The Greatest Warrior in the past 1,000 years

Zinedine Zidane

14 minutes from retirement after an illustrious sporting carreer, he gets red carded for headbutting a racist Italian,

well,

THAT, my friends, takes brass buns.

I will have to go with Saladin too.

Its LTC Eric Kurilla, commander of 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment.

Read about this amazing man at Michael Yon's amazing website.

I think Chuck Norris would beat anyone, he is the best, a real fighting machine

I choose ... General Custer.

These warriors are not in any particular order and some were more than 1,000 years ago.

•Alexander The Great

•Napoleon

•Fredrick The Great

•Ghengis Khan

•Gustavus Adolphus

•Scipio Africanus

•Julius Caeser

•George Patton

•Horatio Nelson

•Leonidus

•Atilla The Hun

•Saladin

•Geronimo

•Joan Of Arch

•Sir William Wallace

•Sun Tzu

•Irwin Rommel

•Hannibal

•Shaka Zulu

•Miyamoto Musashi

•Sparticus

•King Aurthur

•Sandokan

•Cao Cao

•Sun Jian

•Liu Bei

•Lu Bu

•Achillies

•Minamoto Yosune

•Wang Fei Hung

•Rolland

•Charles Martel

•Troy

Heres three i think would be right up there with the best, all very different.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk



John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury


Edward Vernon Rickenbacker

sorry for this ninjamonkey (and for reviving this thread) but this is simply inaccurate Cao Cao and Liu Bei were not warriors ok

hmm. alot of entries are pre-1000 years.

atilla the hun? thats pre-1000 years. my vote goes for HULAGU KHAN! Wrecker of Baghdad! The reason Arabs fear the East!
en.wikipedia.org...

basically anyone since the 1st crusade and onward. well then, that doesnt leave many to choose from, since the most famous made their names between 1000BC and 500AD/CA.

some of these true bad asses were attilla the hun, achilles, alexander the great, cyrus the great, king david (yes, from david and goliath), joshua @ jericho, sun tzu, hulagu khan, grandson of gengis khan, gengis khan himself, the list goes on..

Hulagu Khan was particularly a badass, and led the mongol forces into Southwest Asia, crushing the Muslims @ Baghdad (gee, our Coalition still hasn't succeeded in pulling that one off), destroying the city. The assassins (hashashin) feared him so that they gave up their mountain fortress of Alamut to him without a fight. Heres the letter he sent the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad while he was on his way there:

"Hulagu marched out with perhaps the largest Mongol army ever assembled. Among his subsidiary generals was Kitbuqa, a Christian. Hulagu easily destroyed the Lurs, and his reputation so frightened the Assassins (also known as the Hashshashin) that they surrendered their impregnable fortress of Alamut to him without a fight.

Hulagu probably always intended to take Baghdad, which the Mongols had been meaning to attack for over ten years (see Eljigidei), but he used the caliph's refusal to send troops to him as a pretext for conquest, since his brother the Great Khan had ordered him to be merciful to those who submitted. Hulagu sent a message to the caliph, Al-Musta'sim, containing the following (trans. John Woods):

"When I lead my army against Baghdad in anger, whether you hide in heaven or in earth

I will bring you down from the spinning spheres;
I will toss you in the air like a lion.
I will leave no one alive in your realm;
I will burn your city, your land, your self.

If you wish to spare yourself and your venerable family, give heed to my advice with the ear of intelligence. If you do not, you will see what God has willed."

About The Battle:

As far as damage done, the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols made the sack of Rome by Alaric look kindly. The Grand Library of Baghdad, containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river. Citizens attempted to flee, but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who raped and killed with abandon.

Although death counts vary widely and cannot be easily substantiated, a number of estimates do exist. Martin Sicker writes that close to 90,000 people may have died (Sicker 2000, p. 111). Other estimates go much higher. Muslim historian Abdullah Wassaf claims the loss of life was several hundred thousand or more. Ian Frazier of The New Yorker estimates of the death toll have ranged from 200,000 to a million.

