30 Historical Figures Who Made the World Worse (2024)

Charles Dickens gave the world some of its most memorable books, like Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. He's one of the most famous authors that ever lived, but it appears that Dickens was more interested in his own fans than his children. Turns out, he wasn't really that great of a guy.

According to one of his biographers, Dickens found his sons to be loud and difficult to manage. Talk about an A+ father right there. He tried to whip them into shape, but that just made the boys dislike their father as much as he disliked him. Some people just shouldn't have kids...

These days, we may associate Gandhi with civil rights and pacifism. He's usually equated to being one of the most altruistic people that has ever lived, but there was more to his life than just that. On top of that, certain other aspects of his existence are not quite as noble as the ones we remember.

Gandhi’s relationship with his wife wasn't great, to say the least. He admitted himself to mistreating her, both physically and with his words. This bitter relationship also extended to his son, whom Gandhi wanted to follow in his own footsteps. The two never reconciled before his death. Gandhi doesn't seem as amazing as we remember.

You don't have to go far to see how much of a bad guy Thomas Edison was. The Tesla maniacs already dislike Edison for relegating their hero to the dustbin of history. For everyone else,Thomas Edison is pretty bad without having to mention Nikola Tesla at all, and we're gonna lay it all out for you.

Edison’s move that landed him on this list came in 1903 when he electrocuted an elephant. Yes, an elephant, and he did it onpurpose. Edison did it in an attempt to show the superiority of his DC electrical current. Hedid it to Topsy, a supposed "problem" elephant at Coney Island. Spoiler alert: any elephant in captivity is going to be unhappy and act out.

We're not here to say that Kim Jong-il was a good dude. Throughout history, totalitarians havebeen a dime a dozen. There’s always someone thirsty for power and willing to do anything for it, but not just anyonecan be a rude dude. It takes a special touch that only Kim Jong-il had.

It wasn’t enough for Kim Jong-il to merely hold complete power over his citizens. He forced them to like it, too. This included building special rooms in schools for discussions about Jong-il, claims that he could talk at six months of age, and all of nature itself celebrating his birthday.

Genghis Khan was put down in history as one of the biggest conquerors in all of history.Naturally, he wasn't that good of a guy. Those who make a life of taking over other people aren't known for baking them cookies. Sure, he changed the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that he did it in the not-the-bestway possible (and then some).

Khan wiped out lots of people, and often in shoddiestways. Is it really surprising when the man is on record saying this? “Man’s greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding, use his women as a nightshirt and support."

We probably wouldn’t have Western philosophy without Plato (or his disciples). Sure, he was a huge part of what we know today, but if you’re familiar at all with the thinker and his work, then you know what a bloviating, gleeful dipstick he can be. We're not going to look past his bad attitude.

Plato’s biggestmove came in his dialogue, Republic. In it, Plato sets up his ideal society, in which he explicitly forbids poets from his republic because poetry enflames the passions. Okay, that's true. Poetry is pretty awesome and enflames all sorts of emotions. Still, anti-poetry was probably a hard sell in ancient Greece.

Marcus Licinius Crassus was a Roman general and politician (those two things went hand-in-hand) and was referred to as "the richest man in Rome" at the time.He isn’t the first figure you imagine when you think of ancient Rome, but he’s arguably one of the most annoying. Strangely enough, though, this guy also brought firefighting to Rome.

The only problem with Crassus’s firefighting service was that there was a good chance one of his goons set fire to your house in the first place. As if that wasn't enough, then along comes Crassus to negotiate a high service fee while your house burns in the background. What a tool!

Benjamin Franklin was one of America’s founding fathers, and you probably learned a lot about him in school -- the good stuff anyway. Like most of the founding fathers, he can’t seem to catch a break these days. That doesn't cover up the fact he did have some pretty bad behavior in his days.

