Incredible Feats

The opening scene of the ‘95 Bond film “GoldenEye” showcases a record-setting bungee jump performed by stuntman Wayne Michaels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Manny Pacquiao has won more world titles in more weight classes than any other boxer in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You’re 69 years old, planning your next birthday celebration. How about a swim in the ocean — handcuffed, shackled, and pulling rowboats filled with people? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pigs, lollipops, and very high stakes: When tennis players Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs faced off in a so-called “battle of the sexes,” they spared no effort — in skill or in spectacle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a celebrity Arctic explorer assembles an inexperienced team to claim Wrangel Island for the British Empire, Ada Blackjack signs on as the party’s seamstress... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Annie Edson Tyler’s 1901 tumble down Horseshoe Falls was actually a get-rich-quick scheme. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

17-year-old Jackie Mitchell went up against the greats, and pitched strikes that left Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig slouching back to the dugout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Babe Didrikson Zaharias was a Renaissance woman of sports, proving to 1930s America that anyone can be an all-around phenomenal athlete. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai’s life only served to further amplify the young leader’s verve for education advocacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1947, anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl set out to prove a point, and crossed over 4,000 miles of open ocean to do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2011, Alain Robert scaled a soaring skyscraper in Dubai. At 2,717 feet high, it’s the tallest structure in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A voice in a dream helped Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa make the comeback of a lifetime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a tugboat capsized off the coast of Nigeria, a team of divers was sent in after nearly 3 days to recover bodies. But one man had survived. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Climbing hand over hand up a thin metal tower, Dana Kunze scaled the equivalent of 16 stories before plummeting straight down — for a record-breaking 172-foot dive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Burning wires, faulty brakes, armed soldiers… Geraldine Mock’s 1964 solo flight around the world wasn’t the smoothest. But every bit of turbulence was worth it to pay homage to her hero, Amelia Earhart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was the Great Houdini’s last act before his untimely death — a trick so dangerous and inventive, he found a way to patent it and keep its secrets safe from copycats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A 1962 NBA game between the Philadelphia Warriors and the New York Knicks set the stage for Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary scoring record. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monsoon rains, jail time, malaria… Explorer Mario Rigby experienced all of it and more as he walked and kayaked through Africa, traveling over 7,500 miles south to north. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2020, champion eater Joey Chestnut broke his own world record for most hot dogs consumed in 10 minutes. #AmericanHero? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Think backflips are hard? Try doing a double… in a wheelchair. That’s exactly what Aaron Fotheringham did in 2010, just a few years after inventing a new brand of daring athletics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Violet Jessop survived shipwreck, after shipwreck, after shipwreck — all in the span of 5 years. After each disaster, the ocean liner stewardess went right back to work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Leaving his climbing ropes behind, Alex Honnold scaled the 3000-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in 2017. His free solo feat took a grueling 3 hours and 56 minutes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Grandma” Emma Gatewood spent nearly 150 days hiking the Appalachian Trail in 1955, becoming the first woman to hike the entire trail solo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a 26.2 mile race over thousand-year-old cobblestones, Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila opted to run barefoot… then set a world record. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A scoreboard snafu left the crowd outraged — then thrilled — after Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci’s routine in the 1976 Olympics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

June 2012: Nik Wallenda stares out over thousands of feet of metal cable stretched across Niagara Falls. But he’s not afraid. Performing daring stunts is in his blood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After doctors told her she'd never walk again, Wilma Rudolph did the unthinkable... and became a record-breaking Olympian with the nickname of "Fastest Woman in the World." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A day of deep-sea fishing turned dangerous when a storm knocked two fishermen way out into the Pacific. As 2013 turned to 2014, many gave the men up for dead — but Jose Salvador Alvarenga survived. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wim Hof, aka “The Iceman,” can endure subzero temps like no other. Who else can say they’ve run a half marathon in the Arctic Circle barefoot, wearing nothing but shorts? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mo’Ne Davis electrified the baseball world during the 2014 Little League World Series with her talent on the pitching mound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before he played The Mountain in HBO’s Game of Thrones series, Hafthor Bjornsson beat a 1,000-year-old Viking record. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic Athlete ever, but his career hit rough waters after a 2014 DUI arrest. He had one more chance to prove himself: Rio 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dashrath Manjhi hammered and chiselled his way through a mountain for two decades to make medical care more accessible for his village. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2012, Jagger Eaton became the youngest person ever invited to compete in the X Games. You can bet he skated right through it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a streetcar crashed into a lake, champion finswimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan dove into the polluted water to rescue its passengers. He saved dozens of lives… but the story was covered up for years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dubbed the “Octomom,” Nadya Suleman is the eighth woman in known history to birth octuplets. Her kids are the only known surviving set of octuplets, ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dean Karnazes is not your typical ultramarathoner. He can run for literal days, fueled by massive amounts of junk food consumed on the go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now this is peak performance: Jordan Romero is the youngest person to summit the tallest mountain in the world… And he didn’t stop there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He’s the first person to ever hold 100 World Records at once. Ashrita Furman broke so many records, he invented new games just so he could set new records. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brace for impact… With the plane’s engines failing and 155 lives on the line, veteran pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III had seconds to decide his next course of action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah Breedlove’s job prospects were slim, so she started her own business—and in 1919, the daughter of two formerly enslaved people became a self-made millionaire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hold your breath: In 2016, William Trubridge broke the world record for freediving, which he had set himself back in 2011. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Barbara Hillary was the first African American woman to reach both poles... which she did in her 70s, after surviving lung cancer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Annie Oakley was an extraordinary markswoman, and the star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Peggy Whitson has spent more time in space than any other NASA astronaut… And that’s not the only space record she holds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2006, a dire circumstance unlocked superhuman strength in Tom Boyle. Nine years later, a similar scenario helped 19-year-old Charlotte Heffelmire save a life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2018, Andrzej Bargiel’s climb up the world’s second highest mountain took three days. But it was his eight-hour ski descent that set a record. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Juliane Koepcke’s incredible feat is two-in-one: In 1971, she fell two miles out of a plane and lived. Her next challenge? Surviving the rainforest she landed in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nellie Bly’s record-breaking trip around the world made her an international sensation. But did you know her 1889 journey was inspired by a sci-fi novel? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Fearless” Felix Baumgartner skydived from the edge of space in 2012, breaking the sound barrier using only his body. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices