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00:10History is full of killer stories, people, places, and events so downright shocking that we just
00:19can't forget them. Tonight, a vicious dictator who rules by terror. Saddam Hussein famously
00:27hangs his enemies in the streets of Baghdad and gives an order that they not be cut down
00:31for weeks. A ruler so monstrous, he inspires one of the most infamous villains in literature.
00:42While these men are bleeding out, Vlad sops his bread in their blood and proceeds to eat it.
00:48And the power couple who bleeds their country dry.
00:52Marcos kills over 3,000 Filipinos and he dumps their mutilated corpses on the street.
00:59These are the tyrants so destructive and devious, they can only be among history's deadliest.
01:12Ask anyone to name the worst tyrant of the 20th century and you'll probably hear names like
01:19Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini. But the son of a modest Chinese farmer racks up a death toll higher than
01:28all three combined.
01:33China in the early 20th century is a pretty brutal place. You have a lot of people that are experiencing
01:40deep, deep, deep amounts of poverty. One of those families is the family that Mao Zedong is born into
01:48in 1893. He's a bookish librarian. He wants to make China a much better place. He wants to bring about
01:55ultimately a working class revolution.
01:57In 1921, Mao helps found China's Communist Party. And from there, a revolution is born.
02:06What result is a bloody civil war that goes on for decades?
02:09It pits Mao's Communist Party against Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party.
02:14By 1949, the Communist Party ends up winning that war. Mao is made president of China and his
02:22Communist Party is in power. Mao takes power by brutal force and holds onto it the same way.
02:30Anybody that opposes him, he calls a counter-revolutionary.
02:34He orders thousands arrested, forces confessions, and sets up trials.
02:40If you're found guilty at these trials, which you will be, the two outcomes you're facing are either
02:46death by firing squad or being sent to a labor camp. Mao conducts public executions in front of large
02:53crowds. He kills or terrifies into silence anybody that might oppose him. Mao's purge lasts three years
03:02years and kills more than two million people. But it's just the first step in Mao's vision for a new
03:09China. In 1958, Mao announces his great leap forward. His plan is to transform Chinese society
03:16into a modern state. One of the things that Mao does is take over farming.
03:23He simply believes that if he takes the peasants off of the land and instead turns it into collectives,
03:28that these collectives are going to be able to massively increase production.
03:32For these collectives to hit their quotas, they massively over plant.
03:37All these crops end up competing for space, for nutrients, and so what ends up happening is you
03:43have a lot of these crops that end up failing. The communist leader needs someone or something to
03:50blame. Mao and the government come to the conclusion that the enemy of this farming initiative is a two-ounce
03:58bird called a sparrow. He claims that the sparrow is eating so much of China's crops, that's why they
04:06have smaller yields. Mao enlists the aid of the entire Chinese population, 600 million strong, and he
04:14lets them know that it is the duty of every Chinese citizen to kill any sparrow they see on site.
04:21In just a
04:22few weeks, more than a billion sparrows are killed across the country, and the government declares it a
04:28tremendous success. But Mao's victory lap is cut short when a plague descends on Chinese farms.
04:38The sparrow's main food source is insects. But because a billion sparrows have been killed by the Chinese
04:46population, these locusts now have the ability to roam free. The locusts eat the grain. In some places,
04:54production is down 70 percent. And what was supposed to be a way to feed the people
05:00leads to or contributes to the worst famine in modern history. This famine, which lasts from 1959 to 1961,
05:09leads to 45 million people dying from starvation. That's almost seven percent of the country's population.
05:18While his country suffers and starves, now lives a life of luxury. He travels around between his
05:25million-dollar properties. He's got beautiful women. He lives the life of a rich man who does not understand
05:31that his people are starving.
05:34Mao's brutality allows him to stay in power until the year 1976, when finally he dies at the age of
05:4182.
05:42To this day, if you go to China, you can actually see his body on display. Because when Mao died,
05:47his body was embalmed and placed in a glass coffin for all to see and all to pay reverence to
05:53him.
05:56Mao tries to destroy an entire bird species. But that's nothing compared to this next tyrant,
06:04who declares war on the ocean.
06:09Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus is only 24 years old when he becomes emperor of Rome in 37 AD.
