Just how badass was Teddy Roosevelt? Try this on for size: in the midst of his third bid to become president of the United States, Roosevelt was actually shot on his way to give a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. According to The Smithsonian, the assailant, John Schrank, fired a gun at Roosevelt's chest. The bullet, however, was luckily slowed by the 50-page manuscript and spectacles case that Roosevelt kept in his breast pocket. Remarkably, Roosevelt actually decided to go forward with his speech, due mostly to his past experiences with guns. Even though he ultimately lost the election, Roosevelt's speech would go on to become the stuff political legend, not just because of its content, but because it literally saved his life.
"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible," he said to the crowd upon arrival (via the Theodore Roosevelt Association). "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best." Talk about earning an A for Effort.
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