The 10 Most Famous Successful Assassinations

An assassination is a murder of an individual, who is usually a famous celebrity, politician, religious figure or royal. Usually in cases of assassination there is a clear motive – jealousy, political or religious idealism, contract killing, revenge etc. This list outlines the circumstances surrounding the death of 10 of the most famous successful assassinations in world history.

10. Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko was a Russian KGB agent, turned dissident and possible MI6 agent. On November 1st 2006, Litvinenko fell ill after eating at the London sushi restaurant Itsu. He had been receiving evidence about another murder while he was eating at the restaurant. On November 3rd, Litvinenko’s condition deteriorated and he was rushed to Barnet General Hospital in London. He died three weeks after his hospitalisation suffering from acute radiation syndrome spawned from exposure to the radioactive polonium-210. The incident gained huge worldwide media coverage, probably due to the similarities in the case to Hollywood spy movies. It is now accepted that Litvinenko was poisoned by a cup of tea in his hotel room. No one has been convicted of the murder; however, there are suspicions of Russian government involvement. Litvinenko died aged 44.

9. Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald was a former marine who the United States government claim was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Whether or not this is true, Oswald was himself assassinated two days after the fatal shooting of the President in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner with links to organised crime. Ruby had apparently been upset and angered by the murder ofthe President and had sought revenge. Oswald was shot on November 24th 1963 and died later that evening, aged 24.

8. John Lennon

John Lennon was one of the founding members of The Beatles, who had gone on to have worldwide success as a member of the band, and also as a peace activist. On December 8th 1980, Lennon was in New York City. As he was returning to his hotel that evening a man shouted his name. As Lennon turned around, the man shot Lennon four times. Lennon then stumbled into the hotel and collapsed. While this was taking place, the assassin Mark David Chapman dropped his weapon and sat on the street, waiting to be arrested. He was charged with murder and remains in prison to this day. His motivation for the murder is unclear.

7. Robert F. Kennedy

US Senator Robert F. Kennedy was the younger brother of John F. Kennedy. He was shot in the early hours of June 5th 1968 by a man named Sirhan Sirhan. A day later, Kennedy died in hospital. Kennedy had been shot four times at point-blank range. RFK as he was sometimes known had been a Presidential Candidate for the Democratic Party. It is unknown what Sirhan’s motivation for killing Kennedy was, however, it is assumed he was a Palestinian terrorist seeking revenge for the US support of Israel in the Six Day’s War of 1967. Kennedy died aged 42.

6. Malcolm X

Malcolm X, also known as Malcolm Little was an American black Muslim minister. He is often seen as the man behind the Black Power movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s in which African Americans radicalised and became driven toward freedom and towards gaining the respect of their fellow Americans. Malcolm had previously been a member of the Nation of Islam, however, he had become a Sunni Muslim. Apparently, following this, the Nation of Islam had given orders for the assassination of Malcolm X. On February 21st 1965, Malcolm had begun giving a speech when a man rushed through the crowd and shot Malcolm X with a sawn-off shotgun. Two other men joined in and Malcolm was shot a total of 16 times. The three men who killed Malcolm X were all members of the Nation of Islam. Despite often being labelled as a cold-hearted radical and a menace, the world was sympathetic towards Malcolm following his assassination. Malcolm X died aged 39.

5. Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King was the main man behind the American Civil Rights Movement. The movement was an attempt to abolish the racial discrimination of African Americans. King himself was black. On April 4th 1968, while standing on the balcony of his second floor motel room, King was fatally shot. Following the assassination there were riots in over 60 cities across the USA, and five days later, President Johnson declared a day of mourning. Two months later, escaped convict James Earl Ray was captured in London, and was extradited to Tennessee where he faced the a charge of murder against King. Ray was a white man who was opposed the African-AmericanCivil Rights Movement.

4. Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, and held tenure from 1861 until his death in 1865. John Wilkes Booth was a Confederate spy, who had become angry atthe President because of his support for the freedoms of African Americans. He became determined to assassinate Lincoln. On April 14th 1865, Lincoln was going to the theatre. With the presence of only one bodyguard wandering through the theatre, Booth seized his opportunity. He waited until laughter filled the theatre and shotthe President in the head. Booth escaped, but was caught and fatally shot twelve days later. Lincoln was aged 56 at the time of his death.

3. Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar was a Roman political and military figure in the 1st century B.C. He was a successful military leader and following considerable success he started a civil war in the Roman Republic. Following this, he was proclaimed dictator. However, some senators in Rome were disillusioned by what Caesar had done, and so planned an assassination to take place on the Ides of March. While walking past the Theatre of Pompey, Caesar was stopped by a group of Senators to read a fake bill which was allegedly to give power back to the Senate. As Caesar did this, he was stabbed. According to historical evidence, there were as many as 60 Senators present. After Caesar was stabbed he tried to run away, but fell and was stabbed repeatedly on the floor. He had 23 stab wounds. His death marked the end of the Roman Republic, and out of the bloody aftermath emerged the Roman Empire.At the time of his death, Caesar was 57 years old.

2. Franz Ferdinand

Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand, and therefore heir to the Austrian throne is largely considered to be the catalyst for the beginning of World War I. On June 28th 1914 he was on a visit to Sarajevo, which was at that time a territory of Austria. While riding in an open-top car, he and his wife Sophie were shot by members of The Black Hand which was a Serbian group attempting to gain independence for all the states annexed by Austria-Hungary. World War I began two months after the assassination, with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. This declaration of war started a domino effect across Europe in which all the allies of Serbia declared war on Austria-Hungary and all of its allies.At the time of his murder, Ferdinand had been 50 years old.

1. John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States. He served from January 20th 1961 until his death on November 22nd 1963. His Presidency was one of the most event-filled of the 20th century. The space race, American Civil Rights Movement, Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, and the beginning of the Vietnam War all took place during his Presidency. Despite there being hundreds of witnesses to his assassination there is a lot of confusion surrounding Kennedy’s death to this day, leading many to suspect a conspiracy. Just before 12:30pm, Kennedy was travelling through Dallas in his open-top limousine. Three shots were then fired from a high-powered rifle, which all enteredthe president. Kennedy died soon after in hospital. Lee Harvey Oswald (see number 10) was charged with the murder of the President. This assassination in particular has had many conspiracies theorists, especially considering the until he died, Oswald maintained his innocence. Among those who have been accused are the FBI, Cuba, the CIA or the USSR. Many believe that there could have been a conspiracy among these groups. There has never been any conclusive evidence to prove that Oswald acted alone, or if he was even involved in the murder. Despite numerous investigations, the death is still shrouded in mystery.

Bonus: Mohandas Gandhi Wikipedia

On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was shot and killed while having his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla Bhavan (Birla House) in New Delhi. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu radical with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting upon a payment to Pakistan. Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were later tried and convicted; they were executed on 15 November 1949. Gandhi’s memorial at Rāj Ghāt, New Delhi, bears the epigraph “Hē Ram”, which may be translated as “Oh God”. These are widely believed to be Gandhi’s last words after he was shot, though the veracity of this statement has been disputed.

Source: http://listverse.com/2007/10/28/the-10-most-famous-successful-assassinations/

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Top 10 Evil Children

From time to time the unthinkable happens: children kill. Some decide to murder members of their own family in spite of their seemingly normal upbringing. Others do so because their upbringing was far from normal – often including beatings and abuse. Then there are misguidedchildren who, from the sheer desire to kill, go on murder sprees ending the lives of purely innocent victims. Children are supposed to be innocent and pure; without malice, contempt, sinister anger, or desires to kill, yet every year many commit horrific crimes. Here are Ten of the Most Evil Children in History, with number One exclusively dedicated to one foul group. The age limit for this list is 17 years.

10. Brian And David Freeman / Nelson Byrdwell

Bryan Freeman, 17, and David, 16, who had shaved and tattooed their heads as a symbol of their neo-Nazi beliefs, were immediate suspects when their parents and younger brother were found bludgeoned to death in their Salisbury Township, PA, home. The boys had been terrorizing the family and, as a whole, the town. As the police told it, the triple murder uncovered in Salisbury Township, Pa., that week was every parent’s nightmare — the ghastly culmination of a long-running battle of wills between Brenda and Dennis Freeman and their loutish, hulking sons Bryan, 17, and David, 16.

9. Edmund Kemper

In 1964, when Edmund Kemper was 15, he shot his grandparents, killing them both. He had been planning his repulsive act for some time and had no regrets later. The California Youth Authority detained him in Juvenile Hall so that they could put him through rigorous series of tests administered by a psychiatrist. Because the results suggested that he was a paranoid psychotic, he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital for treatment. There he learned what others thought about his crime and worked hard to make his doctors believe that he had recovered. Although he was considered a sociopath, he worked in the psychology lab to help administer the tests to others. In the process, he learned a lot about other deviant offenders. Kemper was released after another five years and remained under the supervision of the Youth Authority. His doctors recommended that he not be returned to his mother’s care, but the Youth Authority ignored this. After Kemper murdered and dismembered eight women over the next five years, these same doctors affirmed his insanity defense. In fact, even as he was carrying parts of his victims around, a panel of psychiatrists judged him to be no threat to society.

8. Joshua Phillips

In 1998, 14-year-old Joshua Phillips bludgeoned his 8-year-old neighbor to death and hid her body beneath his bed. Seven days later, his mother noticed something leaking from beneath the bed. Joshua claimed that’s he’d accidentally hit Maddie in the eye with his baseball bat causing her to scream. In his panic he dragged her to his home where he hit her again and then stabbed her eleven times. His story failed to convince a Florida jury, who convicted him of first-degree murder. His mother is still appealing his conviction based upon the fact that he was given an adult penalty for his crime.

7. Willie Bosket

Willie Bosket, born on December 9, 1962, is a convicted murderer, whose crimes, committed while he was still a minor, led to a change in New York state law, so that juveniles as young as thirteen could be tried in adult court for murder and would face the same penalties. On March 19, 1978, Willie Bosket, then fifteen years old, shot dead Noel Perez on the New York subway, during an attempt to steal some money and a watch. Eight days later, Bosket shot another man, Moises Perez (no relation to his first victim) in another botched robbery attempt. Bosket was tried and convicted of the murders in the New York City Family court, where he was sentenced to five years in prison (the maximum for a minor). The short length of Bosket’s sentence caused a public outcry, and led the New York State Legislature to pass the Juvenile Offender Act of 1978. Under this act,children as young as thirteen years old could be tried in an adult court for crimes such as murder, and receive the same penalties as adults. New York was the first state to enact a law of this nature; many other legislatures have since followed suit. Bosket was eventually released from prison, but has subsequently been convicted of anumber of other felonies, for which he has received a number of life sentences. He is currently in the New York prison system, in solitary confinement.

6. Laurie Tackett

On the morning of Saturday, January 11, 1992, Indiana resident Donn Foley and his brother Ralph decided to do some quail hunting in a nearby Jefferson County forest. Just one mile into their trip, as Donn turned onto Lemon Road, Ralph spotted a strange object just a few feet from the road in a barren soybean field. At once it appeared to them that it might be a body, but the form was so badly burned and scarred that it looked to them to be a doll. Upon closer investigation, it became painfully obvious that it was not a doll. Upon investigation, it turned out to be the body of Shanda Sharer who would later be found the victim of a jealous lesbian love triangle. Her body, prior to the murder, had been slashed and stabbed with death eventually resulting from torching. Laurie Tackett was ultimately implicated along with Toni Lawrence and Hope Rippey.
Mary Laurine (Laurie) Tackett was born on October 5, 1974 in Madison, Indiana. Her mother was a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian and her father was a factory worker with two felony convictions and prison stints in the 1960s. Tackett claimed she was molested at least twice as a child, at ages five and twelve.