06:18Germanicus is Rome's third emperor, and he's about to become one of its most infamous.
06:23He is the son of the general Germanicus, who is the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius.
06:30He spends a lot of his youth growing up at camp with Germanicus. The soldiers call him Caligula,
06:36which means little boot.
06:38Initially, he is beloved by the people. He starts important public works projects,
06:44he's engaging in political reforms, and he actually participates in the games, in the chariot races.
06:49He is beloved.
06:51But fate intervenes and sends Caligula down a dark path.
06:56Just seven months after he becomes emperor, he gets very, very ill. And the rumor is,
07:03it might be the result of poisoning.
07:05Whatever the actual cause, Caligula rises from his sickbed a changed man and not for the better.
07:14He comes out of it cruel and petty. He revels in belittling people and humiliating them.
07:21He makes the senators run alongside his chariot to talk to them.
07:25He makes a game of bedding their wives just to humiliate them.
07:30As madness sets in, Caligula's behavior goes from cruel to pure evil.
07:38He starts to kill, or have killed, everyone he sees as a threat. He has his cousin killed. He has
07:46the
07:46leader of his Praetorian guard, who is his friend, killed.
07:50It's not just that he has these people executed, it's that he tells the executioners to draw it out
07:56for Caligula's pleasure for as long as possible.
07:59One of his favorite means of execution is
08:02damn nacho at bestias, which means death by wild animals.
08:09They starve a lion or a tiger, and then they throw you in the cage and watch it tear you
08:15apart.
08:16At this point, it becomes hard to describe Caligula's behavior as anything other than
08:20a descent into madness. He has himself declared a living god. He has his horse elected consul,
08:28which is the highest office in the Roman Republic, and he claims that he himself is able to speak
08:34with Jupiter, the highest god of the Roman pantheon. His out-of-control behavior is matched
08:40by his out-of-control spending. He spends 10 million sesterces, which is the equivalent of about 40
08:46million dollars today, on a single dinner. Guests are given a drink made from crushed pearls,
08:52and they're served food that is encrusted with gold. Caligula's crazy, profligate spending has nearly
09:02bankrupted his empire, and so he says, I'm going to take an army and I'm going to loot Britannia.
09:08Caligula leads a massive army of 200,000 men to the shores of the English Channel, where he simply stops.
09:16And instead of crossing the channel, instead of invading Britannia,
09:20he has the soldiers gather seashells, and then he says that those are the signs of the victory
09:26over the sea. Since you can't feed an army with seashells, the Roman Senate decides to put an end
09:33to the madness. January 24th, 41 A.D., finally it's too much, and his Praetorian guard kills him.
09:49Caligula only rules Rome for four years, but his reign leaves a lasting mark.
09:55His brutal purges and his murders, the way that he transforms the gladiatorial games into blood sport,
10:02he really is one of Rome's most infamous emperors, and one of its deadliest.
10:13Saddam Hussein's dark story begins long before he becomes a dictator. The man known as the Butcher
10:20of Baghdad has a long and bloody past.
10:27It's October 7th, 1959, in Baghdad, and the Iraqi leader at the time, Abdul Karim Qasim,
10:34is driving in a motorcade down the street, when suddenly gunfire emerges from all around him.
10:42The would-be assassin, a young Saddam Hussein, takes a bullet to the leg, but manages to limp away and
10:49avoid
10:50capture. Hussein may have botched the assassination, but he's proven himself. He is ruthless, he's ambitious,
10:57and he is willing to spill blood. It's these deadly qualities that help Saddam rise to power.
11:05Hussein quickly moves through into the upper echelons of the Ba'ath party. First, he's vice president,
11:10president, and then by 1979, he's president of Iraq. Now that Saddam has power, he intends to keep it
11:18at any cost. And that means not trusting anybody. Six days after Saddam Hussein takes power, he calls an
11:27emergency meeting of the Ba'ath party, where he arrests 68 of the leading members. 22 are executed.
11:36He has those executions filmed. And the legend is that he will watch them later for his own
11:42entertainment. Three months later, he has 14 people arrested on charges of trying to plot against him.
