The list of most evil people in history is definitely something you should not miss reading, since it brings many interesting, although at some point disturbing details.
The world’s history is full of certain horrible events connected with some people who will always be remembered for their evil actions and “creative” manners in which they tortured and punished people, especially those who disagreed with them. Probably the first association is Nazi Germany, but we provided the information about it in our list 20 Most Evil Nazis Ever, so we will try to broaden this one and focus on different historical periods and circumstances. The interesting thing is that the evil people did not necessarily need to be the part of wars, but there were also some of them who operated and spread the fear even though the official war was not proclaimed.
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However, what bothered me most, even from the very early age is the question about whether people were born evil or they became so at some points of their life. That was a sort of puzzle for me, and I was unable to solve it. I was always wondering if people were born evil, how could we judge their nature and something they are not guilty of. On the other side, if they became evil at some point in their life, should we go deep into that issue and treat it from that perspective. The Telegraph actually published a great article on the topic, claiming that the scientists discovered certain genes responsible for high levels of rage and violence, which may lead to the fact that some people are actually evil from birth. Mind blowing.
Generally, the most difficult thing in making the list of most evil people in history was actually deciding who to put on, since there were many candidates for this. Since it was really hard, almost impossible, to measure the amount of “evilness” that these people possessed, I decided to go with this kind of methodology; I have read several Reddit and Quora discussions, and decided to single out mostly repeated names, since if several people mention the same person, that must mean something. Additionally, History Locker also had a great article on the topic, so I decided to combine all of the sources. I did not focus only on newer history, but also included many figures from the ancient times, and, believe me, they were at points far worse that people we consider evil today.
So, let’s see who are the most evil people in history.
30. King John
King John, the last on our list of most evil people in history ruled England, from 1199 to 1216, and probably all of the horrible adjectives that you can think of can be used to describe this greedy and malicious ruler. During his reign, England was probably in the worst possible position, impoverished and without the firm hand to rule. There is no specific data on the number of people killed during his reign, but it has been widely known that they lived in the horrible circumstances: they were starved to death and lived in awful conditions. He also started the war against France and the Barons, and thousands of people died in them.
29. Béla Kiss
He was a Hungarian serial killer who lived in the beginning of the 20th century. Although the number of people he killed is not that astonishing in comparison to some other, his ways of murdering made me put him on the list. Approximately, he killed 24 young women, and after killing them he would put their bodies in enormous metal drums to keep them as his property.
28. Nero
We are continuing our list of most evil people in history with Nero that is probably the most notorious and most disreputable Roman Emperors of all times. He reigned during the period from AD 54 to AD 68. The least I can say for him is that he was merciless and capable of doing the most horrible things. He was even killing the members of his own family and he was burning the whole cities without many survivors. Actually, those who survived were tormented afterward in horrible ways. Women were raped and men were crucified, boiled or any other terrible thing you can think of. Eventually, Nero committed suicide.
27. Shirō Ishii
Ishii, the next one on our list of most evil people in history was a medical doctor and biologist who loved experimenting with human beings, and everything he did was justified by the explanation that he is trying to find the best way to defeat Japan’s wartime enemies and his torture experiments were studied and recorded. Usually, Chinese prisoners were the main victims, but they were not the only ones. He would cut their body parts and save them within the freezers and he was interested in the wider cross section of human guinea pigs. Although thousands were tormented and died during these experiments, he was never in jail, since he was granted immunity by the American Occupation Authorities.
26. Albert Fish
The fact that this man who will be remembered as one of the cruelest serial killers had so many nicknames, speaks a lot. He used to be known as Gray Man, Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and many other things described him in the best possible manner. His main target were children, and it has been reported that there were around 100 of his victims. Besides being a murderer, he was a rapist and a cannibal.
25. Maximilien Robespierre
As the leader of the French Revolution, his regime was considered to be the regime of fear and it lasted for around 10 months. That was the period when mass murders were conducted, and he is supposed to be guilty for killing around 40, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. He even guillotined the people who used to be his closest friends and declared that that is much better than forgiving them.
24. Elizabeth Bathory
This 16th and 17th-century figure on our list of most evil people in history, got the nickname Countess Dracula since she was considered to be his greatest inspiration. You wouldn’t expect this probably, but she was responsible for killing around 650 girls. However, she would not just kill them and move on, but she had a whole ritual of torturing them, making them eat their own flesh and drink their own blood. She was never accused but instead forced to live in one room for the rest of her life.
23. Idi Amin Dada
After the military coup in Uganda, in January 1971, Idi Amin Dada came to rule it as its president, and this period is known as one of the most horrible periods in the history of Uganda. The rule of Idi Amin Dada was full of human rights violation, and his politics was based on repression and fear. He ordered the ethnic persecution and the expulsion of Indians from Uganda. It has been estimated that during his rule, 80,000 to 500,000 people were killed.