5. Brenda Anne Spencer

On Monday, January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer used a rifle to wound eight children and one police officer at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, and to kill Principal Burton Wragg and custodian Mike Suchar. The school was across the street from her house. She used the rifle she had recently been given for Christmas by her father. When the six-hour incident ended and the pretty teenager was asked why she had committed the crime, she shrugged and replied, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” She also said: “I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun.” “It was just like shooting ducks in a pond.” and “[Thechildren ] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings.” Her lack of remorse and inability to provide a serious explanation for her actions when captured inspired the song “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats, written by socialist musician Bob Geldof. Her quote “I don’t like Mondays” also appears written on a wall in the movie, The Breakfast Club.

4. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson (both 10 years old) had been stealing things all day at the shopping center — candy, a troll doll, some batteries, a can of blue paint, and other incidentals. Why did they decide to steal 2 year-old James Bulger? Was it a plot or a sudden, overwhelming compulsion? Once they had him, they didn’t know what to do with him. They could have easily discarded him, leaving him alone on the sidewalk by a shop where someone would discover the crying baby. But Jon and Robert, likechildren who would rather destroy their own possessions than give them to another, murdered the little boy. James’s parents would never see their baby alive again. The video cameras at the mall caught several images of James Bulger in the hands of his killers, frozen in time. He was to be taken on a long, aimless walk, cruelly tortured along the way. James was senselessly beaten to death by his ten-year-old captors, who callously abandoned him on the railroad tracks.

3. Jesse Pomeroy

Jesse Pomeroy was 14 when he was arrested in 1874 for the horrific murder of a four-year-old boy. He was quickly labeled “The Boston Boy Fiend.” His horrible trek had begun three years earlier with the sexual torture of seven other boys. For those crimes, Pomeroy was sentenced to achildren ’s reform school but was released early. Not long after, he mutilated and killed a 10-year-old girl who came into his mother’s store. A month later, he kidnapped 4-year-old Horace Mullen, took him to a swamp outside town and slashed him so savagely with a knife that he nearly decapitated him. Because of his strange appearance (he had a milky white eye) and his previous abhorrent behavior, he was under suspicion. When he was shown the body and asked if he’d done it, he responded with a nonchalant, “I suppose I did.” Then the girl was found buried in his mother’s cellar and he confessed to that murder, as well. He was convicted and sentenced to death. Following a public outcry against condemningchildren to death, his sentence was commuted to forty years of solitary confinement.

2. Mary Bell

Mary Bell was convicted of strangling a young boy, Martin Brown, on May 25, 1968, the day before her 11th birthday. She was, as far as anyone knows, alone on this occasion. On July 31, 1968, Mary and her friend (Norma Bell – no relation to Mary) took part in the death, again by strangulation, of three-year-old Brian Howe. Police reports concluded that Mary Bell had gone back after killing him to carve an “N” into his stomach with a razor, this was then changed using the same razor but with a different hand to an “M”. Mary Bell also used a pair of scissors to cut off bits of Brian Howe’s hair and part of his genitals. As the girls were so young and their testimonies contradicted each other, it has never been entirely clear precisely what happened. Martin Brown’s death was initially ruled an accident as there was no evidence of foul play. Eventually, his death was linked with Brian Howe’s killing and in August, the two girls were charged with two counts of manslaughter. Mary was released in 1980 with court ordered anonymity. In 2003, the courts awarded her and her daughter anonymity for life.