11:49And he famously hangs them in the streets of Baghdad for the public to see, and gives an order that
11:54they
11:55not be cut down for weeks. Hussein is merciless with all Iraqis, but he directs his worst at the Shia
12:02Muslims and the Kurds in the north. On March 16, 1988, he sets his sight on a Kurdish town called
12:09Halabja in north Iraq. He accuses them of being insurgents, but in fact, all they are is the wrong
12:14ethnicity. Saddam sends in army attack helicopters, and they actually drop nerve agents and mustard gas,
12:21chemical weapons on the unsuspecting village beneath them. And this mist descends on a population of
12:28some 5,000 people seizing and vomiting and rolling on the ground, this mass population being killed.
12:38Saddam's thirst for death and destruction is matched only by his appetite for self-indulgence.
12:44He builds over 100 palaces across Iraq. Just outside of Baghdad, he creates one with 62 bedrooms,
12:52gold-plated fixtures, Italian marble. But these creature comforts do little to put
12:59the butcher of Baghdad at ease. And there are a lot of people who want him dead. He has his
13:05food
13:06tested for poison. He has body doubles all over the place. He can't bed down in the same place twice.
13:12Even though Saddam spends decades sowing fear and terror, he still wants to be loved.
13:20He also wants to be an artist and a poet. And he writes poetry. And he writes a romance novel
13:26with himself featured on the cover. But Saddam's career as an author is cut short when on March 20,
13:332003, American forces invade Iraq on a hunt for weapons of mass destruction.
13:40It's no contest. The Iraqi defense is steamrolled. But Saddam Hussein manages to hide for eight months,
13:47but not forever. December 13, 2003, Saddam Hussein is found hiding in a rural village in a spider hole.
13:59He spends three years in prison demanding things like Raisin Bran and Fruit Loops and Doritos as he
14:06writes poems about how much he hates the United States. In the end, Saddam Hussein is found guilty
14:12of crimes against humanity, having killed a million of his own people. And he's executed by hanging on
14:18December 30, 2006.
14:23Saddam Hussein may have been a best-selling author, but there's a 15th century tyrant who inspires one of the
14:30scariest characters in pop culture.
14:36In 1462, a huge Ottoman army of more than 90,000 men, led by the Sultan Mehmed II, invades the
14:44country
14:45of Wallachia. But what Mehmed sees outside the city of Targoviste is horrifying.
14:55Thousands of Turkish prisoners of war impaled on these sharp wooden spikes.
15:06Even for hardened soldiers, this is beyond the pale. Mehmed and his army turn around and march right out
15:13of Wallachia. They'll call it the Forest of the Impaled, and the message it sends is clear.
15:20This is what awaits you when you threaten Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler.
15:28Vlad III is not someone that takes too kindly to the Ottoman Empire.
15:33As a child, the Ottomans take him and hold him as a hostage to bring his father to heel.
15:38Supposed to guarantee that they will behave, they murder his father and his brother.
15:43Vlad's loss of his father and brother fuels his revenge.
15:47Vlad has learned from a very early age how to use cruelty and brutality as effective weapons of war.
15:55His favorite form of punishment is as simple as it is savage.
16:01Impalement is a simple but brutal process.
16:05You take a sharpened wooden stake, often covered in oil, and you insert it either vertically or
16:10horizontally into the victim's body. Then you raise the stake so that it's vertical and the victim
16:17slowly but surely slides down the pole. Ideally, what you're trying to do is miss the major organs
16:26so that the person who is impaled hangs there alive for as long as possible while they die.
16:33There's a story where Vlad invites some of his political rivals to his home.
16:40They are captured and they are impaled.
16:47And legend has it that while these men are bleeding out,
16:52Vlad sops his bread in their blood and proceeds to eat it.
17:00For years, Vlad's ferocious tactics intimidate his enemies.
17:05But his own luck eventually runs out.
17:09Sometime in 1477, Vlad is killed in battle outside of present-day Bucharest.
17:15It's possible that it was an Ottoman ambush, but it's also possible that he was killed by his own troops.
17:20When you are that brutal, you make a lot of enemies, but his reputation remains.
17:26And you can see how this man who impaled and killed goes on to inspire the Dracula legend.
17:37We know why Vlad is called the Impaler, but why is the first of Russia called Ivan the Terrible?
17:45There's a long list of reasons, starting with a terrible childhood.
