Top 10 Worst Humans of All Time

Many people on our list have done at least one positive thing. But Jeffrey Dahmer was pure evil. He preyed on gay men, drugging, then killing them and disposing of their corpses in horrible ways. On top of the necrophilia and cannibalism, he also dreamed of turning his victims into sex zombies by pouring boiling water or acid into their brains while they were still alive.

Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple started as a multicultural communist group out to help the poor. But, under Reverend Jones, the organization tightened its grip on disciples and predicted a coming nuclear apocalypse. After fleeing to Guyana, the cult leader saw to the murder of American authorities sent to check them out, and convinced over 900 followers to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, marking one of largest mass suicides in history.

Following the 9/11 Attacks, he became the face of terrorism, a focus of the War on Terror and a man wanted by the FBI to the tune of $25-million. Bin Laden was responsible not only for killing Americans, but for the deaths of scores of Muslims, as well. Inspired by his resentment of encroaching Western influence, the reviled leader continued using his vast wealth to commit evil, until being killed by the U.S. government.

D’you know how many people you have to impale to get the nickname “The Impaler”? About 100-thousand. And it’s a particularly slow and painful way to go. But that’s not all Vlad did in the name of revenge and patriotism: he also liked to cut off extremities or order people to their deaths through skinning, boiling, decapitation, blinding and roasting. Even scarier? He’s Bram Stoker’s inspiration for Count Dracula.

Russia probably wouldn’t be where it is today without its first Tsar. But does that excuse beating your pregnant daughter-in-law to the point of miscarriage for wearing the wrong outfit? Or killing your own son? Or massacring an entire city because of paranoid delusions? Ivan IV also earned his nickname by using secret police, mass persecution public executions and the seizure of property to keep his population in line.

As dictator, Pol Pot attempted to return Cambodia to its rural roots by forcing city residents to toil on collective farms. Though it held power four years, his communist Khmer Rouge party caused approximately two million deaths with politically motivated murders, torture, forced labor, disease and food shortages, the victims of which were buried in the Killing Fields. He clung to nominal power until his 1998 death.

We wish we could say the self-proclaimed “President for Life” was only responsible for economic breakdown, political authoritarianism, corruption and nepotism. But human rights violations, ethnic cleansings and mass murder can also be traced to his regime, with between 100-500 thousand deaths attributable to him. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the “Butcher of Uganda” was also a rumored cannibal who kept his enemies’ heads in his fridge.

A symbol greed and brutality, Attila’s thirst for power was unmatched, and he’s rumored to have killed his own brother to take sole control of the Huns. Called the “Scourge of God,” he was a fair leader to his own people – but the rest of the Roman Empire wasn’t so lucky. To them he was a barbarian, who destroyed entire towns and tortured and mercilessly killed his victims.

Rome has a history of unhinged emperors. Caligula’s rule started out okay, but soon his brutality, recklessness and sexual depravity won: he apparently opened a brothel in the palace, committed incest with his sisters, and made his horse a priest. His desire to be treated as a god, and hobby of violently murdering his enemies made him so popular; he was the first Roman Emperor to be assassinated.

While Adolf Hitler may be the traditional choice for worst WWII villain, he initially commanded the admiration of his countrymen by helping Germany rise from the ashes of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles. Himmler, on the other hand, was as interested in creating a master Aryan race. That led him to be Hitler’s right-hand-man, an SS and Gestapo leader, the head of concentration camps and the Final Solution, and ultimately one of the main engineers of the Holocaust.

Do you agree with our list? Who do you think are the worst people in history? If your choice didn’t make the list, be sure to check out our Top 10 Ruthless Dictators clip and subscribe to WatchMojo.com for more informative top 10s.