1. School Shootings

The rise of school shootings has been staggering over the past 15 years and they still leave many people ultimately wondering why? Most of the kids involved had been ridiculed one way or another by not only school mates, but also family members at home. These murderous children acquired large caliber weapons in most cases; though in others, knives, hand guns, or the like were brought in to their schools and use just as effectively. Teachers, faculty, and students loose their lives each and every time this happens. Here are just a few of the incidents:

March 24th, 1998 – Andrew Golden (11) and Mitchell Johnson (13) gunned down 15 people in the Westside Middle School Playground.
April 20th, 1999 – Eric Harris (18) and Dylan Klebold (17) Columbine High School – 13 dead, 25 injured.
November 15th, 1995 – Jamie Rouse (17) Richland School Tennessee – 4 injured, 2 dead
February 2nd, 1996 – Barry Loukaitis (14) Moses Lake, Washington School – 3 dead, 2 injured
May 21st, 1998 – Kipland Kinkle (14) Springfield Oregon – 3 dead including parents, 8 wounded

Source: http://listverse.com/2007/11/23/top-10-evil-children/

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Top 10 Famous Slaves

Slavery is a very ancient institution which is even sanctioned in the Bible: “Let your bondmen, and your bondwomen, be of the nations that are round about you” [Leviticus 25:44]. While most of the Western world has abolished this practice, there are still some nations that turn a blind eye to a very active slave trade. This is a list of the most famous slaves in history. It is very difficult to write such a subjective list in light of the enormous number of slaves that are known in history, nevertheless I have endeavored to do so.

10. Margaret Garner

Margaret Garner was a slave in pre-Civil War America notorious for killing her two year oldbutcher knife, rather than see the child returned to slavery. Margaret was not tried for murder, but was forced to return to a slave state along with her youngest child, and a daughter aged about nine months. The Liberator reported on March 11, 1856 that the steamboat Lewis, on which the Garners were traveling, began to sink and thatMargaret and her baby daughter were thrown overboard when another boat coming to their rescue hit the Lewis. Sadly, the baby was drowned. It was reported thatMargaret was happy that her baby had died and that she would try to drown herself. daughter with a

9. Abram Petrovich Gannibal

Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal, (1696 – 20 April 1781) was an African slave who was brought to Russia by Peter the Great and became major-general, military engineer and governor of Reval. He is perhaps best known today as the great-grandfather of Aleksandr Pushkin, who wrote an unfinished novel about him, The Moor of Peter the Great.

8. Ammar ibn Yasir

Ammar bin Yasir is one of the most famous companions of Muhammad, and was among the slaves freed by Abu Bakr. He is venerated by Shi’a Muslims as one of the Four Companions, early Muslims who were followers of Ali ibn Abi Talib. Ammar was born in the Year of the Elephant (570). Therefore he is as old as Muhammad. Ammar was a friend of Muhammad even before Islam. He was one of the intermediaries in his marriage to Khadijat Al-Kubra. He was a slave of Banu Adi. He was killed by a group loyal to Mu’Awiyah in the battle of Siffin (657). His killer was ibn Hawwa esaksaki and Abu Al’Adiyah.

7. Nat Turner

Nat Turner was a black preacher who led an 1831 uprising in Southampton County, Virginia in which at least 55 whites were killed by a group of about 50slaves . Turner was a deeply religious man who claimed to have visions and directives from God. On the night of 21 August 1831 he led four otherslaves (Henry, Hark, Nelson and Sam) on a murderous spree near the town of Jerusalem, killing men, women and children in their beds. By the next day his mob had grown to at least 40 or 50, but the local militia confronted and captured most of them. Turner escaped, but was eventually captured in October and tried. He was hanged and skinned 11 November 1831. Before he was executed, he described his actions to Thomas R. Gray, and “The Confessions of Nat Turner” was later widely published in newspapers. Turner’s failed rebellion led to hundreds of blacks being murdered by white vigilante mobs, and spurred a new set of strict codes that limited the activities ofslaves.

