Most Badass Figures of History

[Jubal]

Who do you think were the most badass and awesome guys and girls in History?

[Captain Carthage]

Nikola Tesla

Serbia's answer to every other scientist ever.

Just a few things you should know.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-284-nikola-tesla/

[Jubal]

I guess Mad Jack Churchill should get a mention.

Basil the Macedonian as well. Turned up in Constantinople as a peasant horse-trader, died about forty years later having founded his own Imperial dynasty. 

[comrade_general]

Bob Dole

[Phoenixguard09]

Captain Mad Jack Churchill!

Um also Miloš Obilić, the Serbian knight who was responsible for the death of the only Turkish Sultan to have carked it on the battlefield.

[Cuddly Khan]

What about the more famous guys like Hitler, Alexander the great, Ganghis Khan, Julias Cessar and the girls like Queen Cleopatra? I think we can take Hitler out though.

[comrade_general]

Spellcheckeroneo.

[Phoenixguard09]

Yeah I'd agree with Alexander and Genghis Khan. Not so much the others because unlike these two, they didn't actually get stuck in themselves. Though feel free to proove me wrong if I am guys.

[Cuddly Khan]

Na. I think your right. YAY FOR GANGHIS!!!!!

[Andalus]

If you're going to keep spelling it differently, at least use an official alternative like Chinggis.


Simo Häyhä, the White Death, is an obvious choice.

Harald Hardrada, last of the great vikings. A Kievan commander, captain of the Varangian Guard, and King of Norway. One hell of a track record, as well as individual heroic exploits like his escape from Constantinople and his death in battle.

By extension, the Norwegian berserker who held Stamford Bridge and killed 40 English housecarls was clearly something of a tough nut.

[Will]

Wasn't that guy stopped only because someone took a boat and went underneath the bridge and speared him from below? He must have been pretty tough yeah

[Othko97]

Simo Hayha - aka The White Death - A Finnish farmer who served one year in the military before retiring back to his humble life. Humble until the USSR invaded that is, when he got a little wound up and went all sniper on them. He killed 705 USSR soldiers with a rifle and an SMG, at temperatures of around 4 degrees Celsius. The USSR had to launch whole missions to try and stop him. None of them succeeded.

I know it's a cliche, but also Leonidas, he was just too awesome not to appear.

[Phoenixguard09]

Donald McBane, a Scottish swordmaster.

McBane penned a remarkable book of memoirs, The Expert Swordsman's Companion, or the True Art of Self Defence.  Published in 1728, it remains the only fencing book written by a master who had also been a serving soldier; in all he took part in sixteen battles and fifty two sieges. Towards the end of his career he kept an alehouse and fencing school in London and fought thirty seven prize fights in the Bear Garden, but it is extraoridnary that he survived that long.

The son of a Scottish farmer and publican, McBane enlisted in the Scots army in 1687. Five years later he won his first duel, against an army paymaster who had swindled him. Three years after that he took part in the siege of Namur, where he was shot three times and bayonetted six. In 1697 he went home to Inverness but soon reenlisted, fought a further duel in Perth, left his opponent for dead and fled to Ireland where he set up a fencing school. Still a common soldier, he found himself consigned to Holland, where he met the man he thought he killed in Perth. They became friends and set up a new academy together. On learning that four fellow practitioners ran a brothel and gaming house, he decided to take a share and fought all four until the last suddenly produced a pistol from under his hat and fired. The ball missed and McBane chased him and ran him through the ass. They cut him in and from 1700 to 1702 he lived comfortably off the earnings.

At the battle of Nijmegen, McBane's regiment lost all of its baggage, leaving him penniless. He borrowed money but lost it all in a card-game, robbed the winner, was set upon by seven men, wounded five and escaped. After a hell of a lot of other misadventures, including being blown up by a grenade, he set up as a fencing master for a third time, simultaneously keeping a brothel with sixteen girls.

One day, exhausted after preparations for a forced march, he fell asleep and was left behind by his regiment. "Up comes a French Dragoon seeking plunder and took me prisoner and drove me before him until he came to a wood where he wanted to ease nature. When his breeches were down, I mounted his horse and rode for it."

A year later he was marching with the Duke of Marlborough and in one engagement took three bayonette thrusts as well as receiving, "a brace of balls that lies in my thigh to this day." None of this seemed to quench his spirit and he was soon setting up tents for sixty "campaign ladies" as well as sixteen "professors of the sword." This was evidently insufficient, fo he led a raiding party against his Dutch allies and carried off fourteen of their women. The next day, two dozen Dutch swordsmen came to retrieve them. The two sides drank together then fought until eleven Dutch and four of McBane's band lay dead.

In 1706 he took part in a campaign which swept the French out of Flanders, in one siege hurling grenades for eight hours while receiving a ball in the head, "which will mind me of it while I yet live." The following year he fought with a Gascon mercenary who had already killed five men. "Ibound his sword and made a half thrust at his breast. He timed me and wounded me in the mouth. We took another turn, I took a little better care and gave him a thrust in the body, which made him very angry. I gave him a thrust in the belly, he then darted his sword at me, I parried it, he went and lay down on his coat and spoke none."

His next misadventure followed yet another dispute over money: He was severely beaten, thrown down a well and left for dead, fortunately in less than a foot of water. In 1708, during one more siege, he was knocked to the ground by the head of a comrade torn off in a cannon blast. "All his brains came round my head. I being half senseless put up my hand to my head and finding the brains cried to my neighbour that all my brains had been knocked out. He said were they your brains out, you would not speak."

In 1711, now forty seven, McBane quarrelled with two Dutch soldiers. The ensuing brawl left both men dying. Once again he was compelled to flee, only this time he was captured by the French and drafted into their ranks. It didn't take him long to kill two of his new comrades and was arrested. The following day, a drum major from Marlborough's army arrived to exchange prisoners. "Take him," the French general pleaded, "for if he stays, he will kill all my men."

In 1712 the Flanders wars were drifting to an end and McBane returned to Britain to a new marriage and a career with James Figg and his companions. He reenlisted once more in 1715 against the Jacobite rebels and served until discharged because his many old wounds were troubling him. In 1726, "I fought a young clean man at Edinburgh. I gave him seven wounds and broke his arm with a stick. This I did at the request of several noblemen. But now being sixty three years of age, resolve never to fight anymore, but to repent of my former wickedness."

I more or less typed that word for word from a book called By the Sword by Richard Cohen. It's a very good book about the history of swordplay, and if you do see it around I suggest that you buy it.

[Skull]

Sempronius Densus.

[Lady Grey]

Not sure about badass... But

(Elizabeth) Erzsébet Báthory (The Blood Countess)

Tortured and killed virgin girls to bathe in their blood...

Possibly more sick and twisted than badass to be honest...