The Men Who Made Me Fall In Love With History

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In no particular order, I now present my favourite men.

IDI AMIN – Amin's rule was characterized by human rights abuse, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement.

WINSTON CHURCHILL – One of the great wartime leaders.

VLAD III THE IMPALER – His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. Death by impalement was slow and agonizing. Victims sometimes endured for hours or even days.

VLADIMIR LENIN – A Russian revolutionary, author, lawyer, economic theorist, political philosopher, creator of the Soviet Communist Party, leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and founder of the USSR.

HENDRIK VERWOERD – The Architect of Apartheid. He was Prime Minister during the establishment of the Republic of South Africa in 1960, thereby fulfilling the Afrikaner dream of an independent republic for South Africans.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich aka IVAN THE TERRIBLE – His political legacy completely altered the Russian governmental structure; his economic policies ultimately contributed to the end of the Rurik Dynasty, and his social legacy lives on in unexpected places.

JOSEPH STALIN – Stalin put forward the theory of aggravation of the class struggle along with the development of socialism, arguing that the further the country would move forward, the more acute forms of struggle will be used by the doomed remnants of exploiter classes in their last desperate efforts – and that, therefore, political repression was necessary.

SADDAM HUSSEIN – A leading member of the revolutionary Ba'ath Party, which espoused a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to long-term power.

HEROD THE GREAT – A madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis.

MUAMMAR AL QADDAFI – Has been the ruler of Libya since a military coup on 1 September 1969, when he overthrew King Idris and established the Libyan Arab Republic.

MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI – A pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He spent a number of years in jail in both South Africa and India.

HIROHITO aka Emperor Shōwa – Hirohito narrowly missed assassination by a hand grenade thrown by a Korean independence activist, Lee Bong-chang in Tokyo on January 9, 1932, in the Sakuradamon Incident.

HENRY VIII – He was Lord of Ireland (later King of Ireland) and claimant to the Kingdom of France. Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church.

GENGHIS KHAN – The founder, Khan and Khagan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.

Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar – Cuban President, dictator, and military leader closely aligned with and supported by the United States.

MY HERO FIDEL CASTRO – Cuban political leader and former communist revolutionary.

F.D ROOSEVELT – The only American president elected to more than two terms, he forged a durable coalition that realigned American politics for decades.

TIMUR aka TAMERLANE – A fourteenth-century conqueror of Western, South and Central Asia, founder of the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty (1370–1405) in Central Asia, and great great grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived until 1857 as the Mughal Empire in India.

BENITO MUSSOLINI aka IL DUCE – An Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism.

KING SHAKA kaSenzangakhona – Was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom.

Nicolae Ceaușescu – Was a Romanian communist politician who was the Secretary General of the Romanian Communist Party. Ceaușescu's second decade was characterized by an increasingly erratic personality cult, nationalism and a deterioration in foreign relations with the Western powers as well as the Soviet Union.

ATTILA THE HUN – One of the most fearsome enemies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire.

SALOTH SAR AKA POL POT – Imposed a version of agrarian socialism, forcing urban dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects, toward a goal of "restarting civilization" in a "Year Zero".

ALBERT JOHN LUTHULI – He was the first African, and the first person from outside Europe and the Americas, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

ADOLF HITLER – Hitler ultimately wanted to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.

FATHER ABRAHAM – had many sons

KIM JONG-II – North Korea's constitution was amended and now implicitly refers to him as the "Supreme Leader".

JAN SMUTS – South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher

KING FAHD – Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques