the quick-minded sergeant had organized a defensive position, set his men on watch for counterattacks, and was firmly in control of a tiny, crumbling apartment building 200 meters on the German side of the Volga River.&nbsp; His orders were simple &ndash; do not let the Germans take this structure.&nbsp; Do not let them reach the river.&nbsp; Hold until death.&nbsp; Keep holding after death, if possible.</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\"><img src=\"/images/506519628414/pavlov2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">After a super-fun night fighting off repeated counterattacks, Pavlov\'s platoon was reinforced to twenty-five men the following morning.&nbsp; There were also nearly a dozen women trapped in the hardened military bunker that at one point used to be their homes, and Pavlov wisely had everyone &ndash; soldiers and civilians &ndash; busting their ass to turn this ordinary apartment building into a fortress of impenetrable deathdealing awesomeness.&nbsp; Within a few hours, every approach to the building was cleared of debris and cover, sprinkled with land mines, and redecorated with thousands of feet of barbed wire.&nbsp; Every window in the structure was sandbagged and stocked with enough weapons and ammunition to make David Koresh\'s stronghold look like Barney the Dinosaur\'s Happy Fun Land.&nbsp; Pavlov\'s men cut glory holes in the wall just big enough to fit the barrel of a machine gun through, and they ripped out the middle of the building\'s interior so that in the heat of battle they could throw machine guns, ammo, and grenades back and forth to one another even if they were on different floors.&nbsp; The platoon also dug a ten-foot deep communications trench back to the Volga that allowed them to sneak a ridiculously-huge wheeled anti-tank artillery piece into the basement, and which also allowed them to ferry food, ammunition and medical supplies back and forth between the Russian lines and Pavlov\'s fortress.&nbsp; By the time they were done, this was the sort of place that would have withstood the zombie apocalypse.</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">Of course, the main difference between the Battle of Stalingrad and the Zombie Apocalypse is that the swarm of humanity rushing towards Sergeant Pavlov was highly intelligent, well-coordinated, and highly-trained in the use of hand grenades and automatic weapons.&nbsp; This made things a little complicated, and having full regiments of German infantry charge the apartment day and night from every possible angle shouting and shooting at you was about as much fun as hiring Pyramid Head from the <em>Silent Hill </em>games to perform at your child\'s birthday party.&nbsp; Despite the unrelenting onslaught, Sergeant Pavlov tirelessly urged his men to kick ass and never stop kicking ass until there were no more asses left in the universe, as he and his men desperately held out against constant bombardment by human wave attacks.&nbsp; Repairs to the structure were made by the light of day, and at night the tracer fire poured out by the 25 men in the fortress was so intense that their killzone was visible across the entire battlefront &ndash; in some ways standing out like a beacon of heroic resistance against the Nazis, and a detail that earned Pavlov the Code Name LIGHTHOUSE.&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\"><img src=\"/images/506519628414/pavlov3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">The Germans hurled everything and the kitchen sink at this dude, but for some ungodly reason they just couldn\'t slow this insane juggernaut of Proletariat asskicking down.&nbsp;&nbsp; Even though bodies were piling up and they still couldn\'t take the building, the Germans also couldn\'t just chill out and ignore the dude, either &ndash; Pavlov held the main road approach to the Volga, and the Germans couldn\'t win the battle unless they were able to cross that river. &nbsp;So they kept throwing guys at him, and Pavlov kept killing them all.</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">When the Germans weren\'t occupying his bullets with the fleshy parts of their abdomens, Pavlov was personally out on the roof with a pair of binoculars sexting coordinates to Soviet artillery guns, which then in turn rained death down on the Nazi positions.&nbsp; At one point the Germans got so fed up with this jerk that they called in a full Panzer Division, rolled their up tanks so close to the house that they basically jammed their gun barrels through the windows and shot point-blank into the living room, but even this failed miserably &ndash; Pavlov saw them coming and had already cleared out the main floors and moved his anti-tank weaponry into the basement, where gunners blasted straight through the floor armor of the tanks and blew the Frankenberries off everyone inside.&nbsp; The panzers held in reserve were then shot through the thin armor at the tops of their turrets as marksmen on the roof armed with PTRS anti-tank rifles blasted a few dozen rounds of high-explosive armor-piercing ammunition the size of a baby\'s fist down from the roof, through the Nazi tank commanders, and right into the hull, where the bullet ignited the ammunition stores and sent the tank up like a TNT stick stuffed with M80s and Black Cats on Chinese New Year.&nbsp; By the time the Panzers figured out what the hell ass was blowing the schei&szlig;e out of them, they were already too close to the structure, and they couldn\'t raise their turret guns high enough to shoot back.&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\"><img src=\"/images/506519628414/pavlov4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">Just keeping this daily regime of Nazi-capping insanity up for a couple days is impressive, but for TWO FULL MONTHS the men of the 42<sup>nd</sup> Regiment, 13<sup>th</sup> Guards Rifle Division held their ground.&nbsp; The soldiers inside represented eight ethnicities from across the Soviet Union &ndash; Russian, Kazakh, Georgian, Uzbek, Tajik, Ukrainian, Jewish and Mongolian &ndash; and with every man wounded and exhausted, and the building crumbling around them from the constant mortar, artillery, and machine gun fire hammered it nonstop, these guys resolutely fought on against all odds.&nbsp; Jacob Pavlov, for his part, never seemed to lose his sunny, ever-cheery disposition, and even though this guy was a low-level sergeant he not only inspired his own beleaguered unit, but the entire Red Army &ndash; his balls-out defense was a propaganda-machine-fueled beacon of heroism amid a war that up until now had seen the Germans putting their dicks in mashed potatoes from Warsaw to Moscow.&nbsp; Always looking for ways to improve morale, during the defense Pavlov found an old phonograph machine in a blown-out apartment &ndash; it only had a single record, and nobody knew the tune, but he and his troops played that song until they\'d memorized every note.</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">As the most ferocious battle of World War II raged around them, men fighting street-to-street and house-to-house, the Nazi onslaught continued on this makeshift fortress.&nbsp; Pavlov\'s men constantly cranked machine gun fire in every direction, and while the Germans were well-known for their strategic blitzkrieging-your-ass-off abilities, towards the end of the battle for Pavlov\'s Apartment it was kind of like the commander of the Sixth Army threw all that tactical nonsense out the window and started taking his operational cues from <em>Zapp Branigan\'s Big Book of War</em> &ndash; he simply hurled wave after wave of his own men at the Russians in a fight not too dissimilar to the Nazi Zombie survival mode in <em>Call of Duty</em>.&nbsp; It allegedly got to such a point that during breaks in the fighting the Russians had to run out of the house and kick over piles of bodies just so that they\'d have clear firing lanes towards the enemy.&nbsp; Before long the place was covered with so many skulls and bones that it was starting to look like the cover of a <em>Warhammer 40k</em> codex &ndash; I feel like there\'s probably some kind of Yakov Smirnov, \"In Soviet Russia, house keels YOU!\" joke to be made here, but it seems to be eluding me at the moment for some obnoxious reason.</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\"><img src=\"/images/506519628414/pavlov5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">Jacob Pavlov\'s troops held the position for an unbelievable fifty-nine days.&nbsp; By that point the Battle for Stalingrad was nearly decided &ndash; Pavlov and the other defenders of this vital city had held long enough for a fresh Soviet army group to arrive from Siberia, encircle the German Sixth army and utterly annihilate it where it stood.&nbsp; The defense of Stalingrad proved to be the turning point of World War II &ndash; the back of the Nazi invasion of Russia had been broken, and from that point on the Germans would be on the defensive as they retreated all the way back to Berlin.&nbsp; And, in the middle of all of this, for two months, one sergeant had held the high-water mark of the German invasion of Russia.&nbsp; The Fascists never advanced past him, never took the building , and never overran his position, despite outnumbering his force by a factor of about a hundred thousand to one.&nbsp; Sergeant Jacob Pavlov survived the battle, fought through the rest of the war, was present during the fall of Berlin, and was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the country\'s highest honor for military bravery.&nbsp; The building he defended is still standing today and is a national landmark in Russia.&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">But, despite all that, the greatest testament to Pavlov\'s defense is this &ndash; when the Russians captured the Sixth Army, they noticed that German commander General Friedrich von Paulus\' personal map of the battlefield had the structure circled in red and with the hand-written word \"Castle\" next to it.</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">The Russians maps had simply labeled it \"Pavlov\'s House.\"</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\"><img src=\"/images/506519628414/pavlov6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-family: times new roman,times; font-size: medium;\">&nbsp;</span></p>','2016-01-22','506519628414','pavlov.jpg','pavlov-small.jpg','Jacob Pavlov','One man.  One building.  One million Nazis.','\"Pavlov\'s small group of men, defending one house, killed more enemy soldiers than the Germans lost in taking Paris.\" - Lt. Gen. Vasily Chuikov'),('Drukpa Kunley','c. 1455','c. 1529','U-Tsang, Tibet','Medieval Tibetan Monk','<p>The Great Lama Drukpa Kunley, the &ldquo;Divine Madman&rdquo;, was a hardcore radical anti-institutional 15<sup>th</sup> century skeptic who hated the establishment, challenged all manner of authority without fear or hesitation, and unflinchingly forced the people of the land to question everything they knew about Buddhism, the monastic system, Enlightenment, the priesthood, religion, nature, and the government.&nbsp; Known as &ldquo;the Madman of the Dragon Lineage,&rdquo; Kunley is the Patron Saint of the nation of Bhutan, where to this day he is honored in murals, religious services, and artwork all throughout the tiny Himalayan kingdom.</p>\r\n<p>Ok, well being a 15<sup>th</sup> century Tibetan George Carlin is cool and all, but what makes Kunley extra-hardcore notable today is that he was also known as &ldquo;The Saint of 5,000 Women,&rdquo; and was best known for bringing Enlightenment to the world with his &ldquo;Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom&rdquo; &ndash; which is, I shit you not, a reference to his boner, which ancient texts take great care to describe as &ldquo;fucking humongous&rdquo;.&nbsp; According to the mythology surrounding this Saintly Lama, when this guy wasn&rsquo;t bringing Enlightenment to maidens once drunken orgy at a time, he was swinging his dick around like a baseball bat and using it to bludgeon evil spirits and demons unconscious in a scene that I imagine to resemble something like that hammer-wielding fight scene from <em>Oldboy </em>if it was produced by Vivid Entertainment.&nbsp; And he was so damn successful at it that to this day women pray to him for fertility, and the people of Bhutan call for his help by painting his Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom on their homes to ward off evil spirits.</p>\r\n<p>That&rsquo;s right, folks &ndash; this guy was so fucking awesome that he literally has other people drawing dicks on their homes in his name 600 years after his death.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley21.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>In the interests of full disclosure here, I should mention that my main incentive for writing this article was because I really just wanted to pack this article full of amazing Bhutanese Dong Art, but I eventually had to decide that I&rsquo;d have a tough time posting this update from my work computer if I have to keep running image searches for Bhutanese murals depicting six-foot-tall cock-and-balls shooting jizz all over the place.&nbsp; Also I don&rsquo;t really want to fuck up any of your guys&rsquo; jobs either, just in case your boss decides to pop her head over your cubicle wall while you&rsquo;ve got a screen full of wood-carved boners&hellip; even if it is technically considered &ldquo;religious art&rdquo; and not &ldquo;hardcore pornography that might legitimately get you fired&rdquo;.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Do yourself a favor though, and once you&rsquo;re in a secure location try running a Google Image Search for &ldquo;<a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?biw=1680&amp;bih=926&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=1&amp;q=drukpa+kunley+phallus&amp;oq=drukpa+kunley+phallus&amp;gs_l=img.3...113609.114560.0.114743.8.8.0.0.0.0.100.453.7j1.8.0....0...1.1.64.img..0.3.141.Ffbo34QEImY\">Drukpa Kunley Phallus</a>,&rdquo;&nbsp; Because it really is goddamn tremendous that this is something that exists in real life in a country on Earth in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Drukpa Kunley was born in Tibet in the year of the <a href=\"http://www.uniquely-thai.com/cgi/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&amp;key=4993\">wood-pig</a> in the Eighth Cycle, which, I&rsquo;ll spare you the math, was 1455 AD.&nbsp; As a kid he was brilliant and wise, remembering all of his previous incarnations, and he was also fun-loving, outgoing, and super chill.&nbsp; The same can&rsquo;t be said for his dad, I guess, because when Kunley was just a boy his dad was murdered with a shovel during a hardcore inter-family feud that makes the Hatfields and McCoys look like a company softball game.&nbsp; Kunley peaced out and became a Buddhist Monk, moving into a badass monastery somewhere in the fucking Himalayas.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Bhutan is so rad</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, as tends to be the case with medieval clergy, Kunley was pretty upset that a lot of the monks he met were more interested in wealth, power, and personal gain than they were in actually spreading the Good Word.&nbsp; Drukpa Kunley became incredibly disillusioned with the hypocrisy he witnessed, and he hated that these dudes were saying &ldquo;oh yeah totally give up all material possessions and desires if you want to achieve Enlightenment,&rdquo; and then they&rsquo;d go off and hoard money, sleep with women, and screw their buddies over so they could get promoted.&nbsp; Drukpa Kunley hated that these guys were going through the motions without even following their own advice, so he said fuck this and decided he&rsquo;d do this shit himself.</p>\r\n<p>Still in his early 20s, Drukpa Kunley left the monastery, grabbed a bow and arrows, and became a mendicant, wandering the Earth like Samuel L. Jackson from <em>Pulp Fiction</em>.&nbsp; Wearing normal everyday clothes, with a cool dog at his side and a bow in his hands, Kunley would never again have a permanent residence &ndash; even though he would be offered huge plots of land, titles of nobility, castles, wealth, and even his own monastery.&nbsp; Nowadays there&rsquo;s a temple in Punakha that was dedicated in his name (it was built by his cousin), and to this day women make a pilgrimage there if they want help trying to get pregnant.&nbsp; They have a festival every year where people go and get blessed by a Buddhist monk, who says a prayer and then taps them on the head with a foot-long wooden carving of a dick.&nbsp; I am not making this up.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>&ldquo;Kunley never tires of girls,<br /> Monks never tire of wealth,<br /> Girls never tire of sex: <br /> That is the teaching on the Three Indefatigable.&rdquo;<br /> - Drukpa Kunley, &ldquo;Writings&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As one of the &ldquo;Mad Ones,&rdquo; a series of medieval Tibetan Buddhists who took very unorthodox approaches to their ministry, Drukpa Kunley purposely said <em>fuck this </em>to the established way of teaching, and decided he was going to spread the good word of Enlightenment in his own special way.&nbsp; Mostly he did this by walking into a town, heading to the town square, and declaring his catchphrase:&nbsp; <em>I have come without prejudice to help you, where can I find the best booze and most beautiful women</em><em>.&nbsp; </em>People would be super pumped to see him, and he&rsquo;d get hammered on Tibetan booze called <em>chang, </em>sing a bunch of dirty karaoke jams about dicks and orgasms, talk shit about the government and the priesthood, and then bone everyone with his crazy Tantric powers (and yeah, he was one of the original gangsters of Tantra, even before Sting).&nbsp; Basically he was N.W.A.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley4a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, if you&rsquo;re as fucking confused about this as I was when I first started reading about this, let me try to explain.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m somewhat out of my depth trying to discuss Buddhist religious philosophy, but I am under the impression that his entire life was basically satire aimed at &ldquo;pointing out the fallacies of conventional reality&rdquo;.&nbsp; Basically, he was saying to let go of your pretention, stop pretending you&rsquo;re someone you aren&rsquo;t, and just give in to your basic human nature without being embarrassed or inhibited, because spiritual happiness only comes when you let go of earthly conventions.&nbsp; Or something.