It must be said that each of us is unlikely to realize what we are capable of if at some point an extreme life situation arises. And not just a one-time powerful surge of adrenaline, thanks to which a person can, fleeing from a predator, immediately climb an inaccessible rock, and a fragile granny can send a hefty robber flying with a single handbag.

Such cases occur relatively often – and we are surprised when reading or hearing about them in the media. But no less surprising are situations when a person in a difficult circumstances shows unprecedented fortitude and composure – when 99 out of 100 would probably give up in the face of the problem. And this thread in the AskReddit community is dedicated to various similar cases from world history, a selection of which Bored Panda has collected specially for you.

More info: Reddit

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#1 Nicholas Winton

Nicholas Winton helped 669 children escape the death camp. His efforts went unrecognized for 50 years. In 1988, while sitting as a member of a TV audience, he suddenly found himself surrounded by the kids he’d rescued.

Image credits: magrilo2

#2 Witold Pilecki

Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki. He purposely made himself be caught and thrown into death camp in Auschwitz to infiltrate it and organize underground resistance and do general recon. He then escaped with another prisoner to fight in Warsaw uprising.

Image credits: IloveZaki

#3 Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman. When she was a slave she would do work right alongside the men. Once when she was just a child she was taken into to big house to take care of the kids, and she snuck a sugar cube. She had never had sugar before. She knew she was going to be whipped, so she ran off and hid in the pig pen for days, fighting the pigs for food, before they found her.

Later on she was struck in the head by a lead weight thrown at another slave by an angry shop owner. She suffered brain damage but was back in the fields while she was still bleeding. All her life, she would suffer from hallucinations and sleeping spells. She interpreted her visions as signs from God.

Later on, she escaped slavery and joined the underground railroad. If slaves lost their nerve and wanted to go back, she would hold them at gunpoint. During the civil war she led a naval raid on a plantation at Combahee Ferry and freed 750 enslaved people.

In the 1890s she had brain surgery, where the doctor “sawed open my skull, and raised it up, and now it feels more comfortable.”

She lived to be 90 or 91.

Image credits: Marvos79

#4 Joe Medicine Crow

Joe Medicine Crow, the last Warchief of the Crow. He completed all the ritual rights to become Warchief while fighting in WW2. Which included taking an enemies weapon, touching an enemy without killing him, leading a war party and stealing an enemies horse (he stole 50 from the SS ).

Image credits: RIPcunts

#5 Someone’s grandpa named Liberatus

My Grandpa Liberatus,

Was working solo on his farm in the 1950’s, when both hands were sucked into an auger slicing them up right to the shoulders. Was able to kick the controls to reverse the blades and get himself out, then drove himself in a grainery truck 45 minutes to the hospital, steering and shifting gears with his knees. Doctors were able to save one arm above the elbow but none of the other.

Still worked another 40 years with hooks for arms, Fathered 9 children, 6 after his accident and harvested 1000 acres on a hundred year old family farm. Smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, ate red meat 3 times a day, passed away in his sleep 2 days before his 99th birthday.

He was a hard man, but absolutely devoted to his family and was a great Grandfather to over 20 grandkids. He taught me about resiliency, resourcefulness and mental toughness. Every grandkid, on their first birthday, got a rocking horse that he built in his workshop using hand tools that he built custom attachments for his prosthetics. I still have mine, from 56 years ago, as a reminder of him when times are tough.

Image credits: LOUDCO-HD

#6 Desmond Doss

Private Desmond Doss. He refused to use a gun but carried 75 men to safety including two of the wounded Japanese soldiers on the other side & used his medical knowledge to save their lives. He is the only conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor as awarded by President Harry S. Truman.

Image credits: Intelligent_Coast333

#7 A lot of unknown women

A lot of unknown women

Image credits: passurepassure

#8 Galvarino

Galvarino. He was a Mapuche warrior whose hands were amputated by Spanish conquistadors. His response? He rigged blades to his wrist stumps and led a rebellion against the Spanish.

Image credits: DontBuyAHorse

#9 Princess Khutulun

Khutulun, a Mongolian Princess, insisted that any man who wished to marry her must defeat her in wrestling, forfeiting horses to her if they lost.

She gained 10,000 horses defeating prospective suitors.

Image credits: CorruptRiche

#10 Terry Fox

I think that Terry Fox has to be up there. To run a marathon every day on the Marathon of Hope, on one leg (and a crappy prosthesis), while riddled with cancer is beyond anything I can understand. Imagine the courage and determination that required.

