What is the most badass fact you know?

1. Youngest medal of honor recipient. Joined the marines at 14. Jack lucas >During a close firefight in two trenches between Lucas and three Marines with 11 Japanese soldiers, Lucas saved the lives of the other three Marines from two enemy hand grenades that were thrown into their trench by unhesitatingly placing himself on one grenade, while in the next instant pulling the other grenade under him. The grenade he covered with his body exploded, and wounded him severely; the other grenade did not explode. He is the youngest Marine and the youngest serviceman in World War II to be awarded the United States' highest military decoration for valor.[1] He later reenlisted in the United States Army and reached the rank of captain. >Lucas earned a business degree from High Point University and was initiated into the Pi Kappa Alphafraternity (Delta Omega Chapter). He joined the United States Army in 1961 and served in the 82nd Airborne Division as a paratrooper to conquer his fear of heights. He survived a training jump in which neither of his two parachutes opened
   — PoliteExpression


2. Ernest Shackleton mounted an expedition in 1914 with the aim of being the first to cross Antarctica. They had a ship to sail through the Weddell Sea and had organized several supply depots to pick up after reaching the south pole. Unfortunately their ship got stuck in ice during their approach through the Weddel Sea and forced the crew to survive the Antarctic winter trapped on their ship. In the coming spring the ship sank and the crew was forced to live on floating ice. Eventually their ice floe broke and they travelled over the seas in simple 6 meter lifeboats for 5 days before reaching the uninhabited Elephant Island. By this time they had not set foot on solid land in almost 500 days. Realizing that they would never be found so far off any shipping lines, they've modified one of their life boats to get help. A part of the crew took off on a 720 mile journey to the island they had started off from. After 15 days at sea, during which they were only able to make 2 navigational observations they reached their staring island - in the middle of a hurricane that had sunk a 500-ton steamer. Without a keel they managed to stay away from the shore until the storm passed. They then landed on the wrong side of the island and decided to cross it on foot -Climbing through mountains that had never been charted using practically no equipment to speak off. (When 40 years later another explored attemted to cross that island on the same route he stated that he had no idea how Shackleton had been able to do it) Almost two years after the start of their journey the small group arrived at the settlement. It took them three more months to reach Elephant Island with a rescue boat. Everyone had survived.
   — Kempeth


3. Echidna's are an animal in the Tachyglossidae order. One of only two, the other being the platypus. Echidna males have phallus' with 4 heads. The females do not have nipples. In order to feed their young they secrete milk....through patches in their skin.
   — cheesepusher






4. Turtles can breathe through their butts
   — thebrowntown12


5. During his eulogy a friend of Teddy Roosevelt said " Death had to take him in his sleep, otherwise it would have been a fair fight"
   — AdmiralThunderpants


6. I'm descended from a guy who won a flintlock rifle shooting competition in the 1800s at the age of 103. That's pretty badass.
   — AttentionSpanZero






7. Some badass stormed Normandy with a fucking sword. He survived.
   — WarmCookiesAndMilk


8. Simo Haya, aka "White Death" Finnish sniper that killed 500 soldiers from 1939-40, with basically a farmer's rifle in the dead of winter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä Tossup here with Sergeant York, who was an incredible badass too, killed fewer guys, but did a lot barehanded. Also only like 5' 5". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York
   — ToyVaren


9. Mercury takes 58 Earth days to rotate on it's axis and 88 days to orbit the Sun. So there are only 1.5 Mercury days in a Mercury year.
   — CaptainEpilobium






10. When a beehive naturally requeens itself, the worker bees produce more than one queen cell, and they make more than one egg start to mature into a queen. Which is pretty badass in and of itself, that they're smart enough to not rely on just 1 egg to keep their colony alive. However. If two or more queens hatch close enough together, they will fight until only one survives (and sometimes none survive.) If one queen hatches before all the others, the first thing she will do is go around to any unhatched queen cells and sting them through the wax cell, killing them before they have a chance to hatch. Queen bees don't lose their stinger and die when stinging, so they can sting multiple times.
    — heinleinfan


11. Heating the head of a pin to the highest possible temperature achievable in our universe; would cause so much radiant heat that placing it on any continent would most likely kill everyone there. There is no limit really on how hot things can get but measuring the heat accurately becomes super difficult because it starts breaking things like physics and spacetime
    — stunspore