Incredible Feats

Can humans survive over 100,000 feet above sea level? In 1960, U.S. Air Force captain Joseph Kittinger had to find that out for himself… and then skydive back to Earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Annie Thorisdottir was looking for a sport that was exciting and that she could dominate. When she found Crossfit, it was “game over” for other competitors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A love of snow-skiing combined with a love of aquaplaning on the local lake led teenager Ralph Samuelson to invent a new sport. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Becoming the first woman to fly into outer space was relatively easy for Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. The challenging part was making sure she would also be the first woman to return from outer space safely. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine diving off a platform almost 38 feet in the air and landing in water only 1 foot deep. Sound impossible? It is, unless you're Darren Taylor… aka Professor Splash. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When hiker Aron Ralston’s right arm got wedged between an 800 pound boulder and the canyon wall, he was forced to do the unthinkable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How does one become the fastest man in the world? Why, chicken nuggets, of course. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After snowboarding down all the highest peaks that helicopters could reach, Jeremy Jones had to find a new place to descend. Somewhere nobody had ever snowboarded before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Goaded on by her brother’s taunts, Bessie Coleman crossed an ocean to learn how to fly. She broke boundaries as a pilot — then went on to perfect daring stunts, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ever since she started with Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé has been piling up Grammys — more than any other singer in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Because airplanes couldn’t fly any higher in the 1930s, Clem Sohn had to find a new way to keep his aerial stunts fresh. So he developed a “bat suit” that allowed him to stay in the air longer and perform even more death-defying tricks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Retired boxer and entrepreneur George Foreman wanted to become the oldest boxer to win the Heavyweight title. And at age 45, he did. But it wouldn’t be easy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roald Amundsen wanted to become the first explorer to reach the South Pole. The only problem: A different expedition was already under way, so he'd have to hurry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

American Greg Louganis became the first man to win gold medals in both platform and springboard diving in back-to-back Olympics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How many countries have you been to? It’s probably not as many as Cassie De Pecol, who became the first woman to travel to all 196 countries in the world (yes, even North Korea!). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A leisurely thing to do may be to drive around Great Britain, but Ross Edgley wanted to enter the record books, so he SWAM around Great Britain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s MLB home run record by hitting his 715th career home run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s not often that “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” can win a piano competition, but when it’s played by Mozart, anything can happen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The only thing luckier than a man who survives a grizzly bear attack is a man who survives two grizzly bear attacks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When 12 teenage soccer players and their coach become stranded in an underwater cave, two men are called on to do the impossible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even with his lower body paralyzed, Tanner Godfrey set out to set a record and jump more than 240 feet in his utility terrain vehicle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2006, Kobe Bryant scored an astounding 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, the second most points ever scored in an NBA game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Charles Trippy released a new vlog every day for ten years — including one documenting his brain surgery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ada Lovelace wrote the very first computer algorithm in 1843. It was so groundbreaking, her notes were used to crack the German Enigma Code over 100 years later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk became the first three climbers in history to summit a peak that experts said couldn’t be climbed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Teenager Pablo Signoret is a different kind of slacker, setting a record for the world’s longest highline walk… while blindfolded. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amateur cyclist Beryl Burton pedaled over 277 miles in twelve hours to set a world record that would last FIFTY years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Normally, a 17.5 mile drive that takes 18 hours would be infuriating. But for astronauts David Scott and Jim Irwin, it was an opportunity to document about a quarter of the moon’s surface. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most people take non-stop flights because they’re meant to be shorter. But pilot Steve Fossett set the record for the world’s longest nonstop flight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amputee Robert Campbell Aird used a bionic prosthesis to become the first one-handed person to windsurf! And he did it across the English Channel! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gary Saavedra wanted to put Panama in the record books, so he set out to do the impossible: surf the Panama Canal! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yankees pitcher Don Larsen achieves a feat so incredible nobody else has achieved it since. In game 5 of the 1956 World Series, he retired all 27 Brooklyn Dodgers batters he faced, throwing the first and only “perfect game” in World Series history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1931 while studying radioactive waves, Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard and his assistant Paul Kipfer flew their custom hot air balloon closer to outer space than anyone before them… only to become trapped 50,000 feet above Earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There was something about running that just didn’t sit well with ultramarathoner Mike McKnight. Every time he ran a marathon he’d eat to keep his energy up… and every time he ate, he puked. So McKnight decided to cut food from his routine, and as a result, ran 100 miles without stopping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mary Edwards Walker saved lives and made history as the first woman surgeon in the U.S. military. For her battlefield valor during the Civil War, she received a Medal of Honor — and when the government tried to revoke it? She defended it with a shotgun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer made climbing history as the first blind person to summit Mt. Everest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In an effort to set the record for a sub two-hour marathon, Eliud Kipchoge designed the perfect course with all the elements and variables he would need to succeed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a field that was dominated by men, Florence Nightingale “cleaned up” the nursing profession and showed the industry a new way to save lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Known as one of the best athletes in Cuba’s history, Javier Sotomayor overcame a terrifying fear to set the world record in the high jump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jonas Salk was tasked with making a vaccine for polio, but it wouldn’t be easy. A normal vaccine could risk paralyzing the very kids he was trying to protect — he would have to pioneer something entirely new. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Devising a secret weapon for competition, snowboarder Shaun White perfects a new trick and uses it to win gold in the X-games and then the Winter Olympics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After various misfortunes prevented him from winning, the late, great NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt finally won his first Daytona 500 on his 20th attempt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It took place over three long days. It was over eleven hours of tennis. Twelve records were broken. It’s the story of the 2010 Wimbledon match between Nicholas Mahut and John Isner that became the longest in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For years, Caesarean Sections were mostly performed in hopes of saving either the mother or the baby. But in 1826, Dr. James Barry became the first British doctor to perform the procedure where both the mother and child lived. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1922, 16-year-old Aloha Wanderwell participated in the “Million Dollar Wager” — a race around the world in a Ford Model T. It ended in 1927 with her holding the Guinness World Record as the first woman to circle the globe by car. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1928, no one had ever successfully flown under New York’s East River bridges — though many had tried and failed. 17-year-old Elinor Smith became the first. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The internet’s favorite skateboarding icon practiced, failed, and even broke a bone while attempting to land a trick he invented. For fourteen years. Then came the 1999 X Games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a young researcher, Jane Goodall shocked the scientific community with a revolutionary discovery about chimpanzees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah “Paddy” Jones retired from professional dance in the 1950s to raise a family, but decades later, she returned to the stage — in a very big way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1922, former real estate agent and “Human Spider” Bill Strother pulled off a top-secret movie stunt so dangerous that onlookers passed out while watching it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices