The Cruelest Rulers In History
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- čas přidán 22. 06. 2024
- When we think of the evilest rulers in history, names like Joseph Stalin, and Benito Mussolini rush to mind. But it's important to remember that brutality existed in rulers well before the 1930s.
Others, like Attila the Hun or Chinese Empress Wu, may seem like obvious choices. But after looking deeper at the effects of their rule and how they were perceived by those they reigned over, it becomes clear that they're not the worst rulers in history. Instead, they suffered from then-contemporary historians' ire (Attila because he wasn't Roman, and Wu because she was a woman).
#worldleaders #politicians #weirdhistory - Zábava
Ghengis Khan has become somewhat of a household gene.
Chinggis Khan or Genghis Khan, whoever floats your horse.
Ironically creating more life then he’s taken
I read the title of this video too quickly and misread it as "the cutest rulers in history". 😆
Oh yeah?
Gotta admit they are adorable
🫢
Shit if Mao Zedong were alive today?🤩😏
Cleopatra... 😩🥵🥵🥵🥵😩😩
3:19 - His predicessor, Vladislav II, murdered his father (the body was never found), and buried his brother alive. Dracula would avenge this, by first surrounding Vladislav's army, forcing him into a duel, then _beating him to death with his bare hands._
@Silver Wolverine - True about his father and brother; I was being brief. No source I've ever found mentions a sister.
The way in which he disposed of Vladislav II was absolutely true. czcams.com/video/MY82EpsvbQ8/video.html
His Easter feast (the term later shamelessly paralleled by Anne Rice), was to avenge his father and brother, as well as to remove restrictions placed on him by the boyars. After they were good and drunk, he asked them how many princes they had known. They then answered: 20, 30, 40, "...even the youngest thought there had been seven." With that, they had all but confessed to regicide. Dracula had them al arrested. Those too young or too old to work, he impaled as an example. The rest, he marched for three straight days, in their Easter finery, to the ruins of Poenari Castle, where they worked themselves to death rebuilding it.
The Wallachian nobility was then replaced with subjects chosen for their loyalty and ability, 90% of whom were commoners. He made more free peasants into nobles than any other ruler.
A few of these, known as the seven Brothers Dobrin, would later rescue him, when Poenari Castle was under seige. Once they were safe in the mountains, he granted them all the land as far as the horizon, inscribed on a rabbit skin, which amounted to the single largest land grant in Romanian history.
He preferred to torture his victims by poking them with various implements. He was known as “Vladislav the Poker”.
@@Karlonstark - Pretty evil, but doesn't exactly strike fear in the hearts of one's enemies!
Everything Vlad Dracula did had a purpose, and it was always made public, usually by some famous man of letters, who just happened to be there to record it.
@@fleetcenturion Then Sultan Mehmet II put his head on a stick
Vlad Dracula sounds like a God of War character
"Ok, time to draft a team of the worst dudes ever."
- The Jets GM every year -
You forgot my 7th grade P.E. teacher... He should have gotten a mention, at least.
Oh no! In second grade we used to sit on the floor for reading time. The teacher used to step on people's fingers if they pissed her off. She had pointy heals and it was horrible.
If you think she was terrible my 3rd grade teacher hated me for some strange reason
Lol
Damn
She was a spinster and never married and she never had a family of her own except for her brother
Honorable mentions : Basil the Bulgarslayer, Selim the Grim, Attila the Hun, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, Stalin, the Austrian Painter
You forgot Dirk Diggler!
Nader Shah also
Basil the Bulgar Slayer was brutal!!! Count Dankula did an interesting video on The Byzantine Blinding. Really good video. Worth giving it a watch!
Bruh Attila the Hun was wild!!
the Austrian painter haha
We need a full video on Leopold II and Pol Pot. These quick glance overs don't do them justice.
Agreed. They were truly monsters.
thank you when i learned of King Leopold the II at home during high school i was disgusted that we did not learn or even condemn it as a nation at all. the crimes went completely unanswered and even supported by most countries due to thier need of the resource. horrible we dont have to learn and watch documentaries on that like we do the holocaust.
