The Most Evil and Vile Rulers In History

The Most Evil and Vile Rulers In History

By Chris Gamble

There is a lot of chatter today about ruthless leaders and useless wars. Many of today's people and especially the young do not know the true extent of past evil rulers.

It is hard to quantify evil. However, these heads of state surely qualify as just that. Ranging from sick to maniacal to just outright twisted, these evil rulers set a standard nobody wants to follow. Each one can be verified with little effort or simply through Wikipedia. These are most evil and vile rulers in history.

20. Ho Chi Minh

As far as communist dictators go he was pretty tame, at least compared to the others on this list. However, Ho Chi Minh was still responsible for policies that resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians dying. He also executed 100,000 people who opposed his land reforms. Basically they were killed for not wanting to starve to death or leave their lands.

19. Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan

The third president of Pakistan, Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan was a pretty brutal guy. He declared martial law and waged a ruthless war against Eastern Pakistan. The result was the death of millions between his war against Eastern Pakistan and various other disastrous policies.

18. Kim Jong-Il

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans were arrested for petty crimes such as letting a photo of him hit the ground. Millions died of starvation, a number that might never be fully known. He lived a lavish lifestyle including spending millions on imported liquor during his reign that he didn't even have the decency to share with his people who were starving. Kim Jong-Il is one of the vilest human beings to ever live. Even after he passed away people were imprisoned for not mourning hard enough.

17. Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia is responsible for well over one million deaths. When he took power he took three bottles of blood and tossed them on the stage after announcing his rivals would be put to death. Then he had his enemies garroted in the streets and then had the gall to tax the families of the dead for wanting the return of their loved one.

16. Vladimir Lenin

Lenin was responsible for the death of millions in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. He purged his own party of potential rivals to cement his hold on the government. He let millions starve to death, executed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and the sad part was he wasn't even the most brutal dictator in his country's history.

15. Vlad Tepes

You know him as Vlad the Impaler. That nickname comes from his propensity of impaling his enemies either through the face or through the rectum. The Prince of Wallachia defeated an army of Turks and impaled between 20,000 and 30,000 of them outside of his castle. When the Sultan showed up to put him in his place, he and his men fled after seeing a forest of impaled skeletons. He was no friend of Muslims and would enslave and murder them whenever and wherever he could. His total death toll is not known, but it was well into the tens of thousands if not many more. He is also the inspiration for Dracula, and it is believed he impaled innocent people just because he enjoyed the impalement process so much.

14. Caligula

The third Roman emperor once said he wished Rome had one neck so he could chop all the heads at once. He chewed on political opponents’ testicles, sometimes while they were being tortured to death. He had no problem killing children and would sometimes do it himself. His victims would endure days of torture and pain before dying. He also had a large appetite for women and even had relationships with his three sisters. He believed himself a god and would demand a man’s wife, sometimes killing the husband in front of the wife if he refused. He also had no problem killing his own family. Many more were killed through forced famine. You could say he was a little off his rocker.

13. Idi Amin

In the eight years he was in command of Uganda he killed an estimated 300,000 Ugandans. Most of his victims were Christians who he thought were loyal to deposed dictator Milton Obote. There were rumors he would keep his political enemies’ bodies in his fridge and that he engaged in cannibalism.

12. Saddam Hussein

He ran Iraq from 1979 to 2003 and was responsible for killing two million civilians during that time. He also started a war with Iran and invaded Kuwait. He used chemical weapons against the Kurds and is responsible for killing 100,000 of them in 1987-88. About 40 of his own family were also murdered. Many of the executions of Iraqi citizens were filmed so he could watch them later.

11. Sultan Mehmed V

The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1909 to 1918, he was responsible for what is known today as the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian people were non-Muslims living in the Ottoman Empire. Well, the Turks started rounding up the Armenians in 1915 and executing them. Those not killed were tossed out of the country. Over 1.5 million Armenians, of a population of about 2.5 million, were killed by Sultan Mehmed V and his men. It was the first modern instance of genocide being committed. Even today Turkey refuses to acknowledge that it was genocide.

