Echoing kuro: the scientists over millenia that have gotten us to this point, usually through their own natural curiosity and perserverence rather than any hope for monetary reward. Often, in the Middle Ages, in the face of a society that ostracised them. And in the modern day, with all the challenges of reduced funding and rising anti-intellectualism. They are really some of the most amazing people in our history.
Lately, politics is getting me down and I sort've want to forget it all and give up, so I've been looking at resistance fighters throughout history and the absolute fucking courage with which they stood up for their fellow humans. Yesterday I was reading up Sophie Scholl, a German یونیورسٹی student who handed out anti-Nazi leaflets
at the height of Hitler's power as part of the White Rose non-violent resistance group. She was executed سے طرف کی the Nazis at age 21.
I also recently learnt about Lepa Radić (pic attached), hanged سے طرف کی the Nazis at age 17 for shooting at some soldiers. When she was about to hang, they offered her a way out سے طرف کی revealing the identities of other resistance fighters. She responded that her comrades would reveal themselves when they avenged her death.
Also
link, a member of the French Resistance who shot a German officer at age 19, was captured (and tortured) سے طرف کی the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. She survived the war and later became a journalist, reporting on anti-colonial rebellions in Algeria and Vietnam. She's now 95 years old.
Absolute badasses.