Here are a few of the strangest leaders who’ve been in charge!
9 - Zhengde Emperor When the Renaissance bloomed all over Europe
in 1505, emperor Zhengde acquired the throne of China at the age of 14.
Before his reign as Emperor, he studied Confucian literature under the strict supervision of
tutors, and all of them thought he would be a ruler who truly cared about his people and
his land.
Yeah, they were in for a surprise!
Apparently, the only thing keeping Zhengde in line was his father, because as soon as
the former emperor passed, Zhengde rebelled.
Being 14 years old, he became a bit obsessed with women.
A 14 year-old boy obsessed with women?
That’s….just interesting.
His harem grew so large, that some of the women were moved from his personal chambers
to a zoo cage in the Forbidden City.
He also had a vivid imagination and made himself a tiny replica of the Forbidden City.
Here, he would pretend to be other people.
For example, he’d pretend to be a vendor selling vegetables.
When he wanted playmates, he would have his servants play along.
Oooookay.
8 - Saparmurat Niyazov To say Saparmurat Niyazov was peculiar is
an understatement.
For starters, he had a gigantic golden statue of himself built.
Enough said, right?
Um, no.
Until 2006, Niyazov was Turkmenistan’s absolute ruler.
They called him “Turkmenbashi", or "Father of the Nation,” as he himself ordered his
country to do.
Eccentric as he was, pretty much everything that came out of Turkmenbashi’s mouth became
law and had to be obeyed as such.
This guy also thought that it was a good idea to spend billions of dollars on horses, as
he was a fan of horse races.
It’s no surprise that he declared April 27 a public holiday: Horse Day.
His creativity when it came to public holidays didn't stop there.
He also declared July 10th Melon Day because melons are the country’s main export, and…well
when anything you say becomes the law of the land, why not, right?
In 2003, Turkmenbashi banned beards, fearing that anyone with a beard was an Islamic fundamentalist.
Also, he renamed the month April after his mother and the month of January after himself.
He also feared that he could be subject to a coup-d’etat, so to prevent this possible
scenario, he decided to create three secret police forces to counterspy each other.
However people say there are actually FOUR secret polices, but the fourth one is actually
secret.
Yeah okay…..
7 - Louis XIV Louis XIV of France, also known as The Sun
King, was certainly one of the most eccentric leaders in the world’s history, mostly because
of his age when he was crowned and how long he ruled.
He was crowned when he was only FOUR years old and he ruled for a little over 72 years.
He held the throne longer than any other monarch in Europe…ever!
That in itself is a small miracle since most kings pass of very suspicious circumstances
after a certain age.
But, even with lots of adversaries and detractors, Louis 14 kept living and living.
How could this be?
Well, Louis 14 actually was pretty smart.
There was a civil war in France, and it made a young Louis very paranoid.
He thought anyone could invade and attempt to take his throne by force.
When he was 28, Louis decided to move his entire court to the Palace of Versailles,
knowing that people who conspired against monarchs were other nobles.
This way, Louis could keep them all under control and strict surveillance.
You don’t earn the reputation of being the longest, reigning European ruler by disclosing
your true intentions.
He claimed he moved away from Paris to live a more elegant and rich lifestyle.
Of course, this made his courtesans want to follow him and acquire favors.
6 - Francisco Solano Lopez Francisco Solano Lopez was the son of the
first constitutional president of the Republic of Paraguay.
While his father was in office, Francisco Solano Lopez was designated commander in chief
of the army.
As a military man, he traveled to Europe to make alliances and to get Paraguay recognized
by other nations as an independent country.
While in France, he studied strategy and he also bought a bunch of cool, state-of-the-art
weapons for the Paraguayan army.
When Francisco came back from Europe, he started training the army and developed a close relationship
with his men, motivating them follow him into one of the worst wars in recent Latin American
history: the War of the Triple Alliance.
Basically, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay joined forces against Paraguay.
Paraguay stood its ground for almost 6 years, during which thousands of men lost their lives.
During the war, Francisco was subject to at least 2 coup-d’etat attempts.
Unfortunately for him, his own family members attempted these coups.
So Francisco did to them what he would do to any other war criminal: he had them executed.
In less than 3 years, Francisco Solano Lopez had at least two of his brothers killed for
treason, along with judges, bishops, priests, civilians, and at least 200 foreigners part
of the conspiracy.
5 - Than Shwe
As the head of the Burmese government since 1992, Than Shwe is known for his megalomania.
In 2002, Than Shwe decided that the capital city of Myanmar, Yangon, had to be moved to
a greenfield site hundreds of miles away.
Than wanted to create a city from scratch.
