‘What is the greatest ‘f**k it, I’ll do it myself’ moment in history?’ – 24 jaw-droppingly audacious heroes
13.
‘Mariya Oktyabrskaya, who bought a tank to get revenge on the Nazis who killed her husband.
‘After her husband was killed fighting in 1941, Oktyabrskaya sold her possessions to donate a tank for the war effort, and requested that she be allowed to drive it.
‘She received and was trained to drive and fix a T-34 medium tank, which she named ‘Fighting Girlfriend’ (“Боевая подруга”). Oktyabrskaya proved her ability and bravery in battle, and was promoted to the rank of sergeant.
‘After she died of wounds from battle in 1944, she was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union’s highest honor for bravery during combat. She was the first female tank driver to be awarded the title.’
–IAmAQuantumMechanic
14.
‘Joseph-Armand Bombardier was living in rural Canada when his son had his appendix fail during winter. At that time, there was no good way to transport patients through the snow, so his son died. In response, the man invented the snowmobile.’
–JuFo2707
15.
‘Michelangelo asked several times for help to several colleagues in helping him with the Sistine Chapel. After several rebuttals, he did everything by himself.’
–BilboSwagging88
16.
‘Katherine Johnson, 1960s. A mathematician at NASA, Katherine Johnson performed the complex calculations needed to align the Apollo moon landing mission.
‘Her determination and expertise were pivotal when she manually verified the computer-calculated trajectories, essentially saying, “I’ll ensure its accuracy myself.”‘
–majeric
17.
‘An old Italian tractor manufacturer by the name of Ferruccio Lamborghini was dissatisfied with his shiny red sports car. He had a fairly big spat with the guy who built it, a fella named Enzo, who was way more focused on racing his cars than dealing with his annoying customers.
‘Ol’ Ferruccio eventually told Enzo to kick rocks and took the car to his own garage to fix it. He took the car apart and found that the supposed ‘sports car’ he purchased used the same clutch that he was putting in his tractors!
‘He was understandably upset. So he vowed that day to beat this tiny angry Italian at his own game. Whether or not he succeeded, he sure as heck set the groundwork for some of the zaniest, fastest, and craziest vehicles to exist on this planet.’
–gagnatron5000
18.
‘Werner Forssmann, the German physician who invented the methodology for cardiac catheterization! He came up with the idea and pitched it to the head of the cardiology team at his hospital who dismissed it as too dangerous.
‘So he performed it on himself, inserting a catheter into his own heart through the vein in his wrist to prove that it worked. He was promptly fired from the hospital and ended up winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1956.’
–Whompy_Wombats
19.
‘When Queen recorded The Show Must Go On. Freddie was really ill by that point and Brian May thought he was too weak to record the song. He downed a shot of vodka, said “I’ll fucking do it, darling,” and smashed it in one take.’
–FlouncingWillow
20.
‘The UK’s Lionesses football team, who won the Euros in 2022. Something the men’s teams have not done. The boys need to buck their ideas up to catch up with the ladies, it seems. Lionesses: ‘Football’s coming home…oh…fuck this, we’ll get it ourselves.”
–Ivyleaf3
21.
‘I want to say Florence Nightingale. During a time women weren’t allowed to do much of anything (1850’s), she basically took it upon herself to taking nursing (predominately male at the time) and revolutionize it.
‘According to Wikipedia, her contributions to the Crimean War reduced the death rate of the wounded from 42% to 2%, by introducing concepts such as basic hygiene and better living conditions.
‘It’s through her efforts the entire field of nursing is what it is today, more-or-less, over a hundred years later.’
–akaiazul
22.
‘Callum MacLeod lived in Arnish which is in the north of the very remote island Raasay in Scotland. This small community was miles from the nearest road. He and 100 people petitioned the council for a road to connect them to the south of the island, but the request was rejected.
‘Over the course of 50 years he watched the community decline. Due to the lack of connectivity people left the north of the island and by the late 60s there was only two people left, Callum and his wife Lexie.
‘One morning Callum placed a pick, an axe and a shovel into his homemade wheelbarrow and with his bare hands spent the next 20 years of his life building what is now called Callum’s Road.’
–lds502
23.
‘John Snow (not that one, the father of epidemiology). No one believed him that the cholera outbreak in what is now Soho was because of a contaminated water pump. He broke it. They arrested him for vandalism and held him until the outbreak suddenly ended.’
–Few_Temporary5373
All of these people are amazing, but one man deserves a special mention for being prepared to taking on something nobody else would dare to…
24.
‘Volodimyr Zelinsky. Rest of the world (for the most part, and they are still…) wringing their hands over how the aggressor will react to being opposed. A former Ukrainian COMEDIAN is making the 2nd greatest military on earth buy supplies from Iran and North Korea.
‘That man deserves all the Nobel prizes.’
–Trance354
Can’t argue with that.