6. James Somersett

James Somerset or Somersett was a young African slave who was purchased by Charles Stuart in Virginia in 1749. Stuart was involved in English government service and traveled as part of his duties accompanied by Somerset, who at the time did not have a first name. In 1769, Stuart along with Somersett traveled to England. While in England, Somersett met and became involved with people associated with the anti-slavery movement in England including the well known activist Granville Sharp. During this period, Somersett was christened with the name James in a church ceremony. Somersett was recaptured after escaping, and his trial ultimately spelt the end ofslavery in England (though not English participation in slavery in its other nations).

5. Enrique of Malacca

Enrique of Malacca was a native of the Malay Archipelago. Also known as Henry the Black, he was Ferdinand Magellan’s personal servant and interpreter. He had been reportedly captured by Sumatran slavers from his home islands. In 1511 he was purchased by Ferdinand Magellan in a Malaccan slave market and baptized as Henrique (spanish Enrique), (his original name is not recorded). Thereafter he worked as a personal slave and interpreter, accompanying Magellan back to Europe, and onwards on Magellan’s famous search for a westward passage to the Pacific Ocean. He is simply called Enrique on the ship’s muster roll, and Henrich in Pigafetta’s account of the expedition. If a loose definition of circumnavigation (ie, not returning to the exact same spot), then Enrique has an undisputed claim to being the first circumnavigator. He made the first known cultural circumnavigation, travelling around the world until he reached people who spoke his language. He (and Magellan) may also have crossed every meridian — that is he crossed every line of longitude, or circumnavigated the poles.

4. Frederick Douglass

Born in bondage on the eastern shore of Maryland, Douglass worked for several different slaveholders in both eastern Maryland and Baltimore between 1818 and 1838. During his youth, Douglass became proficiently literate by readingthe Bible and classic orations and listening to the sermons of antislavery black preachers and Quakers. These experiences later contributed to his unyielding abolitionism and fierce egalitarianism. In 1838, while a ship caulker’s apprentice, Douglass acquired free seaman papers and escaped to New York City. He then moved to Massachusetts and became involved in antislavery activism, under the tutelage of William Lloyd Garrison. Eventually rejecting the apolitical nature of Garrisonian abolitionism, Douglass moved to Rochester, New York, and founded his own abolition journal, The North Star.

3. Saint Patrick

St. Patrick is revered by Christians for establishing the church in Ireland during the fifth century AD. The precise dates and details of his life are unclear, but some points are generally agreed: as a teen he was captured and sold intoslavery in Ireland, and six years later he escaped to Gaul (now France) where he later became a monk. Around 432 he returned to Ireland as a missionary and succeeded in converting many of the island’s tribes to Christianity. Late in life he wrote a brief text, Confessio, detailing his life and ministry. His feast day, March 17, is celebrated as a day of Irish pride in many parts of the world.

2. Aesop

Aesop, famous for his Fables, is supposed to have lived from about 620 to 560 BC. The place of his birth is uncertain — Thrace, Phrygia, Aethiopia, Samos, Athens and Sardis all claiming the honor. We possess little trustworthy information concerning his life, except that he was the slave of Iadmon of Samos and met with a violent death at the hands of the inhabitants of Delphi. Aesop must have received his freedom from Iadmon, or he could not have conducted the public defense of a certain Samian demagogue (Aristotle, Rhetoric, II 20). According to the story, he subsequently lived at the court of Croesus, where he met Solon, and dined in the company of the Seven Sages of Greece with Periander at Corinth. It is probable that Aesop did not commit his fables to writing; Aristophanes represents Philocleon as having learned the “absurdities” of Aesop from conversation at banquets, and Socrates whiles away his time in prison by turning some of Aesop’s fables “which he knew” into verse.