I'm sorry, but Mussolini doesn't even rank in the top three. I despise Fascism, but when you have Ivan, Vlad, Robespierre, Leopold, Talat Pasha, Mao and Pol Pot, Mussolini can't hold a candle.
Maybe not even in the top 20. Every ruler featured in the video was worse, along with Mao, Idi Amin, and a couple of Roman emperors.
Not to mention Hitler,Kim,Putin, Napoleon, TRUMP, Arafat, Brezhnev, and Stalin
This wasn’t a ranking. It’s impossible to objectively quantify cruelty.
He did say in the intro that it was about _some_ of the worst.
@@garycarpenter6433 hitler and stalin aren’t the same as trump 🤣
sneaking suspicion this video could have been an hour long. Sooo many villians.
You forgot Caligula and Mao.
Mao tops the list for his sheer numbers!
But majority of Mao’s victims was killed by his failed crazy social experiment’s.
@@StayBasedJesus
They'd still count.
I think even more so since the deaths were of citizens and not invading armies.
It still counts as genocide even if it's against your own people.
Caligula is disputable. It's known that his first 2 years of Rule were actually a great time of properity in Rome. After that, they are not sure what happen. Either a fall witch caused him having non stop seizures and being, well, Caligula how we know him today. But, there are more and more historians that believe that the Romans put Caligula away as a complete lunatic and wrote so about him, and that is backed up with how Caligula treated the Roman Nobility. If Caligula's stories are true, yess he should be on this list, it's just some trivia a Proffessor of mine onces told me in University.
We weren't there, so we have no clue how it actually went down. Perhaps Caligula was the first emperor of Rome that actually tried to move the power away from the Nobles, and the Preatorian guard, but we'll never know, since such stories are either destroyed, or not written, or simply not true.
Anyway, don't take this as offense, i wanted to just let you know this little small piece of Trivia i know about Roman's writtin History! Have a awesome day!
God, i love History! (and Basketball:D)
PS: B is for Banana?
Mao definitely put them numbers UP, son.
Mao never killed millions, thar cold war lie has been debunked many times its ridiculous 😒 people still think that way
I would love to see a video on the cruelest female rulers too. They were some bad mothers, figuratively and literally.
There are a lot fewer of them. If they did make such a video, I think Mary I of England and Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar would be in it. They could also include Elizabeth Bathory, but there's some doubt about whether she's guilty of what she was accused of.
@@otisdylan9532 there's also Wu Zetian, the Empress of China, and Bloody Mary of England.
@@RavynAngelDarck Bloody Mary and Mary I are the same person. You may be right about Wu.
Catherine of Russia
Irene. Wu zetaim. Olga of Kiev. OH yea.
Count Dracula: "Death is not the worst. There are things more horrible than death..."
Mina Harker: "Like what?"
Count Dracula: *Remembers the screams of impaled alive Ottomans as he sinisterly smiles*
Lol no wonder the ottomans took his head for display figurines then
@@theunbeatable6598 Ironically enough Vlad the Impaler himself much like the Ottomans was of Turkic origin, his Dynasty, the Basarab were of Cuman descent
@@nenenindonu His own brother teamed up with the Ottomans if I remember
@@theunbeatable6598 Yes his brother Radu remained loyal to the Ottomans and was a friend to Mehmed the Conqueror
Don't forget the Ottomans were the ones who crucified innocent People.
A lot of people who have history channels like this are not funny and the jokes fall flat but this guy his delivery is very good you sir just got a new sub
Vlad is a national hero in Romania. He’s one of the first to effectively use biowarfare against a much larger enemy. He managed to keep Wallachia out of Ottoman hands after decades under them. His methods, yes, were disgusting, but effective.
Exactly! And his methods, very effective when fighting savage enemy forces 10 times bigger then his (=the ottomans), are degusting to 20th century's ethics, but not at all considering the medieval well spread routines...
I Personally like Vlad the Impaler. He is my role model. ☠️👌
Same as Gengkis Khan, he is a hero in Mongolia...
Genghis was just a regular serial murderer with power, Vlad is the Chad
@@GeneralVanceStubbsCousin Vlad is a Chad?? …no? Wut?
Please do a history on Halloween (the holiday, not the movie).
Thank you for such an entertaining form of history. Your sense of humour and great compilations make these our favourite shows to watch
Speaking of Genghis Khan, there is actually a 1956 movie about him named "The Conqueror", in which the mongol Lord of War is played by no other than John Wayne (no wonder why that movie is considered one of the worst ever made). In fact, that film caused the death by cancer of 46 members of the staff, as it was filmed in zones actively used for nuclear tests
You're kidding? No way! And John Wayne as Genghis Khan, heck no! Nope, I prefer Wayne in a western. Actually, I'm not a John Wayne fan; I'm more so for Clint Eastwood, a total badass! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I'm Genghis Khan pilgrim
He was so nice in the "Night at the museum" movies.
Haha, always worth reading the comments in these videos
"You're beautiful in your wrath."
Finally, someone discusses Pol Pot.
I don't know of any other ruler in the history of the world that killed more than 20% of his country's population in just over 3 years.
He gets mentioned a lot. The new one to me was the colonizer from Belgium. No surprise he wasn't mentioned in school. He was a white Christian and his victims were neither.
@@Alverant A couple other things about Leopold are that he was long enough ago that no one remembers hearing about him on the news, and he wasn't very historically significant, or at least wasn't perceived to be.
@@Alverant uh what colonizers and their brutality are some of the biggest things taught in US schools
Why are the replies talking about Leopold but the comment is about pol pot?
Qin Zhi Huang is the title, translated from Chinese to be the First Emperor of Qin. Qin Zhi Huang's actual name is Ying Zhang.
Was he that bad??
tamerlane once besieged a city that was rebellious to his empire. after crushing the rebellion down and executing most of the citys men and enslaving the women and children, he then had to rebiuld the citys walls. to teach everyone a lesson he used the war captives as living bricks, so they were biuld in to the wall alive.
He is me
Biuld lol
@@Bobba8590 5k u it was a tapping mistake, so what ?!
U should definitely make a part two
Fantastic video keep it up your doing amazing job
Such a great channel. Always enjoy your vids
Vlad the Impaler deserves his own video.
The most cruel people in history are always more remembered then the good its sad
I like how the title of the video doesn't mention "worse than hitler" because that would prolly hurt the ad revenue
And also it wouldn't be a good title.
A+ video!
Fascinating topic and video!
I am curious of the rationale of why those tactics and strategies are used.
Mao entered the chat.
He felt left out 😅
Correction: Timur claimed to be Chinggis Khan's son-in-law, aka Guregen or Gurkani, after he married one of his female descendants named Suray Mulk Khanum, daughter of Qazan Khan ibn Yasa'ur of the Chagatai Ulus of the Chagatai lineage. He also claimed to be spiritual descendant of Ali, son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, as well. So as Muslim ruler, he can proclaimed himself as Emir.
He told me he used to party with belushi
@@shoelesblondlady Who?
If I married Chaka Khan, what relation would I be to Genghis?
@@abqnm8811 Who's Chaka Khan?
You should do a video on Elizabeth Báthory!
I could watch this channel all day.. great job.. your voice is legendary. I HATH SPOKEN
Thanks for this! 💥 #WeirdHistory #WorldLeaders
These are all good choices, but it's always possible to name more. Excluding those that you mentioned somewhere (such as Stalin and Attila), some that you could include if you made a part 2 are Mao, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and at least one Roman emperor. Nero and Caligula are the obvious choices for the latter, but it could be that if you looked into the lesser known Roman emperors, you might find one that's as bad or worse. Maybe there's also a medieval or early modern European monarch that could be included. I think of Henry VIII and Mary I of England, but there could be another that's worse.
You forget Lenin and King Louis and Marie Antoinette
Would LOVE to see a full episode on Vlad III 😲
Good Halloween episode!
Any chance you could do a video on the history of the salute?
Keep this up. The reason I subbed
"You could make a religion out of...."