&nbsp; Like I said, I don&rsquo;t really understand a ton of it, but it appears that he was an incredible thinker, speaker, and debater, with an iron-clad grasp on the teaching of Tibetan Buddhism, and any time someone would fuck with him he&rsquo;d destroy them with some brain-meltingly badass argument that was like <em>if you don&rsquo;t understand why I do this then it&rsquo;s YOU who are unenlightened, fool.&nbsp; </em>Then everyone would <em>oh snap</em> and he&rsquo;d bang a half-dozen nuns he just met five minutes ago and still have enough energy to thump an evil spirit unconscious by swinging his nuts like a medieval flail.&nbsp; Kunley could also apparently freestyle his ass off, and would do mock songs trashing any self-righteous religious jerk he met, but he was so good at it that in most of the stories the dude he&rsquo;s ragging on just tips his hat, throws up his hands and is like <em>yeah you got me bro</em>.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>One time an uptight monk asked Kunley:<br /> &ldquo;What crime did you commit that hell wasn&rsquo;t deep enough for you?&rdquo; <br /> Kunley responded with something like:<br /> &ldquo;Yeah, I was headed that way, but the road to hell was so clogged <br /> with phony priests that I had to turn back&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>If it&rsquo;s not random and awesome enough that this guy was sainted for drinking and humping and is depicted in murals beating the shit out of demons with his dick, I also love the fact that during his journeys through Tibet and Bhutan Drukpa Kunley met &ndash; and ruthlessly made fun of &ndash; basically every other important Buddhist Saint that was alive at the same time as him.&nbsp; One story claims he met the dude in charge of the Gelug School (the one the Dalai Lama runs today), and that guy gave Kunley a blessing cord to show support for what Kunley was doing.&nbsp; Kunley tied it to his dick and went around the marketplace showing everyone how &ldquo;Enlightened&rdquo; he was.&nbsp; Another time some pilgrim came to have him bless a banner (after walking hundreds of miles through the dang Himalayas to find Kunley), and instead of blessing it Drukpa Kunley took a leak on it to show the guy that yeah, this really isn&rsquo;t how religion works, dude.&nbsp; Another time he saw some monk preaching in a marketplace, so Kunley jumped up onto a guy&rsquo;s fruit stand and started singing a song about how full of shit that other monk was, because Kunley had <em>totally </em>busted that guy checking out a hot girl who was walking through the crowd.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>&ldquo;It would seem from your legs and muscular thighs that your <br /> pelvic thrust is particularly efficient, let&rsquo;s see how you perform?&rdquo;<br /> - Drukpa Kunley, to a Buddhist nun he just met two seconds earlier</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>There are plenty of magical and mystical feats attributed to Drukpa Kunley that only enhance his standing in the Pantheon of Dong Saints.&nbsp; Sure, most of these stories come to us orally through generations of Bhutanese scholars (btw dude, how any author can use a phrase like &ldquo;the oral renderings of Drukpa Kunley&rsquo;s exploits&rdquo; with a straight face is beyond me), but they&rsquo;re so amazing that I need to share them even though they can&rsquo;t really be substantiated by any of the world&rsquo;s greatest penis scholars.&nbsp; Most of his work was based on exorcising evil spirits, blessing good families, and placing curses on evil families (I love that so much!), but he could also teleport anywhere in the world instantaneously and bring farm animals back from the dead.&nbsp; One time he decapitated a herd of livestock (With his dick?&nbsp; The source isn&rsquo;t clear.), cut them up, served the meat to a village, then magically turned the bones back into living animals.&nbsp; Another time he took a small handful of tea leaves and mighty morphed them into a fucking keg of booze so that everyone in town could get ripshit drunk.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Kunley also does battle with a big number of demons, usually by scaring the hell out of them by waving his dong around like Michelangelo&rsquo;s nunchucks from the Ninja Turtles.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t have a ton of specific details on actual events where he needed to dick-slap evil with his Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, but if you clicked that link to the Dong Art at the top of the page you&rsquo;ll see plenty of images of this guy two-handing his junk like William Wallace charging the English Army with a Claymore.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Kunley meets a demon</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>And that, in a nutshell, is what makes Drukpa Kunley such a fucking over-the-top amazing and unique and badass figure in world history.&nbsp; The people of Bhutan are, generally speaking, a pretty reserved culture.&nbsp; They have fun, but they don&rsquo;t typically show a lot of public displays of affection, and they take great care in their appearances.&nbsp; There is a national dress code and official way of conducting yourself in person, called the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driglam_namzha\">Rules for Disciplined Behavior</a>, that lays out very specific rules for how a citizen should look, act, and behave.</p>\r\n<p>Yet, thanks to Drukpa Kunley&rsquo;s bizarre religious mission 600 years ago, many Bhutanese still paint gigantic winged dicks on the sides of their homes, calling for the Patron Saint of Cockslapping Demons to protect them from evil.<br /><br />I\'m not really sure what could be more badass than that.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley8.jpg\" alt=\"\" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img src=\"/images/176117624362/kunley8a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Sorry sorry I couldn&rsquo;t help it</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/03/the-flaming-thunderbolt-of-wisdom-a-penis-over-every-doorway-simon-hollington/\">The Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/0111/divine_bhutan.html\">Divine Bhutan and the Well-hung Lama</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.calnative.com/stories/n_madman.htm\">The Divine Madman</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.himalaya2000.com/bhutan/drukpa-kunley.html\">Himalaya 2000</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drukpa_Kunley\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Sources:</p>\r\n<p>Aris, Michael.&nbsp; <em>Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives</em>.&nbsp; New York: Routledge, 1989.</p>\r\n<p>Bisht, Ramesh Chandra.&nbsp; <em>International Encyclopedia of Himalayas, Vol. 2</em>.&nbsp; New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2008.</p>\r\n<p>DiValerio, David M.&nbsp; <em>The Holy Madmen of Tibet</em>.&nbsp; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.</p>\r\n<p>Feuerstein, Georg.&nbsp; <em>The Deeper Dimension of Yoga</em>.&nbsp; Boston: Shambhala, 2003.</p>\r\n<p>Jestice, Phyllis G.&nbsp; <em>Holy People of the World, Vol. 1.</em>&nbsp; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.</p>\r\n<p>Phuntsho, Karma.&nbsp; <em>The History of Bhutan.</em>&nbsp; London: Random House, 2013.</p>','2016-01-29','176117624362','kunley.jpg','kunley-small.jpg','Drukpa Kunley','The Patron Saint of Bhutan brought the teaching of Buddhism to the people of the land... With his boner.','The biographies of lamas in which everything is too ordered tend to read like a creditor’s account book, in which it says, “In this year and month, on this day, I made a loan for this amount, and I shall collect this measure of barley and peas in return…”  It’s much too narrow… what is the use of such writings?  It’s like, “During the warmth of the day, he ate this kind of food… at night, he took this kind of a shit…”  Doesn’t it make you laugh?   - Drukpa Kunley, Patron Saint of Bhutan'),('Unknown','N/A','N/A','North Sentinel Island, India','Modern Tribal Warriors','<p>Deep in the Bay of Bengal, somewhere between Indonesia and India, is a heavily-jungled island roughly 20% larger than Manhattan, New York.&nbsp; Canopy forests circled by large sandy beaches, this mysterious place has no natural harbors, is completely surrounded by ship-disintegrating coral reefs, and has been almost completely untouched by human civilization sinec the dawn of mankind.&nbsp; To this day, it is illegal for anyone to set foot on this ultra-remote would-be paradise &ndash; the Coast Guard of India maintains a 3-mile cordon around the island.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>This cordon is there for your protection.&nbsp; Because while this miniscule speck of land in the Indian Ocean may appear to be completely uninhabited, it is in fact home to one of the last civilizations on earth about which we know absolutely fucking nothing.</p>\r\n<p>This is North Sentinel Island.&nbsp; And the tribal people that live there have a long-standing policy &ndash; if you set foot on our island, we will kill the shit out of you, slit your throat, dump your corpse on the beach, and then disappear into the jungle.&nbsp; We don\'t negotiate.&nbsp; We don\'t make friends.&nbsp; We don\'t make treaties.&nbsp; We defend our fucking island to the death.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>To this day, in the Golden Age of Google Maps and Other Crazy Satellite Robot Drone Shit, the only photographs you will ever see of the North Sentinelese people were taken either from an aircraft or a boat.&nbsp; There is no living person on the planet right now who has set foot in those jungles and lived to tell the tale.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Not only can we not decipher their spoken language, but it bears no resemblance to any spoken language of any civilization in existence.&nbsp; These loinclothed tribesmen have very dark skin, leading some anthropologists to believe that they are of African descent, but how the fuck they got to the Bay of Bengal is a complete mystery.&nbsp; We have never taken a DNA sample of a tribesperson, so we have no clue what their genetic lineage might be.</p>\r\n<p>What we do know is that these hardcore pipe-hittin\' ass-stompers are resourceful, tough, ingenuitive, and hard as yesterday&rsquo;s fucking meatloaf, and they respond to any attempts at pussy shit like negotiations and friendly neighborliness by charging screaming out to the beach in He-Man loincloths and ripping off a hail of murderous arrows from 8-foot-tall longbows that they can fire with deadly sniper accuracy.&nbsp; We think there are somewhere between 50 and 400 of them, but we don&rsquo;t know because no satellite imagery can see through the canopy jungle on the heart of the island.&nbsp; They have no agriculture that we know of.&nbsp; We know they gather coconuts on the beach, go fishing in wooden canoes, and friggin&rsquo; spear-hunt for turtles, birds, and goddamn wild warthogs.&nbsp; They can&rsquo;t create fire, but they can use it.&nbsp; They haven&rsquo;t invented oars (they use long poles to push their canoes along), but &ndash; get this &ndash; <em>they fucking created iron-tipped arrows by hacking off scrap metal from a goddamn British ship that wrecked there in 1981.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><em>This photo was taken from a helicopter <br />as it was being attacked by the tribesmen.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Despite being completely untouched by the outside world for something like 60,000 years or some shit, the Sentinelese have a long and glorious history of being badass as hell and scaring the ever-lovin\' piss out of everyone who dared set eyes on North Sentinel Island. &nbsp;Back in the 2<sup>nd</sup> century AD, the ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy mentioned an &ldquo;island of cannibals&rdquo; in the Bay of Bengal that may have been North Sentinel.&nbsp; According to him, the men who lived there brutally murdered anyone who approached them, then cut up and ate their bodies to prevent these unwanted outsiders from coming back to life as zombies.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s some forward-thinking shit right there &ndash; these guys were fighting World War Z when the rest of the world was beating rocks together.&nbsp; The next time we hear about them is 1,100 years later (!), when Marco Polo describes them as a bunch of psychotic headhunting cannibals who could not be reasoned with.&nbsp; Neither of these descriptions sounded particularly appealing to adventurers, so North Sentinel went untouched for the next five hundred years, because, sure, sounds good to me.&nbsp; In 1771 a British East India Company ship surveyed the island, dubbing it &ldquo;North Sentinel&rdquo; (we have no idea what the actual inhabitants call the place, because every time we try to talk to them they attempt to shiv us), and even though they saw fires on the beach the Brits wisely chose not to dock there.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Nobody else stopped near the island again until 1867, when the Indian ship <em>Nineveh </em>shipwrecked on the beach after a storm.&nbsp; They were immediately attacked by a swarm of tribal warriors.&nbsp; Several people were killed, and the crew was only able to survive after fighting the attackers off with swords and guns.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The British colonized the nearby Andaman Island chain in the 17<sup>th</sup> century, setting it up as an Australia-style penal colony where badass shit went down like prisoner deathmatches and other sci-fi dystopian future awesomeness.&nbsp; Well, one day in 1896, a convict on the Andaman colony escaped, fashioned a boat like some kind of El Chapo Bear Grylls, and rowed that shit over to North Sentinel.&nbsp; The British would discover his mutilated corpse unceremoniously discarded on North Sentinel\'s beach a few weeks later &ndash; his throat had been slit, and his entire body was covered in dozens of puncture wounds from arrows and spears.</p>\r\n<p>But the craziest thing about the North Sentinels is that most of the badass crap these guys did takes place in the last 40 years.&nbsp; Like, for instance in 1974, an enterprising film crew from National Geographic showed up on ultra-modern speedboats to try and capture footage of these mysterious tribesmen in action.&nbsp; The idealistic crew sped up to the beach, jumped out into the surf, walked on up to the beach like they owned the place, and delicately set down a few peace offerings &ndash; a pack of coconuts, a baby doll, and a live pig.</p>\r\n<p>The Sentinelese showed up almost immediately.&nbsp; Fully armed.</p>\r\n<p>The fucking National Geographic director took an arrow to the knee, a wound that probably put his adventuring days to an end, and he and the rest of his crew bolted outta there.&nbsp; As they sailed away, they saw the Sentinelese destroy all the lame peace offerings (including the pig), smash them to shit, and bury the wreckage in the sand.</p>\r\n<p>The dude who had fired the arrow spent most of the time pointing and laughing at the idiots running for their lives.&nbsp; This was basically PWNED when the rest of the world was still PONG.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It gets better.</p>\r\n<p>In 1981, a Hong Kong freighter, the <em>Primrose</em>, ran aground on one of the reefs a few hundred yards off the coast of North Sentinel.&nbsp; After a day or two of nothing, the crew were alarmed to see tribesmen assembling on the beach.&nbsp; In full war paint.&nbsp; The tribesmen chopped down some trees, and began working on a terrifying project.</p>\r\n<p>The crew of <em>Primrose </em>sent out a distress signal:&nbsp; &ldquo;Wild men, estimate more than 50, carrying various homemade weapons are making two or three wooden boats&hellip; worrying they will board us at sunset. All crew members&rsquo; lives not guaranteed&rdquo;.</p>\r\n<p>The <em>Primrose&rsquo;</em>s crew spent the next two days fending off attacks by using two flare guns, one pistol and a couple firefighting axes.&nbsp; They were evacuated by helicopter as the Sentinelese swarmed the ship.&nbsp; After looting the contents, the Sentinelese began chipping pieces off the iron hull and using the chunks as iron-tipped arrowheads.</p>\r\n<p>The ship is still visible on Google Maps to this day:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Only been two people have ever had any success making headway with this civilization of awesome post-Stone Age badassitude.&nbsp; The first was a British officer named Maurice Portman, who landed on the island with a heavily-armed expedition way back in 1880.&nbsp; After a few days of searching the island, he found absolutely nobody.&nbsp; They\'d all bolted in the face of superior opposition, choosing to bide their time rather than fight a battle they might not win.&nbsp; Eventually, after days, Portman came across six people &ndash; two elderly people and four children.&nbsp; He took them back to the Andaman colony to research them, but the elderly couple died of disease almost immediately, so Portman just said fuck it and brought the kids back home.</p>\r\n<p>The other person is Indian researcher T.N. Pandit, who is the world&rsquo;s foremost expert on the Sentinelese.&nbsp; After studying them for over 20 years, Pandit started making journeys to the island in the early 1990s, leaving a bunch of coconuts on the beach, and then sailing away.&nbsp; Any time he saw people on the beach, they either shot arrows at him, waved their dicks at the boat (yeah, no kidding), or bent over and pretended to take a shit (to show Pandit what they thought of his presence there).&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Finally, one time in 1991, the tribespeople stopped threatening him with their dicks and instead came out to the boat.&nbsp; Pandit got out and handed the tribesmen coconuts, but as soon as the boat started to drift away from the island the tribespeople all fucking pulled knives and made it very clear that he better not plan on staying there or they were gonna shank the fuck out of him.&nbsp; He scrambled back to the boat and got the hell out of there.&nbsp; As he left, an arrow landed in his boat.&nbsp; But this one had no arrowhead &ndash; it was a warning shot.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s meaning was clear:&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t come back.</p>\r\n<p>He didn&rsquo;t.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br />Still photo from a video taken by T.N. Pandit in 1991.<br /> This is the best thing we&rsquo;ve got on these people.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After Pandit&rsquo;s adventure, the Indian Navy set up a cordon around the island and declared it illegal under Indian law for any person to ever visit there for any reason.&nbsp; Partly this was for the protection of the Sentinelese &ndash; exposure to the outside world would expose them to any number of lethal diseases and wipe out their population.&nbsp; But it was also for the protection of everyone else in the world as well, as two idiot poachers found out in 2006.</p>\r\n<p>On January 26, 2006, two drunk fishermen were out hunting for mud crabs when their boat accidentally drifted into a reef off North Sentinel.&nbsp; When the Indian Coast Guard sent a helicopter to investigate, they found the dead bodies of both fishermen dumped into shallow graves on the beach.<br /><br /> When the helicopter &ndash; a modern, 2006 Coast Guard helicopter &ndash; tried to land to recover the dead bodies, the Sentinelese fucking charged out of the forest and launched arrows at spears at it until the pilot was like fuck this and got the hell outta there.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Here&rsquo;s a good example of how awesome these people are &ndash; in 2004 that huge tsunami ripped through the Bay of Bengal and annihilated everything in its path.&nbsp; Most people thought the Sentinelese were probably all going to be completely wiped off the map, but they weren&rsquo;t.&nbsp; Crazier than that, it kind of looks like maybe they might have actually reloacated to higher ground <em>just before the tsunami</em>, like they somehow predicted it, or sensed it coming, or something.</p>\r\n<p>The tsunami devastated the island, but not the population.&nbsp; The people adapted.&nbsp; Hell, the tidal wave obliterated the lagoon where the Sentinelese did most of their fishing, but they just figured out a way to work around it, and within a few days and everything was fine.</p>\r\n<p>Not only that, but, in true North Sentinelese fasion, when the Indian Red Cross landed helicopters on the island to deliver aid relief and medical supplies, the Sentinelese attacked them, wounding the chopper pilot in the leg with a gigantic arrow and driving the aid workers off in terror.</p>\r\n<p>This island kicks ass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/279861729031/northsentinel9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://northsentinelisland.com\">NorthSentinelIsland.com</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/1509987/Stone-Age-tribe-kills-fishermen-who-strayed-on-to-island.html\">The Telegraph</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3049022/The-island-dangerous-visit-Mysterious-Sentinelese-tribe-rejected-outsiders-60-000-years-try-kill-sets-foot-land.html\">Daily Mail</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.odditycentral.com/travel/north-sentinel-island-the-worlds-hardest-place-to-visit-2.html\">Oddity Central</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.neatorama.com/2013/07/08/The-Forbidden-Island/\">Neatorama</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2015-08-07','279861729031','northsentinel.jpg','northsentinel-small.jpg','North Sentinel Island','Modern-day society of tribal badass warriors who have responded to ruthlessly defend their island against anyone who sets foot near it.','“A most brutish and savage race... they are very cruel, and kill and eat every foreigner whom they can lay their hands upon.”  - Marco Polo, 13th century\r\n'),('Józef Klemens Pi&#322;sudski','December 5, 1867','May 12, 1935','Zalavas, Lithuania','20th-century Polish General','<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">August 15<sup>th</sup>, 2015 marks the 95<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the greatest military victory in modern Polish history.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>And before you assholes out there start talking about how they finally built a mosquito-proof submarine because they installed screen door hatches or some other such bullshit, you should know that on August 15, 1920, the battered, war-torn country of Poland defended their capital against the onslaught of Leninist Soviet Russia, halting the progress of Communism across post-World War I Europe despite being outnumbered, outgunned, and almost completely surrounded by hardcore enemy soldiers wanting nothing more than to stomp Polish faces into proletariat borscht with the bootheels of militant Bolshevism.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span>With their own capital city at their backs, the Poles utterly demolished the entire might of the Soviet army during the &ldquo;Miracle on the Vistula&rdquo;, and they did it in the most badass way imaginable &ndash; by straight-on bayonet charging a superior force in the hopes of breaking their morale with one ultra-brave display of the Polish military&rsquo;s giant kielbasa dongs.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In their desperate attack, sweeping through the demoralized conscript forces of the Red Army and rolling up their flank, the Poles were led by the greatest military commander in modern Polish History &ndash; Marshal Jozel Pilsudski.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Take a look at that dude for a second. <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span>Honestly, his amazing moustache and badass manly 1900s crew cut alone should convince you of his crippling badassitude, but this guy was a revolutionary, bank robber, guerilla, underground writer, General, and political activist who shanked faces with a razor-sharp saber and survived hardcore imprisonments in everything from Siberian gulags and St. Petersburg Mental Institutions to Polish castles and inescapable German mountain fortresses. <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Despite all the lame dad jokes about their military might, Poland has a <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=821629121782\">long</a> and <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=28505525333\">amazing</a> history of <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=229849527979\">hardcore</a> military <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=15422271533\">awesomeness</a> that has been massively underappreciated throughout time.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>These guys aren&rsquo;t pussies.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They&rsquo;re hardasses, and anyone who tells you otherwise is woefully underinformed about military history.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Unfortunately for the Polish fighting man, they&rsquo;re completely fucked by having terrible geography:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They&rsquo;re completely squished in between Germany and Russia, two of the most epic military powers to ever exist, and a complete lack of decent warm-water ports means these guys have to basically fight both of these powers on their own without any hope of resupply or reinforcements from outside powers.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>As a result, Poland ended up spending pretty much all of the 18<sup>th</sup> century getting conquered alternately by the Prussians, the Austrians, and the Russians, and all those &ndash;ussians just kept on carving the country up between them however the fuck they wanted.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>This shit is known as the &ldquo;Partitions of Poland&rdquo;, because various powerful European dictators and monarchs just spent like 150 years carving the place up like a friggin&rsquo; ham.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Jozef Pilsudski was born in Poland in 1867, in a place that is nowadays part of Lithuania but at the time was controlled by Russia.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>If that makes any sense.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Pilsudski was descended from the Princes of Lithuania, back in the glory days of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but a lot of bad shit had gone down since then and now his family was pretty much broke.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Plus they were on Tsar Alexander&rsquo;s shit-list because Jozef&rsquo;s dad had participated in an uprising in 1863, and revolutionary activity really isn&rsquo;t a good way to make friends with the psychotic tyrannical dictator running shit in your country.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Jozef went to medical school in Kharkov, where he eventually got involved in a socialist student group that was advocating Polish independence (Pilsudski didn&rsquo;t really dig on socialist ideology, he just thought it was the best route to take for his people to break free of Russia).<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Well&hellip;. That didn&rsquo;t work out too well for him.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Especially when a couple of his buddies hatched a plot to assassinate the Tsar.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Pilsudski was &ldquo;guilty by association&rdquo; with the would-be killers, and was sentenced to serve fifteen years in a sub-zero Siberian work camp.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He only served five years of his sentence, but spent the entire time getting the shit kicked out of him in -40 degree temperatures, mostly because he kept trying to organize prisoner revolts and kill all the guards.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Well if Pilsudski hated the Tsar before he went to Siberia, you can imagine what five years in a gulag did to his patriotism.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He came back to Poland more pissed than ever, and started a secret underground newspaper called <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Robotnik</em>, which sounds like some awesome sci-fi apocalyptic Asimov shit but is really just translated as &ldquo;The Worker&rdquo;.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He ran his cool secret blog for 8 years, but was eventually arrested in 1900 for treason and thrown into an inescapable prison castle in Warsaw, Poland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He escaped.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He did this in a very badass way &ndash; by faking insanity.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Basically, he acted like he was goddamn nuts, and was so good at it that he got himself transferred to a mental institution in St. Petersburg, Russia.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Apparently a strait jacket was a little easier to escape from, because this guy then immediately broke out of there, hopped a train car, made his way back to Poland, recruited a posse, and then started <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">robbing banks and train cars </em>so he could buy weapons and ammo for his one-man war on the Tsar.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Are you following this shit so far?<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Medical student spends five years in a gulag, escapes, runs an underground revolutionary newspaper, gets literally thrown into the dungeon of a medieval castle, escapes by faking insanity, breaks out of a mental institution, then becomes a bank robber so he can pay soldiers in a private war against the Tsar of Russia.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>This is totally what happened, in real life.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Pilsudski (center, leaning like a pimp) with his crew.</em></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Pilsudski&rsquo;s biggest heist came in 1908, when he knocked out a Russian mail train carrying 200,000 rubles in cash and bonds.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He used this to buy more explosives and weapons, and also started traveling to see if he could get help for his cause.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>First he went to Japan (who was fighting the Russo-Japanese war against Russia), but they told him to get lost.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>So he went to Austria, met with the generals there, and was able to get a little aid for his unit.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>This aid became a hell of a lot bigger in 1914, when World War I broke out and Austria went to war with Russia &ndash; Pilsudski&rsquo;s little group of revolutionary Jesse Jamses became known as the &ldquo;Polish Legion,&rdquo; three brigades strong, and Pilsudski himself was commissioned as a Brigadier General.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">He spent the next two years fighting World War I, leading Polish troops in battle after battle against the Russians as he fought to retake his homeland from the Tsar.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Poland performed well in the war, and by 1916 the combined might of the Austro-Hungarian and German armies had thrown the Tsar&rsquo;s men completely out of Poland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Germany declared the Kingdom of Poland in November 1916, which was great and all, but then the Kaiser demanded that Pilsudski and his men swear an oath of allegiance to the Kaiser for &ldquo;liberating&rdquo; them from the Russians.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Fuck that.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Pilsudski refused.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He saw the writing on the wall, knew this Kingdom of Poland thing was just a bullshit minor concession, and figured it was only a matter of time before the country he just liberated from Russia would become a province of Germany.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He refused to take the oath.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He ordered his men not to either.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">So he got thrown in Magdeburg Prison, a mountain castle in central Germany that is basically inescapable to anyone not named <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/trenck.html\">von der Trenck</a>.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He missed the rest of the war, but returned to Poland as a national hero when the fighting ended in 1918.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was immediately made commander of the Polish military and their de facto dictator/state leader.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Which ain&rsquo;t bad considering the fact that this guy was an unemployed doctor knocking over banks a few years earlier.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Unfortunately, it wasn&rsquo;t all roses and parades for Jozef Pilsudski when he got back to Poland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The war had flattened his country, and it was now in complete disarray.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>There were five different types of currency, and four different sizes of railroad tracks running through his country.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Germany was defeated, but Russia was in Civil War, and Lenin&rsquo;s Soviet forces were winning.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Pilsudski finally had his dream of a free Poland, but now he needed to get it back together, defend it, and re-build it back to what it used to be in the glory days of the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hussars.html\">Winged Hussars</a>.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He made treaties with Ukraine and Lithuania.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He pushed Russian forces out of the Polish lands they still held.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He helped the Ukrainians re-take Kiev.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He stabilized the population and worked on rebuilding the Polish national identity.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Things were looking pretty good, but it wasn&rsquo;t long before Pilsudski started really pissing off the Soviets.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The Red Army had won their army, taken control of the government, and now they were all about enacting World Communism with the points of their bayonets.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>In 1919, on the heels of Pilsudski&rsquo;s victory in Kiev, they decided to fuck him up for real.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Led by Leon Trotsky (yes, Trotsky), the Red Army launched an all-out counter-attack across an 800-mile-wide front that completely overwhelmed the Polish forces and sent them driving back in full retreat.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Within just a few weeks, Poland had been backed up against the Vistula River, just outside the capital of Warsaw, with roughly the entire Red Army staring out across them.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">But Jozef Pilsudski had a plan.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">&ldquo;My long experience with the Bolsheviki makes me confident of the future.&nbsp; <br /> Their soldiers are poorly commanded, poorly led, and irresolute.&nbsp; <br /> Some small advance parties will fight well. <br /> The great bulk of the troops behind them are hardly soldiers at all.&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Marshal Pilsudski was a brilliant military mind, and this guy had been fighting the Russkies for over twenty years by this point.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He knew his enemy.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He knew the front-line Russian forces were tough as nails, hardened fighters who wouldn&rsquo;t back down, but he also knew that the reserve forces in the back were made out of conscripts and mercenaries and other people who weren&rsquo;t going to stand there and fight to the death when it looked like the battle wasn&rsquo;t going in their favor.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>So Pilsudski did something insane.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Something no military commander would ever recommend.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">He marched around the front-line Russian forces and attacked the reserves directly.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Commanding just five divisions, Pilsudski personally led his forces on an utterly balls-out encircling move and charged his men screaming head-on into the Red Army&rsquo;s reserves with bayonets, rifles, and machine guns blasting.