17:53In the mid-16th century in Moscow, there is a dirty young boy wandering the halls of the royal palace.
18:02But he's not some peasant or pauper. He's actually the grand prince, Ivan Vasilyevich.
18:09Ivan is orphaned. And so he's scooped up by a group of corrupt noblemen known as the Boyers.
18:18Now Ivan, in this situation, is just filled with all of this rage towards his captors,
18:26towards the Boyers, right? So he ends up taking out a lot of his aggression on animals.
18:30This is a precursor for a tendency to become a serial killer.
18:35By the time he's in his early teens, Ivan has schemed his way into power and is ready to settle
18:43some scores.
18:44He accuses one of the Boyers of treason, has him arrested, and his sentence is to be thrown to a
18:53pack of starving hunting dogs.
19:03After removing the Boyers as a threat, Ivan declares himself the first Tsar of Russia on January 16th, 1547.
19:15When Ivan is 16, something happens that changes everything. He meets Anastasia Romanov, immediately falls in love, and marries her.
19:26She makes him feel comforted. And so for the next 13 years, with Anastasia by his side, his rule over
19:33Russia is level-headed.
19:35But then, Anastasia dies suddenly in 1560, and Ivan turns truly terrible.
19:45He descends into violent paranoia and creates his own personal army.
19:50So he puts together, ultimately, Russia's first secret police. They're called the Oprychniki.
19:55This unit contains 6,000 men, and their job is to terrorize the population. And they're pretty good at it.
20:05In the winter of 1570, Ivan learns that the city of Novgorod, which is located in northwestern Russia, is going
20:12to break away from Russia and join Lithuania.
20:15The Oprychniki show up at the gates, and they just run through the city, cutting down everyone.
20:24Murder, mayhem.
20:27And after six horrific weeks of this action, around 12,000 people are dead, and the city of Novgorod is
20:36essentially just a burnt husk.
20:38If Ivan's reign ended here, he would still be known as the Terrible. But he goes on for another 14
20:47years.
20:49In 1581, he beats his pregnant daughter-in-law. And when Ivan's son confronts his father about the beating, Ivan
20:58beats him over the head and kills him.
21:02Ivan the Terrible, responsible for the brutal deaths of tens of thousands of people, ends up dying while he's playing
21:13a game of chess.
21:14He just keels over, dies, right there on the board. Checkmate.
21:24Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler. These tyrants live up to their nicknames. And so does the one whose countrymen
21:33call him the Butcher.
21:38It's January of 1971. The president of Uganda, Milton Nabote, realizes that one of his colonels in the army has
21:48been embezzling.
21:49And so he determines that he's going to arrest him. But before he gets a chance to do that, he
21:55goes off to Singapore to a meeting of the British Commonwealth.
21:59And that's a mistake.
22:00This colonel, named Idi Amin, gets a sense of what's going down. And he realizes that he must now take
22:08offensive action.
22:10While Abote is gone, he goes and takes over the palace, and he essentially takes control of the country.
22:17Idi Amin promises the public that he needs just five years to undo all the corruption from the Obote regime.
22:24He says that after five years, he will hold free and fair elections for the Ugandan people.
22:29It's a promise he doesn't keep. Instead, he launches a brutal campaign to consolidate power.
22:36He has Suleiman Hussein, the second in command of the army, and beaten to death by his own troops.
22:42He has the man's head cut off, and he stores it in a freezer and shows it to people.
22:48When a political adversary rises to confront him, that adversary is captured. His ears, nose, and lips are cut off.
22:55He's disemboweled and set on fire. And Idi Amin himself chooses to put a bullet in his head.
23:02In 1976, it's time for Amin to hold the elections he's promised. Instead, he declares himself President
23:11for Life. And he gives himself this incredible title. His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al-Hadji,
23:19Dr. Idi Amin Dada, Lord of all beasts of the earth and fishes of the sea, and conqueror of the
23:25British Empire
23:26in Africa in general, and Uganda in particular. Amin's title grows longer, and the rumors grow louder.
