>>82 Andrew Jackson also publicly told the Supreme Court to go fuck themselves. He was a pretty based guy. Theodore Roosevelt was a genuine tough guy who was also smart, charismatic, and pragmatic. Some nutbar shot him while he was preparing to give a speech, and he went out to give the speech, with a bullet wound, after telling his bodyguards to stop beating the man who had just shot him, who was obviously so far gone as to not know what he was doing. Eisenhower is remembered in pop culture as a Dan Quayle level retard because he had trouble saying the word "nuclear." He played football at West Point and still graduated first in his class. He was a very sharp guy who had no tolerance for bullshit. In 1956, when the UK, France, and Israel invaded Egypt, Eisenhower publicly told the British government that the US would sell off all its holdings of the pound sterling and tank their currency if they didn't call it off and withdraw their troops. During a meeting with Anthony Eden, the UK's prime minister, when Eden tried to justify the invasion, Eisenhower called him a bullshit artist to his face, using those words. Eisenhower took no shit from anybody. It is maybe a shame that he chose Nixon to be VP, but nobody's perfect. I don't hate Nixon, but he should have gotten out of politics after fumbling the debate with Kennedy horribly on live TV in 1960. I don't think he was the cackling loony portrayed in to many bad Saturday Night Live sketches. He was a smart, driven, hard-working, savvy guy, with a history of public service and medals of commendation from serving in the Navy during the war. He also lacked charisma and was openly despised by Hollywood and the newsmedia. Fifty years ago they all had Nixon Derangement Syndrome worse than anyone has Trump Derangement Syndrome today, and he wasn't charismatic enough or well enough liked by the rest of his party to weather that. Opening diplomatic relations with China in 1972 enraged pretty much his entire party and when the Watergate crisis got manufactured out of rumors and thin air--the Church Commission is mainly remembered for exposing the CIA's dirty tricks, but one of the things uncovered was that Lyndon Johnson also had the FBI spying on and blackmailing thousands of people, opening mail, bugging phones, bugging motel rooms, bugging homes, they spied on Goldwater's campaign, on most of Congress, on journalists, on civil rights activists, on antiwar activists, on "intellectuals" who criticized the Johnson Administration from Timothy Leary to William F. Buckley, and LBJ had just died so it was safe to talk about it for about ten minutes before it got pushed out of the news cycle and dropped down the Memory Hole--all the Republicans in Congress silently turned their backs and let the Democrats gang-rape him over rumors that he was trying to cover up that he'd done, once, something that Johnson had just spent five years doing twice every morning before breakfast. I don't think he was an evil man but for America in the early 1970s, Nixon, with his sweaty, jowly, unshaven face that looked like it belonged on a wanted poster, was the wrong man, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.

Gonna bump this thread with another of my personal favorites: Neal "Nellis" Ellis, a man who defeated a rebel army out of pure spite. Not really a major historical figure per se, but still an interesting man to read about. >Born in 1949 in South Africa >Fights in the Rhodesian Bush war >Joins the South African Army >Learns to fly attack helicopters >Masters the Mi-24 HIND >Apartheid ends, can't serve in the SAAF anymore because muh white devil >Gets his own HIND >Becomes a mercenary >Have gunship, will travel >Almost every African communist/anti-western group ends up putting a price on his head >Fights the Congo War >In the year 2000 he gets hired by Sierra Leone >RUF rebel army has surrounded Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown >It's nighttime, so helis can't fly >SL army has been practically overrun >Government prepares to capitulate >Fall of Saigon teir chaos >Neal hops in his HIND, which isn't equipped for night operation >Co-pilot refuses to join him because he believes it to be practically a suicide mission >Holds off rebel army throughout the night, alone >Helicopter breaks down >Rebels finally manage to take Freetown >After losing 2500 men to one helicopter >Manages to get the heli repaired, narrowly escapes >SL can't pay him anymore because at this point they've basically lost the war >He sticks around anyway and continues to fight the rebels out of pure spite, with the ultimate goal of retaking Freetown >Fights alone for two years >Very low on ammo for most of this time >Resorts to knocking over RUF vehicles with rotor wash and crushing enemy soldiers with the helicopter itself >RUF sends him a message >"If we ever catch you, we'll cut your heart out and eat it." >He responds by flying over their encampments and dropping leaflets >"RUF: This time we've dropped leaflets. Next time it will be a half-inch Gatling machine gun, or 57mm rockets, or 23mm guns, or 30mm grenades, or ALL OF THEM!" >Small arms can't do shit to the heavily armored gunship >Hovers over their encampments mocking them while they pick up and read the leaflets >He does however, fear being shot down or forced to land by engine failure >Stockpiles 20+ guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and provisions in the troop bay of the HIND >Plans to fight a one man guerilla war if he loses the chopper >Finds a reliable arms dealer to buy ammo and rockets from >Makes good on his promise to come back with real ordinance >Fucks up the RUF so hard that the British and Sierra Leone governments offer him formal backing and ground troops >Retakes Freetown >Grinds the RUF into the dirt >Fights for NATO during the invasion of Iraq >Was last rumored to be fighting ISIS, at almost 70 years of age

>>88 I heard about this guy. He trolled the RUF so hard that he should have painted a Trollface on the side of his choppa and mounted loudspeakers on it to play "Trolololo" before every attack. BASED.