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They broke almost immediately.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Seventy thousand men surrendered.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Another thirty thousand ran the wrong way, ended up in Germany, and were captured there.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Their flank completely crumbling, the rest of the front-line Russian forces made a break for it.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Jozef pursued and drove them from Poland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They didn&rsquo;t return, and the borders of Russia and Poland marked by Pilsudski&rsquo;s victory would be the border that would last until the end of World War II.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Jozef Pilsudski retired not long after the &ldquo;Miracle on the Vistula&rdquo;, but after watching a bunch of dumbass politicians fuck everything up for three years he un-retired and appointed himself military dictator of Poland.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He tried to negotiate a treaty with France so both countries would attack Hitler simultaneously in 1933 &ndash; back when the Nazis were still building up their forces &ndash; but France unwisely refused.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>So, dying of liver cancer and desperate to protect his country, he signed 10-year non-aggressions pacts with Hitler and Stalin in 1934 and concentrated on building up his army for the war he knew was coming.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, the greatest warrior in modern Polish history, died in 1935 at the age of 67.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He was buried alongside the medieval Kings of Poland, and to this day, his victory over the Russians is the national holiday of his country.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/8050819803/pilsudski8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>\"He was the King of our Hearts and the Sovereign of our Will. During a half</em><br /><em>century of his lifes\' travails, he captured heart after heart, soul after soul,</em><br /><em>until he had drawn the whole of Poland within the purple of his royal spirit...</em><br /><em>He gave Poland Freedom, Boundaries, Power, and Respect.\"</em></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Links:</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/pilsudski.htm\">San Jose State University</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/pilsudski.htm\">FirstWorldWar.com</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/poland_pilsudski2.htm\">Interview with Pilsudski</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http://www.polishgreatness.com/jozefpilsudski.html\">PolishGreatness.com</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a 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equal in size, with both forces arrayed in full battle gear along the plain.&nbsp; Everything was as gray, dark, and gloomy as a fucking horrible Hollywood &ldquo;gritty reboot&rdquo; of a film that used to actually be fun and cool, as if some trite CGI effects technician had completely plastered the entire battlefield with a custom gray-brown &ldquo;Tortured Hero&rdquo; pallet overlay in PhotoShop.&nbsp; Through the fog, rain, and mud, the two largest armies of the Samurai era stood around looking tough as shit, throwing shade at their enemies from behind cool-looking armored face guards hand-forged from a quarter-inch of lacquered iron.&nbsp; &nbsp;Both sides knew that the future of Japan would forever hinge on the epic blood-soaked carnage that was about to take place.</p>\r\n<p>Then, through the mist, a huge battle-cry arose.&nbsp; Charging forward, an ultra-neon shock of bright red armor stampeding forward like a fire truck screaming down the street with its sirens blaring at maximum volume.&nbsp; A crew of some of the most terrifying warriors you can possibly imagine &ndash; heavily-armored samurai, their faces covered by masks, each dressed in blood red gear with their crimson flags flapping in the wind behind them.&nbsp; Personally leading the charge was the &ldquo;Red Devil&rdquo; himself &ndash; Ii Naomasa, the <em>Akaoni</em>, a badass samurai motherfucker who survived the complete destruction of his warrior clan to become one of the most trusted generals in the shogun&rsquo;s service.&nbsp; Clearly distinguishable from the rest of his unit because he had a set of <em>massive badass-as-hell white demon horns </em>jutting up from his red helmet, Naomasa screamed for his warriors to lower their lances and strike the enemy&rsquo;s fucking heads off with extreme violence.</p>\r\n<p>The enemy infantry across the field glanced around nervously, set their spears to receive a charge, and steeled themselves for the hurricane of pointy death that was about to impale their faces into the ground like a tent peg.&nbsp; The reputation of the Red Devils had been earned in the blood of their enemies, and on the field at Sekigahara they would once again prove themselves to be the most elite shock troops of the Warring States samurai era.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ii (this is pronounced like &ldquo;Easy-E&rdquo; without the &ldquo;-asy&rdquo;) Naomasa was born in 1561 in Totomi Province, on the southern coast of Japan.&nbsp; The youngest scion of the Ii Clan of badass feudal samurai warriors, Naomasa&rsquo;s dad and grandfather were both hardcore warriors who had slung katanas in the service of their lords for generations.&nbsp; Unfortunately for them, the world of Feudal Japan was a goddamn wreck in 1560, and the entire island was carved up into a ton of tiny little provinces that were all pretty much at war with each other constantly.&nbsp; Death and destruction were commonplace, and it seemed like every fifteen minutes some asshole popped up talking shit about how he was going to conquer Japan and restore order with the point of his samurai sword.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>One of these dudes came to Totomi Province right around the time Naomasa was born.&nbsp; This guy&rsquo;s name was Oda Nobunaga, and he was a dude so intensely out-of-control hardcore that his nickname was &ldquo;The Demon King&rdquo;.&nbsp; Well, Mr. The Demon King rolled up in 1560, fought a battle against the lord of Totomi Pronvince (a dude named Imagawa), and even though Demon King was outnumbered ten-to-one he beat the piss out of Imagawa, killed him and all of his retainers, and burned the guy&rsquo;s castle to the ground.&nbsp; Naomasa&rsquo;s grandfather had been in Imagawa&rsquo;s army, and died in the battle, giving his life in service of his Lord.&nbsp; Well, that&rsquo;s noble and all, but Imagawa&rsquo;s son was pretty pissed off about the whole thing, went Full Hitler, and started accusing all of his subordinates of treason and backstabbing and other shit.&nbsp; He sent assassins to Ii Naomasa&rsquo;s house, killed his father, his mother, his brothers, his uncles, the family pets, and anyone else he could get his hands on, then he burned the entire fucking place to the ground.</p>\r\n<p>Ii Naomasa was three years old when this happened.&nbsp; He escaped, thanks to a heroic aunt who grabbed him at first sight of samurai swords, got him out of there, and snuck him into a Buddhist monastery where he would be safe.</p>\r\n<p>But, as you know, Samurai Warriors don&rsquo;t forget a little thing like being the last survivor from the complete massacre of their Warrior Clan.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, being raised by fucking Buddhist warrior-monks is pretty goddamn awesome, and young Ii Naomasa learned everything he could about beating the monkey balls off of anyone who screwed with him.&nbsp; He trained in swordsmanship, karate, horseback riding, and mastered his chi to the point where he was basically lobbing around <em>hadoukens </em>any time he wanted.&nbsp; Unfortunately for him, he never got the chance to kill Imagawa &ndash; that son-of-a-bitch got his karmic retribution when he was attacked by the Demon King and had no warriors left to protect him.&nbsp; But Imagawa had allies to kill, and enemies who wanted to kill them, and it was here that Ii Naomasa found his opportunity to put his vengeance-skills to the test.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Shortly after Imagawa was defeated, the coast was clear for Naomasa to show himself, and this wandering swordsman immediately offered his services to one of the Imagawa&rsquo;s chief enemies &ndash; a lesser-known samurai named Tokugawa Ieyasu.&nbsp; Tokugawa had been a lieutenant in the Demon King&rsquo;s army, had himself been a former prisoner of the Imagawa (so he really hated them), and was more than happy to give young Naomasa and opportunity to swing a sword in righteous anger on the blood-stained field of battle.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ii Naomasa was only sixteen when he joined Tokugawa in 1576, but he proved his worth immediately.&nbsp; First, he saved Tokugawa from an assassination attempt, although I don&rsquo;t have any good info on how exactly he did that.&nbsp; Two years later, after proving himself as a junior officer, he was given command of a regiment of 3,000 men at the Battle of Tanaka against the Takeda Clan, a powerful and ancient warrior clan that had been close allies of the dudes who killed Naomasa&rsquo;s entire family.&nbsp; Staring down a charging force of determined enemy warriors, Ii Naomasa&rsquo;s forces first cut down the enemy with accurate gunfire (he was a huge proponent of firearms on the battlefield), then counter-attacked and drove the enemy from the field.&nbsp; In 1581 he captured one of Takeda&rsquo;s castles by cutting off their water supply and then assaulting the walls once the samurai were good and dehydrated.&nbsp; Then, in 1582, he won yet another fight against Takeda, defeating the enemy at the Battle of Toriibata.</p>\r\n<p>At Toriibata, Ii Naomasa had been super fucking impressed by a formation of enemy warriors who charged head-on into combat in suits of blood-red armor.&nbsp; Naomasa had first been a little thrown off by this blood-covered force of warriors barreling down on him, but had personally led the charge to defeat them.&nbsp; After the enemy unit surrendered to him, he offered the warriors of that unit to come join his force.&nbsp; He accepted them to his army with honor, then put in a request with Tokugawa for his guys to also wear the red.&nbsp; Tokugawa said sure, and Naomasa went full-on badass with it &ndash; not only did his samurai wear red armor, but he got red armor for his infantry, riflemen, and archers, put red barding on his horses, and had red banners crafted for all of his samurai and his units.&nbsp; (He also hired a bunch of ninjas to work for him, but I think red-clad ninjas are only something you see in animes and old G.I. Joe episodes).&nbsp; It looks really awesome when you look at those cool old Japanese painting that show battle scenes from the Glory Days of Samurai Asskickings, and makes it damn easy to pick out exactly where Naomasa&rsquo;s guys are whomping nutsacks.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa4a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <br /> <img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa4b.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <br /> <img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa4c.png\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>It&rsquo;s not a color for those without confidence,<br /> because there&rsquo;d be no mistaking it if you fled like a coward.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As soon as the red armor went on, Ii Naomasa went from being &ldquo;typical badass samurai&rdquo; to &ldquo;holy donkey balls its those red armor dudes run for your shit and piss your pants while you are doing so&rdquo;.&nbsp; Known to demolish his enemies at long range with goddamn rifle fire and at close range with a samurai sword to the dome, Naomasa was also known to his own men by the amazingly-awesome nickname &ldquo;The Killing Machine&rdquo;, because he would lose his mind and decapitate your head off for the most minor transgressions and not even think twice about it.&nbsp; Basically being the <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzToNo7A-94\">Terry Tate Office Linebacker</a> of Feudal Japan is as awesome as it gets, and after stomping balls at the Battle of Nagakute in 1584 and shooting the enemy Ikeda Clan commander in the fucking head with a matchlock rifle his reputation as one of the most badass warriors of the Tokugawa Army was firmly cemented.&nbsp; Tokugawa himself named him one of the &ldquo;Four Heavenly Kings&rdquo; of the Tokugawa military machine, a title that was shared by fellow badass samurai <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=15406983354\">Honda Tadakatsu</a>.</p>\r\n<p>(He did also apparently have a softer side, however, because when he was holding <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=192334517093\">Toyotomi Hideyoshi</a>&rsquo;s mom as a prisoner of war she made a point of mentioning to her son how kind and polite he was to her and all of her handmaidens&hellip;.. which is extra awesome in a &ldquo;tell your mom I said hi&rdquo; kind of way).</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Naomasa&rsquo;s armor is 400 years old but is still<br /> perfectly preserved in a museum at his former castle.</em></p>\r\n<p>The Takeda Clan were eventually defeated and absorbed into Tokugawa&rsquo;s army, so in 1590 it was time for Naomasa to attack another enemy clan &ndash; the Hojo.&nbsp; He blockaded the walls of Odawara Castle, and then, while the rest of the Tokugawa army was content to sit back and wait for the Hojo to starve into submission, Ii Naomasa had better shit to do &ndash; like bring the pain train, destination Hojo.&nbsp; He got some engineers to dig a tunnel underneath the walls of the castle, and then, in the middle of the night, he moved all his troops through it, into their base, and started killing all their dudes.&nbsp; I can think of little more terrifying than a thousand samurai in blood-red armor kicking asses in my living room with torches and swords in the middle of the goddamn night.</p>\r\n<p>Ii Naomasa&rsquo;s finest hour came in the rain and the mud at the Battle of Sekigahara in October 1600.&nbsp; Naomasa&rsquo;s Red Devils had originally been stationed near the back of the Tokugawa army, and Ii himself had been tasked with keeping Tokugawa&rsquo;s teenage son alive and out of any serious trouble.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Forget that.&nbsp; Naomasa ignored the orders, took thirty of his best warriors, and personally charged ahead of the Tokugawa army, drawing first blood in what would become the decisive battle of Japanese samurai history.</p>\r\n<p>As he rode forward, he blew right past the unit that had been giving the honor of fighting first.&nbsp; Those guys yelled &ldquo;fuck you&rdquo; at him and his men, but didn&rsquo;t do shit about it.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa6a.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Racing forward on horseback at full gallop, the Red Devils slammed hard into the front of the enemy warriors, cutting them to shreds with spears and swords or simply trampling those poor fuckers into the mud.&nbsp; Slicing and weaving through the enemy, Ii Naomasa carved through the enemy ranks, spiraling his enemies out into the mud in every direction, shattering their lines and then slicing their backs when they turned to run from him like cowards.&nbsp; After smashing the Ukita Clan&rsquo;s infantry, he then reorganized his men, turned to face another attack, and plunged into the fray.&nbsp; The Battle of Sekigahara was the victory that would unite all of Japan under the power of Tokugawa, and Tokugawa Shogunate would end up ruling Japan for over 350 years.</p>\r\n<p>With the battle clearly going in Tokugawa&rsquo;s favor, Ii Naomasa caught sight of the Shimazu Clan&rsquo;s banners fluttering off in the distance.&nbsp; These guys had been one of Tokugawa&rsquo;s allies, but after getting beat the shit by <a href=\"/index.cgi?id=826754023094\">Torii Mototada</a> they switched teams and betrayed their master.&nbsp; Ii fully intended to make them pay for their treason with a few dozen pints of blood.&nbsp; He spurred his horse onwards, riding down the fleeing Shimazu, cutting them in half as he stampeded by.&nbsp; But then, before he could reach the leader, a Shimazu gunner took aim at the red armor (it was a pretty easy target to find), and fired a round that struck Ii in his arm and shattered his elbow.&nbsp; The force of the shot knocked him from his horse, into the mud, and it was feared the wound would be fatal.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, in Feudal Japan, when a commander was mortally wounded in battle, it was customary for one of his men to behead him so that he wouldn&rsquo;t become a prisoner of the enemy.&nbsp; With Ii Naomasa, this didn&rsquo;t happen.&nbsp; Because his men were terrified of him and didn&rsquo;t want to swing a sword in his direction out of fear that he&rsquo;d snap out of it and kick the shit out of them.</p>\r\n<p>Ii Naomasa survived.&nbsp; Two months later, he surrounded the fleeing enemy commander in an old castle, set it on fire, and killed everyone inside.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa7.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ii Naomasa died three years after the Battle of Sekigahara, possibly of complications from his gunshot wound, but his legacy lived on in Japanese history.&nbsp; His sons took over the Red Devils, and at the Battle of Osaka in 1615 they were front and center of the blood-soaked mayhem, charging in an epic attack that crushed the enemy forces in and left over half of the enemy force (including their Clan leadership) dead or dying on the field.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Ii Clan would loyally serve the Tokugawa shogunate for the next 350 years, including one time when Ii&rsquo;s great-great-etc. grandson personally saved the Shogun&rsquo;s life at a time when everyone here in America was fighting the Civil War.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/474994820494/iinaomasa81.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Sources:</p>\r\n<p>Bryant, Anthony J.&nbsp; <em>Sekigahara 1600</em>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2013.</p>\r\n<p>Clements, Jonathan.&nbsp; <em>A Brief History of the Samurai</em>.