History BadassBookworm / RealLife

* [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement Martin Luther King, Jr.]] is known in the United States as ''the'' BadassPacifist. It's easy to forget that before his activism he a full-time Baptist minister with a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. Iconic images of his personal library shows that it was enormous, and contained everything from the Bible to the works of Mahatma Gandhi to the works of Aristotle, Saint Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.

* Due to importance put on both theory and praxis, most of Bolsheviks fitted this trope: for example, Lenin was the leader of the UsefulNotes/RedOctober and the one who described imperialism from a Marxist point of view (that's why it's called Marxism-Leninism now). But the most egregious example was probably Andrei Zhdanov, who was both the head of the reorganization of Soviet philosophy, art and literature ''and'' the man behind the defense of Leningrad during WW2.

* John "Jack" R. Horner, the American Paleontologist, famous for his groundbreaking theories on dinosaur maternal care and his theories on ''Tyrannosaurs'' eating habits, was a [[SemperFi Force Recon Marine]] in [[TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] for 14 months, starting in 1966.

* Creator/UweBoll is known for challenging critics who pan his films to boxing matches because he apparently has some boxing experience. He tried to challenge gaming critic {{Seanbaby}} to a match, but backed off when he learned that Seanbaby was a fairly large kickboxer.

* Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is a particularly striking example of this trope. Before he joined the Union Army in the civil war, he was a professor at Bowdoin College. At the Battle of Gettysberg he commanded the 20th Maine. Not only was he awarded multiple honors for bravery in combat, including the Medal of Honor, but he also received wounds that should have been fatal, not once but twice, and was wounded ''six times'' total during the war. He survived the war and went back to teaching. By the end, he had taught every subject except mathematics. [[mote]] Ironically, his wounds ''did'' eventually kill him, decades later.[[/note]]

* Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is a particularly striking example of this trope. Before he joined the Union Army in the civil war, he was a professor at Bowdoin College. At the Battle of Gettysberg he commanded the 20th Maine. Not only was he awarded multiple honors for bravery in combat, including the Medal of Honor, but he also received wounds that should have been fatal, not once but twice, and was wounded ''six times'' total during the war. He survived the war and went back to teaching. By the end, he had taught every subject except mathematics.

* T.E. Lawrence. Yes, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence that]] Lawrence. Who by chance is also an [[LawrenceofArabia example in film]]. There was also a badass Czech/Austrian [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Musil theologist]] working against him.

* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, whose {{Badass}} deeds are already [[MemeticMutation the stuff of legend]], read a whole book every day of his Presidency, as many as three if he had some spare time. He also wrote a few, including at least one that became required reading at the United States Naval Academy, and negotiated a treaty to end the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar, earning himself a Nobel Peace Prize in the process.

* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, whose {{Badass}} deeds are already [[MemeticMutation the stuff of legend]], read a whole book every day of his Presidency, as many as three if he had some spare time. He also wrote a few, including at least one that became required reading at the United States Naval Academy, and negotiated a treaty to end the RussoJapaneseWar, earning himself a Nobel Peace Prize in the process.

* Howard Hughes. Many of the airplanes he designed were built from his experience as an airplane racer, and he had little former education in how to build or design aircraft, but went on to make some of the most influential designs in post WW1 aviation. When he crashed the XF-11 in 1946, he ended up grievously injured and confined to a bed. Deciding he did not like the bed, he ended up dictating a design that had hot and cold running water and push-button adjustments. He was also the archetypal millionaire playboy. [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] [[ComicBook/IronMan and Tony Stark]] were both heavily inspired by Hughes.

* John "Jack" R. Horner, the American Paleontologist, famous for his groundbreaking theories on dinosaur maternal care and his [[BaseBreaker base breaking]] theories on ''Tyrannosaurs'' eating habits, was a [[SemperFi Force Recon Marine]] in [[TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] for 14 months, starting in 1966.

* Most African-American civil rights leaders fit this trope.
** UsefulNotes/FrederickDouglass taught himself to read and was an excellent orator. He also gave such a bad beatdown to a slavedriver known as "The negro breaker" in defense of himself that the slavedriver never tried to raise a hand against him again.
** UsefulNotes/MalcolmX was a former criminal who was so good with numbers that he was able to run a lottery without ever writing down the tickets. After spending time in prison and becoming a member of the Nation of Islam, he gave himself an extensive education, including reading the dictionary cover-to-cover, and carefully studying Gregor Mendel's ''Findings in Genetics'', H.G. Wells' ''Outline of History'', and the works of Schopenhauer and Kant. When he got out of prison, he quickly became one of the most celebrated and feared civil rights leaders in the country.

