10 Bloodiest Acts of Revenge In History

10 Bloodiest Acts of Revenge in All of History

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at 10 of the Bloodiest Acts of Revenge in All of History.

For this list, we’ll be looking at the most brutal acts inspired by vengeance from throughout time.

Which of these do you find the most appalling? Let us know in the comments.

The Forty-seven Rōnin

In 1701, feudal lord Asano Naganori was forced to commit seppuku after assaulting Kira Yoshinaka, a court official who had been goading and insulting him. Over the next two years, a group of Asano’s samurai, made masterless or rōnin by their leader’s death, developed an elaborate plot to get revenge on Kira. In 1703, after thoroughly researching Kira’s compound, the disparate rōnin gathered and assaulted it, killing nineteen, including Kira when he refused seppuku, and injuring twenty-two more. But the deaths didn’t stop with Kira and his men, as all but one of the rōnin took the honorable way out themselves after turning themselves in. To avenge one man, sixty-five people died.

Peter the Heartbroken Heartbreaker

Peter I of Portugal had a tragic rise to power, and it all centered on his love affair with Inês de Castro. De Castro was a lady-in-waiting, and Peter’s father Afonso worried that if Peter married her, the land would be wracked by civil war. Peter did marry her, so Afonso decided to have three assassins murder de Castro. Peter went to war with his father, and while he lost, Afonso died soon afterwards and Peter ascended the throne anyway. He then had his wife’s killers tracked down and reportedly executed two of them himself. How? By tearing their hearts out with his bare hands! Peter lived up to his monikers - “the Cruel” and “the Just.”

Nakam’s Plan B

In the wake of the Holocaust, many Jews were understandably furious and wanted revenge. A group of roughly fifty survivors formed an organization called Nakam, the Hebrew word for revenge. Their original goal was to perform a horrific “eye for an eye” by killing six million Germans indiscriminately by poisoning the water supply of Nuremberg. However, “Plan A” fell through when the man carrying the poison was arrested. Plan B was enacted, and Nakam attempted to poison captured SS prisoners’ bread. Around 3,000 loaves were poisoned, though much fewer were seriously affected. According to one of the former members, around 400 prisoners died, though other reports suggest there were no deaths. Regardless of how many actually perished, the intended number was still incredible.

Olga Decimated the Drevlians

Olga was the wife of Igor, ruler of the Kievan Rus’, a federation in modern Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. The Drevlians, a neighboring tribe, killed Igor after he demanded tribute from them. The Drevlians proposed that Olga marry his killer, Prince Mal. Despite pretending to accept the offer, Olga had the Drevlians’ messengers and ambassadors buried or burned alive. When she went to pay tribute to her husband’s grave, she had her men massacre the 5,000 drunken Drevlians who attended. Finally, her armies laid siege to the city where Igor died, Iskorosten, and used sulfur tied to birds from the city to burn it down! Did we mention she was later named a saint?

Boudica’s Revolt

Sometimes revenge can start a war. The Roman conquest of Britain was gradual, and one of its independent nominal allies was the Iceni tribe. Their leader, Prasutagus, hoped to maintain his people’s freedom by leaving his lands to both Emperor Nero and his daughters. Far from honoring the will of the late king, the Romans had Prasutagus’s widow Boudica beaten and her daughters assaulted. In vengeance for their mistreatment, Boudica rallied the Iceni and other Celtic tribes in revolt against the Romans, destroying multiple Roman settlements and killing somewhere between seventy to eighty thousand people. While Boudica’s forces were defeated, her revenge made its mark on history.

Julius Caesar Killed His Pirate Captors

Julius Caesar, one of the most famous men in history, was once kidnapped by pirates earlier in his career. Why this isn’t more widely known, is baffling. Abducted while sailing the Aegean Sea, Caesar got along surprisingly well with the pirates, insisting they ask for more than double their original ransom price. He supposedly joked that he’d raise an army and crucify them once he was freed. But, after the ransom was paid, Caesar made good on his word - even if he gave them the small mercy of killing them before putting them on crosses. What a nice guy.

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

Religion can often be a motive for revenge, despite most preaching against it. By 1572, the French Protestant Huguenots had broken from the Catholic church, and the country was in the midst of decades of civil war. Many prominent Huguenots were in Paris to attend the wedding of King Charles IX’s sister, Margaret, who had married a Protestant. At the prompting of the King’s mother, Catherine de' Medici, Charles ordered prominent Huguenots in the city to be assassinated. However, the violence soon spread and thousands of Protestants of all ages were killed throughout Paris and the surrounding areas. The total number of dead is said to be anywhere from five to seventy thousand throughout France.

The Hiroshima & Nagasaki Bombings

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in a surprise military attack on the United States. Four years later in 1945, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some consider these an act of revenge. After all, President Harry S. Truman did mention the Japanese being “repaid” for Pearl Harbor in his speech announcing the use of the bomb on Hiroshima. To be clear, most historians and experts agree that the decision to use the bombs was based on military tactics, to expedite the conclusion of the war, given that Japan had refused to surrender. But given the hundreds of thousands killed, we can see why it feels more like revenge.

Alexander the Great Slaughtered the Tyrians

Alexander may be called “the Great,” but he could also be terrible and utterly ruthless when angered. The general sought to capture Tyre, located partially on a heavily fortified small island in the Mediterranean. His attempt to negotiate for the city’s capture was rebuffed, and the men he sent were killed and thrown into the sea. Lacking access to ships, Alexander built a huge causeway to assault the city directly, with construction taking months. During that time, some of his soldiers were captured and executed atop the walls. By the time Alexander finally conquered the city, the deaths of his men had him so enraged, he ordered the deaths of 8,000 of the city’s residents, selling another thirty thousand into slavery.

Genghis Khan Obliterated an Empire

The Khwarazmian Empire was a central Asian empire, mostly composed of present-day Iran and Afghanistan. The Khwarazmids managed to anger Genghis Khan after they executed a merchant caravan and later an ambassador. This prompted Genghis Khan to invade in 1219, breaking off another war in China. Over two years, the Great Khan managed to conquer the entire Khwarazmian Empire, one of the biggest land empires ever. It was one of history’s bloodiest wars - somewhere between 10 and 15 million people were killed. Not only that, the conquest essentially acted as a springboard for the Mongols to conquer further to the west - and it all happened because of revenge.