1. Spartacus

Spartacus, a Thracian, served in the Roman army. He became a bandit and was sold as a slave when caught. He escaped a gladiatorial school, where he had plotted a revolt with other gladiators, and set up camp on Mount Vesuvius, where he was joined by other runawayslaves and some peasants. With a force of 90,000, he overran most of southern Italy, defeating two consuls. He led his army north to the Cisalpine Gaul, where he hoped to release them to find freedom, but they refused to leave, preferring to continue the struggle. Returning south, he attempted to invade Sicily but could not arrange the passage. The legions of Marcus Licinius Crassus caught the slave army in Lucania and defeated it; Spartacus fell in pitched battle. Pompey’s army intercepted and killed many of those escaping north, and Crassus crucified 6,000 prisoners along the Appian Way.

Source: http://listverse.com/2007/09/17/top-10-famous-slaves/

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Top 10 Most Evil Men

The most unfortunate aspect to researching this list was the realization that that I could do a top 100 most evil men and still have a multitude of people for a second list! The selection of this list is based not upon death tolls, but upon the general actions, and impact, or brutality of the people. From bad to worst, here are the top 10 evil men in history.

10. Attila The Hun

Attila was Khan of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire which stretched from Germany to the Ural River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. In much of Western Europe, he is remembered as the epitome of cruelty and rapacity. An unsuccessful campaign in Persia was followed in 441 by an invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire, the success of which emboldened Attila to invade the West. He passed unhindered through Austria and Germany, across the Rhine into Gaul, plundering and devastating all in his path with a ferocity unparalleled in the records of barbarian invasions and compelling those he overcame to augment his mighty army. Attila drowned in his own blood on his wedding night.

9. Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien Robespierre was a leader of the French revolution and it was his arguments that caused the revolutionary government to murder the king without a trial. In addition, Robespierre was one of the main driving forces behind the reign of terror, a 10 month post-revolutionary period in which mass executions were carried out. The Terror took the lives of between 18,500 to 40,000 people, with 1,900 being killed in the last month. Among people who were condemned by the revolutionary tribunals, about 8 percent were aristocrats, 6 percent clergy, 14 percent middle class, and 70 percent were workers or peasants accused of hoarding, evading the draft, desertion, rebellion, and other purported crimes.

In an act of coincidental justice, Robespierre was guillotined without a trial in 1794.

8. Ruhollah Khomeini

Ayatollah Khomeini was the religious leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989. In that time he implemented Sharia Law (Islamic religious law) with the Islamic dress code enforced for both men and women by Islamic Revolutionary Guards and other Islamic groups. Opposition to the religious rule of the clergy or Islam in general was often met with harsh punishments. In a talk at the Fayzieah School in Qom, August 30, 1979, Khomeini said:

“Those who are trying to bring corruption and destruction to our country in the name of democracy will be oppressed. They are worse than Bani-Ghorizeh Jews, and they must be hanged. We will oppress them by God’s order and God’s call to prayer.”

In the 1988 massacre of Iranian prisoners, following the People’s Mujahedin of Iran operation Forough-e Javidan against the Islamic Republic, Khomeini issued an order to judicial officials to judge every Iranian political prisoner and kill those who would not repent anti-regime activities. Many say that thousands were swiftly put to death inside the prisons. The suppressed memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri reportedly detail the execution of 30,000 political activists.

After eleven days in a hospital for an operation to stop internal bleeding, Khomeini died of cancer on Saturday, June 04, 1989, at the age of 86.

7. Idi Amin Dada

Idi Amin was an army officer and president of Uganda. He took power in a military coup in January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. His rule was characterized by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extra judicial killings and the expulsion of Indians from Uganda. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is unknown; estimates range from 80,000 to 500,000. On August 4, 1972, Amin issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the 60,000 Asians who were not Ugandan citizens (most of them held British passports). This was later amended to include all 80,000 Asians, with the exception of professionals, such as doctors, lawyers and teachers. Amin was eventually overthrown, but until his death, he held that Uganda needed him and he never expressed remorse for the abuses of his regime.

6. Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II was King of Belgium from 1865-1909. With financial support from the government, Leopold created the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken to extract rubber and ivory in the Congo region of central Africa, which relied on forced labour and resulted in the deaths of approximately 3 million Congolese. The regime of the Congo Free State became one of the more infamous international scandals of the turn of the century. The area of land privately owned by the King was an area 76 times larger than Belgium, which he was free to rule as a personal domain through his private army, the Force Publique. Leopold’s rubber gatherers tortured, maimed and slaughtered until at the turn of the century, the conscience of the Western world forced Brussels to call a halt.

5. Pol Pot

Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge and the Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1976 to 1979, having been de facto leader since mid-1975. During his time in power Pol Pot imposed an extreme version of agrarian communism where all city dwellers were relocatedto the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labour projects. The combined effect of slave labour, malnutrition, poor medical care and executions is estimated to have killed around 2 million Cambodians (approximately one third of the population). His regime achieved special notoriety for singling out all intellectuals and other “bourgeois enemies” for murder. The Khmer Rouge committed mass executions in sites known as the Killing Fields. The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, executions were often carried out using hammers, axe handles, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks.

4. Vlad Ţepeş

Vlad III of Romania (also known as Vlad the Impaler) was Prince of Wallachia three times between 1448 and 1476. Vlad is best known for the legends of the exceedingly cruel punishments he imposed during his reign and for serving as the primary inspiration for the vampire main character in Bram Stoker’s popular Dracula novel. In Romania he is viewed by many as a prince with a deep sense of justice. His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim’s legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Wikipedia has an article that describes, in great details, the methods of Vlad’s cruelty. The list of tortures he is alleged to have employed is extensive: nails in heads, cutting off of limbs, blinding, strangulation, burning, cutting off of noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposureto the elements or to animals, and boiling alive. There are claims that on some occasions ten thousand people were impaled in 1460 alone.

3. Ivan IV of Russia

Ivan IV of Russia, also know as Ivan the Terrible, was the Grand Duke of Muscovy from 1533 to 1547 and was the first ruler of Russia to assume the title of Tsar. In 1570, Ivan was under the belief that the elite of the city of Novgorod planned to defect to Poland, and led an army to stop them on January 2. Ivan’s soldiers built walls around the perimeter of the city in order to prevent thepeople of the city escaping. Between 500 and 1000 people were gathered every day by the troops, then tortured and killed in front of Ivan and his son. In 1581, Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, causing a miscarriage. His son, also named Ivan, upon learning of this, engaged in a heated argument with his father, which resulted in Ivan striking his son in the head with his pointed staff, causing his son’s (accidental) death.

2. Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, becoming “Führer” in 1934 until his suicide in 1945. By the end of the second world war, Hitler’s policies of territorial conquest and racial subjugation had brought death and destruction to tens of millions ofpeople , including the genocide of some six million Jews in what is now known as the Holocaust. On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were spotted within a block or two of the Reich Chancellory, Hitler committed suicide, shooting himself while simultaneously biting into a cyanide capsule.

1. Josef Stalin

Stalin was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. Under Stalin’s leadership, the Ukraine suffered from a famine (Holodomor) so great it is considered by many to be an act of genocide on the part of Stalin’s government. Estimates of the number of deaths range from 2.5 million to 10 million. The famine was caused by direct political and administrative decisions. In addition to the famine, Stalin ordered purges within the Soviet Union of any person deemed to be an enemy of the state. In total, estimates of the total number murdered under Stalins reign, range from 10 million to 60 million.

Bonus: Emperor Hirohito of Japan

Hirohito was the Emporer of Japan from 1926 to 1989. In 1937, Japanese troops committed the war crime that is now known as the Rape of Nanking (the then Capital of China, now known as Nanjing). The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938. During the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread. The death toll is generally considered to be between 150,000 and 300,000. The Wikipedia article contains images and descriptions of the atrocities committed.

Source: http://listverse.com/2007/09/05/top-10-most-evil-men/

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