However, no city can be built that quickly, so in 2006, he moved his government to Naypyidaw
(nee-pee-dough), an uninhabited city with no running water or electricity.
But why would he do such a thing?
Why not wait?
In the beginning, people said that Than Shwe moved the new capital, finally finished in
2012, as a strategic move since Naypyidaw is better located than Yangon, so it’s less
likely to fall in an armed attack.
Sounds reasonable, right?
Turns out the real reason for the drastic move was that in 2002, Than Shwe’s astrologer
predicted that he was going to lose power unless he moved the government to the jungle.
So he did.
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to us either.
4 - Ne Win
For 26 years, Ne Win ruled over Burma, now known as Myanmar.
Ne Win was the chairman of the Burmese Socialist Party for many years as a result of a coup-d’etat.
He was a ruthless ruler, and he treated politics how a chess player would treat each move:
with precision.
However, if one thing can be said about Ne Win it’s that he was undoubtedly eccentric.
The “Bright Sun of Burma,” as he called himself, married seven times, and two of those
times, he married the same woman.
On the advice of a wizard, he regularly bathed in dolphin’s blood to keep young.
Ummmm….that’s just insane.
Maybe the weirdest thing about Ne Win was his obsession with the number nine.
He thought nine was his lucky number, and everything important in his life had been
associated with it.
When you believe in something like that, it’s only logical for you to modify your country’s
entire currency system to revolve around that number right?!
He decided all banknotes should be divisible by nine.
For example, instead of a 100 kyat note there was a 90 kyat note, and instead of a 50 kyat
note, there was a 45 kyat note.
Well….that’s one way to get people in your country better at math!
3 - King Charles VI
King Charles VI ruled England in the fourteenth century.
And in case you were wondering: no, Shakespeare didn’t write about him.
Anyway, Charles VI of England was, as many other rulers at the time, quite superstitious.
So how superstitious was he?
In 1392, he was leading a party against the army of a French duke.
Along the way, a mysterious old man dressed in white told him that he had to be careful
because he was being betrayed.
The King turned and immediately stabbed one of his own knights.
Reasonable right?
Apparently, these episodes kept happening.
Charles would encounter ominous visitors, and then he would have an episode of madness.
As the years passed, these “spells” became longer and longer.
Basically he was just insane.
Charles began to be convinced he was made of glass, so he moved super slow and very
carefully.
He wouldn’t go up or down the stairs, fearing he’d fall and shatter.
Not sure if that’s the weirdest thing we’ve heard yet but it’s close!
2 - Farouk of Egypt
Farouk I was only 16 when he took the throne, and before his reign, he studied in London
to become a great leader.
Well, apparently, he spent too little time there because his leadership skills were lacking,
to say the least.
At the start of his rule, many people praised him because of his boyish charm and British
manners, but soon Farouk showed his true colors.
He started immediately indulging in a ridiculously luxurious lifestyle.
At one point, he consumed 600 oysters per week.
He also spent a huge sum of money on red cars.
In 1951, just a year before he was overthrown, he bought the Star of the East Diamond a gigantic
94 carat diamond that obviously cost a ton of money.
Farouk owned nice cars, ate the best food, and owned one of the world’s rarest diamonds.
You’d think that a leader with so much would be satisfied with his own possessions and
only his alone, right?
However, one of Farouk’s most memorable quirks was his kleptomania.
He was a petty pick-pocketer, as he stole several small items from his staff constantly!
He actually stole a watch from the pocket of Winston Churchill! Churchill obviously
was’t amused.
1 - The Kim Dynasty Yeah, we had to include the whole family here,
because really, the entire family seems crazy.
The Kim dynasty has been ruling North Korea for more than 50 years now.
It originated with Kim Il-Sung, the first leader of the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea, then you guy’s remember Kim Jong-Il right?
And of course, we all know about Kim Jong-Un.
We’re used to hearing news about them, and it’s not always good news.
Undoubtedly, nuclear threats have been the theme lately, but we obviously can’t forget
the weird traits this family has.
For example, Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un are very passionate about their hobbies.
While Kim Jong-Un famously loves basketball, which explains that interesting relationship
with Dennis Rodman, his late father obsessed over movies, reportedly owning at least 20,000
tapes.
He aspired to be a cinematographer and wrote a book titled “On the Art of Cinema,”
a manual meant for North Korean cinematographers.
However, he was still, unhappy with the quality of the movies being produced in his country.
Kim Jong Il decided to kidnap famous South Korean directors to make better movies.
Once he had them under his control, Kim Jong-Il forced them to do a communist remake of the
film, Godzilla.
Here’s what’s next!