&nbsp; Little, Brown, 2013.</p>\r\n<p>Sadler, A.&nbsp; <em>Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu</em>.&nbsp; Tuttle, 2014.</p>\r\n<p>Turnbull, Stephen.&nbsp; <em>Samurai: Way of the Warrior</em>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2012.</p>\r\n<p>Turnbull, Stephen.&nbsp; <em>The Samurai: A Military History</em>. &nbsp;Routledge, 2013.</p>','2015-08-21','474994820494','iinaomasa.png','iinaomasa-small.jpg','Ii Naomasa','The last surviving member of his samurai warrior clan, he becomes commander of \"Ii\'s Red Devils,\" an elite force of shock troops in the service of the Tokugawa Shogunate.',''),('Spencer Stone','c. 1992','N/A','Fair Oaks, CA, USA','21st-century American Hero','<p>Spencer Stone was just a regular dude, living it up on a cool European summer vacation with two of his best buds.&nbsp; The twenty-three year old Airman First Class had gotten a little R&amp;R time from the Air Force, and he&rsquo;d used it to link up with his two best friends from Middle School, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Stadler.&nbsp; These dudes had all gone to school together in Fair Oaks, California, stayed friends for ten-plus years, and now were on their way back from a bitchin&rsquo; trip to Amsterdam, where I&rsquo;m sure they were doing good clean wholesome All-American shit like going to church, riding their bikes along the canals, checking out the Rembrandt and Van Gogh Museums, and singing &ldquo;America the Beautiful&rdquo; really loud every time they walked by those terrible cafes that let you smoke mad reefer and drink Amstel Light with a bunch of hookers.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>All was going well for these bros, and late last Friday, August 21, 2015, they were all just maxin&rsquo; and relaxin&rsquo; on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, the next stop on their world tour.&nbsp; Stone, probably exhausted from a busy day touring the world famous De Gooyer Windmill, was catching some sleep in first class while his buddies were unsuccessfully trying to get the wireless working on their laptops.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Then, out of nowhere, this cool guy summer vacation went from <em>The Hangover </em>to <em>Taken, </em>and all hell broke loose in a scene that no person would ever want to find themselves experiencing.&nbsp; Shattering the calm, the unmistakable crack of gunfire echoed through the train car, followed quickly by the shattering sounds of broken glass exploding everywhere and the terrified screams of hundreds of passengers.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Storming forward, right past the guys&rsquo; seats, was a shirtless Moroccan man holding a locked-and-loaded AK-47 assault rifle.&nbsp; Ayoub El-Khazzani, a twenty-six year old man who had recently visited Syria in the hopes of joining up with ISIS, stormed forward in terrifying fucking silence, saying nothing as he waved the barrel of the Kalashnikov indiscriminately around the train car and hammered his index finger down on the trigger of the rifle.&nbsp; Eight fully-loaded magazines of 7.62mm ammunition were clearly visible stuffed into his pockets and his waistband.</p>\r\n<p>Ah, crap.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, holy shit, luckily for everyone in the train, the gun didn&rsquo;t go off when this maniac pulled the trigger.&nbsp; His weapon had jammed after the first shot, and now a bullet was lodged in the receiver.&nbsp; &nbsp;El-Khazzani lowered the rifle slightly and pulled back on the charging handle.</p>\r\n<p>If the three Americans wanted to have any chance of preventing a horrific mass-casualty tragedy, they were going to have a split-second &ndash; and only a split-second &ndash; to react.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Alek Skarlatos, a veteran of the Oregon National Guard who had recently returned from a deployment to Afghanistan, slapped Stone on the shoulder and said, &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p>Spencer Stone bolted awake, took one look at the situation, and sprung out of his seat.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Further up the train car, a woman passenger reported that she heard a loud man&rsquo;s voice boom over the din of the train car.&nbsp; It said, &ldquo;FUCK THIS SHIT.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p>El-Khazzani wheeled, still charging the handle on his AK, desperately trying to get it working as a gigantic shaved-head American motherfucker barreled towards him in a dead-sprint screaming like goddamn Brian Urlacher before he murders a Quarterback.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>He didn&rsquo;t get his gun unjammed in time.</p>\r\n<p>Spencer Stone barreled into the dude, hammering him full-throttle at maximum velocity.&nbsp; As he crashed into the man, he tomahawked the AK-47 like a goddamn defensive lineman, slapping it down, then pulled the dude to the ground and started choking the shit out of him.&nbsp; Stone slapped a rear naked choke hold on the guy, murphing him out and wrenching a bicep into the dude&rsquo;s windpipe, all the while reaching out and trying to get that goddamn AK away from the dude.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>El-Khazzani pulled the rifle down to get it away from Stone&rsquo;s reach, but by this time Skarlatos was right there as well.&nbsp; He grabbed the rifle with both hands, wrenched it from the dude&rsquo;s grip, and then smashed the would-be terrorist in the fucking face with his own damn weapon.&nbsp; Like, a lot of times in a row.&nbsp; Anthony Stadler and another man, 50 year-old Brit Chris Norman, were also closing in to assist.</p>\r\n<p>But El-Khazzani had come prepared.&nbsp; With his automatic rifle now being repeatedly cracked into his head with another dude cutting off the oxygen supply to his brain, El-Khazzani reached into his waistband and pulled out his handgun.</p>\r\n<p>It was a fucking Luger.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ok, dude, these guys had just been in Amsterdam touring the Anne Frank Museum, and if you don&rsquo;t think two American servicemen were already pretty jacked up to beat the shit out of a mass-murdering spree-shooting ISIS terrorist in France then try pulling out a goddamn Nazi sidearm on them and see what happens.&nbsp; Skarlatos grabbed the guy&rsquo;s wrist, immediately took the gun away, and now everyone is just wailing on this guy trying to get him to stop resisting.</p>\r\n<p>But El-Khazzani STILL wasn&rsquo;t done fighting back.&nbsp; Still surrounded by guys fighting him with everything they had, he pulled out a boxcutter with a decent-size blade and started slashing ruthlessly at Stone, trying to cut him and wound him bad enough that he could break free from the choke hold that was slowly rendering him unconscious.&nbsp; Slashing and hacking blindly in every direction, El-Khazzani sliced a nasty cut next to Stone&rsquo;s right eye, cut a deep gouge on the back of his neck, and dug the blade so deep into Stone&rsquo;s thumb that it almost completely severed it from his hand.</p>\r\n<p>Despite his eyes, neck, and hand all gushing blood and searing with pain, Spencer Stone didn&rsquo;t let up.&nbsp; He just cranked his choke hold tighter and didn&rsquo;t let up until El-Khazzani was unconscious.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well, the shooter was down, but the passengers weren&rsquo;t out of the woods yet.&nbsp; Apparently, that lone gunshot had struck another passenger, 51 year old French-American academic Mark Mooligan, square in the neck.&nbsp; Mooligan had seen the shooter on his approach and tried to stop him, but caught a bullet to the throat for his trouble and now he was gushing blood from his carotid artery.&nbsp; As he lay on the aisle slowly bleeding to death, he called out to his wife, sitting a few rows away from him, and told her that he loved her.</p>\r\n<p>Fuck that.&nbsp; Spencer Stone wasn&rsquo;t about to give up on this guy just because he was shot in the damn neck, had no medical supplies, and was missing a pretty important finger from his dominant hand.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Stone was trained in first aid by the Air Force, and, despite being completely covered in his own blood and the blood of his enemies this dude raced over and attended to the wounded civilian.&nbsp; As Skarlatos, Stadler and Norman used their t-shirts to hog-tie the unconscious El-Khazzani, Stone raced over, knelt down, and stuck two fingers into the bullet wound.&nbsp; He found the bleeding artery and clamped down on it with his fingers, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.&nbsp; He remained in this position for ten minutes while he waited for the medics to arrive.</p>\r\n<p>Mark Mooligan survived.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Stone being wheeled out of the train station after the fight.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For their heroism on the train last week, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Stadler and Chris Norman were all personally awarded the Legion d&rsquo;Honneur by the President of France in an awards ceremony earlier this week.&nbsp; Stone is also set to receive the Airman&rsquo;s Medal, which is the highest award the Air Force offers for heroism in a non-combat situation.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>All three friends are going to be getting a parade in their home town of Sacramento.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/446747623424/spencerstone8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>&ldquo;The word &lsquo;hero&rsquo; has never been more appropriate.&nbsp; They are truly heroes. <br /> When most of us would run away, Spencer, Alek and Anthony ran into the line of fire, <br /> saying &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s go.&rsquo; Those words changed the fate of many.&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article32421147.html\">The Sacramento Bee</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/24/europe/france-train-shooting/\">CNN</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://news.sky.com/story/1539905/us-soldier-how-we-stopped-train-gunman\">SKY News</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/08/23/americans-acting-instinct-hailed-heroes/32228605/\">USA Today</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/french-train-attack/mark-moogalian-thanks-airman-spencer-stone-saving-life-train-n417591\">NBC News</a></p>','2015-08-28','446747623424','spencerstone.jpg','spenerstone-small.jpg','Spencer Stone','When a mass-murdering terrorist pulled an AK-47 on a train car full of passengers, this guy and his buddies literally said \"Fuck this shit\" and put an end to it.','\"He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end.  So were we.\"'),('Hotol Tsagaan','c. 1260','c. 1306','Kashgar, China','Medieval Mongol Warrior','<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In the swirling, blood-soaked melee of a 13<sup>th</sup>-century battle against the Mongol Empire, it wasn&rsquo;t all that weird to gaze into the ranks of the most overpoweringly-dominant land army ever fielded in human history and notice that, hey, check it out, a couple of the warriors currently massacring all my friends actually happen to be women.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span>At a time when most of the world&rsquo;s female population would have just been happy to have the legal right to tell their husbands to stop hitting them, Mongol women were some of the most socially, politically, and militarily badass chicks anywhere on Earth.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>They ran cities while the men fought on campaigns, built public works, helped manage the largest land empire of all time, had seats in the Kurulurai (basically Mongol Congress), and even occasionally fought in battle, a detail that was particularly scandalous and unacceptable to writers from Europe, the Middle East, China, and basically any other country that got the fucking piss stomped out of them by the Mongol Horde.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">But while it wasn&rsquo;t particularly bizarre to notice that one or two of the enemy archers may have had a pair of boobs, it was significantly more unsettling to encounter the warrior princess Khutulun on the field of combat.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Because while most warrior women of the Mongol Empire may have been expert snipers, firing their composite bows with deadly precision while riding a horse at a full gallop, Khutulun preferred a significantly more direct approach:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>She would charge out at the head of her warriors, ride straight up to the biggest enemy officer she could find, grab that asshole off his horse with a one-armed choke slam, slap him in a fucking half nelson, and drag him back to the Khan while he screamed and pleaded for his men to save him.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Once that fucker was ripped from the battlefield and firmly in the Khan&rsquo;s custody, Khutulun would go back to her primary combat duty &ndash; commanding a regiment of Mongol heavy cavalry.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">This is the tale of Genghis Khan&rsquo;s great-great-granddaughter.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Khutulun never met Genghis, and by the time she was born most of the great Mongol Conquests had already stomped nuts all the way from Beijing to Baghdad, cleaving a bloody smear across the map that ended up becoming the largest contiguous land empire in the history of humanity.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Her father was a Khan named Khaidu, and he ruled a fief of land near the Tian Shan Mountains, which is in the realm of present-day Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan (or however the hell you spell that), and northern China.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Khaidu was from the line of Great Khan Ogodei, who was Genghis&rsquo; third son, and Khaidu was basically the last of the old-school badass, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s ride our horses over this guy&rsquo;s ballsack in front of his entire family and then throw all of his compost garbage into a recycling bin&rdquo; Mongol barbarian motherfuckers who shanked faces first and didn&rsquo;t want to be asked questions by anyone besides a fast food cashier or his favorite bartender.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>As a good Mongol Prince, he constantly asked himself one of the most important questions any man can ever ask himself:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>What Would Genghis Do?<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The #WWGD lifestyle netted Khaidu tons of land, plunder, death, destruction and mayhem, and it also led to him having fucking 15 children &ndash; all of them boys, except for his youngest.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>He named his lone daughter Khutulun, meaning either &ldquo;Bright Moon&rdquo; or &ldquo;All White&rdquo; depending on how you want to translate it, and then proceeded to give her the exact same badass Mongol warrior training he gave to her fourteen older brothers &ndash; how to ride a horse, shoot a bow, kill someone with a sword, wrestle, punch, tie knots, milk a yak, build fires, drink blood, sleep in a yurt, and mean-mug motherfuckers who are stupid enough to step to you.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The Princess of the Bright Moon was pretty over-the-top badass at everything she attempted, but out of all the bone-crushing military pursuits she excelled at, she was the most successful when it came to straight-up wrestling.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Having fourteen older brothers is probably a gigantic pain in the genitals, and you can be damn sure that Khutulun learned how to fight pretty early on, but this woman was so hardcore that no man or woman on earth could beat her in a straight up bare-knuckled throwdown.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>It didn&rsquo;t matter how tough you thought you were &ndash; this princess was going to hip-toss your dumb ass through a plate glass window onto a campfire and then everyone was going to laugh at you for getting your balls kicked off by a girl.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Now, I should mention that wrestling is the national sport of Mongolia &ndash; they fucking love that shit there.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Of the Olympic medals won by Mongolia, over half of them are won in wrestling events.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>These are big, tough people who love to fight, and and Mongolian wrestling is intense:</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun3.png\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">This is literally just two grown men kicking the crap out of each other.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>There are no rules in Mongolian wrestling &ndash; anything goes.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Bare knuckles, little padding, and there are no weight classes or any of that lame handicapping bullshit.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>It&rsquo;s just two big angry motherfuckers wailing on each other until someone falls down.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Once a guy hits the ground, he&rsquo;s out.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span>Thing Greco-Roman wrestling meets <em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Rocky IV</em>.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">From a very early age, Khutulun made a name for herself as being completely unbeatable at an ultra-violent sport that involves white-knuckle fucking hand-to-hand combat with a big angry man twice your size.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>She was basically Ronda Rousey meets Ann &ldquo;The Wall&rdquo; Veal, and every man who stepped into the ring with her found himself getting flipped for real and eating a face-full of dirt.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Mongols loved placing bets on these fights, and the Princess was making a killing by powerbombing fools who underestimated her badass cred.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Once Khutulun reached a certain age, it became time for her to get married off to a nice boy with a killer smile, tons of cash, and an excellent track record of slaughtering the Khan&rsquo;s enemies on the battlefield.