23:34People claim that he practices bizarre blood rituals. There are credible reports that he is
23:41eating his enemy's flesh and drinking their blood. He says that by doing this, it allows him to control
23:47these people's spirits. In 1977, Idi Amin arrests the Archbishop of Uganda, a man named Janani Lugum,
23:55after he protests the disappearance of his countrymen. The next day, he releases a story
24:00that Lugum has died in a car accident. When the body is released to his relatives,
24:05it is riddled with bullet holes. There are national and international protests over Lugum's murder.
24:12The international community starts to impose sanction on Amin and his regime,
24:16and the economy of Uganda is about to collapse. Idi Amin's terrifying and savage reign comes to an end
24:25with a whimper instead of a bang. On April 11, 1979, a bunch of Tanzanian soldiers and Ugandan rebels march
24:35in
24:36and capture the capital city of Kampala, Uganda.
24:41Amin knows he has no chance to fight back, so he escapes by helicopter, officially ending his presidency.
24:48The Ugandan people celebrate Idi Amin's departure. They tear down his pictures. They burn his government
24:54buildings. But Amin himself is never tried for the murder of half a million Ugandan citizens.
25:01Instead, he settles in Saudi Arabia, where he actually dies in exile at the age of 75.
25:14History's deadliest tyrants are usually men. But there's one English princess who grows up to be
25:20a killer queen.
25:24It's 1553, and England's 15-year-old king, Edward VI, is incredibly sick. Before he passes, he wants
25:33his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, to take over the throne. Edward VI is very Protestant, and the last thing he
25:40wants
25:41is for his sister, Mary I, to take over the throne, because she is a devout Catholic. Once he names
25:49Lady Jane Grey
25:49as his heir, Edward VI, passes away.
25:54But Mary is popular, and many of the people see her as the legitimate heir to the throne. So she
26:00is able to
26:00raise up an army, march into London to popular acclaim, and become crowned the Queen of England.
26:08Now, Mary has some scores to settle.
26:12The first thing she does is she places Lady Jane Grey in the Tower of London.
26:17Following that, she arrests the Duke of Northumberland, and publicly executes him.
26:25It sends a message, do not mess with her majesty.
26:30Still, Mary knows no monarch is secure without an heir.
26:35So she starts casting about for someone to marry to produce an heir. And the person she finally
26:41settles on, Philip II of Spain, is a staunch Catholic, and that causes a lot of concern in
26:48England. They're afraid that she's going to turn England Catholic again, and that England
26:53will be under the thumb of Spain. And that leads to a rebellion.
27:00Mary is able to put down the rebellion, but she does so by more beheadings.
27:06She realizes there's a particular risk from Lady Jane Grey that she's going to be inspiring
27:11Protestants as long as she's alive. So she orders the execution of Grey, who is her 16-year-old cousin.
27:22Following the death of Lady Jane Grey, Queen Mary passes heresy laws. The heresy laws basically
27:28state that if you are somebody that is attempting to practice Protestantism, you are given three
27:32options. The first is you are allowed to convert from Protestant to Catholic. Two, you can leave the
27:39country. Or three, you can die. In February of 1555, the executions begin. People whose only crime
27:49is attending a Protestant church are burned at the stake. The punishment of being burned at the stake
27:56is excruciating. It's painful. It takes time.
28:03There's one infamous incident that turns public support for Bloody Mary to ash.
28:10Three women are being burned at the stake, and one of them is pregnant. The trauma of being burned at
28:16the stake sends the woman into labor, and the baby literally is born while she's being burned.
28:22Spectators try to save the baby. They are prevented by the guards. It turns the public against Mary. She's
28:28no longer seen as a religious crusader. She is seen as a monster.
28:34The executions finally come to an end in 1558, and it's not because Bloody Mary has a change of
28:40heart. It's because she dies on the throne at age 42. Mary's half-sister, Elizabeth I, takes control of
28:49the throne, takes the crown, and Queen Elizabeth I, who is a Protestant, brings Protestantism back to England.
29:00Religion has been a source of conflict throughout history. But if you think things get bloody
29:06between the Catholics and Protestants, imagine what happens when a leader turns to Voodoo.
29:15It's 1957, and the Republic of Haiti is finally holding elections. And one of the candidates
29:20is a mild-mannered doctor named Francois Duvalier. He's viewed with great affection,
29:27and they call him Papadoc. On September 22, 1957, Duvalier wins the election in a landslide.
