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Throughout the course of human civilization certain individuals have stood out as being completely f***ing awesome. From ninjas and gunfighters to pirates and Vikings, to explorers, scientists and great leaders, these people - true badasses - completely obliterated anything that stood in their path, routinely overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and ultimately altered the course of history through their actions. Be it glory, conquest, or survival, these hardcore men and women all had one specific goal in life - and they didn’t let anything stand between themselves and their mission. They refused to back down even when the odds seemed hopelessly stacked against them, they came back from the brink of failure to achieve ultimate success, and they beat the fucking hell out of anyone stupid enough to have stood in their way. Badass of the Week is a weekly (duh) podcast, that dives into new stories of badasses every week.
133 Episodes
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Xenophon was a philosophy student, a Socratic thinker, and a pampered Athenian aristocrat who signed up for a mercenary road trip into Persia and accidentally became one of the greatest battlefield leaders in Greek history. When his army’s generals were betrayed and slaughtered, Xenophon—who had never commanded a single soldier—rallied 10,000 stranded warriors and led them on a 4,000-mile retreat through enemy territory, across deserts, mountains, and hostile kingdoms, surviving ambushes, starvation, and snowblindness. This is the story of how a student of Socrates marched his way into legend—and inspired everyone from Alexander the Great to the creators of cult classic movie The Warriors. Can you dig it?!
Before he was smashing Nazi airfields and punching his way through the deserts of North Africa, Lieutenant Colonel Blair “Paddy” Mayne was an amateur boxing champion, a rugby international, and the kind of guy who could drink you under the table, flip the table, and then win the bar fight that followed. This week, Ben and Andrew dive into the myth and madness of one of the founding members of the Special Air Service—an Irish warrior-poet with a short fuse and a long list of enemies. From brawling with commanding officers to rewriting the playbook on guerrilla warfare, Mayne was chaos incarnate… and one of the most decorated soldiers of World War II.
In today's episode, Ben and Pat dive into the outrageous, swashbuckling life of Baron Frederick von der Trenck -- a Prussian nobleman, cavalry officer, prison escape artist, sword-fighting heartthrob, and the original “most interesting man in the world.” Born into military aristocracy, Trenck risked it all for love, dueled his way across Europe, got imprisoned (twice) by a furious Frederick the Great, and escaped in ways that feel ripped straight from a Dumas novel. From secret affairs with royalty to hand-digging escape tunnels with broken shackles, this is the true story of a man too bold to break—and too badass to disappear quietly.
In the middle of Somalia’s civil war, when the world was falling apart, Dr. Hawa Abdi started building. On her family’s land outside Mogadishu, she created a hospital, a school, a legal aid clinic, and eventually a sanctuary for tens of thousands of people fleeing violence and famine. Armed militias tried to take it. She told them to get off her front lawn. And they did. This is the story of a doctor who held the line when no one else could, and turned one patch of earth into a beacon of hope for an entire nation.
In 1905, a Russian battleship crew said “enough.” Starving, abused, and fed up with maggot-ridden meat and brutal officers, the sailors aboard the Potemkin launched one of the most famous mutinies in naval history—an act of defiance that sent shockwaves through the Russian Empire. What followed was a chaotic, bloody standoff that played out across the Black Sea and the port of Odessa, inspiring revolutionaries and terrifying the Tsar. In today's episode Ben and Andrew tell the story of how one battleship became a symbol of resistance, rebellion, and revolutionary firepower.
August 2010. Deep beneath the Atacama Desert, thirty-three Chilean miners are buried alive under thousands of tons of rock—half a mile underground. With only two days of food, no light, and no way out, their survival seems impossible. On the surface, desperate families build a city of hope, engineers and drillers from around the world converge, and NASA lends a hand. In today's episode Ben and Pat tell a story of leadership, faith, and pure badass perseverance, as the world unites to pull off one of the most daring rescues in history.
In today's episode Ben and Pat are joined by Robin Pierson, host of The History of Byzantium to discuss Nikephoros Phokas was a man who didn’t look like he belonged on a battlefield—balding, pale, with a face better suited to an icon in a monastery. But when he put on his armor, he became the Byzantine Empire’s ultimate nightmare machine. Known as the “Pale Death of the Saracens,” he crushed enemy armies, reclaimed lost lands, and rode his warhorse straight into the history books. Along the way, he outwitted rivals, seized the throne, and married into the imperial family. But in the scheming, backstabbing world of Constantinople, victories on the battlefield didn’t guarantee survival in the palace—and Nikephoros would learn the hard way that the sharpest daggers aren’t always carried by soldiers.
Carl Akeley was an artist, scientist, inventor, conservationist, and the godfather of modern taxidermy—but don’t let the job title fool you. This dude once fist-fought a full-grown leopard with one hand, got body-slammed by an elephant and survived, invented a concrete-blasting cannon, and crossed a crocodile-infested river using a dead crocodile as a raft. All in the name of conservation. Alongside guest Michael Alm, Ben Thompson dives into the insane, inspiring, and occasionally insane-again life of the man who literally shaped how the world saw nature—and who wasn’t about to let a little thing like being gored, clawed, or trampled stop him.
In today's episode Mike Primavera talk about legendary boxer Jack Johnson.
In the early 1900s, Jack Johnson became the first Black heavyweight boxing champion of the world—then spent the next decade daring America to do something about it. He fought with style, laughed in the ring, knocked out legends, and lived large in gold suits and bright yellow hot rods. While the press raged, the cops threatened, and politicians tried to shut him down, Johnson just kept winning. He taunted the so-called “Great White Hope” into the ring on the Fourth of July, then beat him so badly the crowd went silent. This is the story of the most dangerous thing you could be in Jim Crow America: free, Black, and unapologetically unbeatable.