[edit on 5/24/2007 by runetang]

reply to post by FreeMason

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Wrong. Khalid ibn al Waleed, Drawn Sword of Allah was the second man to ever use the double envelopment manuever to kill to the last man the opposing army. At the battle of Walaja he had 15,000 and killed somewhere between 30-50,000 men. Not only that, but like Hannibal he was able to come up with this strategy on his own, no books, just ingenuity. The enemy was also one of the largest empires of the time, the Sacanian empire, so it was comparable to the opposition that Hannibal faced. Also in his first battle, the battle of mu'tah the odds were 6,000 to 200,000. The fighting was so intense that the first 3 leaders of the Muslim army were killed, and then Khalid was give command. Khalid himself may very well be the greatest warrior ever b/c throughout the battle he had personally broken 9 swords, thus people started calling him the sword of allah. Then through the use of a startegem, he was able to make the entire 200,000 army retreat making them believe that reinforcments had come. His personal battle record was over a 100 battles won, and 1 tie.

I can't believe this thread is still open. The moment this post was made, we had the final answer. After all, he is Chuck Norris.



These accomplishments make it clear that Mr. Norris is the greatest warrior in history.

Salah al-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub

Why?

Not because of all the wars he fought and won, but because how he won and the lesson he gave to christianity.

(I`m a Christian)

reply to post by Camilo1

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Yep. Even when he retook Jerusalem during the second (?) crusade he allowed all Christians and Jews to worship and pray as they pleased with no interference from Islam, and tore down the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

Since the 1000 looking at Warriors who actually fought as opposed to just directing troops.

Harald Hardråde

Saladin

J.E.B. Stuart

I just picked 3 off the top of my head, there are many medal winners and nameless folks that we dont have a history for.

I agree with few reply written by the others that most of the names of choices that appear here such as Napoleon are actually not warriors but military leaders who gave orders distances away from the actual combat and never really killed any enemies themselves. Alexander the Great did participate in battles, however he is more famous for his genius as a military leader and not as a fighter. As one replied on the thread, any viking warrior or gladiator could kick their ass in one-to-one combat, and that is true. To be a warrior one must learn the arts of handling weapons, be brave and upright in face of the enemy, and know the skills of killing.


Having said that, great warriors would have been people of vikings, mongols, knights, and samurais. I choose samurai as a greatest warrior because I like their strict spirit of following Bushido. To be more precise, a man named Miyamoto Musashi, born little before 1600 who is a only samurai ever recorded in the history to have wielded two katanas(swords) at same time to fight. Unlike the holywood movies and fantasy games, handling two heavy swords like katanas at same time although bad-ass, is very hard and usually very inefficient in combat and was a skill never learned by any samurais, except for Miyamoto Musashi who he acquired the skill by himself through performing Japanese drums, or O-diako. With his revolutionary skill of double sword combat, he was able to take down greater numbers of enemies surrounding him at once. He served as a hitman for nobles in his career and faced in great numbers of duels. In just few years he engaged in up to 60 duels where it is recorded that he never suffered a single defeat.

Besides the Greek Hoplites and the Spartans, I'd have to say Audie Murphy was the greatest warrior of all time because of his actions on one day in WW2.

2d Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by 6 tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, 1 of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from 3 sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective.
He is at least in the top three greatest warriors and defently the greatest warrior in American history, for sure.

I cant believe no one listed Audie in there replys, get some pride in your country people. I'm a Greek-American and i even knew how great Audie was.

Wow never heard of him, the story is pretty good.

I recommend everyone to read this, he sure was a warrior.
en.wikipedia.org...

And this, bad ass of the week.
www.amazingben.com...

But like the other poster said 5 years ago on this thread, I'm sure that most of the best warriors are ones we have never heard of.


[edit on 4-9-2008 by _Phoenix_]

reply to post by Anonymous ATS

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Thanks for that info.

I love Japanese and chinese history.