Want to learn more about the inspiring badasses profiled in our "The Badass Story of..." series? On this page, you can find links to some fucking awesome books about the badasses behind our popular monthly series.
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The Badass Story of Ada Blackjack, Sole Survivor of a Doomed Arctic Expedition
On August 19, 1923, an expedition led by explorer Harold Noice arrived on Wrangel Island, a land mass in the Arctic Ocean, just north of Russia between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea. The polar airmasses offered a bone-chilling welcome to Noice and his team as they descended onto the arctic beaches to complete their task: rescue five missing explorers who had set out to speculatively claim the island for Canada nearly two years before.
Moments later, a figure ran down to the frigid beach toward the rescue team. It was 25-year-old Iñupiaq woman Ada Blackjack, the expedition’s sole survivor. Read More
The Badass Story of Sophie Scholl, the Girl Who Said "Fuck You" to Hitler
On a bright winter day in Munich in 1943, college student Sophie Scholl was beheaded for her efforts in The White Rose, growing resistance against the Nazi party. She was 21 years old and faced her death with the uncompromising resolve she poured into creating a network of descent among German citizens horrified by the actions of their country’s leadership.
Sophie Scholl had absolute balls of steel, and her fearless actions continue to resonate today. Here is her story. Read More
The Badass Story of Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa and the Miracle in the Andes
As Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa gazed at the snowcapped mountains unfurling onto the horizon, they thought of their death.
The young men had scaled a peak in the Andes Mountain range over the course of three days, wearing only layers of socks and plastic shopping bags wrapped around their feet.
Parrado looked at his friend and said, "We may be walking to our deaths, but I would rather walk to meet my death than wait for it to come to me."
Canessa nodded. "You and I are friends, Nando. We have been through so much. Now, let's go die together."
Together, they descended into the valley of spires. Read More
The Badass Story of Nellie Bly, Mama of Investigative Journalism
Nellie Bly was 23 years old when a New York City judge declared her insane. She stood before the judge, shivering, declaring she was unsure of where she was or where she had come from.
The year was 1887, and what no one knew — not the judge before her, the police officer who escorted her, the women’s home matron who accompanied her or the doctor who examined her — is that Bly was just fucking pretending. Being declared insane was exactly what she wanted. Bly had practiced her act of insanity to get herself committed to New York’s infamous insane asylum, Blackwell’s Island. Over the next ten days, she would observe the living conditions and treatment of patients and later publish an explosive expose that would transform mental health care in the city.
Her infamous stay at the asylum would mark the beginning of Bly's pioneering career as an investigative journalist, one defined by her relentless tendency to see fucked up shit going on and declare, “Not on my watch.” Read More
The Badass Story of Rosalie Edge: The Indomitable Hellcat of Conservation
In 1929, 52-year-old Rosalie Edge opened a pamphlet that would piss her off so much, she would single-handedly alter the course of the conservation movement.
The pamphlet, titled A Crisis in Conservation, was passed on to her by Willard Van Name, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Its contents would set off a trigger of events that exposed nefarious assholes at one of the most prestigious conservation societies of the time. Van Name would later describe Edge as "the only honest, unselfish, indomitable hellcat in the history of conservation.” Read More
