26Miki Endo
A girl named Miki Endo sacrificed her life in the2011 Tohono tsunami in Japan to warn people of the oncoming tsunami on the Emergency Broadcast System and saved thousands of lives. She did not leave her spot and kept broadcasting until she was swept away.
27. In 1975, a decorated Marine named Oliver Sipple saved President Gerald Ford from assassination when he noticed as a bystander that a woman next to him had drawn and leveled a pistol at Ford. His life was then ruined when the media outed him as gay.
28. In 2006, a 22-year-old Skydiver named Robert Cook saved his student’s life by acting as a human shield. Knowing that the plane was in free fall, he calmed the girl by talking to her, wrapped his arms around her and supported her head, before twisting his body mid-crash so that he took the force of the impact. She survived, but everyone else on the plane died.
29. Julie d’Aubigny was a 17th-century French noble opera singer and very good swordswoman who beat men in duels. She once got challenged to duels by three separate men for kissing a woman at a ball. She also once rescued her lesbian lover from a convent by burning it down. She was pardoned by the king.
30. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr., the first African American to reach the rank of four-star general, hand an Old West-style standoff with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who complied and pulled back after James demanded him to move his hand away from his gun.
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31Mitsuyasu Maeno
In 1976, a Japanese ultranationalist porn actor named Mitsuyasu Maeno died after flying a plane into the house of a yakuza don to punish him for accepting millions of dollars in bribes from Lockheed and betraying the samurai code.
32. In 2006, a soldier named Ross A. McGinnis was manning the gunner's hatch of his unit's Humvee when an insurgent threw a grenade inside. Instead of leaping to safety, McGinnis shouted a warning, jumped inside and threw himself on the grenade. He was killed instantly, saving his team. He was 19.
33. In 2006, a man having a seizure on New York subway tracks was rescued by a stranger named Wesley Autrey who was taking his two daughters home before work. He jumped down onto the man and compressed him down by laying on him as five cars passed over him.
34. Sean Connery once fought and won against six gang members after they tried to mug him. The gang gave him great respect after the defeat and Connery became known as a “hard man.”
35. An identity thief named Ferdinand Demara once stole the identity of a surgeon and while aboard a Navy destroyer was tasked with performing several life-saving surgeries. He proceeded to memorize a medical textbook just beforehand and all his patients survived.
36Jackie Mitchell
Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old female pitcher, struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a single exhibition game, and subsequently had her contract voided.
37. An attempt to kill Philadelphia mobster John Veasey failed when the two .22 caliber bullets to his head left him unfazed, and he asked his would-be assassin, “What the f**k are you doing, Frank?” He wrestled the gun and a knife away from his attackers and managed to run and survived.
38. In 2007, a dog named Toby saved his owner from choking. After an apple became lodged in the woman’s throat and a self-applied Heimlich maneuver failed, the dog jumped up and pushed her to the ground, repeatedly jumping on her chest until the apple was freed.
39. General George S. Patton received orders to bypass the German city of Trier as it was estimated that 4 divisions would be needed for a successful assault, but he had already taken Trier by the time the message arrived. He responded, ‘Have taken Trier with 2 divisions, do you want me to give it back?’
40. As a Navy teletype, Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko had to punch an officer to get into elite Special Forces after his requests were denied. While serving as a Navy SEAL, Vietcong offered a reward of 50,000 piasters to kill him. He once body-surfed behind a military patrol boat while under enemy fire. He even headed Red Cell with the job of infiltrating U.S. bases around the world to test their security. He once managed to kidnap a high-ranking officer, his family and “mildly tortured” them to get nuclear codes. Out of embarrassment, the Government spent $60 million to find something to pin on him and convicted him on trumped-up charges, sentencing him to a year in a minimum-security prison, during which time he wrote Rogue Warrior, which embarrassed the military again. He is now forbidden by law from writing anything about the military, so he writes popular “fiction” about the adventures of an elite badass who is “totally not him.”
41Willy Coppens
Belgian flying ace Willy Coppens was known for his skills as a balloon buster; with 34 kills to his credit. During WW1, Germany deployed observers in hot air balloons to radio back on enemy action. Each balloon was guarded by anti-aircraft batteries and squadrons of fighters. They were also booby-trapped with silk covered kites. He once landed on a balloon and took off before destroying it. To kill him, Germans hatched a plan to fill a balloon full of explosives, so that when he destroyed it, the explosion and the fireball would kill him. In spite of knowing this plan, he destroyed the balloon and escaped, but the fireball and explosion killed a dozen German officers who were observing from below.
42. Airey Neave was a British soldier during WW2 who was captured by Germans and managed to escape POW camps twice and was sent to Oflag IV-C Castle for problematic prisoners. He once tried to escape by painting his uniform to look like a German uniform and managed to walk out the front door but was captured again. Five months later, he wore a fake German uniform made out of cardboard and cloth and pretended to be a German officer and managed to escape the castle. He then made it to Switzerland pretending to be a Dutch worker with papers and finally managed to get back to Britain.
43. In 1960, a Russian terrorist armed with a bomb tried to hijack Trans Australia flight 408. Co-pilot Tom R. Bennett punched him in the face and ripped the wires off the bomb saving 49 lives.
44. On Scott’s doomed Antarctic expedition, Lawrence Oates sacrificed his life when his ill health began to compromise his companion’s chances of survival. Walking into a blizzard he said, “I am going outside and maybe some time.” Scot said it was the “act of a brave man and an English gentleman.”
45. RAF pilot Douglas Bader lost his legs after his plane crashed while doing a zero altitude barrel roll. He was fitted with artificial legs, learned to walk again, became a racecar driver, became an expert golfer, a decent tennis player and finally a fighter pilot again. During WW2, he quickly learned that he could sustain more G-forces than an average pilot because he had no legs. Before his plane crashed and being captured by Germans, he smashed 22 German airplanes, with another six probable kills.
46Herbert K. Pililaau
U.S. Medal of Honor recipient Herbert K. Pililaau during the Korean War voluntarily held his ground when ordered to retreat. He fired his automatic weapon into the ranks of assailants, threw all his grenades and, with ammunition exhausted, closed with the foe in hand-to-hand combat, courageously fighting with his trench knife and bare fists until finally overcome and mortally wounded. When the position was subsequently retaken; more than10 enemy dead were counted in the area he had so valiantly defended.
47. A stray dog saved a Georgia woman after she crashed down an embankment and was thrown through the back window of her car. The German Shepherd emerged from the woods, pulled her by the collar off the trunk and 50 yards through the briars to the road where she could be seen by passing motorists.
