5 Most Incredible Acts Of Defiance In History

in a difficult situation most people will choose to keep their heads down in an effort to avoid trouble however history is full of daring and downright risky acts of defiance where individuals and leaders have refused to submit to the demands of authority or an enemy even if doing so endangers their lives or even their entire nation here are my choices for five of the most incredible acts of defiance in history and the stories behind them number five the pueblo incident publicly insulting a regime which is infamous for his brutality and inhumanity is a course of action that few of us would be brave enough or foolish enough to undertake yet with a very existence in the hands of captors who had little regard for human life the crew of the uss pueblo risked everything in a daring and public display of defiance that won the imagination of the world as despite enduring 11 months in a north korean prison camp where torture indoctrination and abuse were a normal part of their daily routine the sailors used staged propaganda events to their own advantage inserting innuendos and gestures that their captors did not recognize or understand into photos and recordings in an attempt to humiliate them on the world stage their risky actions a dramatic sideshow in a wider crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war the pueblo was an intelligence gathering ship that had been dispatched in january 1968 on a routine mission to intercept and record north korean wireless transmissions from the safety of international waters and as long as she remained at a distance of at least 12 miles from shore would ordinarily be unlikely to face any real danger from the nation her crew were spying on however these were far from ordinary times although the korean war had already been over for 15 years diplomatic relations between the united states and north korea remained non-existent with the north still determined to seize the entire korean peninsula and with the united states already overextended by its fight against the spread of communism in vietnam north korea believed that now was the perfect opportunity to destabilize the south without fear of us retaliation on january 21 1968 a group of north korean infiltrators launched a daring assassination attempt on the south korean president coming within 100 meters of his official residence before being cut down in a hail of gunfire in response the shaken south korean president placed his forces on a war footing and pleaded with the us to retaliate however with the war in vietnam already escalating the americans were reluctant to risk conflict on a second front when the uss pueblo was spotted by two north korean fishing trawlers on january 22nd 1968 her captain was unaware of the rapidly escalating situation unfolding on land with the attempt on the south korean president's life having taken place just the night before the next day on january the 23rd the pueblo was approached by a north korean navy vessel which claimed that the u.s ship had strayed into their territorial waters and demanded she surrender or be fired upon the pueblo was reportedly 15 miles from the coast which was well beyond the 12 mile limit recognized by international law as the border between international waters and sovereign territory however north korea claimed that their territorial waters extended to an incredible 50 miles from its shores and so in the mines of the north korean sailors the pueblo was violating their territory fitted with just two machine guns and with all ammunition stored below decks the lightly armed uss pueblo stood little chance of successfully resisting against an enemy force which had now been joined by several more vessels and two mig-21 fighters and after being raked by gunfire which killed one sailor and injured nine others and with no backup on the way the captain decided to surrender his ship so as to save the rest of his crew's life north korean sailors boarded the pueblo bound and blindfolded her 82-man crew and towed the ship to the nearest harbour where the prisoners were charged with spying and paraded like war trophies in front of enraged locals some in the us government demanded that president johnson threaten nuclear war should the prisoners not be released immediately however others urged caution recognizing that such rhetoric might prove counterproductive and actually endanger the lives of the american hostages a whole host of options were considered ranging from blockades to a full-scale invasion of the north however ultimately a shuba force was settled upon with the u.s deploying three aircraft carriers and 14 000 additional troops to south korea while negotiations over the fate raged on the 82 american prisoners were subjected to brutal and inhumane treatment involving frequent beatings torture forced indoctrination and a near starvation diet that resulted in many of the crew losing as much as 40 pounds in body weight after suffering countless mock executions the captain finally agreed to sign a confession when guards threatened to shoot his crew in front of him one by one and on several occasions the sailors were paraded in front of cameras as unwilling propaganda tools in a crude attempt to pass off the north korean leadership as benevolent and morally justified in their actions to the watching world it was during these staged media events that the crew managed to undermine the efforts of their hosts and use the state's propaganda machine for their own ends subtly inserting innuendos jokes and sarcastic language into their statements and confessions and most famously of all putting their lives on the line by brazenly showing the middle finger to their captors when facing the