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Khutulun&rsquo;s dad and mom were pretty desperate for her to get married, because marriage in the middle ages was a good way to link your family in to another powerful family, but Khutulun was a warrior and would only stand to be with a man who was worthy of her badassitude.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>In a very Atalanta conversation, she told her folks, &ldquo;Ok, sure, I&rsquo;ll get married, but only to a man who can beat me in a wrestling match&rdquo;.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The Princess was rich, powerful, cool as hell, and apparently very beautiful, and it didn&rsquo;t take Dad too long to find a bunch of guys willing to throw down for love.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>One by one, they found themselves hurtling through the air as she snapped bones and swept legs and basically demolished any wimp idiot who thought he was man enough for her.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>After all the good suitors were done, Khutulun issued a general challenge &ndash; she&rsquo;d accept a challenge from any man, but if you lost you had to give her ten horses (a couple conflicting sources say the entry fee was a hundred horses, but think about how many damn horses that is!).<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Everyone from foreign Princes to local blacksmiths saw an opportunity to marry into the family of Genghis Fuckin&rsquo; Khan, and they came from all around to face her.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">When Marco Polo met Khutulun in 1280, she claimed to have a pasture with ten thousand horses.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>She was still single.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Pioneering travel book writers Rashid al-Dun, Ibn Bhattuta, and Marco Polo all met Khutulun, and when Marco Polo was there he talks about one foreign prince who arrived at the court of Khan Khaidu looking for the hand of the princess.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>This guy was tall, handsome, and successful, and he bet the insane sum of one thousand horses on the match.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Khutulun accepted.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>That night, the Prince found the Princess alone, and pleaded with her to throw the fight &ndash; please, let me win this one, and I will be so good to you forever.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">She looked at him and, according to Polo, said she &ldquo;would never let herself be vanquished if she could help it,&rdquo; but that &ldquo;if, indeed, he could get the better of her then she would gladly be his wife.&rdquo;<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Then she walked away.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">They had the match the next day in the Grand Hall of the Khan&rsquo;s palace.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>People from throughout the city and the surrounding villages came to watch.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&ldquo;The damsel threw him right valiantly on the palace pavement.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>And when he found himself thus thrown, and her standing over him, great indeed was his shame and discomfiture.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Around this time, a Mongol Civil War broke out between Khan Khaidu and his cousin Kublai Khan, who was the ruler of Yuan Dynasty China.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, Khaidu resented his cousin for going soft, giving up the old Mongol traditions like arm-cleaving and head-popping so that he could become some Buddhist hippie that was into lame things like sleeping on gold-embroidered silks surrounded by sexy naked ladies while consuming delicious food and expensive wine.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp;</span>The two argued, bickered, then went to war, and Khutulun was brought along to help command the Mongol Heavy Cavalry on the battlefield.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Again, according to Marco Polo, &ldquo;Not a knight in all his train played such feats of arms as she did.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Sometimes she would quit her father&rsquo;s side and make a dash at the army of the enemy, and seize some man thereout, as deftly as a hawk pounces on a bird, and carry him to her father.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Makes sense to me.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>If she could hip-check a guy to the turf on level ground, imagine what she could do if she got the drop of you in a live-fire combat situation.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Despite torching some border towns, defeating main line Chinese infantry in battle, and face-shanking Mongol warriors on the field of war, the fighting between the cousins proved indecisive, and really the only thing that came out of it was that the Mongol Empire started to shatter into smaller kingdoms that didn&rsquo;t wield nearly the same power as Genghis once had.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Khutulun did eventually get married, although not to a guy that beat her in battle.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Instead, she chose her husband &ndash; a &ldquo;lively, tall, good-looking man&rdquo; named Abtakul who was from a few towns over.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Abtakul was an elite soldier who had been hired by Kublai Khan to kill Khutulun&rsquo;s dad, but the Khan&rsquo;s guards caught this guy, threw him in jail, and sentenced him to death by beheading.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Well Abtakul&rsquo;s mom was so upset her son was going to die that she threw herself at the Khan&rsquo;s feet and begged that she be killed in her son&rsquo;s place.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The Khan said &ldquo;Ok, fine, whatever, as long as someone is decapitated that&rsquo;s fine with me&rdquo;, but then Abtakul stepped forward and said &ldquo;fuck that, no way am I letting my mom die on my behalf.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>I will face this like a man&rdquo;.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The Khan was so impressed with this family that he immediately released Abtakul from jail and hired him to be an officer in the Khan&rsquo;s army.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Abtakul fought in the war, was wounded in combat, and while he was recuperating in the hospital he met the Princess, who fell in love with him immediately or some shit.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Anyway, that&rsquo;s the story, and it&rsquo;s a big deal because medieval women typically weren&rsquo;t lucky enough to choose who they got to marry.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Khutulun&rsquo;s father died in 1301, and right before he died he appointed Khutulun to succeed him as the new Khan (technically the female version of a khan is called a Katun).<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>She declined, because she had fourteen older brothers who were all pretty fucking upset that they&rsquo;d been passed over for the chiefdom, and instead she made a deal with one of her brothers &ndash; I&rsquo;ll back you in your claim to be Khan, if you&rsquo;ll let me command your army on the battlefield.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Much like her dad, she didn&rsquo;t have time for palace life &ndash; she wanted combat, like a true badass.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Khutulun did end up taking over as General once her brother became Khan, but she wasn&rsquo;t commander for very long.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>After just five years as the Clan&rsquo;s military commander, she died, passing away violently at the age of 45.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>The sources are unclear whether she fell in battle or was assassinated, but I&rsquo;d argue both methods are equally badass.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/822456431891/khutulun9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Links:</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/khutulun\">Rejected Princesses</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http://www.mythofhistory.com/Khutulun.html\">Khutulun and the V-Neck Shirt</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2014/10/badass-ladies-of-chinese-history-khutulun/\">Badass Ladies of Chinese History</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khutulun\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sources:</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Mayor, Adrienne.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women</em>.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Princeton Univ. Press, 2014.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">McRobbie, Linda Rodriguez.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Princesses Behaving Badly</em>.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Quirk, 2013.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Rossabi, Morris.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">Khublai Khan: His Life and Times</em>.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Univ. of California Press, 1988.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Weatherford, Jack.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">The Secret History of the Mongol Queens</em>.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">&nbsp; </span>Crown, 2010.</p>','2015-09-04','822456431891','khutulun.jpg','khutulun-small.jpg','Khutulun','Genghis Khan\'s great-great-granddaughter was unbeatable in hand-to-hand combat, an expert wrestler, and she commanded a regiment of Mongol heavy cavalry in combat.','“Very beautiful, but also so strong and brave that in all her father’s realm there was no man who could outdo her in feats of strength.”'),('Peter Demontreux','c. 1980','N/A','New York, NY, USA','21st-century American Firefighter','<p>For a nine-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department, receiving a call to respond to a structure fire at 4 o&rsquo;clock in the morning is basically about as routine as it gets.&nbsp; While most normal, sane, well-adjusted members of civilian life aren&rsquo;t typically being blasted awake in the dead of the night to run face-first into a towering wall of flame at great personal risk, FDNY firefighters face their own mortality on such a regular basis that their resumes list &ldquo;being completely set on fire and almost dying of smoke inhalation&rdquo; as like the fourth bullet-point under &ldquo;Other Skills and Abilities&rdquo; at the bottom of page three.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It was August 30<sup>th</sup>, 2010, towards the end of a blazing-hot New York summer, and the report had come in that a four-story brownstone apartment building in Brooklyn had burst into flames, that multiple people were still trapped in the blaze, and that those people would really prefer not to be flamb&eacute;ed in their sleep in the middle of the night.&nbsp; With sirens blaring throughout the fire house, 30 year-old Firefighter Peter Demontreux of FDNY Ladder 132 slid down the badass Batman fire pole into the ready room and then proceeded to strap 70 pounds of fire-proof armor onto his body like something out of an awesome 1980s action-movie style rock music pump-up montage.&nbsp; Already sweating balls from the 85-degree temperatures in the city that night, Demontreux threw on his Kevlar bunker gear, boots, helmet, gloves, oxygen tank, gas mask, thermal camera, radio, box light, halligan bar, axe, and hopped into the truck carrying so much gear it was like giving a piggyback ride to a fourth grader.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The New York City Fire Department has an average response time of four minutes and ten seconds from the time you make the 911 call to the time they steamroll a truck up your driveway and a half-dozen dudes jump out onto your lawn with their axes and hoses at the ready.&nbsp; Think about how insanely impressive this is for a second &ndash; I think it honestly takes my mom four minutes and eleven seconds to go through her whole &ldquo;do I have everything I need?&rdquo; routine and actually get out of the friggin&rsquo; car after she&rsquo;s put it in park in the parking lot of a grocery store.&nbsp; These guys are leaping out of bed, strapping themselves into bulky sci-fi battle armor, loading into a truck, and power-driving to their destination in less time than it takes to microwave a Hungry Man.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Despite their speed in getting to the call, things were looking real bad when Ladder 132 rolled up on the scene at 4:25am on the 30<sup>th</sup>.&nbsp; House fires and apartment fires are pretty common for Brooklyn, especially in the summer, but it was pretty clear very early on that this blaze wasn&rsquo;t going to be like the others &ndash; it had already spread quite a bit, and in addition to the deadly black smoke pouring out of the windows, fires and flames were also clearly visible, reaching out into the night sky and lighting up the entire block with a creepy orange glow.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As a Ladder Company firefighter, Peter Demontreux&rsquo;s job was to, well, get up there on a ladder and start pulling people out of smoke-filled, flaming windows before they were barbecued in their own living rooms.&nbsp; So as the Fire Rescue guys kicked in the front door and began clearing the lower floors of the apartment building, Demontreux climbed into the aerial ladder and began raising it straight up towards the flames, calling out for people inside who might need help.</p>\r\n<p>It wasn&rsquo;t long before he heard a response.&nbsp; From one of the burning windows on the top floor, a 60 year-old man pushed the door open and leaned out, gasping and coughing for breath against a noxious black cloud of murderous ash and smoke.&nbsp; Using the controls at the tope of the ladder, Demontreux positioned the ladder towards the window, reached in, grabbed the man, and pulled him out to safety.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>I don&rsquo;t think I can stress enough that this is these peoples&rsquo; job.<br /> I guess some guys sell popcorn at movie theaters, <br /> and some guys pull terrified people out of burning buildings.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Demontreux asked the man if he was ok, and if he needed help, and the man was like no, but my buddy is still trapped in the apartment somewhere.&nbsp; Apparently he&rsquo;d been in a different room when the flames entered their unit, and a horrible wall of white-hot burning flames separated the two men.&nbsp; In the smoke and fire he lost sight of his buddy, but the guy was still in there somewhere.</p>\r\n<p>Firefighter Peter Demontreux took one look into the burning window, saw nothing but orange flames and black-gray smoke, felt the oppressive heat of the flames even through all of his fire-proof armor, and did the heroic job that all firefighters everywhere in the world have volunteered to do.</p>\r\n<p>He climbed in to find the guy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Peter Demontreux was a Ladder Company firefighter, not a Fire Rescue guy, but the Fire Rescue team was radioing in that they were jammed up on the second floor and couldn&rsquo;t go higher because of the flames and smoke and Demontreux knew he was the only person in a position to help this trapped man.&nbsp; Acting completely alone, he climbed in through the window and began a one-man Vent-Enter-Search operation, single-handedly taking on one of the most high-risk operations a firefighter can face.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Crawling on his hands and knees to minimize the smoke, Demontreux army crawled through black smoke so thick he couldn&rsquo;t see his own hand in front of his face.&nbsp; Calling out as best he could, Demontreux blindly felt his way around an unfamiliar apartment, crawling through the living room that had basically just been morphed into a human-sized brick pizza oven.</p>\r\n<p>After an agonizing few minutes groping around in the blackness, Demontreux heard a man&rsquo;s voice cry out for help.&nbsp; It was far away &ndash; almost on the direct other side of the two-bedroom apartment from where the firefighter was searching.&nbsp; The heat was unbearable, and the smoke made the entire operation a living hellscape nightmare, so before trying to get the guy Demontreux turned back to the window and called out to one of his fellow firemen to start smashing windows in the apartment to vent the smoke and the heat out a little.&nbsp; One of the other guys from his crew acknowledged and started busting windows with his halligan bar.&nbsp; Demontreux steeled himself, turned back, and disappeared back into the black smoke.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Crawling through the smoke in 75 pounds of gear, battling through through a burning kitchen and living room engulfed with flames, Firefighter Peter Demontreux of FDNY Ladder 132 fought his way towards the back of the apartment until he saw the man who had called out.&nbsp; There, leaning out the back window of the apartment, was a 51 year old man hacking and choking from the smoke.&nbsp; The guy did the right thing by getting to the window, but this place was going up in a hurry and there wasn&rsquo;t time to bring the ladder around to the back of the building &ndash; Demontreux was going to have to go back the same way he&rsquo;d come in, and he was going to have to bring this guy with him.</p>\r\n<p>After identifying himself to the freaked-out dude, Demontreux grabbed him and started heading back towards the ladder.</p>\r\n<p>When the two men reached the living room, disaster struck.&nbsp; The flames reached something in the kitchen I guess must have been particularly flammable.</p>\r\n<p>Demontreux describes it this way &ndash; one minute, everything was black, and then it was &ldquo;like someone turned the lights on.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux6.JPG\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>An explosion, a whoosh of flames, and suddenly Demontreux was completely surrounded by a towering wall of fire that reach up to the ceiling in every direction.&nbsp; Flames ignited all around him, literally catching both him and the man he was carrying on fire.