THE MOST SCARY HISTORIC FIGURES AND EVENTS THAT ACTUALLY ARE TRUE

They say that truth is stranger than fiction, but it might also be spookier. History is filled with accounts of barbarians, murderers and sorcerers who make the vampires and slashers of Hollywood horror movies look positively tame by comparison. In some cases, these historical terrors have even served as the blueprint for scary stories and legends still recounted to this day.
We've all learned about some of the scariest people who have ever lived, from Adolf Hitler to Charles Manson, yet there are countless other terrifying figures from history who get very little mention in textbooks. The following ten people were brutal monsters among men; people who became infamous for things like bathing in blood, murdering scores of helpless children, or committing heinous, unforgivable crimes against humanity in times of war. Read on to discover most terrifying but obscure historical figures whose troubling lifestyles haunt our human history to this day.

1. Vlad The Impaler

Vlad III Dracula—better known by the gruesome moniker “Vlad the Impaler”—was a 15th-century ruler of Wallachia (now part of Romania) who became notorious for his rampant use of torture, mutilation and mass murder. Vlad’s military exploits saw him praised by many as a hero, but his unmatched cruelty and penchant for barbaric executions—often against his own people—contributed to his reputation as one of history’s most coldblooded leaders.
Vlad’s victims were supposedly killed through unspeakable means including disembowelment, beheading and even being skinned or boiled alive. Still, his preferred method was impalement, a grisly process in which the victim had a wooden stake slowly driven through their body before being left to die of exposure. After one famous military victory against the advancing Ottoman Turks, Vlad supposedly had around 20,000 men impaled on the banks of the Danube. When the second wave of invaders arrived, they are said to have immediately retreated upon seeing the grotesque “forest” of corpses. According to some accounts, Vlad enjoyed dining among the thousands of impaled bodies and would even dip his bread into the blood of his victims. This bizarre practice—along with the name “Dracula” and Vlad’s birthplace of Transylvania—would later partly inspire the vampire in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.”

2. Rasputin

Much of Grigori Rasputin’s life is shrouded in myth, but history paints the picture of a “mad monk” who steered Russia toward chaos. Rasputin began his career as a populist holy man and was known to preach a religious doctrine arguing that true salvation was only possible through indulgence in sin. His reputation as a faith healer eventually saw him summoned to the court of Czar Nicholas II, where he ingratiated himself to Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna after helping her hemophiliac son recover from an injury. By 1911 Rasputin had secured himself a place as the czarina’s closest advisor. He then began using his influence to appoint incompetent and crooked officials while also indulging in drink and perverse sexual appetites.
Rasputin had a con man’s charm and reportedly took delight in humiliating high society women by making them lick his dirty fingers after he had dipped them in soup. He was accused of raping a nun and known to consort with prostitutes by night even as he advised the czarina on state policy by day. Fearing that the wild-eyed sorcerer was leading Russia toward disaster, in 1916 a group of aristocratic conspirators poisoned him with cyanide. When the toxin failed to have its desired effect, the men reportedly shot him several times and then beat him before dumping his body into the freezing Neva River. Rasputin’s death ultimately came too late to save the royal family from public disgrace. The czar, the czarina and their five children were all murdered in 1918 during the Bolshevik Revolution.

3. H.H. Holmes

Born Herman W. Mudgett, the notorious serial killer H.H. Holmes spent his early career as an insurance scammer before moving to Illinois in advance of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. It was there that Holmes built what he referred to as his “castle”—a three-story inn that he secretly turned into a macabre torture chamber. Some rooms were equipped with hidden peepholes, gas lines, trap doors and soundproofed padding, while others featured secret passages, ladders and hallways that led to dead ends. There was also a greased chute that led to the basement, where Holmes had installed a surgical table, a furnace and even a medieval rack.
Both before and during the World’s Fair, Holmes led many victims—mostly young women—to his lair only to asphyxiate them with poisoned gas and take them to his basement for horrific experiments. He then either disposed of the bodies in his furnace or skinned them and sold the skeletons to medical schools. Holmes was eventually convicted of the murders of four people, but he confessed to at least 27 more killings before being hanged in 1896. “Holmes’ Horror Castle” was later turned into a grotesque museum, but the building burned down before it could be opened.

4. Elizabeth Báthory

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Often called the “Blood Countess,” Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman who is widely considered to be history’s most deranged female serial killer. Throughout the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Báthory reportedly lured young peasants to her castle with promises of high-paying jobs as servants. Once trapped in the citadel, these victims were subject to unspeakable tortures. Some were beaten or stabbed with needles, while others were stripped naked and left to freeze in the snow. According to legend, Báthory even bathed in the blood of her virgin victims, believing it would keep her skin radiant and youthful.
Báthory allegedly massacred as many as 80 peasant girls—though the number may be as high as 600—but it was only when she turned her attention to young noblewomen that she was finally stopped. In 1611 she was bricked up inside her castle chambers with only a small opening for food. She would die four years later in 1614. Some historians have since argued that Báthory was framed by political enemies. While this claim is disputed, there is little doubt that her reputation has become thoroughly intertwined with myth and legend. Along with Vlad the Impaler, she is said to be one of the historical influences behind Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula.”