10. Pol Pot

The communist leader led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 to 1997 and was dictator of Cambodia for four years. During his reign one to three million people were killed. To put that in perspective, Cambodia only had a population of about eight million at the time.

9. Kim Il Sung

The North Korean dictator invaded South Korea and wasn’t very nice to his own people either. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans went to labor camps for crimes as silly as dropping a picture of Kim Il Sung on the ground. While living an opulent lifestyle, he watched as about 3.5 million North Koreans died of disease and famine.

8. Ivan IV

You know him as Ivan the Terrible. Some believe he was actually mentally ill, but the first tzar of Russia had some serious issues with the people he ruled. He was known for frying people in giant pans, impaling people and built walls around his city. The walls weren’t to keep invaders out but rather to keep people in. Then he went and started a war with Sweden, Lithuania and Poland that lasted 24 years. After that he got really crazy. He and his son would have his men round up peasants and then watch as they were tortured and killed. Oh, he also killed that son as well. It isn’t known how many people died as a result of his reign, but it was a lot.

7. Leopold II

The Belgian king decided he really wanted the ivory and rubber that were found in central Africa, so he created the Congo Free State to make sure he got it. Millions of Congolese people were enslaved, tortured and murdered. An estimated three to six million Congolese died as a result of Leopold II’s quest to establish an African colony. Some estimates are as high as 15 million.

6. Attila the Hun

When he conquered an area he would often put the entire city to the sword. He ruled through fear and conquered that way as well. He sacked Rome and murdered Romans by the thousands. He also had no problem killing his own family and he killed, and ate, two of his sons. He also killed his brother because he deemed him a threat to his throne. He also found Saint Ursula, the perpetual virgin, and wanted to marry her. She refused his proposal so he killed her and 11,000 of her followers.

5. Genghis Khan

The Mongol leader is known as one of the most aggressive rulers in history. He conquered land from Asia to Europe. He was also a bit unstable. He killed his brother when he was 10 for stealing a fish. He also might hold the record for the most people killed in a single day with a death toll of about one million in what was known as the sacking of Urgench. Also included in his death toll is about three quarters of the entire population of the Iranian Plateau, an estimated 10-15 million people. The exact death tolls will never be known, but it is in excess of 20 million.

4. Adolf Hitler

You thought he would be No. 1, didn’t you? Well, you can easily make the case he should be. Six million Jews and a total of 17 million civilians believe he should be. He has become synonymous with evil and for good reason.

3. Emperor Hirohito

The Japanese emperor often gets overlooked because he lived in the same era as Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong. However, Hirohito was responsible for killing millions of Chinese during World War II. Prisoners of war, including Americans, were used as bayonet practice for Japanese troops. Japan was also the only country in World War II to use poison gas in a military capacity against both troops and civilians. Millions more Vietnamese, Filipino and Indonesian people were killed through famine and forced labor. Estimates put the death toll from Japanese war crimes as high as 30 million. Some have defended the emperor because he was not always aware of what his military was doing, but that is a lame excuse. He was never held responsible for his crimes as the United States thought it would not be beneficial to upset the Japanese populace by killing their emperor. He died in 1989.

2. Josef Stalin

The Five Year Plan was an idea of Stalin’s that was supposed to change the industrial and agricultural aspects of the Soviet economy. Hundreds of thousands of poor died as a result of starvation that ensued. Then, to solidify his grip on the country, he started killing political enemies. Stalin’s policies also led to about 10 million in Ukraine dying of starvation. Approximately 30 million people were killed by Stalin making him one of the biggest mass murderers in history.

1. Mao Zedong

He is one of the biggest mass murderers in history. His Great Leap Forward, which was an attempt to change China’s economy through industrialization, was a disaster. It led to the deadliest famine in history and killed about 30 million Chinese. What is it about communist dictators and starving their own people in the name of so-called progress? Not wanting to be outdone, he decided to purge the country of perceived enemies of the state. Millions more died as a result. In total, he killed between 40 and 70 million Chinese through starvation, execution and forced labor.