** UsefulNotes/MalcolmX.

* Cao Cao, immortalized in the ''RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. He was, in reality, not just a warrior and a ruler, but also an accomplished poet. He also wrote some commentary on Sun Tzu's TheArtOfWar. Some records depict him as taking time to read every day, even when on military campaign.

** [[Theatre/Hamilton How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?]] He survived illness at about eleven years old, immigrated to the US, fought in the American Revolutionary War, served as George Washington's aide, was the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, founded a newspaper (New York Post) that is still running to this day, established the US' entire economic system (and the National Bank) that his enemies tried and failed to disband. Hamilton's incredible (and destructive) work ethic can be summed up with this quote from the aforementioned stage show:

** [[Theater/Hamilton How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?]] He survived illness at about eleven years old, immigrated to the US, fought in the American Revolutionary War, served as George Washington's aide, was the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, founded a newspaper (New York Post) that is still running to this day, established the US' entire economic system (and the National Bank) that his enemies tried and failed to disband. Hamilton's incredible (and destructive) work ethic can be summed up with this quote from the aforementioned stage show:

* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, whose {{Badass}} deeds are already [[MemeticMutation the stuff of legend]], read a whole book every day of his Presidency, as many as three if he had some spare time.

* Action star Dolph Lundgren has an M.Sc. in chemical engineering, can speak in five languages, and reportedly has an IQ of 160.

* Dolph Lundgren has an M.Sc. in chemical engineering, but is better known as an action movie star.

* Contrary to popular [[DumbJock belief]], there are a number of intelligent football players. For instance, there's current [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Indianapolis Colts quarterback]] Andrew Luck, who has a degree in architecture from Stanford. Perhaps most revealingly, supposed "thug" Richard Sherman (notoriously dirty and politically controversial cornerback on the Superbowl-winning 2013 Seattle Seahawks) has a Master's in Communications (incidentally, also from Stanford; his and Luck's time even overlapped).
** Sadly, plenty of people are willing to label black people thugs in general.

* The majority of people who work for the FBI, CIA, or any intelligence agency in the world. Not only do you have to have above average intelligence to even qualify to work for them, but after you become accepted into the job you have to go through rigorous physical training every month, or even every week to keep yourself in shape. Operatives especially have to keep themselves and their bodies well-built and muscular, seeing as how they often put themselves in harms way all the damn time.
** This also holds true for many special operations units. While they do have to be in incredible physical condition, their training is frequently described as being primarily a mental test - which makes sense, given the huge breadth of skills each man has to master. Every soldier in the US Army Special Forces (the Green Berets), for instance, has to master at least one foreign language just to get the job in the first place, to say nothing of learning advanced emergency medicine or applied chemistry & physics.
** The Military Channel series ''Surviving the Cut'', which looks at the selection process for elite American military units demonstrates this. The Special Forces episode showed that one of the toughest challenges faced by the candidates wasn't hauling a 440 pound barrel several miles: it was ''designing'' the jury-rigged cart they'd use to haul it.

* Creator/BruceLee was not a just a master martial artist, he was also a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in drama and wrote books about the philosophy of martial arts. He was also a pioneer in fitness and nutrition, which were not quite exact sciences in the 1960s. According to TheOtherWiki, he also wrote poetry.

* Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a wonkish bookworm Fulbright scholar with a master's degree from [[IvyLeague Cornell University]]. She's also married to an equally Badass Bookworm astronaut and test pilot who has flown in combat, and she enjoys [[WrenchWench fixing her own cars]], [[BikerBabe riding and racing motorcycles]], and taking part in a little roller derby now and then. Oh, yeah, she also survived a [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain bullet to the brain]] in an assassination attempt and is making what doctors have called a [[NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow remarkable and miraculous recovery]]. Though many patients describe rehab as the hardest thing they've ever done, Giffords decided her rehab regimen was "too wimpy" and designed a more rigorous plan. Unfortunately, Congresswoman Giffords has been unable to return to work and has had to resign her seat in Congress, but that doesn't make her and her amazing feat of recovery any less badass. It just makes her human.