"No. Don't."
If you think those rulers were bad then you never met my sister-in-law
We must be related. Mine is pretty bad 🤣
I just discovered this channel and I'm addicted already!!
The second guy was actually pretty smart. Make your home scary so other bad people stay away lmao. Maybe I'll keep Halloween decorations all year round so people will think I'm a creepy goth lady who has nothing worth stealing!!!
Oh, he was smart. But he was also ruthless.
Did you know back in medieval Russia they had a specific hole that they would throw their rulers in for being too facetious?
It was called the tsar chasm!
Boooo 😂
Huang Di is 1 of the most revered historic figures in China. What he built was absolutely awe inspiring. I went to the Terra Cotta Army in Yi An and I was blown away by the weight of history in that place. His tomb, which hasn't been opened because archeologists don't have a way to preserve it yet, is said to contain a lake of mercury and a vaulted ceiling with precious stones set as star constellations. He is also said to have reformed the education system of China and standardized the writing system through all of China that modern Chinese, Korean and Japanese are based on.
#weirdhistory.
I am writing an essay for the Mongols and I was wondering what sources you used??
Curious, I read a lot about Vlad Tepes, but I really don't know if he was a cruel ruler, per se. He was brutal to his enemies, and those who murdered his family, but how did he rule? How did the common people do under him. The same would go for most of these I suspect. You can be a cruel person, I imagine, and be a decent ruler.
Good point, and the common person, those not impaled to act as scarecrows for the Turks, at least, did relatively well during his rule, I think. But not the beggars of at least one town/city, because he held a "Christmas feast" or whatever holiday for them in a large wooden building, shut and barred the doors, and set it on fire to kill them all. I hear the crime rate went way down. But apparently he also had a man's wife executed because the hems of his nightdress were frayed, and that apparently offended his sensibilities. I hope that story is fake.
I would say, that the difference between Vlad and most of the other rulers, were that Vlad was focused on defending rather than conquering. His brutal way of putting fear into the Ottomans, is seen as a reason why Romania and Romanians today for example, aren't under Islamic influence.
He would be cruel towards any enemy and what could be seen as traitors, which could indeed have been his own people. Which is what makes it hard to give a specific answer whether he was a good or a bad ruler, since the definition of being a "traitor" is Vlad's view is rather unknown.
Nevertheless, his legacy is what makes him a hero in our view today. That he kept the Romanian language alive in a time of conquering. I'm saying this as a Romanian who grew up outside of Romania, most likely some other Romanians might have a more qualified answer.
Adolf & Stalin has entered the chat lol 😂
It’s the narrator and their side comments for me lol 1 of my favorite channels! Please keep giving us videos ❤
Love this channel, waay to many interruptions
Prince Vlad was one of the good guys.
Why am I fascinated with this??
Some minor corrections to the way you describe names... 1) The Khan in Genghis Khan is a title, not a surname, so to call him "Khan" is like referring to Queen Elizabeth as "Queen." 2) Chinese names are written with their surname first. MAO Zedong, YAO Ming, etc. Same with QIN Shi Huang. Huang is basically the middle name, so calling him "Huang" would be like calling FDR "Delano".
Qin Shi Huang was his title. Not even his name….
Please make a video about Emma Goldman!
You forgot Francois Duvalier
Please cover the rise & fall of the Portuguese empire. They spent centuries punching above their weight class, I'd love to hear that story.
My gf is Portuguese. Would love to listen to that while she stares at me 😅
As a Portuguese citizen, the fall can be surmised in one word: "Spanish". Our loss of independence (and some stupid moves made by our previous monarchs, and yes, I am talking about King Sebastião) to Spain was the trigger to the fall of our empire. Their enemies became our enemies and Spain dared to attack one of our oldest allies (England, we have a treaty since the marriage of D. João I to Phillippa of Lancaster) with our ships. Then the English allied with the Dutch and we started to lose wars and colonies. The rest was history. By the time we regained our independence in 1640, the harm was already done. Because we were never a big and super powerful country, those 60 years were fatal.
Still the best narrator on CZcams Well done....
