- today
Evil acts, sinister legacies, and unimaginable cruelty - these individuals left scars on humanity that remain visible today. Join us as we examine the darkest figures whose actions changed the course of history. From brutal dictators to genocidal leaders, these people's decisions created suffering that echoes through generations.
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00:00It is clear that Hitler's plan isn't just to regain territory.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at figures who had immeasurably negative effects on the world.
00:09Leopold once said about his Congo,
00:12What I do there is done as a Christian duty.
00:16Kim Il-sung.
00:17Installed as leader of North Korea by Joseph Stalin and the Soviets in 1948,
00:22Kim Il-sung wasted no time in establishing a culture of fear and intimidation.
00:27For Kim, he was supposed to be the ruler of the entire Korean peninsula.
00:35He targeted anyone perceived as a threat and created a totalitarian government centered around his supposed greatness.
00:41Seeking to reunify Korea by force, Kim invaded South Korea, thus sparking the Korean War,
00:48which saw approximately 2.5 million people killed.
00:51The degree of ruthlessness of Kim Il-sung was quite extraordinary.
00:57The failure to reunify did not deter Kim's furthering of his power, nor his regime's human rights abuses.
01:04He also created a caste system known as the Songbun, with those at the bottom deemed hostile.
01:10Kim ruled until his death in 1994, and his son and grandson have emulated his brutal reign.
01:16Kim is believed to have executed at least 340 people since 2011, sometimes in brutal and excessive fashion.
01:24Idi Amin. Rising his way through the ranks of the King's African Rifles and the Uganda Army,
01:30Idi Amin eventually seized power in a coup.
01:32It is not my intention to be a president,
01:36but it is the people who appointed me to be the president of the Republic of Uganda.
01:42His presidency was defined by human rights abuses and targeting of political enemies.
01:48He also expelled thousands of South Asian people living in Uganda.
01:52Will you have to leave because of what the president has said?
01:55If he says I have to leave, what I can do?
01:57Racked by paranoia that only grew with time,
02:00Amin's reign ended in 1979 following another coup.
02:04He fled, living in Libya, Iraq, and finally Saudi Arabia, dying in 2003.
02:09In eight years, as many as half a million people are estimated to have been killed under Amin's reign.
02:15He died with the quiet dignity that he denied so many of his victims.
02:20Benito Mussolini.
02:21Fascism is intrinsically linked to Benito Mussolini, as it was a term he originated.
02:27He was hugely ambitious.
02:29He was capable of crushing absolutely anyone.
02:31Seizing power amidst instability in the wake of World War I,
02:34Mussolini used his skills of charisma and persuasion to create a one-party government,
02:39driven by subjugation and his being likened to something of a demigod.
02:43The Blackshirts, his parliamentary organization, targeted socialists and other enemies of the fascist party.
02:49If they did something against the regime in power, it's normal they were sent to prison.
02:53In 1935, under his rule, Italy also invaded Ethiopia, leading to hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.
03:01Allied with Germany during World War II, Mussolini's image as a strong leader fell significantly following an ill-fated invasion of Greece.
03:09In 1943, Mussolini was deposed and arrested.
03:13The first dictator is knocked out, and Italy, even under martial law, cheers Il Duce's fall.
03:20Then, in 1945, he was executed by a member of the Italian resistance movement, Genghis Khan.
03:26The extent of Genghis Khan's skill as a military leader and conqueror is incredible.
03:31Mostly when we think of Genghis Khan, or Chinggis Khan as the Mongolians say, we think of a conqueror, a man on a horse.
03:38But this also means he was absolutely ruthless in his quest to expand the Mongol Empire as far and wide as he possibly could.
03:46This means anyone who dared defy their conquest could be assured a swift end.
03:50But they wiped out entire cities, along with their inhabitants.
03:55There's no clear number of deaths under Khan's rule, but it's almost certainly in the millions.
03:59Though Khan displayed some positive traits as a leader, such as uniting divided tribes and emphasizing merit over lineage,
04:06the sheer amount of bloodshed enacted by Khan and his armies earns him a spot on this list.
04:10His life was to become a legend.
04:14His name, Genghis Khan.
04:17Osama bin Laden.
04:18Even before he orchestrated the September 11th attacks, Osama bin Laden was notorious for causing violence and chaos around the world.
04:25I was awake most of last night trying to figure this out, and I was asking myself, first of all, what's the point?
04:36Born into wealth in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden became radicalized as a militant during the Soviet-Afghan war.
04:42He formed the terror organization Al-Qaeda, launching attacks throughout the 90s.
04:47Then, in 2001, he oversaw the deadliest terrorist attack in American history, killing 2,977 people, and forever altering the course of the 21st century.
04:57It's a war. We've been attacked. It's like World War II.
