Took a Level in Badass/Real Life

Examples of in  include:


 * Stevie Wonder began his career as Little Stevie Wonder, recording undistinguished albums of soul and big band covers under the creative control of Berry Gordy's Motown. At the age of 21 he threatened to quit the company unless he was allowed to do things his own way; Motown gave in, and Stevie Wonder went on to record a string of innovative albums that made him one of the key stars of the 1970s.
 * Frank Sinatra was pretty unremarkable early in his career, being little more than the forties' equivalent of Justin Bieber (though obviously not as hated), being Estrogen Brigade Bait and appearing in a few musicals as the plucky young guy (though his performance was not bad by any standards). In The Fifties, noticing his career was starting to wane, he began injecting an upbeat jazz rhythm into his most well-known songs, and taking Darker and Edgier roles in films, such as a loose-cannon Army private in 1953's From Here To Eternity and a fresh-out-of-prison drug addict in 1955's The Man With The Golden Arm (although not remarkable today, it was highly controversial back then). The Frank Sinatra that was popular in The Fifties and The Sixties we immortalize today is a dice-playing, martini-swigging lounge-singer type, possibly with a tommy gun stashed somewhere, something none of his Estrogen Brigade would've seen coming back in WWII.
 * Hulk Hogan was a fat kid that would eat half a supermarket for attention
 * Theodore Roosevelt used to be bullied. He now sits quite comfortably on the Badass and Memetic Badass pages; see details there. But short version, the guy was the archetypal President Action.
 * Henry Rollins was a scrawny bullied kid, until tenth grade, when he bought a weight set, hospitalized one of those bullies, and grew up to be.
 * America took a level during World War Two. Before the war, Denmark had a larger standing army then the USA. Then America split the atom, and from there, America became one of the two superpowers that would define the rest of the 20th century.
 * Technically America more harnessed the explosive power of splitting the atom, the first actually atom split was accomplished by a New-Zealand-born Brit, Ernest Rutherford.
 * Canada in World War I. Before entering, Canada was just some British colony overseas that no one really knew about. Afterwards, by the end of the war, German soldiers knew that if there were Canadian soldiers placed, they better prepare for an offensive attack.
 * During the war, the Germans referred to Canadian forces as Storm Troopers, the name used by Germany's own elite assault troops, responsible for pushing Western front back to the position attained in 1914.
 * In a weather-version of this, in mid-August 2005, a tropical depression formed in the middle of the Atlantic. The next day, it died without doing anything. Nine days later, it came back, and well...the results weren't good. AT ALL.
 * Not entirely true. It grew into a Category 1 hurricane, hit Florida, weakened into a depression, and then crossed into the Gulf of Mexico... Two days later, it was a Category 5 monster that was roughly the size of a large portion of the United States, barreling straight for a many feet below sea level New Orleans... Look for yourself.
 * xkcd took a level in badass IRL when Bill Amend drew a guest comic for it, using xkcds in-jokes. A well known, high profile artist drawing for your web comic gives you prestige +9000.
 * Japan, 1850-1944, during which a fractious, feudal almost non-functional archipelago able to be bullied by private Portuguese, Dutch and British traders restored good government, rapidly industrialized, built a powerful army and navy which it used to assert its status a great power. As a great power, Japan was able to treat on equal terms with the likes of the United Kingdom, the German Empire, or the United States, and leveraged its power into an empire of its own in the Pacific, including, at its height, Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, most of coastal China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Phillipines.
 * Also, 1945-1991. Japan goes from a nation destroyed by firebombing and two atomic weapons with an economy in shambles to an industrial and technological power-house that dominated the computer and car-manufacturing industry.
 * Aron Ralston, upon whom 127 Hours is based. He spent three days with his arm trapped under a boulder, basically dying, . He survived, obviously.
 * The Supreme Court took its level with Marbury v. Madison. It went from being the least powerful branch of the U.S. government to being able to nullify the actions of any of the other two (due to vagueness of the Constitution). Having a Chessmaster in John Marshall as a Chief Justice didn't hurt either.
 * Wild animals start out as tiny and very weak babies, only for them to grow up (if they survive long enough) and have things like venom, razor sharp claws and teeth, horns, antlers, tusks, fast speed, huge strength etc.
 * You could say the same about humanity, for that matter.
 * The Kingdom of Prussia. What started out as merely one of the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire went and unified Germany by 1870.
