History is full of tales and stories to narrate how powerful men exploited their authority and power to inflict misery and suffering on others. While some leaders used ruthless ways to capture cities and gain control over states, others simply derived sadistic satisfaction in torturing and abusing people.
Here’s some psychopathic leaders who used the most dreaded and brutal methods in history to torture their people:
1. Emperor Caligula enjoyed chewing the testicles of his prisoners.
Caligula was the 3rd emperor of the Roman empire and was exorbitantly prominent for his callous and psychopathic actions . His name was enough to send chills down people’s spines due to the arbitrariness in his evil. His tales of insanity included publicly having sex with his sisters during festivities, delighting in watching his people get devoured by wild animals or even chewing or grilling his prisoners.
2. Ivan of Russia seized control of the government by feeding the ruler’s head to a pack of dogs.
Ivan IV was the first Tsar of Russia, his brutal actions and his ruthless ways earned him the title of- Ivan the Terrible. His stories of cruelty were legend throughout the empire. He killed his son with his own hands because of a minor argument and beat his pregnant daughter-in-law which later caused her miscarriage.
3. Vlad Tepes cut off the breasts of women and forced their husbands to eat them.
Famously known as Vlad The Impaler, Vlad Tepes was the Prince of Wallachia. He was famous for inflicting draconian punishments. He pierced or impaled almost 20,000 men in the city of Amlas and burned, hacked, chopped small children and fed them to their mothers.
4. Elizabeth Bathory drank the blood of girls she had imprisoned.
Elizabeth Bathory was nicknamed as Countess Dracula for being one of most prolific serial killers of all time. She thought that the blood of other girls on her skin made her look fresher and better. She was responsible for the death of 650 girls whose blood she drank, but not before physically abusing them and parading them naked on the streets.
5. Attila the Hun killed thousands of men by ripping them limb from limb.
Attila was the leader of the Hunnic empire, highly known for his horrific conduct with the people of his state. He was called punishment of heaven by his people because of his traits of atrociousness and mercilessness. Saint Ursula, the perpetual virgin, refused to marry Attila and angered him so much that he drank the woman’s blood and had 11,000 of her companions killed.
6. Genghis Khan killed people by having metal melted into their eyes and ears.
Genghis Khan was the founder and the Great Khan of the Mongol empire. He was feared all over the empire for his bloodthirsty and cruel methods of killing people. During wars, in the absence of water, he made his army drink their horses’ blood. He killed his 13-year-old brother just because he had stolen a fish from him. He razed countless cities to the ground and killed over 7 lakh people.
7. Nero fed Christians to wild animals and burnt them alive.
Nero was a Roman Emperor in Julio-Claudian dynasty, famous for his inflicting pain on even his own soldiers. His own family fell victim to his cruelty as he systematically killed his brother, sister, wife, mother and eventually murdered all the members of his family. He took sadistic pleasure in boiling, stabbing, beheading and poisoning his people for no real reason.
8. Maximilien Robespierre was obsessed with beheading people.
Maximilien was an influential leader of the French Revolution and was feared for his violent and vengeful ways of treating people. During his reign of terror, even his closest friends and family members were not shown mercy as he beheaded almost all of them. He believed that killing was the best way of forgiving people.
9. Mao Zedong was responsible for 7,00,000 people committing suicide.
Mao Zedong was the chairman of the Communist Party of China, well known for his total disregard of the human life for the supposed ‘upliftment of China’. During the famine in China, if children tried to steal or procure food, he had their fingers chopped off. His brutal methods ranged from burning people in kerosene to nailing their palms on the table.
10. Sultan Ibrahim I drowned 280 men in the Bosphorus sea without a fair trial.
Also known as Ibrahim The Mad, he was a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He gained this title on account of his sadistic and monstrous acts which included his obsession with obese women. He sexually indulged with all the fat women in his empire in front of their husbands. Men who attempted to have sexual relations with these women were instantly executed without a trial.
11. Tomas De Torquemada used the garrucha method to pull a prisoner’s arms and legs from the socket.
Tomas De Torquemada was a Spanish Dominican friar and the first Grand Inquisitor. Known for his the way he terrorised people to death, Torquemada used unspeakable methods to cause destruction of cities and also to inflict physical punishments on his people. He took great delight in ripping off his prisoner’s genitals and sexual organs.
12. Emperor Hirohito forced 10 million Chinese people into slavery.
Hirohito was the 124th Emperor of Japan. He was an insanely callous man responsible for the mass slaughter of millions of Chinese men under his rule. His cruel methods included killing women by stabbing sticks of bamboo through their private parts, hanging men by their tongues on iron hooks and also by disemboweling, roasting and slicing men.