cameras a gesture which they told the north koreans was a hawaiian good luck sign such an act was incredibly risky however the photos passed the unwitting sensors and the prisoners gesturing went undetected until an american magazine published the photo and gave the game away by praising the crew for their courage leading to the north koreans discovering the real meaning behind the middle finger and unleashing a terrible week of punishment on the pueblos crew as retribution for making falls of them in front of the whole world with the crew losing hope that they would ever see home again negotiations between the u.s and north korea finally resulted in an agreement that brought the 11-month ordeal to an end securing the release of the crew and pulling the world back from the brink of war after the united states agreed to issue a formal apology a confession of guilt and a promise never to spy on north korea again the apology was later retracted after the crew returned home safely yet the uss pueblo itself is still moored in pyongyang to this day as a museum and propaganda showpiece and as it was never decommissioned by the navy is the only serving u.s vessel held captive in the foreign hands number four the spartans reply daring one of the most powerful men in the known world to march on your lands leading an army that had just proved its near invincibility in war would for most people be an ill-advised course of action however the spartans were not a people known for their diplomacy or willingness to back down from a fight and despite being a shadow of the former glory following a decisive defeat just 25 years prior the declining warrior-led city-state of sparta would risk complete annihilation at the hands of the mighty conqueror philip of macedon by insulting him not just once but on two separate occasions greece had long been a land of competing cities and states that were frequently at war with each other as multiple factions fight for power and wealth using complex webs of alliances shrewd political maneuvers and when that failed outright force on the battlefield however in the mid 3rd century bc king philip ii of macedon instituted a series of military reforms that resulted in the creation of the legendary macedonian phalanx and set about using this potent fighting force to bring all of greece under his control this revolutionary army securing a string of victories that forced rival greek states to submit to his rule yet despite much of greece now forced to recognize macedonian supremacy in the far south the stubborn spartans still resisted the legendary spartans were not only famous for their prowess on the battlefield but also for their blunt anter speech and diplomacy spartan men lived simple and tough lives and were expected to choose their words carefully avoiding the flowery and elaborate language so favored by other well-healed greeks instead becoming famous for making their point quickly using as few words as possible with spartan boys deemed to be too verbose with their speech said to have been swiftly punished by having their thumbs bitten this tendency to get straight to the point resulted in the spartans uttering some of history's greatest one-liners at the battle of thermopylae despite being hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded on all sides king leonidas rebuffed a persian offer to avoid a massacre and spare his men if the spartans simply lay down their weapons famously replying that the persians should come and get them yet the situation with king philip was far more dire since it was not just the fate of an army at stake but that of the entire spartan civilization with most of greece already under his control the macedonian king sent an emissary to the defiant spartans in the south to see if there might be a possibility of bringing them into his fold without the need for a costly fight which would spill the blood of yet more fellow greeks valuable soldiers who would be desperately needed in the planned future invasion of persia his message was simple yet threatening asking whether the spartans wished for him and his army to enter their lands as friend or foe but true to their nature the spartan's reply was even simpler containing just a single word neither undoubtedly infuriated by their defiance arrogance and lack of respect for his immense accomplishment in bringing all of greece under his rule philip sent a second and final message warning that should sparta fail to submit immediately he would wipe them from the face of the earth his ultimatum read submit without further delay for if i bring my army into your land i will destroy your farms slay your people and raise your city once again the spartan's reply contained just a single word if although proud the spartan leaders are sure to have known that should philip march against them they would stand virtually no chance of resisting him the days when spartan soldiers inspired fear and ore in their enemies were now firmly in the past after a crushing defeat on the battlefield 25 years earlier which saw spartan power broken and her city-state reduced a little more than an irrelevant relic of the past should philip invade utter destruction would be the likely outcome but the spartans defied the mighty conqueror nonetheless the risky message practically goading him into unleashing their annihilation yet incredibly despite such a reckless insult philip and later his son alexander the great chose to focus their attention elsewhere never returning to threaten sparta again perhaps viewing sparta as a poor backwater that was more trouble than it was worth they instead focused their attention on long-held plans to use the most powerful greek army in history to subjugate the old enemy