 * The British Army during The First World War. While its standing army was one of the most professional forces the isles have ever produced, it was minuscule. However, with a mass recruitment drive and a realisation that the Royal Navy could not end the war quickly, the Army turned from a highly-drilled minnow to a juggernaut to equal the French and German Armies.
 * China. The country was arguably worse than Russia was through most of its existence. When Mao Tse-tung came along with his take on Communism in the late 40's, it only served to make things even worse. However, after the economic reforms by Mao's successor, n little over 60 years, it has become a global power that many believe even rivals the USA.
 * The Soviet Union in 1943. Before this time, it had a heavily outdated army devastated by internal strife, a populace that was uneducated and starving and a drought of scientific and technological progress. Hitler's armed forces almost destroyed the Soviet military, but after numerous counter-attacks (the most famous being Stalingrad) and a handy Russian Winter, the Soviets steam-rolled and conquered the Germans and invaded Japanese-held Manchuria. After that, they became a scientific, economic and military superpower, for a long time the only one capable of competing with the United States and the first nation to send a man into space.
 * Many of the most famous of war heroes come from rather humble beginnings. Simo Häyhä spent his life before the Winter War farming and hunting and started military service in a militia. Eddie Rickenbacker was the son of Swiss immigrants who was only educated until the age of 13 and nearly died in several varied accidents. Michael Wittmann was the son of a farmer and began his military service as a private.
 * Sharks. For a long time in their history, sharks were pretty much the butt monkeys for all manner of nastier sea-creatures. Sure, they were capable predators and numerous, but giant placoderms and mososaurs and bigger fish made life for them hell. That all changed after the KT Extinction Event. Sharks filled in the gaps left behind by the now-extinct aquatic predators and exploded into numerous variant species, living in just about every possible environment in the ocean, and becoming its top predators in many of those environments. It was only after the evolution of large toothed whales and dolphins like the sperm whale and orca that sharks had real competitors.
 * Speaking of evolution, everyone knows how Badass Tyrannosaurus Rex is, but not many people know that tyrannosaurs are coelurosaurs, NOT carnosaurs. In the Jurassic period, coelurosaurs were small, fluffy, and must have actually looked quite cute (Sinosauropteryx, the first known coelurosaur found with protofeathers, would be a good example.), but were Overshadowed by Awesome in the form of carnosaurs, spinosaurs, etc. However, come the Cretaceous period, the large meat-eaters of the Jurassic became old hat, and as they went into a decline, this left coelurosaurs with less competition. As you can imagine, SOMEONE *coughDilongcough* eventually thought it would be a good idea to crank the more advanced qualities of coelurosaurs Up to Eleven and take over the unoccupied apex predator spot that the carnosaurs had left behind, and history was made.
 * And speaking of dinosaurs, the T-Rex's bitter rival (at least on-screen) Triceratops was the end product of a long line of ceratopsian evolution that had rather humble origins. The very first ceratopsians were quite small, mostly ranging from dog to pig-sized. Some of them were truly strange, such as the bipedal Yinlong and the possibly amphibious Koreaceratops (Of course, this is a relatively recent discovery, so this may subject to change). However, towards the end of the Cretaceous period, the more recognizable four-legged, multiple large horned dinosaurs such as Triceratops, Torosaurus and Styracosaurus began to appear (though the bipedal line was still running around around the same time as their bigger, four-legged cousins). They and hadrosaurs had largely replaced the North American and Asian sauropod dinosaurs, much as the carnosaurs had largely been replaced by tyrannosaurs and dromaeosaurs in the same areas.
 * Ghengis Khan and the Mongols. He started off his "career" as a vassal to one of his father's friends, the tribes largely fractured and nomadic. By the end of his life he was the leader of a mighty, united Mongol Empire, becoming the scourge of the known world. His hordes carved out conquests that stretched from Siberia to Italy.
 * Humans. Went from being a bunch of (unusually clever) snacks for big cats...to what is possibly the most intelligent, most powerful species on the planet. What now, Neanderthal Man!?
 * This applies to mammals as well. In the Mesozoic Era, the best they could really do was prey on young dinosaurs and other reptiles, and most of them were tiny, harmless critters that adapted to being nocturnal because of the intense competition. Their ancestors, the Synapsids, were fairly successful during the Permian period, but after the massive extinction that happened at the end made them into what could be called the "Chew Toy" of the animal kingdom. But, when the non-avian dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles kicked the bucket and ushered in the Cenozoic era, the mammals outcompeted every other vertebrate and pretty much became the dominant clade in the entire freakin' world.
 * Military training is designed to help recruits Take a Level in Badass via Training from Hell.