I love your videos because there about history
Qin was the worst of this list. he had a habit of burying people alive. just one example: when they finished making his tomb (the one with the terra cotta warriors) he buried the builders and architects alive. he was eating mercury daily because he thought it was an elixir of life, went crazy, and died.
the Egyptian pharaohs were buried the same way to keep the tomb opening a secret. People were entombed alive in the Pyramid with the Pharaoh.
2:10 - Timur the Lame (Tamerlane) was a Tartar (so yes, a descendant of Genghis Khan), not a Turk. He was also an ally of Mercia the Great, grandfather of Vlad the Impaler.
🤓
and he made a mean sauce
How about a deep dive into the Cambodian Killing Fields?
It is hard to say they were all evil psychopaths.
it is EASY to say, you mean. Just lol with saying it was "hard".
You forgot the worst of the worst: Mao Tse Tung.
So glad to see you didn't use the updated "Mao Zedong".
My friend had a Siamese cat that he named "Mousey Tongue". 🤣🤣🤣
You should have included Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines who ruled the country from 1965 - 1986. Thousands of Filipinos were wrongfully arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered in his tyrannical regime.
Now carry the 2.... whew that's a sh*t load of skulls...
🤣 I subscribed right then 😂
As an Armenian I want to deeply thank you for mentioning the Armenian Genocide in the video. To this day, the Turkish Government still denies the fact that the genocide ever happened, and they were never held accountable for all the atrocities they did towards 1.5 million innocent Armenians.
My friend and I (while visiting Istanbul, ironically) once found a 40 page document published by the Turkish government that was basically a rant denying that anything ever happened. It’s so sad that they deny it to the extent that they were willing to put in the energy to write 40 pages of that drivel.
😂😂 innocent
One little suggestion: it’s really weird that you call Qin Zhi Huang “Huang”. The title literally means first (=Zhi) emperor (=huang) of Qin Kingdom/dynasty. Nobody calls him Huang in Chinese, we call him by his name (Yin Zhen), Zhi Huang Di (first emperor) or most commonly Qin Zhi huang.
Are there any movies on him? I've watched so many Chinese movies from the 80s and 90s thinking they were fictional, but I bet some of them were based on true stories.
5:12 Qin Shi Huang- grew paranoid about the danger posed by an educated public-
Hmm sounds like certain politicians today…🤔
History is made every single day! We might see some new modern additions to this list!
A whole series could be done on this topic as there were many who actually were and some who were most likely just scapegoats for others to cover their own failings or whatever other reason they had questionable claims made against them.
Qin Shi Huang sounds comedically close to a previous president.
As a matter of fact... If someone check mates you... And you don't topple the king but instead leave it standing A heart attack can change the outcome of that game As long as it occurs Before the board is reset. I never topple my king.
The USA Basketball Team photo though. Hilarious
My top 5 (Pre-20th Century) would be Genghis Khan, Timur, Leopold II, the Qianlong Emperor, and Ferdinand & Isabella
Honorable mentions would include Pope Innocent III, Selim I, Hernan Cortez, and Oliver Cromwell
If i'm not mistaken the act of impalement that Vlad became a poster child of, was really something kind of common in that time period. Like in the movie Medieval about Jan Zizka, his nephew was impaled, thus was something use din many other places too. So also in the Ottoman empire. Like he was a hostage sure, but was educated and trained as any other ottoman prince. So you can argue that his taste for impalements was groomed in that time he spend with the ottomans. He just treat them with their own poison pretty much. I can understand that if ottomans used that type of killing in certain situations, maybe to people they deem unworthy or whatever, it was just his way to show his total disrespect towards the ottomans. The only gripe i may have is that he used impalement to anyone just on basis of religion. So not just high ranking people or thieves or stuff like that, somewhat like north men had their blood eagle. But to anyone, kids too just because they were muslim. But you know, like i said, he learned from them, so maybe they too were doing it to other faiths in order to make that connections in his mind.
