Courageous People in History

Who do you think is the most courageous person or group of people in history?

Mine are probably Anatoli Dyathlov, Sasha Yuvchenko and Boris Stolyarchuk. They were working in Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 on the night of the accident. They suffered huge amounts of radiation (Sasha absorbed 4.1Sv of radiation; a normal person absorbs under 0.0025Sv of radiation per year).

The effect of the radiation was immense. Whenever someone pulled the sheets off Sasha's bed, a black cloud of his dead skin would rise into the air. Within one year of the accident he had 19 operations for abnormal skin growths. He had microsurgery in Berlin to transplant blood vessels from his leg to his severely damaged shoulder.

All three of them survived despite the radiation and the odds. Of the three, only two are still alive today. Anatoli Dyathlov died in 1995 from a fatal heart attack. Many people consider him to be the cause of the accident.

"Of course, I have to be careful now. For example, I can drive a car, but I can't do any repairs. I can't touch oil or petrol. There are other things, but you get used to them. You learn to live with them. You have to."
--Sasha Yuvchenko (2004)

How does being involved in an accident make one courageous?

Can you imagine what it must be like to have to undergo 19 skin-growth operations in under a year? To have radiation gnaw at your shoulder. To watch your skin peel off like Xerox powder?

It's the courage that they've shown to overcome the horrors that the Chernobyl radiation had done to them and still to survive today.

http://www.seoulshamrock.co.kr/sinead.jpg
Sinéad O'Connor. Jeanne D'Arc of Ireland.
She did what everybody was afraid to do; she spoke the honest truth.
She was the only one who darred to challenge the priests of Ireland; they were allegedly abusing small children, with the full knowledge of the Vatican. She went even further when she tore up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live; the world went crazy. She was booed off stage, her records were assembled in Central Park and run over by a bulldozer and she went into exile in 1994 to 1999. She also refused to perform at a concert because of The Star Spangled Banner was played. All in all; a true saint in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by OdaiseGaelach

Can you imagine what it must be like to have to undergo 19 skin-growth operations in under a year? To have radiation gnaw at your shoulder. To watch your skin peel off like Xerox powder?

It's the courage that they've shown to overcome the horrors that the Chernobyl radiation had done to them and still to survive today.

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Uhm...I know people who have suffered all types of fatal accidents, from complete body aparalysis to 90% of their body burned. They don't like being told they are courage. To those people I know, it was simply will to live. A courageous act dosen't imply necessity, you choose to do the courageus act when having real options to do something else. The case you present has no alternative, other than death, that is.

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How does being involved in an accident make one courageous?

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I believe they went in to stop the reactor didn't they?

They have probably done several courageous actions, but being hurt does not equal courageousness. Courageousness is a mental achievement and not the amount of physical damage one can endure.

I am going to go and say Jesus. He didn't run away or anything even though he knew it would mean certain death. Everything he had done took incredible courage to do. Whether it is stand up for those who can't help themselves or help those who were not good people. He has done many couragous things. Hard to say what I want to say about him though :/

I think Ghandi was an incredibly courageous person, along with many more I cannot recall at this point. Courage is the will and ability to follow your own lead in difficult times, not lose hope, acknowledge and confront your fears.

I say....Paul Gauguin.

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Originally Posted by OdaiseGaelach

Who do you think is the most courageous person or group of people in history?

Mine are probably Anatoli Dyathlov, Sasha Yuvchenko and Boris Stolyarchuk. They were working in Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 on the night of the accident. They suffered huge amounts of radiation (Sasha absorbed 4.1Sv of radiation; a normal person absorbs under 0.0025Sv of radiation per year).

The effect of the radiation was immense. Whenever someone pulled the sheets off Sasha's bed, a black cloud of his dead skin would rise into the air. Within one year of the accident he had 19 operations for abnormal skin growths. He had microsurgery in Berlin to transplant blood vessels from his leg to his severely damaged shoulder.

All three of them survived despite the radiation and the odds. Of the three, only two are still alive today. Anatoli Dyathlov died in 1995 from a fatal heart attack. Many people consider him to be the cause of the accident.

"Of course, I have to be careful now. For example, I can drive a car, but I can't do any repairs. I can't touch oil or petrol. There are other things, but you get used to them. You learn to live with them. You have to."
--Sasha Yuvchenko (2004)

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Even though some people have asked how this makes them courageous I agree. These people have obviously had a very umcomfortable life after the accident and many people would have just given up, while they did not, I think that is very courageous.
I think some of the most courageous people in not-so-far-back history are the firefighters who went in to help people in the twin towers, nurses and doctors who helped care for the people hurt and the ordinary people who helped each other and did everything they could, like give blood and got people out of the towers.

Eleanor Earhart.

After all, she was abducted my Martians and hasn't been seen since.

Bryan Robson, for taking the worst team in the Premiership and making them 4th worst, he's a brave man.

george orwell.

Mohandas K. Gandhi.

I must aggree that Ghandi was courageous. And many others.

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Originally Posted by to kill a mockingbird

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.

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That is probably one of the best summaries on courage that there is.

Michael Collins. Greatest Irishman that ever lived. People have already named Gandhi.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutherian Minister who stood up against the Nazi's, one of the very few Christian Ministers to do so. Saved many Jewish lives & was eventually killed by the Gestapo.

There are more but they, in particular, stand out.

i admire two groups, of warriors:

~Crusader~
i love knights. crusaders wear great clothing. wish there was a female. was Joan of Ark one?

> flaw: why did u give up Jerusalem?
> benefit: well, shouldn't shed blood for land.

~Samurai~
i'll say, as valiant as the crusaders, but not quite chivalrous. ronins broke so many rules.

> flaw: u surrendered to the Western force?
> benefit: i don't really know. but Japan wouldn't have been what it is t'day if it weren't for giving in to the US army right?

Corrie Tenboom -- She hid Jews in her house and got sent to a concentration camp for it.

Ghandi -- obviously driving the Brits out of India without firing a shot
Rosa Parks -- refusing to submit to Jim crow = hero
Charles Lindberg -- First to fly across the atlantic when flying was new. It had to go perfect or he'd die.
Mother Theresa -- I think it's curageous to sell all your stuff and spend your life tending the poor in a strange country.

Paris Hilton.