&nbsp; The emergency warning label on his bunker coat popped red, indicating that he was being subjected to temperatures of over one thousand (one thousand!) degrees Fahrenheit.&nbsp; The man stumbled, and fell to the ground.&nbsp; Black ash covered his face.&nbsp; He was in rough shape.</p>\r\n<p>Outside, the other firefighter on the ladder saw the fireball and immediately radioed a mayday distress call to the truck.&nbsp; He was convinced both men had been incinerated on the spot.</p>\r\n<p>Peter Demontreux had four kids at home, all under the age of 5.&nbsp; He&rsquo;d seen enough fires to know that this place was going to be a fireball in seconds, then it would collapse, and if he didn&rsquo;t get out of there in a hurry then he was going to go down with the structure.&nbsp; He could have run for it.&nbsp; Left that guy for dead and saved himself.</p>\r\n<p>He didn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; He grabbed that dude on his back and literally jumped through a wall of fire as he bolted for the ladder.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The firefighter raced through the living room and kitchen, and threw the man out onto the ladder before leaping out of the window himself, escaping just before another rush of flame set the entire fourth floor ablaze in an impenetrable sea of flame.&nbsp; As the building collapsed and burned behind him, Demontreux began lowering the ladder down to safety.&nbsp; His men, on the ground below, shot him with the fire hose as he began descending, because he was literally still on fire as he was doing all of this.</p>\r\n<p>Peter Demontreux suffered burns on his back and face, and most of his gear was melted in the blaze.&nbsp; The man he saved suffered pretty severe burns and was hospitalized for over a week, but survived and made a recovery.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Demontreux and the man immediately after the rescue.</em><br /><em> Check out how badly his gear is melted.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Nine people were injured in the fire on August 30<sup>th</sup>, but thanks to the actions of Demontreux and the heroic crews of Fire Rescue Two and Ladder 132, there were no fatalities.</p>\r\n<p>For his actions, going above and beyond the call of duty and putting his own life on the line to save someone else, Firefighter Peter Demontreux received the Medal of Valor, the highest award available for civil service in the United States.</p>\r\n<p>In true firefighter badass fashion, he said that he was just doing his job.</p>\r\n<p>(Which I guess is technically true.)</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/152106914788/demontreux9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https://www.bja.gov/programs/medalofvalor/awardees/10-11demontreux.html\">Medal of Valor Citation</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn-fdny-hero-medal-valor-article-1.1268465\">NY Daily News</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/news/fullstory/newsid/123702\">Firefighter Close Calls</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.honoringheroes.com/2011/06/valor-firefighter-peter-g-demontreux-ladder-company-132-fdny/\">Honoring Heroes</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/2011/03/ray-downey-2011.html\">FireEngineering.com</a></p>','2015-09-11','152106914788','demontreux.jpg','demontreux-small.jpg','Peter Demontreux','New York Firefighter who leapt through a wall of flame to pull an injured man out of a massive structure fire in 2010.','\"We were all trained for stuff like this, so I didn\'t panic. I really didn\'t think about anything besides helping those people.\"'),('Douglas Robert Steuart Bader','February 21, 1910','September 5, 1982','London, England','20th-century British Pilot','<p>Tuesday September 15<sup>th</sup> was the 75<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Battle of Britain Day &ndash; the high point in an epic five-month campaign that ripped apart the skies above England during the early stages of World War II.&nbsp; With Hitler noscope teabagging all of Europe in 1939 and 1940 and celebrating like he&rsquo;d just blindsided a QB and was busting out the most epic sack dance ever, the bloodied-but-not-defeated pilots and ground crews of Great Britain&rsquo;s Royal Air Force were all that stood between civilization as we know it and one of those fucked-up dystopian Young Adult fictional Hunger Games dystopia.&nbsp; If the outnumbered fighter pilots of the RAF couldn&rsquo;t pry air superiority from the cold, dead hands of Fascism, then there would be nothing the UK to do to prevent Hitler from sailing across the Channel on an inner tube and sticking his dick in the mashed potatoes at Buckingham Palace.</p>\r\n<p>There are countless tales of brave, heroic pilots the UK sent forth to do battle with Nazis at 348 miles per hour, upside-down, at 10,000 feet above the earth, but none have been more enduring, more celebrated, or more fucking completely gonzo insane in the membrane than the story of Flight Commander Douglas Bader &ndash; the badass, pipe-smoking, cool-as-hell humanitarian/gunslinger who found a way to repeatedly kick the crap out of the Germans even though he didn&rsquo;t have the lower half of his legs.</p>\r\n<p>Anyway, here&rsquo;s a fucking Battle of Britain Iron Maiden video that&rsquo;s going to pump you up so hard you either pop a boner or hit someone in the face with a shovel, or possibly do both at the same time.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/ve4kcWuQYsU\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"></iframe></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Douglas Bader was born in London in 1910, the son of a civil engineer dude who traveled to the furthest reaches of the British Empire building all kinds of cool stuff, but then ended up being mortally wounded fighting the Germans in the First World War.&nbsp; Bader didn&rsquo;t have the money to go to Cambridge University (even though he had been accepted), but did manage to get a scholarship to attend the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell on scholarship.&nbsp; While at school, he captained the Rugby team, was a champion boxer, and almost got expelled a couple times because he kept racing cars even though he totally wasn&rsquo;t supposed to.&nbsp; Basically this guy&rsquo;s entire life is like <em>Fast and the Furious UK</em> with the soundtrack from <em>Straight Outta Compton</em>.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Bader graduated RAF College Cranwell in 1930, and was assigned to a squadron flying Bristol Bulldogs, which are cool old biplanes that look like they might have tangoed with the Red Baron from those Snoopy cartoons.&nbsp; Unfortunately, after just a year in the flight service Bader&rsquo;s life motto, <em>&ldquo;</em><em><a href=\"https://www.translate.com/english/pedicabo-vigilum/31726992\">Pedicabo vigilum</a></em>&rdquo;, finally got the better of him &ndash; while defying direct orders not to fly below 2,000 feet and not to do any aerial acrobatics, Bader went for a badass zero-altitude barrel roll and ended up clipping his left wing on the tarmac, sending the aircraft and Douglas Bader crumpling into a twisting ball of canvas, wood, steel, and explosions.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/291520032463/bader1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The 21 year-old RAF pilot miraculously survived the high-speed faceplant, but his legs got crushed underneath the dash of the plane (I have no idea what the hell you call a dashboard on a plane, but you get the idea), and after they jaws of life&rsquo;d him out of there, it was quickly apparent there was no way to save his legs.&nbsp; He had them both amputated, one above the knee and the other below the knee, was fitted with a custom pair of aluminum alloy artificial legs.&nbsp; He would have to learn to walk all over again.</p>\r\n<p>He didn&rsquo;t just learn to walk.&nbsp; He re-learned how to be a race car driver.&nbsp; Then he re-learned how to be a fucking fighter pilot.</p>\r\n<p>While he was rehabbing, he also became an expert golfer, a decent tennis player, and he hooked up with the woman that would become his wife a few years later.&nbsp; Fuck disability, not having legs doesn&rsquo;t mean you can&rsquo;t kick some serious ass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/291520032463/bader2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>More like Douglas Baller if you ask me</em>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Bader passed the flight test to get back in the cockpit, but was medically discharged anyways (against his wishes) in 1932.&nbsp; He spent a couple years working a shitty desk job for Shell Oil, making like $400 a year, all the while continually requesting return to active flight duty.</p>\r\n<p>In 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland and kicked off World War II, the RAF reconsidered his request.&nbsp; Hey, maybe having an RAF Academy-trained fighter pilot might not be so bad after all?</p>\r\n<p>He was put back into service and assigned to Number 19 Squadron, Royal Air Force.</p>\r\n<p>The first thing he did when he got into the cockpit of his brand-new Supermarine Spitfire?&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>A zero-altitude barrel roll.&nbsp; Face your fucking fears.&nbsp; Never run from them.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/otOSG6kfojM\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"></iframe></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Bader was eventually transferred to 222 Squadron, and was first called into action in the skies above Dunkirk in June of 1940.&nbsp; The Allies had just had their asses pounded by a meat tenderizer of Nazi panzertruppen up and down the hedgerows of France, and now basically everyone left alive was holed up in Dunkirk trying to load onto ships and escape back to England.&nbsp; The Nazis sent fighters and bombers to hammer the transports and the crews as they assembled, and it was up to motherfuckers like 222 Squadron to try and keep the Luftwaffe from strafing the last remnants of the British Army into something that looked like it came out of Satan&rsquo;s paper shredder.</p>\r\n<p>Coming in hard in the skies above Dunkirk, Bader&rsquo;s Spitfire hurtled forward, cranking rounds from eight Browning .303-caliber heavy machine guns embedded in the wings.&nbsp; He quickly learned he was able to make insanely-tight turns without suffering too badly from the effects of the g-force &ndash; g-force pushes your blood from your head to your feet, and having his legs amputated actually made him less likely to black out from g-force &ndash; and this helped him get in behind a Nazi Messerschmitt and pump it with enough shells to sent it careening into the English Channel.&nbsp; After scoring his first kill, he landed, refueled, then took off and shot down a Heinkel bomber on its way to attack the harbor.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qmln5aChX0s\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"></iframe><br /> <em>This is a P-40 test-firing its .50 cal,<br /> but you get the idea</em></p>\r\n<p><em>&nbsp;</em></p>\r\n<p>Returning to England, Bader was placed in charge of 242 Squadron &ndash; a crew of mostly Canadians, and one that had been hit hard by the Luftwaffe in France.&nbsp; 242 Squadron had over half its pilots killed in action with the Nazis, and these guys weren&rsquo;t too excited about having to go out and face them once again.&nbsp; Well, Bader showed his skills as a leader as he quickly went to work to rebuild morale in his unit.&nbsp; He impressed them with his balls-out flying style, got to know the crew, fired a couple useless team leaders, cracked down on discipline, and gained the respect of the pilots because Bader would practically fucking fistfight RAF ground crew to make sure his guys always had working, functional, top-of-the-line equipment for their Hawker Hurricane attack planes.</p>\r\n<p>When the Germans came knocking in the later days of June 1940, you can be damn sure that Douglas Bader was at the head of the 242 Squadron formation, leading the charge with his aluminum legs and his gigantic brass nutsack.</p>\r\n<p>He scored the first kill for his unit, downing a German Dornier-17 heavy bomber during his squadron&rsquo;s first combat engagement.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/291520032463/bader3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>242 Squadron&rsquo;s logo was a boot<br /> kicking Hitler in the ass.<br /> This is a true story</em>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Bader and 242 Squadron had some great success, but they were positioned in Number 12 Group, which was supposed to defend the midlands of England, while the group to the south, Number 11 Group, was the one that was getting fucking hammered non stop by the Germans.&nbsp; Since Number 11 was always shorthanded, they would throw squadrons up one by one at the enemy bomber formations, but Douglas Bader developed another tactic &ndash; the Big Wing.</p>\r\n<p>Basically, since Bader&rsquo;s airfields weren&rsquo;t constantly being bombed to shit, he had the opportunity to amass a large group of planes all together &ndash; maybe three or four squadrons, depending on how many pilots were ready.&nbsp; Then he&rsquo;d get this whole big group and personally lead it on a mass haymaker punch at the Luftwaffe.</p>\r\n<p>The Big Wing is something that a lot of armchair historians and other obsessive-compulsive maniacs like to argue about, but basically here&rsquo;s the deal:&nbsp; This thing was like the Ryan Howard of aircraft formations. &nbsp;Yeah, it was going to bat .223, strike out 200 times, and show up two hours late for the battle occasionally, but if it hit &ndash; like it did on August 30 and September 15, 1940 &ndash; it was going to crush that shit out of the fucking park.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/291520032463/bader4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Exactly 75 years ago this month, during Battle of Britain Day, Bader&rsquo;s Big Wing crashed into a formation as it was dropping bombs on London, and they tore through it with more machine gun bullets than Arnold Schwarzenegger has fired in his entire professional film career.&nbsp; Throughout the Battle of Britain (which refers to the entire period between June and like October 1940), Bader and the rest of 242 Squadron claimed 67 aerial kills.&nbsp; They lost just five men KIA.&nbsp; By the time the war was over, Bader himself personally accounted for 22 smashed German airplanes, with another six probable kills.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s one of the most successful fighter pilot aces in RAF history.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/291520032463/bader5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After defending his homeland from the fucking Nazis, Douglas Bader was promoted to a Wing Commander and started launching raids against enemy aircraft over France.&nbsp; He did pretty well for a while, until one day he was engaged with a bunch of Messerschmitts at close range, and a piece of a blown-up aircraft smashed into Bader&rsquo;s Spitfire, ripping it apart pretty good.&nbsp; With smoke and flames trailing behind him, the Wing Commander popped the ejection, parachuting down into enemy territory.&nbsp; One of his legs had come off during the ejection, though, so he wasn&rsquo;t able to evade, and was captured by the Germans and brought to a field hospital to regroup.&nbsp; While he was there, he met Adolf Galland, one of the most badass German pilots of the war (this 70-kill uber-ace was so fucking cool he had a custom ash tray installed in his cockpit so he could smoke cigars while he was smoking Spitfires).&nbsp; Galland arranged for Britain to air-drop a replacement leg in for Bader so he wouldn&rsquo;t be stuck with bullshit crutches while he was in German custody.</p>\r\n<p>Bader thanked Galland for his hospitality, reattached his leg, and promptly tried to escape.&nbsp; They caught him.&nbsp; He tried again.&nbsp; They caught him again, and then put him here:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/291520032463/bader6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /> <em>Bader&rsquo;s flight log from the day he was shot down:<br /> \"Shot down 1 Me 109F &amp; collided with another. POW\"</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em>&nbsp;</em></p>\r\n<p>That Dracula Castle shit is called Colditz Castle, and it&rsquo;s pretty much inescapable.&nbsp; He spent the rest of the war there, until the Allies captured it in 1945 and freed him.&nbsp; He returned home in time to fly the lead Spitfire in parade commemorating the Allied victory in World War II.</p>\r\n<p>After the war, Bader continued flying and serving as a flight instructor.&nbsp; After he retired from the RAF, he became a public speaker, and he also created the <a href=\"http://www.douglasbaderfoundation.com/\">Douglas Bader Foundation</a>, a group that to this day continues to work with providing opportunities for disabled athletes to, in Bader&rsquo;s words, &ldquo;get on with your life.&rdquo;&nbsp; He was knighted for this epic humanitarian service in 1976.</p>\r\n<p>Bader passed away in 1982 at the age of 72.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"../images/291520032463/bader7.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><em><br /> &ldquo;To my way of thinking, a disabled man who has achieved <br /> independence is no longer disabled&rdquo;</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Link:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.douglasbaderfoundation.com/\">The Douglas Bader Foundation</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2292943/Douglas-Bader-Incredible-footage-WW2-fighter-ace-fought-Nazis-false-legs-goes-display.html\">Daily Mail</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/airforce/p/World-War-Ii-Group-Captain-Sir-Douglas-Bader.htm\">About.com</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/douglas-bader-fighter-pilot.aspx\">RAF Museum</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://acepilots.com/british/bader.html\">AcePilots.com</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Bader\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2015-09-18','291520032463','bader.jpg','bader-small.jpg','Douglas Bader','20-kill fighter ace and Battle of Britain hero who kicked German ass despite losing both of his legs in a flying accident.','\"He was a marvelous leader, a brilliant pilot, a dead shot and everything you relished… he didn\'t just save my life, he saved a hell of a lot of lives.