Also i think that his father was part of an European group, i believe with strong Christian beliefs, where all were called dragons. He was older when got taken hostage and never forgot his family and lineage so he took his father's place in the way he wanted and not in the way the Ottomans wanted. The indoctrination didn't stick. So he took the name of Dragon that was just translated in drac. So Vlad Dracul would rather be Vlad the Dragon not Dracula.
I HEARD from a romanian, that he impaled more of his own civilians than the enemy soldiers. (Also i imagine its true since if he did impale that many jannissaries, he would have been killed long ago since ottomans wouldnt let that slide) And that he was raped as a child in ottoman palace. So his childhood trauma might have been the cause of his rampage. Especially when you consider impaling can be done through the butt. Also ottomans didnt impale people, their execution methods were simple, beheading for enemies and strangulation for their own
Chinggis Khan's early childhood and experiences were very brutal - really not surprising what he became Same goes for Vlad the Impaler
Wait until we get Vlad the Nuker!
All the Khans grew up absolutely brutally.
Really puts all those "mean tweets" into perspective
2:45 "No mercy approach." There's a missed opportunity to insert the coach of Jonny from The Karate Kid here. Dammit.
Vlad was pretty badass honestly. He beat multiple people of power in single combat to the death to avoid bloodshed between armies. Stuff that happens in movies really happened in vlad’s life. He took on the civilization that ended the Roman’s and despite all odds, had a lot of success.
I heard a story about how after days or maybe even weeks of fighting he just disguised himself walked across the way to the enemy camp and killed there leader just to walk right back
Ivan the Terrible and Timur look similar lol😅
Related?
@@notsureiL No its just that both reconstructions were made by Russians hence they look identical
The Dothraki from GOT were partially inspired by the mongols
@Weird History could you tell us about the gold rush and how Native Americans set up their own tribal governments/nations?
What do you get when you cross a French Ruler and a grenade?
Napoleon Blown-Apart!!!
😂😂😂😂
Vlad was cruel to his enemies, not his people
"My children! Bathe your immortal souls in the virtue of my republic!" -Robespiere, probably
Do a “Life in peak Yugoslavia”
Chinggis isn't comparable to anyone since he possessed an extraordinary potential of military power which enabled him to commit brutality on a larger scale. He led to the extinction of two populous ethnic groups, Tanguts and Khitans
Sounds like he belongs on a list of the Cruelest Rulers in History
They will all pale in comparison to Vlad the Nuker by the time he's done.
💀
No . I’m a tangut actually we still survivie
@@cd5433 im glad to hear that
You missed the contenders among our presidents. There have been many. Like the one we have right now.
Good list, but why no Mao? Atilla?
You guys forgot Edi Amin with that theme song
Why was Mao Zedong not in this video? 80 Million should have earned him the #1 spot.
The past is no longer a mys-tery Thanks to weird His-Tory
using this as a reference in my "Significant Individuals in Medieval History" essay 😎
I know this is meant to highlight the brutality but it leaves a great deal out about a lot of these guys.
If the person you're playing chess against dies from a heart attack In the middle of the game the rules are pretty clear you win
Vlad Tepes was a hero.
Not a brutal ruler. Only to his enemies.
This list is wrong.
It's sad on how we are so cruel to each other, life is short life is meant to be good to each other, but i do see the point in keeping the population low at a certain point because if there was no high deaths there be way too many of us by now but being evil like this you will never be in a good place when you die
Interesting 👍
Typical, there is no anglosaxon, despite the fact many of them have unreachable record in deaths and cruelty
If they do a part 2, they could include Henry VIII or Mary I.
@@otisdylan9532 Or Victoria
Has nobody mentioned Henry VIII? (Yes, the one who executed two of his six wives) It is estimated 50,000 to 70,000 people were executed during his reign - much higher numbers than those of Ivan the Terrible.
Can you do a video on American serial killers 😅
I'd argue that the Genghis Khan and the Mongols would be more inclined to do the "locomotion" as opposed to the "electric slide" since "The Loco-Motion" (song) was made popular by singer Kylie "Mongolue" (aka Minogue). 😉😊
You guys should do more things with old insane asylums
The White House and the Capital.