Gaius (31 August 12 AD – 22 January 41 AD), also known as “Caligula”, is the stereotypical mad Roman emperor. Claiming to be a divine being, he ordered many executions of his subjects before he was assassinated along with his wife and daughter. How much of a bad guy do you have to be when your killers bash your child’s head in for good measure?

Nero (15 December 37 – 9 June 68) might given Caligula a run for his money in the wicked Roman ruler department, given that he even killed his own wife and mother! Oh, and he also ordered a slave castrated before marrying him… For better or worse, Nero escaped assassination or execution only by taking his own life.

Elagabalus ( c. 203 – 11 March 222), Roman Emperor from 218 to 222, showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos having married as many as five times, lavished favors on male courtiers popularly thought to have been his lovers, employed a prototype of whoopee cushions at dinner parties, and was reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace before finally being assassinated.

Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476/77), inspired DRACULA!! Seriously, we really should not have to say much more than that! Anyone whose claims to fame are shoving stakes through people’s body and serving as the inspiration for the world’s most well-known vampire has a “stake” (ha, ha!) to the claim of history’s most evil man.

Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) ruled as a regicidal dictator in 1600s England, ruthlessly overthrowing his king before conducting what might even be characterized as genocidal campaigns against Catholics in Ireland and Scotland. He spoke of having to break his enemies “in pieces” and banned newspapers that criticized him. And yes, he even hated Christmas?! He was so despised that his body was dug up and “executed”!


Joseph Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) is easily in the top five or so of leaders in all of human history responsible for the largest number of deaths as a result of his policies that resulted in wars and famines. The number of people persecuted, tortured, and murdered under his regime is perhaps only rivaled by the number of people who starved. Moreover, before Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union had taken over part of Poland shortly after the Nazi invasion traditionally cited as the start of World War II. One need only read about the Great Purge, the Holodomor, and the Katyn massacre to get a sense of how despicable of a man Stalin was. Perhaps the tyrant said it best himself, when after his first wife died, Stalin remarked: “This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.”

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) brought about World War II (the world’s deadliest and most destructive war) and the Holocaust (one of history’s deadliest genocides), which mean only a handful of others (Stalin and Mao?) really merit comparison in terms of worst people who ever lived. To further cement his status is what his subordinates did with regards to human experimentation and to demoralize Allied soldiers. Not to mention his allies who massacred people. What is particularly baffling, given that the Nazis lost World War II and Hitler died via suicide, is that neo-Nazi organizations still exist around the world, including bizarre offshoots that officially claim they are not Nazis, but practice the same disgusting policies. For example, on Wikipedia an essentially neo-Nazi organization called the Association of Deletionist Wikipedians engages in what can best be described as electronic book-burning by trying to stifle human knowledge via the arbitrary removal of articles on wikis that they subjectively deem “not notable”, regardless of reader interest or verifiability of the subject matter and in direct counterpoint to the whole point of wikis. They are reviled across the internet (see for example here and here) and openly admit to their bizarre behavior. As a case in point, consider the following typical deletionist: User:Doctorfluffy. He has been blocked from editing for various violations and yet somehow has been permitted to continues to edit despite his stated purpose of editing Wikipedia being to get sexual pleasure while having a “mission” to remove articles he does not like. While such goofballs are a joke in many ways compared to the Nazi book burners of the 1930s, they should not be so easily dismissed, because history has shown us that nutty book burners may start with burning books or censoring knowledge, but then they move on to “other things”… You can help diminish the influence of these particular neo-Nazis by arguing to keep in discussions held here. If you see a discussion for something that is not libelous or a hoax and that is supported by convincing sources, by all means voice your opinion to keep the article, but beware that deletionists spend nearly the entirety of their time trying to delete articles rather than looking for sources and although generally cowards and weaklings in real life are the typical pseudo-brave anonymous computer type when online. Moreover, they are known liars and will continue to say something should be deleted even when notability has been demonstrated; just look at his edits for proof.

