16. Teddy Roosevelt’s Most Badass Speech
Teddy Roosevelt walked away from the US presidency in 1908, but by 1912, he had come to regret that decision. So he returned to the campaign trail, running for president as candidate of the Bull Moose Party. On October 14th of that year, he made his way to a podium at the Milwaukee Auditorium, and opened with the unremarkable statement “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible“.
Next, he delivered one of the most remarkable lines ever uttered on the stump: “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have been shot“. As the horrified audience gasped, Roosevelt unbuttoned his vest, to reveal a bloodstained shirt beneath. The former president then topped his previous statement with an even more memorable one: “it takes more than that to kill a bull moose!”