22. Ivan the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible definitely deserved his nickname, since he was a merciless, brutal and cruel Tsar of Russia from 1533 to 1584. It has been claimed that Ivan was in charge of destroying hundreds of villages, towns, and cities, and the Novgorod Massacre was one of his most famous evil deeds, where 60,000 were tortured to death, even up to 15 hours in his personal torture chamber.
21. Josef Mengele
His nickname “Angel of Death” speaks a lot, and he was one of the main people responsible for Auschwitz concentration camps. Besides sending over 400,000 people to die in the gas chambers, he was also quite familiar for experimenting on people, especially twins. He would sew them together, try to change their sex, their eye color, and out of 3,000 of them, only 200 survived, and it is not surprising that he is on the list of most evil people in history.
20. Emperor Hirohito
This Japanese emperor who ruled from 1926 to 1989 is in charge of committing many war crimes and murdering thousands of Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos and Indochinese. However, he will remain the “most famous” for the Rape of Nanking, where 300,000 were killed and around 200,000 women were sexually assaulted. Tragically, he was also the one to force husbands and fathers to rape their wives and daughters.
19. Oliver Cromwell
Cromwell was one of the most notable figures during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and he is famous for his conquest of Ireland. He wanted to displace the Catholic authority, considering them heretics and seeing the conquest as sort of a crusade. As any other war, this was also a bloody one, where 200,000 of civilians died, while 50,000 of Irish were taken as slaves.
18. Leopold II of Belgium
Being the King of Belgium from 1865 to 1909, Leopold II was the person in charge of creating the Congo Free State in the region of Central Africa, and his reasons were, of course, related to material goods that this country had. The main purpose was extracting rubber and ivory, but unfortunately, this could not go without torturing and killing people. Thousands of them were being killed under his rule until the West called Brussels to stop.
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17. Vlad Dracula
I don’t know about you, but when I was a small kid I was so afraid of Dracula and I was thinking that he would come and take me if I am not behaving well. However, at that time, he was just a ghost-like creature for me, and I was not aware that he was actually a historical figure, a prince of Wallachia, who used to kill people by the method of impalement. Besides this, he also ordered people to be poisoned, strangled, hanged, skinned, hacked, burned, boiled, roasted, nailed in the head, buried alive, and many other ways. It is estimated that he killed around 100,000 of people.
16. Caligula
Caligula was the 3rd Roman Emperor, and he was not only merciless towards people but also animals, since it has been estimated that around 150,000 were sacrificed in the honor of the Emperor. He was also very cruel, bringing people to the point of committing suicide when they are not killed by him. He was also a sexual maniac, demanding to have a lot of women at the same time, including his own sisters.
15. Empress Wu
Empress Wu of China, the next one on our list of most evil people in history was on the throne from 690 to 705, and she was the only women in China’s history to have the absolute rule. However, she cannot be remembered for any positive thing, but rather as a cruel, merciless empress who likes tormenting and killing people. She has been believed to have killed thousands of people, including the members of her own family, such as her newly born daughter.
14. Delphine LaLaurie
She lived in the 19th century New Orleans, and the only words that can describe her best are “sadistic socialite”. She was discovered when the fire broke in her house, most likely provoked on purpose by the slaves who were tied to the stove. When the firefighters came, they saw that these two slaves are not the only one; the attic was full of people who were used as sort of experiments, some of them in cages, while some of them with their body parts removed. Most of them were dead, but LaLaurie ran away and she was never brought to justice.
13. Ilse Koch
Koch was married to Karl Otto Koch, one of the Nazi figures, and it is more or less obvious from where she got all of those crazy ideas. However, some data even say that she was even crueler than her husband, being the reason why she got the nickname “Bitch of Buchenwald”. She had the weird habit of walking through the camps naked, and if any of the prisoners looked at her, she would order to kill them immediately. However, she eventually killed herself, and we will never find out whether she did it because of feeling guilty.
12. Attila the Hun
With his nickname the Scourge of God, Attila, the number 12 on our list of most evil people in history ruled the Huns from 434 to 453 in the cruelest and barbaric way that you can imagine. His main goal was to destroy the Roman Empire and basically, everything that would stand on his was in becoming the ruler of the world. The best portrayal of his cruelty is actually the fact that after being refused from Saint Ursula, whom he wanted to marry, he killed her and 11,000 people, even drinking their blood. Besides that, he killed thousands of Romans, but also his two sons.