Mao Zedong (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) served as 1st Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from June 19, 1945 to September 9, 1976. During his over thirty years as China’s communist dictator, his policies resulted in perhaps more deaths than any other democide in human history (estimates range from as “low” as 40 million to maybe even as high as 70 million), surpassing Hitler and possibly surpassing even Stalin. He led China’s communists during their involvement in The Chinese Civil War (12 April 1927 to 22 December 1936, which was paused due to Japan’s invasion of China, but resumed after World War II ended from 31 March 1946 – 1 May 1950), The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945), The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953), The Vietnam War (December 1956 to 30 April 1975), and The Sino-Indian War (20 October – 21 November 1962). In addition the massive loss of life of both Chinese soldiers and civilians and their opponents in these conflicts, Mao’s instigation of The Great Leap Forward and The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution resulted in some of history worst catastrophes, including the Great Chinese Famine that resulted in official and scholarly estimates of somewhere between 15 million and 45 million deaths. All of these tragedies occurred while Mao promoted a personality cult revolving around himself.

Rudolf Walter Richard Heß (26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) served as Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler from 1933 until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom during World War II. He was instead taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace, serving a life sentence. He had earlier signed into law much of the legislation, including the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, that stripped the Jews of Germany of their rights in the lead-up to the Holocaust. He committed suicide, while still in custody in Spandau, in 1987 at the age of 93.


Jean-Bédel Bokassa (22 February 1921 – 3 November 1996), a military officer and the head of state of the Central African Republic and its successor state, the Central African Empire, from his coup d’état on 1 January 1966 until 20 September 1979, began a reign of terror, taking all important government posts for himself, personally supervising judicial beatings, introducing a rule that thieves would have an ear cut off for the first two offenses and a hand for the third, practically bankrupted the country, had hundreds of schoolchildren arrested for refusing to wear uniforms made in a factory he owned, was reported to have personally supervised the massacre of 100 of the schoolchildren by his Imperial Guard, and was tried and sentenced to death for treason and murder.

Idi Amin Dada (c. 1925 – 16 August 2003) has had so many frightening allegations leveled against him, including even cannibalism, that it is almost hard to imagine someone could participate in or sanction so much cruelty. Yet, given that he considered himself His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular, and the uncrowned King of Scotland, well, we suppose such a man was probably willing to go beyond the usual dictatorial excesses!

James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) may have joined the served in the US Army in Germany during World War II, but his post-war history is nothing to brag about. From the 1940s through 1960s, he convicted numerous crimes: a burglary in California, an armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois, and finally mail fraud and then armed robbery in Missouri, where he ended up escaping from his penitentiary. He ended up in Mexico where he tried to film prostitutes doing pornographic acts. Of course, topping all of the above is his conviction for murdering beloved Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. He nevertheless, briefly escaped from prison yet again only to be recaptured and have his sentenced extended to 100 years. Conspiracy theorists do speculate on whether he acted alone or even as to his complicity, but even without the MLK shooting, which if he was behind would be his most horrendous crime, the man undeniably spent three decades committing numerous other diverse crimes across the country and therefore contributing little to the good of civilization.



Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) played a key role in the 1968 coup (later referred to as the 17 July Revolution) that brought his party to power in Iraq, created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces, formally rose to power in 1979, suppressed several Shi’a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, was widely condemned in the west for the brutality of his dictatorship, and was accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having ties to al-Qaeda. Following his capture on 13 December 2003, Saddam was eventually convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites and sentenced to death by hanging in 2006.


Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945) is known for not merely killing his 10 victims, but binding and torturing them prior to murdering them, in addition to stealing and wearing his female victims’ underpants! What makes him particularly complicated is that he served in the United States Air Force, was elected president of the Congregation Council of the Christ Lutheran Church, and was even a Cub Scout leader. In these roles, he could have contributed immensely to humanity and yet he will forever be best known for his crimes.


Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), known as the Green River Killer, was convicted of “only” 49 murders, although he confessed to at least 71, and is presumed to have committed over 90!

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gavíria (December 1, 1949 – December 2, 1993) was behind so much criminal activity as a drug lord and cocaine trafficker, the actual number of tragedies that occurred as a result of his criminal enterprise surpasses those of many serial killers on this list.

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) is probably the most infamous terrorist of modern times. The founder of al-Qaeda, this Islamic fanatic’s organization has conducted a worldwide campaign of terror taking the lives of thousands in various countries. By the time he was finally killed, the death toll of his group’s activities and the international wars spawned as a result of them may well be in the hundreds of thousands. He was easily one of the biggest wastes of life in all of human history.

