These are the greatest conquerors in human history ranked solely by the amount of land
they brought under their control while in power.
Hernán Cortés is a big reason why Spanish is the second-most spoken language in the
world.
Starting with just a few hundred armored soldiers, about 15 horses, and - most importantly, guns
and cannons - Cortés left Cuba and made his way deep inside the Aztec empire, ruthlessly
forcing indigenous warriors to fight for him.
When he reached the capital, Tenochtitlan, the Aztec ruler - Moctezuma - fatefully decided
to welcome Cortés and his men.
This was a huge mistake and led to the destruction of the great city and the Aztec empire, giving
Spain a foothold in the American mainland.
Francisco Pizarro admired the success of his distant cousin, Cortés, and became determined
to achieve glory himself.
He targeted the Incan empire in Peru, a land rich with gold.
Pizarro and his force of 170 gun wielding, horseriding men, began in Panama and made
their way south through foreign territory until they were confronted by the Inca emperor
Atahualpa and his 80,000-man army.
The Spaniards lured the natives close, then ambushed and easily overwhelmed them.
After murdering Atahualpa, Pizarro took the emperor’s 10-year-old widow as his mistress--she
eventually gave birth to two sons by the conquistador.
The sacking of Cuzco sealed the fall of the Incas, and Pizarro went on to found the city
of Lima, now the capital of Peru.
Mahmūd was the first to carry the banner of Islam into the heart of India.
After many attempts, he finally vanquished his main adversary - the ruler Jaipal of the
Punjab - in an epic battle near Peshawar involving more than 25,000 horsemen and 300 war elephants.
Seven years later his army would defeat Jaipal’s son, Anandpal, in an equally ferocious showdown,
sealing Mahmūd’s victorious advance into the heart of India.
When he was finished conquering, Mahmūd’s empire expanded far beyond its original territory
of Afghanistan and northeastern Iran, to cover northwestern India and most of Iran.
He also transformed his capital, Ghazni, into a world class cultural centre.
Napoleon Bonaparte took full advantage of the power vacuum that existed after King Louis
the XVI was beheaded in the French Revolution.
One of the most ambitious conquerors in history, Napoleon vastly expanded the French Empire
to its peak size, covering Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and even Poland.
This spread the democratic ideals that had taken root in France during the revolution.
However, Napoleon wasn’t satisfied with a thriving empire, he wanted complete control,
and so when Russia defied his economic blockade of the British, he foolishly led more than
680,000 troops to Moscow.
But Russian tactics and severe weather killed more than half his men, and another 200,000
were captured or deserted.
This catastrophic defeat directly led to the downfall of his empire.
Another man whose thirst for power could not be quenched was Adolf Hitler and his fanatical
Nazi party that controlled Germany after the country’s devastating defeat in World War
I. Hitler used powerful, emotional speeches to reach millions through the radio, which
had just become widely used.
The Nazi’s popularity gave Hitler the political capital he needed at home to aggressively
expand his conquests abroad.
In the first four years of the second World War, Germany seized control of most of the
European continent and initiated the horrific holocaust of millions of innocent Jews.
Thankfully, Hitler’s forces were stretched too thin, and in 1945, he took his own life
as the western front was overrun by the Allies and the Soviet Red Army was within two blocks
of his bunker in Berlin.
Attila was the first leader of an army of archers on horseback to achieve great success
as a conqueror, though little firsthand accounts remain of his personality, except that he
was a shrewd negotiator and a ruthless warrior.
Attila killed his elder brother, Bleda, whom he was supposed to share the empire with in
order to rule it on his own.
He eventually controlled lands from the Caspian Sea in the east, all the way to the North
Sea and the Northern borders of the Roman Empire in the west.
Unintimidated, Attila invaded the Roman empire numerous times and forced the Romans to make
peace-treaty payments worth hundreds of pounds of gold a year.
Although he tried several times to invade the fortified city of Constantinople, he was
never able to take it.
In 559 BC, Cyrus the II of Persia, founded the Achaemenid Empire, the largest the world
had ever seen.
He began by bringing all the civilized states of the ancient Near East under his control
and over the course of his 30 year rule, Cyrus eventually conquered all lands from the Mediterranean
Sea in the west to the Indus River in the east, earning him the title King of the Four
Corners of the World.
After his conquest of Babylon, Cyrus created a clay cylinder that scholars say is the first
known attempt at laying down the principles for running a diverse society of different
nationalities and faiths.
Cyrus’ achievements in human rights, politics, and military strategy made him one of the
most influential figures in ancient history.
Timur built most of his empire in the lands that were still reeling from the conquests
of Genghis Khan a hundred years earlier.
Like Khan, Timur was ruthless.
Estimates are that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, that’s
a staggering 5% of the world population at the time.
After defeating the Mamluks, the emerging Ottoman Empire, and the declining Sultanate
of Delhi, Timur emerged as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world.
He’s considered the last of the great nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian steppe before gunpowder
brought the rise of more structured and lasting empires.
Tutored by the philosopher Aristotle, Alexander succeeded his father to the throne at the
age of 20, inheriting a strong kingdom and an experienced and battle-tested army.
He used his authority to enact his father’s well-planned roadmap for military expansion
and, by the age of 30, had greatly grown the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon through an
unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, creating an empire stretching
from Greece to Egypt and into northwest ancient India.
Undefeated in battle, he ruled as the shah of Persia, the pharaoh of Egypt and the king
of Asia at the same time.
Alexander the Great was either killed by poison or typhoid at the age of 32 in Babylon, the
city he planned to make the capital of his new, vast kingdom.
The most land and blood-thirsty man in human history is easily Genghis Khan, who conquered
more than twice as much land as Alexander.
Called Temüjin when he was born, he founded the Mongol Empire by unifying the nomadic
tribes of northeast Asia.
After being proclaimed “Genghis Khan,” he launched the brutal Mongol invasions that
resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia, and the deaths of as many as 40 million people,
mainly by ruthlessly executing entire populations of a lot of the cities he conquered and by
spreading the bubonic plague, often on purpose.
Despite his murderous reputation, Khan’s legacy is a complex one.
His rule is credited with expanding the cultural horizons of Northeast Asia, the Muslim world
and Christian Europe, by bringing the Silk Road under a single authority, thus increasing
communication and trade between all three areas.
That’s our mini-documentary on history’s greatest conquerors.
Thanks for watching.
If there’s a topic you want us to tackle, let us know in the comments below.
Until next time, for TDC, I’m Bryce Plank.