In 1808, Napoleon, running out of scenic holiday destinations to invade, somehow totally forgot about his neighbor to the south, Spain. So that year he dispatched his troops, kicking off the Peninsular War.
Only 20 years old and working as a barmaid in the town of Valdepenas, Juana Galan was not expecting a surge of French soldiers to come storming through her village. But on June 6, that’s exactly what happened. At that time, most of the men were fighting Napoleon’s forces elsewhere in the nation. Juana, unfazed by things like rifles and Frenchmen and French riflemen, began organizing the women in her village to form a trap for the approaching army.
When the army arrived, Juana and her friends were ready. They dumped boiling water and oil on the French troops, which by all accounts will instantly take the fight out of pretty much anyone. Then Juana, armed with only a batan, beat back the heavily armed French cavalry with her squad of village women, almost none of whom were armed with guns.
The French retreated, giving up on capturing not just Juana’s town but the entire province of La Mancha, leading to ultimate Spanish victory. Today, she is seen in Spain as a national hero, a symbol of resistance, strength, patriotism, feminism and hitting shit with a stick.
(x)
That’s one hell of a portrait.
hitting shit with a stick
This is maybe the best portrait of anyone that I’ve ever seen, ever.
new hero
that’s some for real badass g shit.
(Source: lady-eboshi)
Sylvia Robinson [March 6, 1936 – September 29, 2011] is responsible for pushing hip-hop into the mainstream. Before Russell Simmons gave the world Run-DMC, Robinson changed music when she produced “Rappers’ Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang, a group she created. The song was a wholesale recasting of the Nile Rodgers-produced disco smash with Chic, “Good Times,” made brand new with rhymes. “Rapper’s Delight” was not only the first rap song to chart on Billboard’s Top 40, it was also one of the first songs an entire generation of hip-hop kids would memorize.
holy moly! this lady should be a household name.
her wiki has a couple other gems as well.
xxlaia.
(Source: classicalallure)
The Women of Asgarda | In the Ukraine, a country where females are victims of sexual trafficking and gender oppression, a new tribe of empowered women is emerging. Calling themselves the “Asgarda”, the women seek complete autonomy from men. Residing in the Carpathian Mountains, the tribe is comprised of 150 women of varying ages, primarily students, led by 30 year-old Katerina Tarnouska. Reviving the tribal traditions of the Scythian Amazons of ancient Greek mythology, the Asgarda train in martial arts, taught by former Soviet karate master, Volodymyr Stepanovytch, and learn life skills and sciences in order to become ideal women.
(Source: kazuos)
Incredible story. Incredible woman.
RIP NANCY WAKE (30 August 1912 – 7 August 2011)
Ms Wake, who has died in London just before her 99th birthday, was a New Zealander brought up in Australia. She became a nurse, a journalist who interviewed Adolf Hitler, a wealthy French socialite, a British agent and a French resistance leader. She led 7,000 guerrilla fighters in battles against the Nazis in the northern Auvergne, just before the D-Day landings in 1944. On one occasion, she strangled an SS sentry with her bare hands. On another, she cycled 500 miles to replace lost codes. In June 1944, she led her fighters in an attack on the Gestapo headquarters at Montlucon in central France.
Work began earlier this month on a feature film about Nancy Wake’s life. Ms Wake, one of the models for Sebastian Faulks’ fictional heroine, Charlotte Gray, had mixed feelings about previous cinematic efforts to portray her wartime exploits, including a TV mini-series made in 1987.
“It was well-acted but in parts it was extremely stupid,” she said. “At one stage they had me cooking eggs and bacon to feed the men. For goodness’ sake, did the Allies parachute me into France to fry eggs and bacon for the men? There wasn’t an egg to be had for love nor money. Even if there had been why would I be frying it? I had men to do that sort of thing.”
Ms Wake was also furious the TV series suggested she had had a love affair with one of her fellow fighters. She was too busy killing Nazis for amorous entanglements, she said.
Even before she escaped to Britain, through Spain, in 1943 to train as a guerrilla leader, Nancy had been top of the Gestapo’s French “wanted” list. With her husband, she ran a resistance network which helped to smuggle Jews and allied airmen out of the country.
Nancy recalled later in life that her parachute had snagged in a tree. The French resistance fighter who freed her said he wished all trees bore “such beautiful fruit”. Nancy retorted: “Don’t give me that French shit.”
<3 what a bad ass <3
>She was too busy killing Nazis for amorous entanglements, she said.
>She was too busy killing Nazis
>too busy killing Nazis
BOSS
don’t give me that French shit
too busy killing Nazis
my fucking hero okay
i need to read her autobiography.Reblog for sheer badassery.
This is how you do it. If she does have an autobiography, I want to read it. Because that’ll be me when the world dissolves into another world war, which I have a feeling it will because I have been a pessimist lately.
…don’t ever forget that!
And don’t say “I’ll never be good”. You can become better! and one day you’ll wake up and you’ll find out how good you actually became.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson
He really just makes me smile.
(Source: swimmingtrunks)
Nightwitches
Die NachtHexen
Ночные ведьмы
for those not in the know, night witches were russian lady bombers who bombed the shit out of german lines in WW2. Thing is though, they had the oldest, noisiest, crappest planes in the entire world. The engines used to conk out halfway through their missions, so they had to climb out on the wings mid flight to restart the props. the planes were also so noisy that to stop germans from hearing them combing and starting up their anti aircraft guns, they’d climb up to a certain height, coast down to german positions, drop their bombs, restart their engines in midair, and get the fuck out of dodge.
their leader flew over 200 missions and was never captured.
HOLY SHIT THIS IS RAD AS FUCK
HOLY SHIT
omg that is just so cool aaaa
Russians get shit done apparently.
(Source: sovietico)