\" '),('Armand-Jean du Plessis','September 9, 1585','December 4, 1642','Paris, France','17th-century French Politician','<p>September is National Bourbon Heritage month, an amazing time of the year that is actually a legitimately real thing and not just some promotional material I read on a coaster at a fancy bar last week trying to convince me why I should order a round of twelve dollar cocktails for everybody in the establishment.&nbsp; Apparently, National Bourbon Heritage Month was proposed in 2007 by a U.S. Senator from Kentucky (because of course it was), and was passed that same year by a unanimous act of the United States Congress (also of course)&hellip; so I guess that when I&rsquo;m sitting at a bar later tonight slamming back Whiskey Sours and Old Fashioneds with a beautiful woman I can rest easy knowing that I&rsquo;m doing my patriotic duty as a good honest hard-working American.&nbsp; And even after my date flees the bar through the bathroom window and some gigantic bald bouncer with a skull tattooed over his actual face is suplexing me into a garbage can at two o&rsquo;clock in the morning, I can drunkenly pass out in that dirty back alley dumpster comfortable in the knowledge that this is what the Founding Fathers probably would have wanted.</p>\r\n<p>So, in celebration of the Pope visiting the United States during National Bourbon Heritage Month, I figure it&rsquo;s appropriate to write this week&rsquo;s story on a badass, infamous, iron-fisted clergyman who served the French Royal House of Bourbon during the height of the seventeenth century and utterly demolished all enemies of France, both foreign and domestic &ndash; the notorious Armand-Jean du Plessis, better known to history and Three Musketeers novels as Cardinal Richelieu.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu1.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Armand-Jean du Plessis was born in 1585, the third son of a down-on-their-luck family of French aristocrats who were on the downswing of the &ldquo;good old days&rdquo;.&nbsp; Armand-Jean was skinny, not particularly strong, and got sick a lot, and from a very young age was forced to rely on his wits to stay on his feet.&nbsp; His dad was a French soldier who got his ass killed during the Wars of Religion, leaving the family in crushing debt, financially ruined, and with little more than their manor and a hereditary title of Bishop of Lucon to their name.&nbsp; France, meanwhile, was also completely broke, and the recent assassination of King Henri IV meant that the country was now ruled in name only by a pre-teen King whose balls hadn&rsquo;t dropped yet.&nbsp; France was a feudal realm full of local medieval-style knights, Catholics and Protestants were murdering each other in the street on the regs, and the ancient enemies of France -- the hated Hapsburgs of Austria -- had powerful family members ruling over Prussia, Spain, and Italy&hellip; meaning that in addition to internal religious anarchy, France was also completely surrounded by pissed-off Germans that basically just wanted to kill all French people anywhere they could be found.&nbsp; Bitchin.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The first time the phrase &ldquo;the pen is mightier than the sword&rdquo; appears in print is in a play written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839.&nbsp; The words are being spoken by Cardinal Richelieu.&nbsp; Even though he may never have actually uttered the words in real life, the phrase fits, because without ever unsheathing a blade on the battlefield, fucking Armand-Jean du Plessis still managed to grind France into what would be the most dominant military, economic, and political force on the European continent for nearly a century.&nbsp; By the time he was done, this sickly poor kid from the countryside would be known as <em>L&rsquo;Eminence Rouge</em> &ndash; &ldquo;The Red Eminence,&rdquo; and people would be naming goddamn World War II battleships and Paris Metro stops after him.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Richelieu had two older brothers, but the eldest inherited the family manor and the middle bro decided he&rsquo;d rather peace out and become a monk than have to wear one of those silly bishop&rsquo;s hats.&nbsp; Eager to do his duty to help out the family, Armand quit the military academy and resolved to become the most badass priest in the history of the Catholic Church.&nbsp; He was only 21 and technically wasn&rsquo;t old enough to be a bishop, but it didn&rsquo;t stop him &ndash; he traveled to Rome and convinced the Pope to appoint him Bishop of Lucon anyways.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As Bishop, Richelieu supported the Crown, and was the first Bishop to give sermons and write texts in French instead of Latin.&nbsp; When he wasn&rsquo;t saving souls, he also sent bribes and other presents to the King&rsquo;s mom, Marie de Medici, an Italian woman who was running the show while the King wasn&rsquo;t old enough to do his thing.&nbsp; Carefully calculating his moves paid off, and Richelieu eventually got in so tight with the Queen Mother that he was appointed to run the Palace Chapel for the King and Queen themselves.&nbsp; All it took after that was for him to personally negotiate the peaceful resolution to a possible French Civil War between the nobility and the King and the next thing you know King Louis XII is appointing him to wear the cool red robes of a Roman Catholic Cardinal.</p>\r\n<p>Tl;dr &ndash; Richelieu was a non-inheriting son of a dirt-poor family of minor nobles.&nbsp; He convinced the Pope to make him the youngest Bishop in France.&nbsp; Then he convinced the Queen to let him look over the spiritual health of the Royal Family.&nbsp; Then he defused a potentially-horrific Civil War.&nbsp; He then became Cardinal, and was made First Minister of France in 1624.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It was around that time that the Queen decided Richelieu had become too powerful and was actually becoming a threat to her power.&nbsp; She tried to convince her now-grown son to banish Richelieu and exile him.&nbsp; The King chose Cardinal Richelieu over his own momma, and had her exiled instead.<br /><br /> Booya.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu3.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As First Minister of France, Cardinal Richelieu had one goal and one goal only &ndash; to fucking forge France into the most badass realm the world had ever seen, no matter how many assholes he needed to eviscerate or demolish to get there.&nbsp; As far as he could tell, he had three main enemies &ndash; Protestant rebels, Hapsburg Germans, and disloyal noblemen who weren&rsquo;t happy about the idea of Feudalism coming to an end.</p>\r\n<p>He dealt with the nobles first.&nbsp; His first move was to create a professional private army that was loyal to him alone, and then he sent these badass mercenaries to the homes of potentially-disloyal aristocrats to rip apart their castle walls brick-by-brick and discourage them from rising against him.&nbsp; He put regional governors in different counties, having them report to him directly instead of to the local lords.&nbsp; He created a hardcore cloak-and-dagger spy network that spread its tendrils throughout France, and his agents, disguised as monks, nuns, minstrels, peasants, prostitutes, guards and maids infiltrated nearly every prominent aristocratic household in France.&nbsp; Before long, this guy was running a war room that would give him an early-warning indication of any potentially-disloyal nobleman from the Pyrenees to the Rhine.&nbsp; Anyone suspected of potential treason (or anyone he decided he wanted to frame for potential treason) was either shanked to death in his home or was dragged out into the middle of Paris and publicly had his head chopped off with an axe.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu4.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><em>\"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, <br /> I would find something in them to have him hanged.\"</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Next it was time to deal with the Huguenots, which sounds like a shitty band name but was actually a term to refer to French Calvinists who weren&rsquo;t down with the Roman Catholic Church and started setting up their cities where the Church wouldn&rsquo;t have any power.&nbsp; Well, this was a problem for Cardinal Richelieu, but not for the reasons you&rsquo;d think.&nbsp; You see, Richelieu didn&rsquo;t really even care that much that these guys were Protestants &ndash; what pissed him off was that they were rebels.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Huguenots got some military and financial support from England, who sent the Duke of Buckingham to the port city of La Rochelle to help the Huguenots seize control of it.&nbsp; The Protestants took over the city, which at the time was the third biggest city in France, and, as you can imagine, this really really super mega pissed Cardinal Richelieu off.&nbsp; He slapped on his badass red Cardinal plate armor, grabbed a rapier, assembled his personal red-cloaked Musketeers, and led an army to lay siege to the city.&nbsp; Personally commanding a force of over 20,000 soldiers, Richelieu surrounded La Rochelle, and encircled it with eleven forts and almost eight miles of trenches packed with riflemen.&nbsp; He set up cannons, began bombarding the city, and then blocked off the city&rsquo;s harbor with an insane act of badass engineering &ndash; he sailed a bunch of ships into the harbor, sunk them, packed them up with gravel, and then <em>built a fucking impenetrable sea wall and put cannons on there so no English reinforcements could enter the harbor</em>.&nbsp; Just for added effect, Richelieu also bought a couple badass warships from Holland, an act that to this day is referred to as the Birth of the French Navy.&nbsp; Richelieu would serve as the navy&rsquo;s Admiral for the rest of his career, and would also order construction of the French Naval Academy.</p>\r\n<p>When it first opened fire on the Cardinal&rsquo;s troops, the City of La Rochelle was home to roughly 25,000 soldiers and civilians.&nbsp; After fourteen months of being hammered on all sides by the Cardinal&rsquo;s artillery, only 5,000 people remained.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu5.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><em><br />Cardinal Richelieu overseeing the siege.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Finally, Richelieu had to deal with the fucking Hapsburgs, who were a problem for him because they were German.&nbsp; The Hapsburgs heard about the La Rochelle thing and tried to fuck with France by attacking Venice, a strong ally of France in Northern Italy, but fuck that.&nbsp; It turns out that Richelieu actually had two spies in the Hapsburg court &ndash; one was the Prince&rsquo;s fencing instructor, and the other was the Princess&rsquo;s dancing teacher.&nbsp; He knew exactly what was going down, and countered it immediately.</p>\r\n<p>The second the siege of La Rochelle was over, Richelieu immediately led his army south, crossed the Alps in the middle of winter, attacked the Hapsburg army from the back, and drove them away from the besieged Italian city in complete disarray.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu6.jpg\" alt=\"\" /><br /><em>\"To mislead a rival, deception is permissible; one may use all means against his enemies.\"</em></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Richelieu got his revenge on the Hapsburgs, but he didn&rsquo;t do it directly &ndash; he did it by financing the enemies of the Holy Roman Empire.&nbsp; He gave lots of money and gear to the Dutch to fight the Spanish, and the Swedes to fight the Germans, and then he had his agents plant false evidence that discredited or otherwise ruined the best military commanders in the German army.&nbsp; Richelieu&rsquo;s diabolical mastermind Bond villain shit turned the Thirty Years&rsquo; War into one of the most brutal and bloodiest conflicts in European history, and made a local fight into an epic world war that drove the Hapsburgs nearly completely bankrupt.&nbsp; It was the same tactic the Russians used in the Vietnam War and the U.S. did during the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, but this guy was pioneering that shit back before they&rsquo;d invented the hot air balloon or the guillotine.&nbsp; When the Pope Himself came to Richelieu and was like, &ldquo;hey bro, WTF, you&rsquo;re supporting a bunch of godless Protestant countries in wars against a place literally called the HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE,&rdquo; Richelieu told his spiritual boss &ndash; the friggin&rsquo; Pope &ndash; to cram it up his cram hole.&nbsp; The Pope almost excommunicated him, but didn&rsquo;t, because Richelieu is a goddamn genius at manipulating even the world&rsquo;s most powerful people to his every whim.</p>\r\n<p>While all this was going on, Richelieu also ordered French ships and men to the New World to establish a base of power in the newly-discovered North American continent.&nbsp; He had his guys seize island territories like Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe, and in 1629 Cardinal Richelieu signed the treaty that created the Province of Quebec.</p>\r\n<p>Oh, and he also build a city near his old hometown, named it after himself, and built a huge palace there for his mistress.&nbsp; Hashtag Big Pimpin.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu7.JPG\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>I mentioned the part about the pen being mightier than the sword, but Richelieu had another phrase he liked to use as well.&nbsp; He liked to refer to artillery as &ldquo;The Last Reasoning of Kings.&rdquo;&nbsp; I like this because it sums him up pretty well &ndash; he&rsquo;d find some way to fuck you over first, but if that didn&rsquo;t work out he was cool with just blowing your face off with grapeshot at point-blank range.&nbsp; The phrase became so well-known during his time that the Latin translation of it, <em>Ultima Ratio Regum</em>, would be inscribed on cannons in the artillery batteries of French armies under Louis XIV.&nbsp; And it really just doesn&rsquo;t get any more fucking badass than having a phrase that sounds like a Grindcore album title embossed on a two-ton iron shotgun.</p>\r\n<p>Nowadays Cardinal Richelieu is most well-known for being the bad guy in the Three Musketeers, where he&rsquo;s basically a diabolical evil genius who fucks with people but still lets D&rsquo;Artagnan go even after he has to chance to execute him.&nbsp; Tons of actors have played him (including Vincent Price!) but for my money I&rsquo;ll always just picture this guy looking like Tim Curry.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t find any good clips that don&rsquo;t have shitty audio but if you can hang then <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP33r6oaeUg\">here&rsquo;s a rad clip</a> of Richelieu shooting Charlie Sheen in the dick, and if this doesn&rsquo;t make you happy I don&rsquo;t know what will.</p>\r\n<p>He&rsquo;s also apparently on a pretty popular BBC show right now as well.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know anything about this, but it did give me this photo so I&rsquo;m happy:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu8.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Here&rsquo;s another insane thing about Cardinal Richelieu &ndash; did you know that the Man in the Iron Mask <a href=\"http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/who-was-the-man-in-the-iron-mask\">was a real person</a>?&nbsp; It was!&nbsp; Nobody knows who he was (the best money is that he was an illegitimate brother of Louis XIV), but pretty much every conspiracy theory involving him has something to do with Cardinal Richelieu slapping that metal gimp-mask on an important guy as a means of protecting the Cardinal&rsquo;s position of power in the government.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t have a theory on this, because I haven&rsquo;t dug too far into it, but I do know that in 1642 a nobleman libertine asshole known as the Marquis de Cinq-Mars made a deal with Spain to overthrow Richelieu, and Richelieu&rsquo;s spies snagged that fucker at the Spanish border, dragged him to Paris, and had his dome lopped off in front of thirty thousand screaming fans.</p>\r\n<p>Cardinal Richelieu died in December of 1642 at the age of 57, passing the reins of government on to another Cardinal he&rsquo;d personally trained in the fine art of knife-point diplomacy.&nbsp; At the time of his death, the King of France was a four year-old boy who would become Louis XIV, the Sun King.&nbsp;&nbsp; Thanks to the Red Eminence, Louis XIV would inherit a strong, stable, powerful country that would go on to establish complete dominance over the European mainland for decades.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/images/987262914417/richelieu9.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/france-in-the-seventeenth-century/cardinal-richelieu/\">History Learning Site</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.britannica.com/biography/Armand-Jean-du-Plessis-cardinal-et-duc-de-Richelieu\">Encyclopedia Britannica</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95sep/richelieu.html\">Lucid Cafe</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13047a.htm\">Catholic Encyclopedia</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Cardinal_Richelieu\">New World Encyclopedia</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<br />Sources:</p>\r\n<p>Bergin, Joseph.&nbsp; <em>Cardinal Richelieu: Power and the Pursuit of Wealth</em>.&nbsp; Yale University Press, 1990.</p>\r\n<p>Blanchard, Jean-Vincent.&nbsp; <em>Eminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France</em>.&nbsp; Bloomsbury, 2011.</p>\r\n<p>Bradford, James C.&nbsp; <em>International Encyclopedia of Military History</em>.&nbsp; Routledge, 2004.</p>\r\n<p>Carlisle, Rodney.&nbsp; <em>Encyclopedia of Intelligence and Counterintelligence</em>.&nbsp; Routledge, 2015.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>','2015-09-25','987262914417','richelieu.jpg','richelieu-small.jpg','Cardinal Richelieu','The diabolical mastermind who turned France from a bankrupt war-torn country into the most dominant political superpower on the European continent.','\"Harshness towards individuals who flout the laws and commands of state is for the public good.  No greater crime against the public interest is possible than to show leniency to those who violate it.\"'),