the vast and wealthy persian empire in the east number 3. august lan messer nazi governor germany was not the kind of place where acts of defiance against the leadership went unpunished and in a society where anyone failing to demonstrate complete submission to authority was likely to face a rapid and violent end any outward display of lack of reverence for the fuhrer can be seen as a brave but risky move especially when you are the lone dissenter in a sea of obedience yeah that's exactly what the man in this remarkable photo did brazenly refusing to salute the arrival of adolf hitler at his place of work despite the blind compliance of his colleagues this powerful act of defiance part of a deeply personal tragedy where in a time when war would eventually claim the lives of over 60 million people such immense numbers of deaths can be hard to fathom yet to the sad story behind the man in the photo disturbingly highlights the wider suffering that the conflict would unleash upon the world 1930s germany was a chaotic and ruined nation following the destruction of the first world war which had shattered the economy and burdened her people with massive reparations by 1932 as many as 6 million were unemployed and with the great depression in full swing adolf hitler and his national socialist party tapped into dissatisfaction with the status quo to position himself into power believing the old adage that it's not what you know but who you know like so many others august lanmesser joined the nazi party in 1931 hoping to network within this up-and-coming political organization and use his newfound connections to secure a well-paying job that would lift him out of the grinding poverty he'd endured for so long after all without a secure source of income no man could hope to build and support a family of his own his plan worked and he eventually found well-paying work at a shipyard in hamburg yet little did he know that this growing political party would bring about the doom of everything he held dear land messer had been part of a team working on the shipyard's latest vessel and on june 13th 1936 she was ready to launch yet this would be no ordinary launching ceremony the ship was named after horst wessel one of the leaders of the sa stormtroopers who acted as the nazi party's paramilitary wing providing security for party officials while at the same time aiding their calls by disrupting the assemblies and rallies of their political opponents wessel had been murdered by communists in 1930 his death in the line of duty elevating him to the status of mata within the nazi party and so the launching of the ship bearing his name called for the attendance of only the party elite deputy leader rudolf hess gave a stirring speech at the ceremony flanked by wessel's mother and none other than adolf hitler himself as the mother of the ship's namesake christened the vessel with a bottle of champagne the watching shipyard workers uniformly unleashed enthusiastic salutes with many no doubt ordered to be in the presence of the fuhrer this ordinarily unremarkable moment was captured by a watching cameraman in a photo that decades later would become iconic not because of the crowd but because of august landmasser and the act of defiance that could have so easily endangered his life standing within a sea of unbroken salutes the squinting landmesser seems unimpressed by the spectacle before him his arms firmly crossed as he looks confidently ahead steadfastly refusing to join his colleagues in paying tribute to the fuhrer and making no effort at all to disguise his defiance defiance which could have caught the eye of party officials and placed his job and even his life in jeopardy the infamous hail victory salute was adopted by the nazi party in the 1930s and soon became a compulsory greeting for all germans as a demonstration of loyalty to the party the states and the fuhrer like all germans land messer would have been well aware of the pitfalls of withholding the salute so publicly however further investigation into the man's personal life reveals he had good reason for his actions lanmesser met a woman named irma eckler in 1934 and the two quickly formed a relationship and became engaged the blossoming young love would have been no different from millions of other couples if it were not for one dangerous fact irma was jewish and in 1930s germany relationships between ethnic germans and jews were strictly forbidden nevertheless the couple filled out a marriage application in august 1935 however the request was promptly rejected and landmesser was expelled from the nazi party yet he refused to end his relationship with irma by october of 1935 lan messer and eckler's first daughter was born and just a few months later this iconic photo was taken at the shipyard the act of defiance so clearly on display born from smoldering resentment caused by forbidden love landmesser unable to show deference to the man who would reduce the woman he loved and his daughter to second-class citizens while the photo did not catch the attention of authorities lanmesser and his family would not enjoy a happy ending in 1937 as ekla fell pregnant with a second child the family tried to escape germany by fleeing to denmark however they were stopped and arrested at the border where landmesser was charged with dishonoring the race under strict nazi racial laws although found guilty he was later acquitted due to a lack of evidence however he was warned in no uncertain terms that should he continue the relationship more charges would be brought against him unwilling to abandon the woman he viewed as his wife landmesser publicly continued the relationship and true to their word authorities once again arrested him on the 15th of july 1938 and subsequently sentenced him to two and a half years hard labor in a concentration camp a price he perhaps was willing to pay however little did he know at the time he would never see his wife again soon after eckler was arrested by the gestapo and gave birth to her second daughter while in prison after being separated from her children who were sent to an orphanage she was taken to various concentration camps before finally ending up at a facility known as a euthanasia center in february 1942 where she was among an estimated 14 000 murder victims landmesser was discharged from prison on the 19th of january 1941 and with no information on the fate of his family went on to find work as a foreman for a haulage company however with the war rapidly turning against the germans he found himself forcibly conscripted into a penal battalion in february of 1944 where alongside his fellow convicts dissidents and generally unwanted elements of society he would be used as cannon fodder in missions deemed too dangerous to risk wasting the lives of ordinary soldiers in a tragic conclusion to the tale he went missing while fighting in croatia and was presumed killed in action just six months before the war ended number two the reply of the zapparosian cossacks the most powerful man in the world is not the kind of person you want as your nemesis and most people would easily cave in to any demands such a man might make yet despite ruling over one of the largest empires the world has ever seen and being in complete control of an army that had already vanquished countless past foes sultan mehmet iv of the ottoman empire was unable to intimidate the zapparosian cossacks of modern day ukraine into voluntarily submitting to his rule yet rather than just reject the sultan's offer the proudly independent freedom-loving cossacks penned a defined reply that has gone down in history as one of the most insulting diplomatic messages ever sent the terrain of mockery and downright abuse contained within the letter making a bitter and very personal enemy of the mightiest leader on earth a man who had the means and now the motivation to wipe you and your kin from the face of the earth by the mid-17th century sultan mehmet the fourth's reign had seen the ottoman empire expand to its greatest extent within europe with the sultan overseeing a string of conquests that brought parts of russia ukraine hungary and poland under the control of his empire which already stretched as far afield as iraq egypt and north africa the ottomans now stood as the most powerful force in the world and only a pan-european alliance known as the holy league stood between the sultan and complete domination of all of europe on the offensive on all fronts the sultan's global ambitions were limitless yet on his vast empire's obscure border regions with modern-day russia and ukraine a wild and fierce people known as the cossacks were proving to be a distracting and troublesome thorn in his side a word which literally means free man in turkish cossacks were a people unwilling to live under the stifling dominion of polish aristocrats preferring life on the wild steps in an area around the crimea between poland and russia that was practically a no man's land and one of the few places in europe where a man could live outside of the control of powerful kings and emperors for a separation cossack freedom was valued above all else however their time of living off the radar of the ottoman sultan in the south was coming to an end on the hunt for riches and plunder groups of cossacks had been conducting raids against neighbouring crimean tatars who were under the protection of the ottoman sultan with some even sacking ottoman border towns these cross-border raids continued unchecked growing in number and scope until the more daring ones even reached as far as the mighty ottoman capital of constantinople sultan mehmet iv decided that action had to be taken against the cossack menace and so he sent a threatening letter to their leader ivan circo demanding that the cossacks seize their aids and willingly submit to his authority after all should it come to war an ottoman victory was inevitable since countless other mighty kingdoms had already fallen to the sultan's armies so what hope could this band of rustic outlaws possibly have against his invincible war machine the lengthy letter contained a grand list of all of the sultan's official titles and lofty positions clearly demonstrating the power and authority the man wielded power and authority which could easily be turned against the cossacks if he so wished swiftly bringing about their demise yet the zaparosian cossacks were not the kind of men who responded well to threats according to the legend ivan circo gathered his men to pen a group reply to the sultan however this letter would be no ordinary diplomatic communication knowing full well that the message would be read by the most powerful man on earth each man did his best to make the letter as insulting as possible each line rhyming with the other and parodying the sultan's many grandiose titles in an effort to maximize his humiliation and anger the vulgar parodies and numerous expletives mocked the sultan's many boastful claims calling him a scullion thief hangman fool and idiot and even insulting his mother a famous painting currently on display at the state russian museum of saint petersburg captures the cossacks brainstorming session however there is still debate about whether or not the letter was real or a masterful piece of later propaganda since no original document has ever been found if it was real there was also no record of the sultan's reaction to such an insulting piece of mockery however any retribution