10. He Was A Parachuting Instructor (Amongst Other Stuff)
Born in the late 1910s and brought up in the New York neighbourhood known as Hell's Kitchen, Nick Fury became an amateur boxer, which was a good skill to have in a very tough area of the Big Apple. Seeking adventure with his friend Red Hargrove, the pair joined Finley's Flying Circus - a travelling air-show - as a wing-walking act. They became excellent pilots and stuntmen during that time and travelled to England with the show. Whilst in England, their association with the military began and Fury would teach parachuting to members of the British Army - in particular Lt. Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, an American soldier attached to the British military. Happy Sam then went on a mission and persuaded Fury to join him, thus setting him on the path of becoming the bad-ass he would turn out to be.
