Some of the worst people in the world ruled entire countries, some worked alone, but either way, they did some truly horrifying things.
Mao Zedong
It didn’t take long for Mao Zedong to start reshaping China on a huge scale once he took control. It began in 1949. By far the worst time under his rule was during the Great Leap Forward, when the government reorganized farms and seized food.
The officials reported plenty of harvests, sure, but these harvests didn’t exist for normal people. People were starving while the grain was being collected, and the death toll was somewhere between 16.5 million and 30 million. All of that happened under Mao’s control.
Adolf Hitler
There’s no way that someone as evil as Adolf Hitler wouldn’t be on this list. He became Germany’s chancellor in 1933 and destroyed any sense of democracy the country had, turning it into a dictatorship. He began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939.
That was just the tip of the iceberg, though, because under Nazi rule, six million Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust. He didn’t stop at Jews. He ordered the execution of Roma, disabled people, prisoners of war, anyone who didn’t fit his idea of the ‘perfect’ race.
Pol Pot
Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge took control of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 1975. It marked the start of true terror for many people living there. Cities were emptied, and money disappeared, with numerous people being forced out of their homes and into exhausting farm labor.Â
Anyone seen to be educated or religious was arrested. Being foreign-connected could get you killed, too, and so could being seen as politically suspicious. Researchers estimate around 1.5 million to two million people died during this time, all thanks to Pol Pot’s regime.
Timur
Timur did a lot more than simply conquer cities, as he actually made examples of them. He was a ruler of Central Asia who built an empire during the late 1300s and early 1400s. Timur sent armies throughout the continent, refusing to allow those living there to defy him.
Take, for example, the 1387 rebellion in Isfahan, Iran. 70,000 residents were killed and their heads stacked into piles or towers, just for rebelling. It was a similar story in Delhi when huge numbers of people were killed or enslaved. Being a fair ruler wasn’t a possibility for Timur.
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein officially became Iraq’s president in 1979. But before that, he’d already spent years building power behind the scenes and eventually used force to stay in power. Secret police and torture were common, so were executions.
He deliberately created a culture of fear to stop anyone threatening him, and entire villages were destroyed to stop any pushback. It got to the point where Iraqi forces began using chemical weapons against their own people. Up to 500,000 people died under his rule.
Kim Il Sung
It’s not like North Korea’s political system appeared out of nowhere. No, it was all thanks to Kim Il Sung, who ruled from 1948 until his death in 1994. He removed all political rivals from the country and created an enormous personality cult around, well, himself.Â
Any political prisoners were sent to labor camps, and any suspected opponents disappeared. Their relatives would be punished as well. Kim began the Korean War in June 1950 with his invasion of South Korea, and ever since his rule, the country’s dictatorship has continued.
Hideki Tojo
Hideki Tojo seemed to be a regular military officer who was around during World War II. He ended up a lot more than that. Yes, Tojo became Japan’s prime minister in October 1941 and helped approve the decision to attack the United States.
It was during his rule that Japanese forces carried out awful abuses against civilians and prisoners. His terror took place across Asia and the Pacific. Tojo was a bloodthirsty man who had the lives of millions of people on his hands.
Josef Mengele
Auschwitz was truly one of the most evil places in human history, and Josef Mengele was one of the worst people involved. He had the power to decide who would work and who would be sent to die, after all. Mengele originally worked as an SS doctor and became infamous for his experiments.
These included tests on twins and children, along with those with dwarfism. He would inject and operate on them, usually without anesthetic, and usually without consent. He fled to Brazil after World War II and never faced trial for his crimes against humanity.Â
Luis Garavito
Luis Garavito is a name you might not necessarily know. But you should. He was a serial killer active in Colombia during the 1990s, and he approached young boys by offering food or work. He’d then take them to isolated places and assault them before killing them.
He killed young boys and teenagers across the country. He confessed to more than 100 murders, but authorities believe he might’ve been responsible for over 200 of them. Garavito died in prison in 2023.
Jean Kambanda
Jean Kambanda was a man directly responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Not because he was murdering people himself, but because he was giving out weapons while being fully aware of what they were being used for.Â
His government actually supported officials involved in the massacres and created broadcasts to encourage more violence. Kambanda pled guilty to genocide and conspiracy, along with other crimes against humanity, in 1998.
Jeffrey Dahmer
July 1991. That’s when serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was finally caught, and it happened when one of his victims managed to escape Dahmer’s apartment. Police later investigated his Milwaukee residence, and what they found was the stuff of nightmares.
He’d killed 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991 after inviting them home. But that wasn’t even the worst part, as police found photographs of dismembered bodies and human remains. Dahmer had dismembered the victims and kept some of their remains, sometimes eating them, too. He received multiple life sentences in 1992 and was killed in prison two years later.
Andrei Chikatilo
Train stations were essentially hunting grounds for Andrei Chikatilo. They gave him plenty of opportunities to approach people without looking too unusual. He targeted women and children across the Soviet Union between 1978 and 1990.
He persuaded them to follow him somewhere quiet before attacking them. The police did have their suspicions, but he kept slipping through, right until he was arrested for good in November 1990. He was convicted of 52 murders, although nine convictions were later removed.
Albert Fish
10-year-old Grace Budd disappeared in 1928. Six years later, her family received a letter from Albert Fish explaining what had happened to her. He’d visited their New York home in 1928 and offered to take Grace to a birthday party, something that turned out to be a lie.Â
Investigators traced the letter’s stationery to him and arrested him. Turns out, Grace was one of many kids that he’d brutally murdered, and he was convicted of her killing in 1935. He was executed a year later.Â
Roch Thériault
Roch Thériault was known as ‘Moses’ among his followers, and he managed to convince them to join isolated communes in Canada during the late 1970s. His group became known as the Ant Hill Kids. It was a silly name, yes, but their crimes certainly weren’t.
They were involved in beatings and abuse, among other things. Thériault carried out homemade medical procedures on his followers, including a fatal one on Solange Boilard. He cut open her abdomen and killed her.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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