29:38But when the good doctor becomes president, things change. Within weeks of taking office,
29:44he changes the constitution. I have been elected for president for life.
29:50He starts to jail and kill his rivals. And before the end of his first year in office,
29:56he's had more than 300 people murdered. Like other tyrants, Duvalier soon recognizes
30:03he needs henchmen. In 1959, he creates his own secret police force called the Tauntaun-Macout.
30:13His enforcers, they roam the streets of Port-au-Prince, the Capitol, and everybody is terrified of them.
30:20They are judge, jury, and executioner. If you're even suspected of being a threat to Duvalier,
30:27you're either hacked to death or burned alive. Sometimes the bodies are dumped into crocodile-infested
30:34waters to get rid of them. But other times, they're just left in the streets to send a message.
30:44In 1963, a one-time Duvalier ally named Clement Barbeau tries to overthrow him. Duvalier has him
30:51arrested, but he escapes. And as a consequence, Duvalier has every officer who let him get away,
30:58shot to death. What the dictator does next marks a strange turning point in his regime.
31:07He orders every black dog in Haiti to be killed. He explains that Clement has used voodoo to turn
31:15himself into a black dog in order to escape. Papa Duck is said to be more than
31:21just a believer in voodoo. Some say he's also an active voodoo priest.
31:28These rumors start to spread that he has supernatural powers and he can control your
31:32spirit. Everybody is afraid of him. Duvalier doesn't confine his alleged powers to Haiti.
31:41When he finds out that the United States government is trying to undermine him,
31:45he puts a curse on President John F. Kennedy. Months later, JFK is assassinated and many Haitians
31:54are convinced it's Duvalier's handiwork. Duvalier actually buys into his own hype at this point,
32:02telling the people around him that he is immortal and invincible. But no matter what he believes,
32:08he is human. And on April 21st, 1971, after years of ill health, he finally dies of heart disease and
32:18diabetes.
32:23He's conquered more land than any other military leader in history. He's more than a general.
32:30He's also willing to kill by the millions.
32:37Genghis Khan is born in what is now Northeastern Mongolia in the year 1162. But he's not known as
32:43Genghis Khan then. He's known as Temuijin. He's the son of a powerful warlord. And according to legend,
32:49he's born holding a blood clot, which for the Mongols was a sure sign of a mighty destiny.
32:56The Mongols are nomads who are known for living on the steppe. They're also these expert horsemen
33:03and these fierce warriors. But what they're not is unified.
33:10Temuijin is able to build a coalition among all of these clans. People see Temuijin as someone who can
33:17unite these clans under common cause, under a common banner. And so Temuijin starts to earn a brand new
33:24name. They start calling him Genghis Khan. And Genghis Khan, when translated,
33:31stands for universal ruler. The newly declared Khan's ambition to build a Mongol empire has him
33:40eyeing his neighbor, the Jin dynasty. In the early 13th century, the Jin dynasty in China controls huge
33:49and very wealthy swaths of territory to the south of the Great Wall.
33:53Genghis Khan arrives at the dynasty's capital, Chengdu, with 150,000 elite Mongol warriors.
34:00Every Mongol soldier is given a specific quota of people that they need to kill.
34:07They enter the city and they massacre everyone that's inside.
34:13He leaves behind pyramids of skulls, piles of severed ears. He is sending a clear message
34:19about what happens to those who resist. But there's a method to Khan's viciousness.
34:25He leaves a few survivors to serve as messengers. When Genghis Khan and his army show up at a new
34:32city, their reputation precedes them. People are already terrified. And as often as not,
34:37they surrender without a fight. Not everyone gets the message.
34:43In 1219, the Khwarazmian empire, neighboring empire, murders a caravan full of Mongol merchants
34:50and an envoy. So this to Genghis Khan is seen essentially as a huge insult. And Khan doesn't
35:00like to be insulted. Before the battle even begins, Genghis Khan orders his soldiers to kill
35:07every living thing they encounter. Women, children, livestock, even cats and dogs.
