7 Dogs That Accomplished More Than We Ever Will. If television has taught us anything, it's that heroes can come in all shapes and sizes.
Sometimes they're dog-shaped. In fact, despite having a lifespan shorter than an average Mazda 626, some dogs have managed to accomplish more than most of us could ever hope to. Dogs like... Stubby, a terrier mix, was found on the Yale campus in 1917 and smuggled aboard the USS Minnesota by his owner, John Robert Conroy, to fight in WWI, making Stubby the only thing from Yale to ever contribute anything to society. Fuck you, Eli Whitney, and your cotton gin. Stubby officially entered service February 5, 1918, and fought in the French trenches for 18 months, presumably because the Army's recruiting quota was desperately behind schedule.
"You know what this war needs? "" Not content with merely joining the Army and surviving a World War, Stubby the dog also managed to become a bonafide hero. Military Dogs: Smoky. One of the best known dogs in World War II, little four pound Smoky was called "the best mascot in the South Pacific" by Yank magazine which featured this photo with a story.
Photo: Copyright 1996 William A. Wynne, used with permission. Smoky, a tiny Yorkshire Terrier, was found in a foxhole in the New Guinea jungle, bedraggled and starving, how she got there no one knows. As Bill Wynne tells it: Smoky was found in the jungle foxhole by Ed Downey a friend ,who not liking dogs gave it to motor pool Sgt. Smoky went with Wynne from then on and, in the course of eighteen months of combat with the 26th Photo Recon Sq., of the 6th Photo Recon Group, 91st Photo Recon Wing, 5th Air Force, Smoky was credited with twelve combat missions and awarded eight battle stars. But Smoky was more than a mascot. Smoky, littlest hero of World War II. Togo Sled Dog Overlooked by History. The story of Togo begins twenty-five years earlier when a Norwegian man named Leonhard Seppala came to Nome in 1900 from a fishing village north of the Arctic Circle.
In Nome Leonhard entered the old ways of dog mushers and used this old Eskimo art to deliver mail and freight in the remote Alaskan wilderness. Leonhard began to specialize in Siberian Huskies. Smaller than the Alaskan dogs, they proved to be spirited pullers with the endurance to match and tough feet. In the years 1915 through 1917 Leonard and his teams of Siberian Huskies astonished the mushing world by winning the All Alaskan Sweepstakes race three years in a row.
Spirit of a Racer in a Siberian Husky’s Blood. POW Dog of WWII Survives Capture at DogsOfHonor.com. Judy's official prisoner-of-war name was '81A Gloergoer, Medan'.
While in the POW camp, Judy would alert the prisoners if the Japanese guards were coming near and also if snakes or scorpions were around. In June 1944, the men were transferred to Singapore and dogs were not allowed on board the ship. However, Frank Williams managed to teach Judy to lie still inside a rice sack so when he boarded the ship, he was able to sneak her onboard again. Sgt. Stubby.
Sgt.
Stubby In response to World War I, members of the First Company Governor's Foot Guard were activated and inducted into the 102nd Infantry Battalion of the 26th "Yankee" Division along with members of Connecticut's other Organized Militia units and numerous volunteers. During their training on the grounds of Yale University prior to deployment, they unexpectedly added a soldier to their company.
7 Historical Figures Who Were Absurdly Hard To Kill. Death comes for every man, but that doesn't mean you have to make it easy for the bastard.
6 People You've Never Heard of Who Probably Saved Your Life. It's interesting how a man can become a local hero by saving just one life--or how a fictional character can be considered a superhero by saving a few thousand--when there are people relatively unknown to history who have saved many, many times more. These are men and women who saved millions of lives, without whom you might not exist, and whose names likely never came up in your history class. Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov Nuclear war... 3 Reasons Houdini Was Way More Badass Than You Think.
6 Historic Villains You Didn't Know Had Incredible Careers. 6 Historical Villains Who Were Actually OK Guys. Hitler.
Stalin. Ivan the Terrible. 5 Famous People Who Succeeded Long After They Should've Quit. Picking a career is pretty hard, it turns out.
5 Real Princesses Too Badass for Disney Movies. Over the years Disney has gotten a lot of grief for its "inaccurate even for a cartoon" interpretations of historical heroes like Mulan and Pocahontas and Lilo.
And it's all just so unnecessary; history is full of royal women who kicked all kinds of ass. Although some of these stories would have to be toned down a bit ... #5. 6 Famous Explorers Who Shaped The World (With Insane Lies) If you take a list of history's greatest explorers, and hold it up to a list of history's greatest bullshitters, you quickly find out they're the same list.
That's right; guys like Magellan and Marco Polo opened up new frontiers of human exploration and when they returned, told stories that were laugh-out-loud ridiculous. Why? Just for the hell of it, apparently.