Ariel Castro (1960 – 2013) was arrested for domestic violence in 1993 and later held three teenage girls against their will in his house in Cleveland, Ohio from August 22, 2002 until May 6, 2013. He was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape before pleading guilty to 937 criminal counts of rape, kidnapping, and aggravated murder as part of a plea bargain. He was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole plus 1,000 years, but he committed suicide by hanging himself with bedsheets in his prison cell just one month into his sentence.


Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) achieved infamy for a lengthy career of various violent crimes. We suspect some might only know of him for the distorted depiction as a victim as presented in popular culture and as such we shall elaborate on why that perception is factually inaccurate and why he is included here. First, in November 1989, when King robbed a store, he threatened to hit the store owner with an iron bar, hit him with a pole, and stole two hundred dollars in cash. King was subsequently caught, convicted, and sentenced to two years of imprisonment, but was paroled after serving for a year. Nevertheless, on March 3, 1991, an intoxicated King lead police on a high-speed chase in which King refused to pull over, later admitting he attempted to outrun the police at dangerously high speeds knowing that a charge of driving under the influence would violate his parole for the previous robbery conviction. King also later tested positive for marijuana (then illegal under California law). When police ultimately cornered him, his two passengers complied with police commands, but King proceeded to resist arrest, continuing to do so even after being tased twice! Video of the police finally subduing King who, again, had continued to violently resist even after having been struck twice with a taser became selectively edited on American news programs and thereby resulted in an eruption of racial tensions culminating in deadly riots. See this image for one of the victims of these riots. In fact, these riots were among the wost race riots (or riots of any kind) in American history since the 1960s. These riots resulted in many more deaths and injuries than some of the infamous serial killers featured on this list. To make matters worse, although to many King became something of a victim, rather than be changed for better from the aftermath of the infamous incident that won him much money, his criminal career continued. On August 21, 1993, he crashed his car into a block wall, for which he was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, fined, entered an alcohol rehabilitation program, and was placed on probation. Then, in July 1995, he was arrested after hitting his wife with his car and knocking her to the ground, for which he was sentenced to 90 days in jail. On August 27, 2003, King was arrested yet again for speeding and running a red light while under the influence of alcohol, failing to yield to police officers, and slamming his vehicle into a house. On March 3, 2011, King was stopped by police for driving erratically and issued a citation for driving with an expired license, which later led to a misdemeanor conviction for reckless driving. Finally, after over twenty years of abuse of himself and others, on June 17, 2012, King died of accidental drowning with an autopsy having found a combination of alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and PCP in his system. No, he did not cause a genocide as did Hitler nor inspire Dracula as did Vlad the Impaler; however, in terms of defining “evil” as the absence of good, King’s life largely consisted of one criminal incident after another and what particularly merits his inclusion here is that unlike so many other career criminals guilty of similar crimes, his particular actions, i.e. resisting arrest while intoxicated in violation of parole for robbery, ultimately lead to costly and deadly riots that no matter what anyone thinks about the nature of how he was finally subdued, these riots would never had happened had he not been driving intoxicated and resisted arrest in the first place. After all, his passengers who obeyed police commands are not listed here. As one final note, the Rodney King incidents also directly inspired Christopher Jordan Dorner (June 4, 1979 – February 12, 2013), a former member of the LAPD to go on a shooting rampage that resulted in five deaths and six injuries. King is mentioned by name in Dorner’s “manifesto” explaining his motives for his violent assaults in California in 2013.

Geez......na woow o

Muhamadu buhari: ruled Nigeria from 2015-2019
Brought untold hardship among Nigerians, sat back and watched as his kinsmen killed over 2000 Christians from southern kaduna thru d middle belt down to d south.
Was finally incapacitated in office due to recurring Health challenges, but refused to hand over power to his southern Christian vp until he was kicked out of office by d Nigerian people in d 2019 elections

me myself I

pablo escobar my nigga.... miss you bro

space

Pablo

spartan117:
Muhamadu buhari: ruled Nigeria from 2015-2019
Brought untold hardship among Nigerians, sat back and watched as his kinsmen killed over 2000 Christians from southern kaduna thru d middle belt down to d south.
Was finally incapacitated in office due to recurring Health challenges, but refused to hand over power to his southern Christian vp until he was kicked out of office by d Nigerian people in d 2019 elections

A pity it didn't quite end this way