12 guys who were never afraid of a challenge

via Wikimedia

 

Only a certain type of men can persevere when faced with incredibly difficult obstacles. 

Most men will cower or retreat at the first sign of adversity.

There are some men, however, who look adversity in the face and give it a nice, fresh backhand. These twelve individuals have given adversity more than a few slaps to the face.

Here are 12 guys who were never afraid of a challenge.

Evel Knievel

After crashing his motorcycle at the age of 13, which resulted in a fire, most people would have quit. Instead Knievel went on to be one of the greatest stuntman of all time. At one point he was doing a stunt jump per week. Despite breaking 35 bones in his lifetime, he held just about every record for stunts. The coolest part? All of his records were later broken by his son.

Jesse Owens

Not only did Jesse Owens win four gold medals during a single Olympics, he did it during 1936 when African-Americans were horribly mistreated in the US. But the best part of it all was that he won the gold medals in Germany right in front of Hitler. It has to be a sweet feeling to be celebrated in the face of one of the most hated individuals to ever live.

Deborah Sampson

Ok so technically she’s not a guy, but what she did was truly badass. During the American Revolution she wasn’t allowed to fight, so she took matters into her own hands and dressed up as a man in order to fight for her cause. At one point she was shot, but to keep her gender hidden, she removed the bullet herself. She fought for over two years without anyone knowing that she wasn’t a man.

Simo Hayha

You know that guy on Call of Duty that you always want on your team because he plows through everyone and is basically an instant win? Simo Hayha is the real life version of that guy. Hayha was known as The White Death to the Soviets that invaded his home country of Finland. He would camouflage himself in the snow and pick off enemy soldiers with his sniper rifle. He killed 705 of them. At one point someone got a lucky bullet in and blew off half of his face. Don’t worry, he recovered and regained consciousness in about a week.

Dr. Leonid Rogozov

What do you do when you’re a doctor in Antarctica and need your appendix removed, but no medical help can get to you because of a blizzard? Simple, you do the surgery yourself. Rogozov used a mirror and a scalpel, along with just enough novocaine to take the edge off, and in two hours removed his own appendix.

Michael Jordan

It’s a shame the younger generation didn’t get to appreciate Jordan in his prime. Not only was he a sensational athlete, he thrived on rising to the challenge. He played all 82 games of the NBA season 9 different times, including his final season when he was 40. In 1986 he became one of two players in history to have more than 3,000 points in a single season. Jordan played in 35 finals games and never had less than 20 points in any of them. The numbers go on and on.

Chandragupta Maurya

The orphan from Eastern India in 340 BC went from having nothing to becoming the leader of one of the biggest Empires of all time. He had an army of 36,000 soldiers as well as a team of 500 personal female bodyguards. Did I mention that, at one point, he stormed the palace of the Nanda empire by himself?

Roy P. Benavidez

This guy puts all of your Chuck Norris jokes to shame. He was told he would never walk again in 1965 after he stepped on a land mine in Vietnam. He ended up rehabilitating himself and after a year walked out of the hospital. That would have been tough enough, but two years later he became a member of Special Forces and went back to Vietnam. He later received four Purple Hearts for a mission where he saved the lives of 8 soldiers and, in the process, suffered 37 different wounds from bullets and shrapnel.

Ted Williams

Williams is the only player in MLB history to bat .400 for a season. On the final game of the year, Williams refused to sit out with a .399 average and went on to go 6-8 in a doubleheader. Not only was he unstoppable on the field, he also fought in two wars. There was no chance of him being drafted in World War II, but instead he volunteered and served four years as an aviator. Oh, he also went back 8 years later and flew dozens of combat missions. Even after his retirement he went on to be inducted into the Fishing Hall of Fame.

Abraham Lincoln

Most people know Abraham Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents in the history of America, but that could have easily been erased if he wasn’t persistent and always ready for another challenge. During his 20s he had two failed businesses, lost an election for legislation, and had a nervous breakdown. Things got even worse in his 30s and early 40s as he ran for six different public offices, including Senator and Vice President, and lost them all. Of course at 51 he became President and changed the world forever.

Elon Musk

Most people would be thrilled to launch a multi-million dollar company, but that’s a slow day for Elon Musk. He created PayPal and later sold it for $1.5 billion. He founded Tesla Motors AND SpaceX, which are now valued around $35 billion. If that wasn’t enough, he also came up with the concepts for Hyperloop and SolarCity. Not a bad resume.

Shavarsh Karapetyan

Karapetyan had a successful history in water sports, which came in handy when he was faced with the ultimate challenge. He saw a bus crash and sink 80 feet under water. Without hesitation he jumped into the murky water and pulled 20 passengers out of the wreckage and to safety. As a result of the intense strain on his body, he was unconscious for 45 days. If that wasn’t enough, almost a decade later he ran into a burning building and pulled out the victims trapped inside of it.