35:15When the Mongols reach the city of Oshara, they find the official who gave the okay for the Mongolian
35:22ambassador to be killed. What they do is they pour molten silver into his eyes, into his nose and down
35:32his throat. In less than 10 years, the Khwarazmian empire, which has several million people in its
35:41population, is effectively wiped off the map. But even in death, Khan remains one of the deadliest
35:49tyrants in history. In the winter of 1227, Genghis Khan falls off a horse and dies. Khan doesn't want
35:56anyone to know where his burial site is. So everyone who's witness to the burial is killed.
36:04By the time of his death, Genghis Khan rules an empire that stretches over more than 5 million square
36:10miles. That is one of the largest empires the world has ever seen. He's also responsible for
36:15the deaths of more than 40 million people, about 10% of the Earth's population at the time.
36:27A dictator and his wife bankrupt their country, but that's not the only thing that makes them true
36:34tyrants. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos are the power couple that rules the Philippines for over 20 years.
36:43In 1954, the Marcos met each other and it was love at first sight. 11 days later, they were married.
36:52Imelda is a beauty queen who comes from a well-connected family and Ferdinand is a young and
36:57successful attorney. Marcos is rich, handsome. He's also a convicted murderer. In 1935, he's 18 years old.
37:08He murders one of his father's political rivals, shoots him, kills him dead. He's tried for murder.
37:16While on trial, he completes law school, writes his own defense, and he is freed in 1940.
37:24Imelda doesn't seem to care about the murder conviction, and neither do most Filipinos.
37:31They elect Marcos president in 1965. When this happens, the people of the Philippines fall in
37:39love with this glamorous couple. The two are really the Kennedys of the Philippines. And while they are
37:46wildly popular among the Filipino people, there's a real dark side to their rule.
37:52Imelda will become known as the Iron Butterfly. And Ferdinand is about to undergo his own transformation.
38:02In 1969, Ferdinand is elected to a second term in a landslide. But shortly after,
38:08an economic crisis takes over the country. The economic decline is causing protest. So,
38:14Marcos declares martial law in September of 1972.
38:19Marcos changes the constitution, he enacts unlimited term limits, and he arrests anyone who
38:25dare oppose him. And shockingly, the Filipino people support most of his decisions because they believe
38:31that martial law will reduce crime. By the end of the year, thousands have been arrested, with most
38:38never seeing a courtroom. In fact, many are never seen again.
38:43Martial law goes on for nine years. Over that period, maybe 70,000 of his rivals are arrested.
38:50Prisoners in Marcos' jails have their arms and legs broken before they're taken out and buried up to
38:55their neck in sugar cane fields, where fire ants can crawl all over their face while the victim is
39:01unable to dig themselves out. Some prisoners have hydrochloric acid poured down their throats.
39:08In the end, more than 3,000 Filipinos are killed with their bodies thrown out into the streets.
39:15He dumps their mutilated corpses for everybody to see.
39:22While they're busy crushing the Philippines under martial law, the Marcos are also robbing it blind.
39:32Emelda famously has a collection of 3,000 pairs of designer shoes.
39:36They buy five luxury condos in New York on Fifth Avenue.
39:39It's estimated that they siphoned off over 10 billion dollars.
39:44The country is in devastation. People are going hungry.
39:49In 1981, Emelda is overseeing the building of the Manila Film Center. The project is over budget,
39:54it's behind schedule, so Emelda orders the construction team to speed up, and doing that causes a disaster.
40:01The scaffolding collapses. 169 workers die. And she appears callous to it.
40:10Word spreads that people are still buried under the rubble when Emelda restarts construction.
40:15The tragedy is the beginning of the end for the Marcos.
40:21When the Filipino people find out about this, they are outraged. There's no accountability for the tragedy.
40:27There's no investigation into what happened, and there's no compensation for the workers who were lost in the collapse.
40:33In February of 1986, Marcos is elected again in a clearly rigged election. This time it spurs widespread
40:41revolt. And under pressure, he abandons the Philippines. He leaves in disgrace.
40:51The family flies to Honolulu where they're exiled until Ferdinand's death at the age of 72 in 1989.
40:58Incredibly, as Ferdinand dies in disgrace, Emelda's political career is far from over.
41:05Emelda Marcos returns to the Philippines. She is elected to three terms in the Philippine House of
41:13Representatives, despite all that they did.
41:19Some tyrants are born cruel, while others learn to love it. They leave a bloody trail of destruction
41:28on their way to becoming history's deadliest.
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