which he might have wanted to unleash against the cossacks never materialized since an ottoman army mutiny in 1687 led to him being deposed from power and replaced by his brother the man who once wielded near unlimited power spending his final days under house arrest before his death in 1693 number one tankman amidst nationwide protests that threatened to unseat the chinese establishment a lone man faced down a column of tanks advancing towards him head-on unsure whether the soldiers inside the armoured hulks would simply crush him beneath her tracks as on the morning after a brutal government crackdown that ended the lives of as many as 10 000 protesters the death of one more unknown civilian would be little more than an irrelevance this brave act of defiance carried out by a man who some 30 years later still remains unidentified not only becoming one of the 20th century's most iconic images but also demonstrating to the world how the actions of a single individual can leave an enduring legacy since the chaotic days of chairman mao's great leap forward which saw millions perish communist china in the 1980s was a country experiencing rapid economic development and social change however the economic reforms which had led to such progress had also created great dissatisfaction amongst the poor and working class who felt that the changes had only benefited the elites at the top of society and many began to openly question the legitimacy of the country's one-party political system the death of a prominent pro-democracy anti-corruption campaigner sparked student-led protests that eventually spread across the country with an estimated one million protesters gathering in beijing's famous tiananmen square demanding a wide range of reforms including greater government transparency an end to rampant corruption freedom of the press and freedom of speech the protests dragged on for over six weeks and were proving increasingly embarrassing for the chinese leadership yet it seems as if the imminent arrival of the soviet premier mikhail gorbachev and the international media spotlight such a state visit would bring with it sparked a sudden urgency by the chinese government to end the troublesome protests once and for all martial law was declared and 300 000 troops were dispatched to the capital with orders to crush any and all opposition with some suggesting that the 27th group army was especially chosen for the mission due to the notoriety for unquestioning obedience and following orders no matter how unpleasant in the days that followed the soldiers lived up to their reputation ruthlessly quelling all unrest with a level of brutality that shocked the watching world unarmed demonstrators were cut down with all the tools at the military's disposal and as many as 10 000 are thought to have been killed in the bloody crackdown which saw people crashed under armoured personnel carriers and injured protesters bayoneted by troops on the ground yet just the day after the soldiers willingness to kill their own countrymen was demonstrated so disturbingly one man would put his life on the line in an act of defiance that could have quite easily seen him crushed under the tracks of the massive tanks he'd dare to defy an armored column advancing through a wide avenue found their way forward blocked by a single unidentified lone protester carrying just two plastic shopping bags the defying gesture seems to have been unplanned however perhaps appalled by the events that had unfolded in his city the man faces down the rapidly advancing tanks in a game of chicken that he seems prepared to lose yet incredibly the massive war machines were brought to a complete halt by the individual who became known as tankman the lead tank attempts to drive around the stationary figure rather than run him over however each maneuver is once again thwarted as the protester repeatedly steps into the tank's new path the standoff continues for an incredible five minutes before two mysterious figures in blue are seen pulling tank man away and disappearing into a nearby crowd who these other two people are remains unknown with optimists suggesting that there were concerned fellow protesters who pulled tank man from harm's way before government troops could get to him however there is also the possibility that they were undercover security agents and were whisking him away to some nefarious facility where he would likely face execution without trial conflicting information exists on tankman's fate with internal communist party of china documents stating that the government were unable to locate him despite conducting a lengthy investigation and search however the former deputy special assistant to president richard nixon reported that he was executed 14 days later while other sources suggest he was put in front of a firing squad a few months after the protests were crushed however if by some miracle he escaped with his life it's unlikely that he would ever be willing to come forward as he's almost certainly still a man marked for death so those are my choices four or five of the most incredible acts of defiance in history i hope you enjoyed the video let me know which other defiant acts you would have included in the comments below and i'll see you again soon

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Keywords: history, documentaries, documentary, education, entertainment, unknown5, top 5, top 10, list, defiant, acts of defiance, defiance, historical videos, tank man, spartans, the spartans, ancient greece, sparta, korea, The Pueblo Incident, uss pueblo, north korea, Cossacks, ancient history, medieval history

Id: LjNZBBIuSTw

Length: 28min 28sec (1708 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 16 2018