Image credits: NibblersNosh

#11 Roy Benavidez

Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez.

On May 2, 1968, a 12-man Special Forces patrol, which included nine Montagnard tribesmen, was surrounded by an NVA infantry battalion of about 1,000 men. Benavidez heard the radio appeal for help and boarded a helicopter to respond. Armed only with a knife, he jumped from the helicopter carrying his medical bag and ran to help the trapped patrol. Benavidez “distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions… and because of his gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men.”

At one point in the battle an NVA soldier accosted him and stabbed him with his bayonet. Benavidez pulled it out, drew his own knife, killed him and kept going, leaving his knife in the NVA soldier’s body. He later killed two more NVA soldiers with an AK-47 while providing cover fire for the people boarding the helicopter. After the battle, he was evacuated to the base camp, examined, and thought to be dead. As he was placed in a body bag among the other dead in body bags, he was suddenly recognized by a friend who called for help. A doctor came and examined him but believed Benavidez was dead. The doctor was about to zip up the body bag when Benavidez managed to spit in his face to show that he was alive. Benavidez had a total of 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds from the six-hour fight with the enemy battalion.

Image credits: ComesInAnOldBox

#12 Someone’s grandma

My grandmother. Her husband died of heart disease in 1948, leaving her to raise 8 children between the ages of 9 months and 13 years old. She was a saint.

Image credits: Joseph_Bloggins

#13 Stephen Hawking

Maybe not in a traditional sense, but Stephen Hawking. Dude wouldn’t let something as trivial as ALS stop him from becoming an accomplished physicist. He essentially had to do all the math in his head, without the ability to write down notes as he worked.

Image credits: saggywitchtits

#14 Simo Hayha

Simo Hayha

(The famous Finnish sniper who defended the independence of Finland from the USSR in 1939 – 1940. Having received a serious wound that almost deprived him of half of his face, Simo partly regained his health and returned to duty. – BP)

Image credits: Old_Man_Withers

#15 Léo Major

Léo Major.

Canadian sniper/reconnaissance, lost an eye, was told you’re going home..replied with why? I only need 1 eye to snipe…liberated an entire town in holland, took over a dozen prisoners, all single handedly after his fire team partner was killed

Image credits: ComfortableOk5003

#16 Charles Upham

Charles Upham was a NZ soldier who won 2 Victoria Crosses. He had a reputation of carrying a flour sack full of grenades instead of a rifle. If you read the wiki, it goes through the whole saga that led to his awarding of the first VC and then casually mentions that he was suffering from Dystentary at the time.

Image credits: Boring_Monahan

#17 The Viking at Stamford Bridge

There are a lot of good people mentioned in here for various reasons but I’ll throw out two more people.

First the unknown viking at Stamford Bridge, he held off the entire English army until they floated a soldier under the bridge to stab the viking in the testicles. Dude was straight stacking bodies before getting stabbed in the no no spot.

Second is Norman Borlaug, Norman was not a great warrior but a scientist, he developed a variant of wheat that had a higher yield and wouldn’t fall over so harvests would be greater. He has saved countless lives from dying of starvation.

Image credits: Supraman83

#18 Jack Churchill

Jack Churchill. Went into battle armed with a broadsword, a bow and arrow, and bag pipes. In WW2.

Image credits: SoLetsReddit

#19 Hugh Glass

“In one of the more remarkable treks known to history, Glass set his own leg, wrapped himself in the bear hide his companions had placed over him as a shroud, and began crawling. To prevent gangrene, Glass laid his wounded back on a rotting log and let the maggots eat the dead flesh. Deciding that following the Grand River would be too dangerous because of hostile tribes, Glass crawled overland south toward the Cheyenne River. It took him six weeks to reach it. Glass survived mostly on wild berries and roots. On one occasion he was able to drive two wolves from a downed bison calf, and feast on the meat. Reaching the Cheyenne, he fashioned a crude raft and floated down the river, navigating using the prominent Thunder Butte landmark. Aided by friendly natives who sewed a bear hide to his back to cover the exposed wounds as well as providing him with food and a couple of weapons to defend himself, Glass eventually reached the safety of Fort Kiowa.”

Image credits: FinickyJose

#20 ethanol713 reply

Earnest Shackleton

(Famous Antarctic explorer, one of the main figures in the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. The member of four Antarctic expeditions, three of which he commanded. – BP)

Image credits: ethanol713

#21 Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

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