It’s no secret that Franklin loved the ladies and often kept company with women who weren’t his wife while he was visiting foreign countries. His favorite kind of woman? Old. He went on to explain that he preferred old women to young because they can’t get pregnant and they’ll take care of you when you’re sick. What a charmer.

Henry Ford revolutionized how we travel, and we’re grateful for that. We wouldn't have any Ford vehicles if it weren't for him! Unfortunately, you couldn’t have picked a worse person to change the world forever. Spoiler alert: Henry Ford was a huge freakin' tool, and no amount of inventions could cover that up.

Ford’s biggest shortcoming was his dislike of certain peoples, and he made no attempts to conceal it. The man just straight-up did not care for Jewish people and would tell anyone who would listen. Unsurprisingly, he became a favorite of a particular German dictator. Pretty gross, right? We're starting to rethink our love for Mustangs now...

Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States, and he did tangible good during his time. He is most known forcreating the national park system and abolishing child labor. However, he had his detractors, including Mark Twain who called him “clearly insane.” Listen to this before you make your decision:

One of Roosevelt’s jerkiest moves has to be offing his neighbor’s dog. Yeah, you read that right. Roosevelt had just had a fight with his girlfriend at the time and apparently found the dog “annoying.”As if that wasn't bad enough, he's also quoted as saying some pretty awful things about Native Americans.

Oh, wow! Big surprise here, right? Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions, so his actions definitely go beyond "rude," to say the bare minimum. We're going to put him in a category of his own for that very reason. However, there were some other things that made him a bad person.

Stalin didn't makelife under him much more preferable. Jokes about him or the Soviet Union, in general, could land you in jail. The guy could dish it out, but couldn't take it, apparently. Friends and loved ones didn’t have it much easier, either. Stalin cheated multiple times on both his wives.

Like the other major dictators of the 20th century, Mao was a totalitarian leader. Again, we're putting Mao in a category of his own because being a rude dude and dictator are two majorly different things. However, it turns out Mao wasn't a good person at all. Inside and out, he was a person to be avoided.

Mao was mostly a bad person in the way he was able to get people to turn on one another. During his Cultural Revolution, friends betrayed friends, and children even informed on their parents' behavior. Mao knew how to get other people to do the dirty work of domination for him, and that’s a classic bad move.

Without Constantine, Christianity probably wouldn’t have survived as long as it has. For many, that's a huge plus because they can't live their lives without religion. Sorry to say that by popularizing it and making it the official religion of Rome, Constantine was actually making a pretty bad move. Oops.

Before Constantine, Christians were a persecuted minority. After Constantine, Christianity exploded and became a dominant force. So in a way, Constantine is kinda responsible for everything bad that Christianity has done as a state-sponsored religion. Thanks for the crusades and all the awful stuff that's happened since, dude. Can't we all get along?

“Monster” might be a better term for Shiro Ishii than anything else we've said so far.This Japanese surgeon oversaw some of the most gruesome human experiments known to man during the Sino-Japanese in the early 20th century. If you're squeamish, it may be hard to hear the followingand inhumane behavior...

Ishii oversaw Unit 731 -- a biological warfare research facility of Imperial Japan. There weren't exactly human rights when he was involved. Ishii and his cohorts engaged inimmoral human research. They vivisected prisoners without anesthesia, tested weapons on real humans, and even intentionally infected thousands with the bubonic plague.

We all know about Henry VIII and how many wives he took (and offed them because he didn't like them). Like her father, Henry VIII, Mary Tudor was an expert at being a bad person to anyone who had the misfortune of meeting her or being one of her subjects. They didn’t call her Bloody Mary for nothing!

Mary forced her subjects to convert to Catholicism, but she also told them that she wouldn’t force them to do so. Except, anyone not practicing it would be executed as an example. When all was said and done, Mary had the blood of hundreds on her hands that refused to convert.

You really have to be a terrible person to stand out from the Nazis, but that’s exactly what Ilse Koch managed to do. This war criminal went above and beyond when it comes to cruelty and sadism. Ilse Koch really belongs on the list of people the world would have done MUCH better without.

Dubbed “the Witch of Buchenwald”, Koch allegedly had tattooed prisoners murdered so that she could have their skin as a souvenir. Awful andgross. While these specific allegations were refuted at her trial, Koch was still convicted of other war crimes. This womanwas really as badas they come.

Henry VIII is one of the most memorable monarchs of England, but he had to be a real bad guy to sustain that kind of attention. Was it worth it, Henry? There are few rulers of England that have stood out more than this guy. Movies and TV series have recorded his bad attitude and saddecisions.

Henry had a couple of wives that ended up offed (for very good reasons, I’m sure) and a long string of mistresses and illegitimate children. The man could clearly not keep it in his pants. And then there was the whole ordeal where the Catholic church wouldn’t annul his marriage, so he simply created a competing, parallel religion in the Church of England.

It seems like a lot of bad people and monsters throughout history have been men, but Elizabeth Bathory proves that even the ladies know how to engage in antisocial behavior. And homicide. Legends have started about her and movies have gone over what a bad woman she was. She didn't exactly go down in history for creating a beautiful garden, okay?

Bathory was a Hungarian countess and has the dishonor of being the most prolific female criminal in history. Not content with just being a serial "unaliver," Bathory allegedly bathed in the life-blood of her young victims to retain her own youth. What an upstanding gal! Everyone back then was also badbecause they didn't care as long as she was praying on the poor, lower classes. It wasn't until she started picking off rich daughters that people looked into her.

Nero is generally considered to be one of the more tyrannical emperors of ancient Rome. While it’s hard to imagine an emperor that isn’t a bad person, Nero really went above in beyond in his awful-ness. He was so bad that we're making a scale of awful-ness from "1 to Nero."

According to some ancient historians, Nero persecuted Christians not for political reasons but just for fun. Yeah, that's a totally normal and sane thing for anyone to do. There were also sources that blame him for intentionally starting the great fire of Rome in 64 AD. It's almost scary to say that he isn't even the cruelest of them all. Sheesh.

Dr. Seuss is responsible for some of the most memorable and whimsical children’s books ever created. A guy like that couldn’t be bad, right? Well, the recent news about his books is just one of the many reasons that put him on this list. We're sorry to say, Seuss was a grade-A d-o-u-c-h-e.

While the author’s wife was struggling with paralysis and other serious medical conditions, Seuss was having an affair with another woman. Once Seuss’s wife became suspicious, she ended herself, and her death note seems to imply that she did it to herself out of a love for her husband. What an awful guy...

Listen, no one is saying that Napoleon wasn't a genius or one of the most important political figures of all time. He was all that and more, but it's also perfectly possible to be those things anda rude dude. We're going to call that the Napoleonspecial. He managed to do that in spades.

Without getting into too many of the sordid details, let's just say that during all those impressive military campaigns, Napoleon found a way to "entertain" a number of beautiful women that weren't his wife. There's no telling how many children he really had. What he lacks in ethics, he more than made up for in time management.

I don't care what any jury or conspiracy theorist tries to tell us. Everyone and their mom know that OJ did it. There are too many things that point to the fact that he 100% is the culprit. Let's talk about the book that he wrote after the fact (that pretty much taunted the families of those involved).

The truly galling thing about his "alleged" crimes didn't actually happen back then -- it came years later. In 2007, Simpson, with the help of a ghostwriter, wroteIf I Did It. The book outlined a hypothetical scenario about how Simpson would have ended Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Don't you see? It's purely hypothetical! (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Jackson had a notoriously bad temper and was no stranger to challenging someone to a duel in a fit of rage. These duels could put people in the grave, by the way. Additionally, on his deathbed, he said his only regret in life was not hanging John C. Calhoun for treason. What a class act.

According to history, Andrew Jackson was the kind of guy that was your best friend when he needed you, but if he didn't? Well, then you were worse than dirt. He had very few friends who actually liked him, which isn't too much of a surprise considering his awful personality.

Martin Shkreli is still alive and only 37, yet he's already managed to prove to the world that he's truly obnoxious on a historical level. I'd like to see Thomas Edison try and top that record! If you look up "j-e-r-k" in the dictionary, this punchable face is right there.

Shkreli first came to infamy when his pharmaceutical company raised the price of medications from $13 a pill to $750. Shkreli was later convicted of securities fraud, but the really infuriating thing about him was how much he seemed to love all the negative attention. By singling him out, we were just giving him what he wanted.

You might not expect Equatorial Guinea to be home to one of the biggest monsters in the world, but he exists! Meet this man. His name isFrancisco Macias Nguema--elected in 1968 as the first president of the country.After a few years in office, Ngeuma basically decided he'd rather be a dictator than a democratically elected president, so he quickly consolidated power.

Yeah, that's not cool, dude. That wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. Nguema wasn't just full of power--he was full of himself. As supreme leader of the country, he was prone to vanity (like declaring himself the "Grand Master of Education, Science, and Culture") and absurd violence (like executing dissidents using soldiers dressed as Santa Claus).

The name Christian Audigier might not ring any bells, and as far as I can tell, he wasn't particularly a bad guy. There is one huge thing that he's enforced on everyone that lives on the planet. This man unwittingly unleashed a tidal wave of bad people onto the unsuspecting planet. Big ol' thanks to Christian.

Audigier is responsible for the popularization and spread of the Ed Hardy brand. If you've ever encountered a male Karen in one of the infamous and gaudy graphic tees, you have this guy to blame. It seems like they all gravitate to the same brand, but at least that makes them easy to spot from a mile away.

Christopher Columbus has been touted as one of the best guys in history, but recent news headlines have shown how much of a terrible person he really was. The guy was so bad that it's remarkable, and there's some truth to what everyone is loudly saying. There's a reason we're not calling it Columbus day anymore.

You don't even have to dig very deeply to uncover some of his baddest hits. Columbus may have wiped out the Taino people, and he definitely sold people into servitude. Most tragically, he got famous enough that we're still forced to debate him centuries later. Let's just call it quits on this guy and celebrate those that have survived people like him.

Albert Einstein was no monster, but he was no saint either. Unfortunately for him, he's famous, which tends to make people much more interested in the bad than the good.We're going to call a spade a spade, and air his dirty laundry to the best of our ability. Get ready!

Einstein left his first wife for his cousin, which seemed to be more socially acceptable then. Still, that's gotta hurt for his ex. Guess they had a lot in common? He would then go on to cheat on his cousin with his secretary, and newly discovered letters have implied that he may have had affairs with as many as six women.

Whatever side of the political fence you're on, there's no denying that for over a decade we've had some very vocal people with some very strong criticismsabout whoever happens to be in office. But these people clearly didn't pay attention in history class or they would be railing against the one of the w-o-r-s-t presidents this country has ever seen--John Adams.

Not even 10 years after Adams signed the Bill of Rights, which famously includes "that first one", this man had the nerve to sign the most-terrible laws this country hasever seen--The Alien and Sedition Acts. Among other things, theycriminalized any sort of criticism against the US government, making it punishable by deportation. Obviously, he used this as a threat against his political enemies, but Adams technically never deported anyone under these acts.

Matthew Hopkins probably isn't a name that rings any bells. He isn't particularly famous, but back in the day, he was a hugely popular guy. Hopkins was a witch hunter during the English Civil War. Obviously, we know today that witch-hunting was a way to take out anyone you didn't particularly like. But don't worry, it gets worse!

Hopkins has a dubious distinction among witch hunters. He was responsible for the deaths of more "witches" during his career than all witch hunters for 100 years before him combined. In addition to his passion for witch-hunting, Hopkins was also very passionate about inflating his own ego. That's why he was dubbed "Witchfinder General," a meaningless term that he made up himself.