05:02He was able to spend the decade in hiding, before being found at a compound in Pakistan by U.S. military forces and killed in 2011.
05:09It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history.
05:17Leopold II. Despite its name, the Congo Free State was anything but.
05:22It was actually an absolute monarchy, privately owned by Belgium's King Leopold II.
05:27Until Adolf Hitler arrived on the scene, the European standard for cruelty was set by a king.
05:33Though Leopold never actually set foot in the Central African nation, he still oversaw horrific atrocities.
05:38His forced public military subjected people to forced labor, to extract resources, and enacted brutal punishments for not meeting quotas or refusing to recognize their authority.
05:49Even then, the actions done in Leopold's name were regarded as crimes against humanity.
05:53The Congolese population is estimated to have dropped by about 10 million during his reign, or half the population.
06:13He was eventually forced to relinquish the Congo to Belgium and died in 1909 from an embolism, seeing no real consequences for the suffering he caused.
06:21Pol Pot. As leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot had an immeasurable detrimental effect on Cambodia, which was known as Democratic Kambuchia under his reign.
06:31This crazy man is still alive. This crazy man is still causing problems up to now.
06:36Though he only ruled for four years, he left his citizens traumatized for generations.
06:40His most horrifying legacy was helping to orchestrate the Cambodian genocide, which saw the country's population reduced by nearly a quarter.
06:59His rule ended in 1979, when Vietnamese forces took over Cambodia.
07:04However, he saw no real consequences for being responsible for the deaths of millions.
07:09He continued his involvement with the Khmer Rouge until its collapse toward the end of the 1990s.
07:14Pol was arrested by the head of the Khmer military, who had had enough of his murderous ways.
07:18The 72-year-old Pol Pot was put under house arrest in 1997, before dying of a heart attack in April of the following year.
07:26Joseph Stalin.
07:27A key figure in the Russian Revolution, Joseph Stalin rose from a childhood of poverty in Georgia to become the ruler of the Soviet Union,
07:34gradually consolidating power over what was previously a collective government.
07:38He craved power. He never could have enough power.
07:42He implemented five-year plans to fuel industrial growth by any means possible.
07:47It was impossible to find what the production figures were, because every director had to fake his figures.
07:54Because if you say you've failed, you're out. So you might as well be caught a year later for faking.
08:00His policy of taking over farms through collectivization resulted in a famine that saw the deaths of millions.
08:06Dissidents and enemies would be sent to the forced labor camps or executed outright.
08:10His paranoia furthered amidst the early years of the Cold War.
08:13However, he died following a stroke in 1953, at age 74.
08:19Stalin, he called himself, meaning man of steel.
08:22But he is gone, and Russia's next moves are the burning questions of the hour, everywhere, around the globe.
08:29Mao Zedong.
08:30Known as Chairman Mao, Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949,
08:36going to lengths like seizing land and targeting opponents.
08:39I was totally pouring my energy, even my life, into it, to support whatever Mao asked me to do.
08:48Like others on this list, Mao was able to see his ambitions through creating a cult of personality that made him revered throughout China.
08:55Though Mao has been credited for positive effects during his reign, such as increased rights for women,
09:00he was still a tyrant who persecuted dissidents through imprisonment, forced labor, and executions.
09:06His Great Leap Forward reforms resulted in a famine that killed tens of millions of people.
09:11We have to understand that it wasn't simply that there was no food.
09:15It was much more that food was used as a weapon to punish people who wouldn't go along with whatever dictates local carders had.
09:23While Mao, who died in 1976 at age 82, remains largely revered in China,
09:28the consequences of his rule are too great to ignore.
09:32Now is the Red God Generation 70.
09:36I hope that they reflect, they regret, they re-examine what should we prevent this kind of human tragedy from happening again.
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10:04Adolf Hitler.
10:05Exploiting people's fears amidst the Great Depression.
10:08Adolf Hitler went from an imprisoned radical to dictator of Germany in just over a decade.
10:13What they need most of all is a sense of unity and a sense of economic security.
10:18As leader of the Nazi party, Hitler blamed minority groups for the ills of society,
10:23stoking bigotries such as anti-Semitism.
10:26Jewish citizens were deprived of citizenship and forced to live in the ghettos where they were terrorized.
10:31When I first found myself back here, I began looking obsessively for the hole through which my mum and I had escaped.
10:38Millions more were killed at concentration camps.
10:40Two-thirds of the European Jewish population was killed in the Holocaust,
10:45considered the single biggest genocide of all time.
10:55Facing defeat in the final days of World War II, Hitler took his own life on April 30, 1945.
11:02Did we miss anyone who altered history for the worse?
11:05Let us know in the comments.
11:07If Stalin were to remain a god, he'd have to make sure no one threatened his rule.
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