In this episode Ben and Pat continue the story of Rome versus the Etruscans.... The siege is over—but the danger is just getting started. With Rome teetering between freedom and destruction, a group of young hostages is handed over to an enemy king as part of a fragile truce. But when one of them—Chloelia—leads a daring escape across the Tiber River, all hell breaks loose.
This is the story of Rome’s fiercest teenage heroine, a hostage ambush, a horse that may or may not swim, and the moment when a king realizes he’s fighting a city that just won’t die. Featuring backstabbing monarchs, accidental diplomacy, and the most badass statue in early Roman history.
Rome is cornered. The monarchy has fallen, the Republic is barely standing, and an Etruscan warlord is marching toward the gates with an army at his back and a puppet king in his pocket. The Romans are outnumbered, outmatched, and running out of time. So they do what Romans do best: they get dangerous.
In this episode, Ben and Pat tell the stories of Rome and two unlikely heroes step into history. One makes a last stand on a crumbling wooden bridge. The other slips behind enemy lines with a blade, a disguise, and a plan that does not go as expected.
What they do won’t just save the city, it’ll define it.
Abd al-Rahman was supposed to die with the rest of his family. When the Abbasid Caliphate overthrew the Umayyads in a brutal coup, they made sure to slaughter every last male heir—except one. Abd al-Rahman, barely twenty, escaped across the Middle East and North Africa with assassins hot on his trail. He swam rivers, crossed deserts, and vanished into legend. And just when the world thought his dynasty was gone, he returned—on horseback, sword in hand, to conquer a new kingdom at the edge of the known world. In tody's episode Ben and Pat tell the true story of the prince who fled a massacre and became a king. Of the founder of Muslim Spain. Of a man who turned exile into empire—and earned his name as The Falcon of Al-Andalus.
They called him The Butcher. A young, cocky British officer with a flair for showmanship and a taste for brutality, Banastre Tarleton tore through the American South on horseback, leading a feared legion of dragoons who left fire and blood in their wake. He was ruthless, relentless, and exactly the kind of guy you build a revolution against. In this special 4th of July episode - Ben and Andrew dive into the chaotic rise of Tarleton: from aristocratic brat to the most hated man in the colonies—and the American heroes who finally brought his rampage to a halt.
He was the undefeated general who saved Portugal from foreign conquest, crushed armies five times his size, and changed the course of European warfare—then gave it all up to become a barefoot monk. This week Ben and Pat tell the story of Nuno Álvares Pereira: battlefield genius, national hero, and the only medieval warlord to end up canonized as a Catholic saint.
She was the most eligible bachelorette in Europe, the Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, and the queen of not one but two different countries. In today's episode, Ben and special guest author Shaina Steinberg tell the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine who outmaneuvered kings, went on Crusade, survived imprisonment, and spent decades pulling the strings of empires and rebellions alike. She was a medieval power broker, royal schemer, and all-around badass centuries ahead of her time — and she did it all while dodging murder plots, papal judgments, and the world’s most dysfunctional family.
Ferdinand Magellan was a glory-hungry Portuguese explorer sailing under the Spanish flag, out to prove he could circle the globe, convert entire civilizations, and maybe pick up a few spice islands along the way. But after months of storms, mutinies, and bad decisions, Magellan washed up in the Philippines thinking he could win a war with fifty guys, a translator, and the power of God. What he got instead was Lapu Lapu—a chieftain with no interest in foreign gods, foreign kings, or foreign bullshit. In today's episode, Ben and Andrew tell the story of an egomaniac’s world tour gone sideways, and the man who sent him home in a box. Well, he would’ve, if Magellan’s crew had ever gone back to get the body.
It was fast. It was beautiful. And when the fate of the world was hanging by a thread, it helped save civilization. The Supermarine Spitfire wasn’t just a plane — it was a symbol of defiance, precision engineering, and sheer guts. In the skies over Britain, outnumbered RAF pilots climbed into these sleek warbirds and took on the full might of Hitler’s Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Join Ben and special guest David Fairhead for the story of the plane that made the phrase “the few” legendary — and the men who flew it into history.
After clawing his way back to the Byzantine throne, Justinian II ruled like a man possessed—merciless, paranoid, and hell-bent on vengeance. But his enemies weren’t done with him yet. In the western city of Ravenna, a revolt brews that will bring down the emperor once and for all. This is the story of how the man who came back from the dead was finally taken out—by priests, rebels, and his own shattered empire. No one cheats death twice.
They cut off his nose, exiled him to the edge of the empire, and left him for dead. But Justinian II didn’t stay gone. This is the story of a Byzantine emperor who clawed his way back to the throne with a mutilated face and a murderous grudge. A tale of gold noses, broken alliances, double-crosses, and the bloodiest comeback in imperial history—when Justinian returned, it wasn’t just to rule. It was to get even.
When Japan invaded Korea in 1592, one man stood defiantly against impossible odds: Admiral Yi Sun-sin. Outnumbered, betrayed by jealous rivals, and stripped of command, Yi clawed his way back from ruin, inventing the legendary “Turtle Ships” to wreak havoc on enemy fleets. Using unmatched tactics and sheer audacity, Yi crushed Japan’s armada again and again, earning victory even when it seemed hopeless. Join Ben and Andrew as they dive into the life of history’s most badass naval commander—a warrior whose courage, cunning, and stubborn refusal to quit turned certain defeat into eternal glory.
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uh he also committed multiple genocides
just came from ridiculous history!