Many people desire to be remembered by history, but these rulers are remembered for the wrong
reasons.
Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Evil
Kings in History.
For this list, the individuals do not necessarily have to have held the title of “King”
as we’re including anything equivalent in power.
Reigning from 1199 to 1216, King John is thought by many historians to be the worst monarch
in Britain’s history.
And considering how long their history is, that’s saying something.
For starters, he betrayed his own brother, who was off fighting in the Crusades at the
time, by attempting to seize power while he was gone.
Eventually he did become King, and to prevent any potential uprising, it’s believed he
had his own nephew Arthur murdered.
John further alienated the English nobles by losing all of Normandy to France and exiled
those he felt suspicious of.
To top it off, he frequently forced himself on
their wives and immediately broke the agreement of the Magna Carta, beginning the First Barons
War.
While his era name may have meant “right virtue,”
the Zhengde Emperor was neither right nor virtuous.
He became Emperor at age fourteen, but had little interest in ruling China.
Instead, he invested his time in brothels or his harem, which held so many women that
many starved to death due to lack of food.
He once ordered his ministers and soldiers to dress up as street vendors so that he could
walk through his palace and playact being a commoner in the marketplace.
Those who refused were punished severely.
He reportedly died at the age of 29 after he drunkenly fell into the foul waters of
the Grand Canal and came down with a fatal illness.
You have to figure the person who inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula wouldn’t be the
nicest of guys.
Vlad reigned as prince of Wallachia on three separate occasions during the 15th century,
and demonstrated a marked tendency toward bloodthirstiness.
Purging those who plotted against him was only the start.
Vlad enjoyed torturing his prisoners, including roasting them alive, skinning them, and removing
several body parts before finally killing them.
Of course, his favorite method of execution was impalement, with some sources claiming
he once had 20,000 corpses impaled outside the capital city.
Vlad sought to earn such a reputation for savagery and brutality that enemies would
be reluctant to attack him.
Yeah, he achieved that goal.
The second King of the Belgians, Leopold II earns a spot on this list for his atrocious
behavior in the Congo.
Although the Congo was not a colony of Belgium, Leopold secured it on the grounds that he
would improve the lives of the native inhabitants.
To put it simply, he did not.
He forced the natives to harvest rubber, earning him a fortune, but leading to the deaths of
around 10 million Congo natives.
The men were forced to work and if they refused, their wives and children were mutilated.
Reports of extreme human rights abuses eventually led to a huge international scandal and ultimately
Leopold was forced to surrender the colony.
The ancient world had its fair share of terrible rulers, and Herod ranks right near the top
of the list.
The King of Judea from 37 BC to 4 BC, he is perhaps best remembered for the Bible’s
account of his attempted murder of Jesus Christ as an infant.
The Bible states that Herod tried to achieve this goal by ordering the murder of every
boy under two years old in Bethlehem, although some sources claim this may never have actually
happened.
He had several of his family members murdered, including his wife and sons, and his enormous
spending was largely responsible for the debilitating poverty amongst his people.
No wonder he needed some 2000 soldiers as bodyguards.
The founder of what would become the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen,
Genghis Khan was certainly an effective leader, but he was also extremely ruthless.
His army didn’t only crush other armies – it destroyed civilians and children along
with the armed soldiers.
In fact, some sources claim that over 700,000 people were murdered in one massacre alone.
He allowed his soldiers to rape women in front of their families and enslaved hundreds of
thousands of people.
Considered by many to be a genocidal ruler, it’s estimated this his armies killed somewhere
between 20 and 60 million people during his 21-year reign.
He was the man who fiddled while Rome burned.
Although this claim is contested by several historical scholars – as the fiddle wasn’t
invented until the 10th century - Nero was no doubt one of the worst emperors in the
history of the Roman Empire.
He murdered several members of his own family, including his wife, whom he reportedly kicked
to death while she was pregnant, as well as his mother and aunt.
Nero also forced his top advisor to commit suicide.
He blamed the Great Fire of Rome on Christians and used them as human torches to light his
palace.
In fact, his treatment of Christians was so horrific that many Christians believed him
to be the Antichrist.
He eventually committed suicide, ending a 14-year reign
of terror.
From one Roman emperor to another, the supremely sadistic Caligula actually ruled before Nero,
and may have provided the blueprint for Nero’s wickedness.
Believing he was a god, Caligula quickly began murdering people for his own amusement when
he became Rome’s third emperor in AD 37.
He was rumored to have forced his three sisters to have sex with him, and frequently had sex
with the wives of his personal bodyguards, whom he made stand outside the room and listen.
He made it illegal for people to mention the word goat in his presence, under the punishment
of death, and tried to make his horse a Roman consul.
As a surprise to no one, his own guards eventually assassinated him.
When terrible becomes your epithet, you know you’ve done a few bad things during your
time.
Although considered by many to be an effective ruler, Ivan often fell into fits of uncontrollable
rage.
One of these fits resulted in the murder of his son, while another resulted in the severe
beating of his pregnant daughter-in-law, possibly causing a miscarriage.
He also used a mounted police force and gave them absolute power to arrest and execute
anyone they desired.
Any nobles he disliked he had crushed, going so far as to have one eaten alive by dogs,
and he massacred the people of Novgorod (NOVE-goh-rod) because he distrusted them.
Is it any wonder Joseph Stalin considered him to be a great man?
Before we unveil our number one pick, here are a few honorable mentions:
Nicknamed the Scourge of God, Attila was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until 453.
He preyed on the Western Roman Empire, sacking cities and slaughtering their inhabitants.
He forced towns to pay large sums of gold to prevent him from attacking.
Attila particularly enjoyed gruesome forms of execution, often impaling his enemies through
the rectum and leaving them to die a slow, painful death.
In fact, it is said that the corpses of one massacred city completely clogged up the Danube
River for years.
After his death, he committed one more act of cruelty by having the men who buried him
murdered to keep the location of his coffin a secret.