11. Qin Shi Huang
Not just that he will only be remembered as the first Emperor of China, but also as the one with the craziest ideas and with the biggest legacy that leaves the tourists speechless even today. Even though we are amazed by the Terracotta Army Museum today, being Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum as well, the story behind it is disturbing. More than 700,000 of people worked on it day and night, dying on a daily basis because of the poor conditions. The Emperor was obsessed with immortality, and he was also famous for searching for scientists who will find a way for him to live eternally, eventually killing each of them for not being able to provide that for him. His weird ideas and cruelty brought him on the list of most evil people in history.
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10. Tamerlane the Great
This 14th-century conqueror of Western, Central and South Asia was known as Timur, and he considered himself to be the descended from Genghis Khan. He was one of the most horrifying rulers, and his rule was followed by cruelty and terror which is responsible for destroying millions of people. He had many ways of murdering, such as forcing people to jump from cliffs and mountains or beheading them eventually. He was also the one to order thousands of people to die of slow suffocation, and he enjoyed making towers out of skulls. Generally, 15 to 20 million people died because of him.
9. Talat Pasha
This name is probably familiar to you if you know at least something about the Armenian Genocide. Talat Pasha, the number nine on our list of most evil people in history was in focus by the end of the World War I, when he ordered to get rid of the whole Armenian Race. After gathering them in the concentration camps, it has been estimated that out of 2.5 million of Armenians in the world, he killed 1.5 million in general. He was murdered by Armenian assassination squad in 1921.
8. Kim II Sung
He was dictator of North Korea from 1948 to 1972 and he was the most responsible person for starting a Korean war, with the horrible outcome of killing around 3 million people. He also had concentration camps and was merciless when it comes to punishing people. He would punish people for literally nothing, and if somebody committed a crime, he would punish the whole family for that.
7. Heinrich Himmler
Without exaggerating, it can be freely said that Himmler, the next one on our list of most evil people in history was the most responsible person for the Holocaust, being its architect and person in charge. He was driven by the crazy idea to breed a master race of Nordic appearance, the Aryan race, and to kill any other people in order to be successful in his intention. After Stalin and Hitler, he is believed to be guilty of the biggest number of murders.
6. Jiang Qing
It’s good to know that Mao Zedong who comes later on the list was not alone in his ideas, but that he had a full support of his wife, Jiang Qing. She was very successful in terms of her political activism, to the point that she almost reached the place of presidency within the Communist Party. It has been believed that she was the most responsible for the Cultural Revolution, the period that affected China very badly, in both, economic and social terms. Some statistics claim that during the period of 10 years, more than 500,000 of death cases happened.
5. Mao Zedong
We are continuing our list of most evil people in history with Mao Zedong who will be remembered as one of the cruelest dictators in the world, and probably the worst thing that could happen in the history of China. He remained in that position for more than 30 years and basically did not do even the simplest thing to make life in China better. Due to his merciless reign and horrible treatment of the people, around 30 million of them died. Some of them committed suicide, some of them died due to famine, while some of them were simply killed.
4. Pol Pot
Without any doubt, Pol Pot was the worst Prime Minister, not just in Cambodian history, but in the history of the world. When becoming one, instead of bringing positive changes and reforms, he proved to be one of the worst things that could happen to this country and its people. He proclaimed genocide against his own nation, killing approximately 1 to 3 million of Cambodians, which is actually one-fourth of the whole population. He was one of the cruelest people since before actually killing, he had the whole process of torturing the innocent citizens.
3. Adolf Hitler
Is there something new about Hitler that can be said, without being familiar until now? I am not sure since this guy is probably one of those people familiar to 7 year-olds, as well as to those of 77. It has been estimated that he was guilty of killing 50 million people from the period of 1933 to his suicide in 1945, directly or indirectly. Although we mostly relate him with killing Jews, there were some other groups that he was particularly interested in, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, mentally ill, Gypsies, Slavs, and Russians. Now, let’s see the top two on our list of most evil people in history.
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2. Genghis Khan
Probably one of the most famous Khans, Genghis was the Khan of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century. It is inevitable to mention that he was also one of the most successful since he managed to conquer most of China and all the land through the Caspian Sea. However, he did not have mercy on his way, and it has been reported that he was able to kill around 700,000 people only in one battle. Generally speaking, he and his army killed around 20 to 60 million people overall.
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1. Joseph Stalin
The beginning of his “career” was not bright since he started as a bank robber and later became a leader of the Soviet Union, remaining in that position for more than 30 years. It has been estimated that he killed 20 to 60 million of people, and his rule was known as one of the cruelest, since he was famous for torturing, raping and mercilessly killing, even those people who were his close allies. These and many other reasons brought Stalin to the first place of the list of 30 most evil people in history.