5. Jack the Ripper

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In 1888, London’s Whitechapel district was gripped by reports of a vicious serial killer stalking the city streets. The unidentified madman was known to lure prostitutes into darkened squares and side streets before slitting their throats and sadistically mutilating their bodies with a carving knife. Between August and November, five streetwalkers were found butchered in the downtrodden east end district, sparking a media frenzy and citywide manhunt. While he was originally known simply as the Whitechapel murderer, the killer soon earned a chilling new moniker: Jack the Ripper.
Without modern forensic techniques, Victorian police were at a loss in investigating the Ripper’s heinous crimes. Eyewitness testimonies were often contradictory, and after taking his final victim on November 9 the killer seemed to disappear like a ghost. The case was finally closed in 1892, but Jack the Ripper has remained an enduring source of fascination. The most popular theories suggest that the killer’s understanding of anatomy and vivisection mean he was possibly a butcher or a surgeon. Over 100 possible suspects have been proposed, and the term “Ripperology” has even been coined to describe the extensive study the case receives.

6. Gilles de Rais

Gilles de Rais was a 15th-century French nobleman, soldier and companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc during the Hundred Years’ War. Rais’ military career earned him many plaudits, but his distinguished reputation and opulent lifestyle hid a horrific dark side that included charges of Satanism, rape and murder. Beginning in the 1430s, Rais reportedly began torturing and brutally killing young children, many of them peasant boys who had come to his castle to work as pages. After sexually molesting these servants, Rais would murder them by cutting their throats or breaking their necks with a club. Others were decapitated and dismembered, and Rais was even known to kiss the severed heads of some of his victims.
Rais indulged in these sadistic habits unchecked until 1440, when he attacked a priest over a land dispute. This drew the ire of the church, which launched an investigation and soon uncovered the baron’s history of depravity. A famous trial ensued in which Rais was charged with murder and sodomy and accused of practicing alchemy and other satanic rites. He eventually confessed under torture to having murdered as many as 140 children—though some have claimed the number may be much higher—and was hanged to death and then burned in October 1440. Some historians have since suggested that Rais was the influence for the 17th-century folktale “Bluebeard,” which follows a wealthy baron who murders his young wives.

7. Tomás de Torquemada

From 1483 to 1498, Tomás de Torquemada presided over the Spanish Inquisition, the notorious Catholic tribunal used to try heretics and nonbelievers. In order to force their confession, these victims were subjected to gruesome punishments including strangulation or being stretched on the rack. Others were waterboarded or put through strappado, a grueling torture in which subjects were hanged by their wrists until their arms dislocated.
A Franciscan monk, Torquemada was the man responsible for reorganizing the Inquisition and expanding its scope to include crimes like blasphemy, usury and even sorcery. Torquemada also ordered the expulsion of thousands of Jews, Muslims and blacks, all of whom he believed would taint the spiritual purity of Spain. Those that converted to Christianity were allowed to remain but risked being tortured or executed if they tried to practice their faith in secret. All told, some 2,000 people were murdered during Torquemada’s reign as Grand Inquisitor, most of them beheaded or burned at the stake.

8. Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794), Obsessed with The Guillotine

Maximilien de Robespierre was a French lawyer and politician who was also one of the most influential figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre was a skilled orator, captivating audiences with speeches about virtue, patriotism, and morals. He truly wanted freedom and civil rights for the people of France. Unfortunately, once he rose to power he became a tyrant who believed that the only way to accomplish his democratic goals was to terrorize the people with the threat of execution.

De Robespierre became obsessed with the French method of execution, the guillotine. During a ten month "Reign of Terror," de Robespierre ordered mass executions of people whom he thought were not supporting the Revolution. De Robespierre had hundreds of people guillotined without trials, including some of his own friends and family members. Even minor crimes such as hoarding, desertion, or rebellion were cause for execution under de Robespierre's reign. French political cartoons from that era depict de Robespierre guillotining the executioner after everyone else had already been killed.

An estimated forty thousand people were either executed or sentenced to life in prison, including famous people like King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. De Robespierre also ordered hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight losing battles, including the attack of Vendee, in which over one hundred thousand men, women, and children were murdered. Eventually, de Robespierre suffered the same fate as his victims when he was guillotined without a trial in 1794.

9.Timur (1336-1405), Ruthless Conqueror and Mass Murderer

Although Tamerlane (a.k.a. Timur) is heralded for being an epic Asian conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire and Timurid Dynasty, he is also remembered as being a brutal barbarian and bloodthirsty ruler who left a trail of death in his wake. Timur's methods of conquering were ruthless and cruel, causing destruction and devastation to millions of people during his lifetime.

Timur was fond of forcing both soldiers and civilians alike to commit suicide by jumping from great heights. In India, Timur ordered over two hundred thousand captured soldiers to jump from a cliff to their death. He also ordered his minions to behead tens of thousands of villagers and soldiers in Aleppo, Ifshan, Tikrit, Baghdad, and more.

Timur had towers of human skeletons built for his amusement, and over the course of his lifetime it is estimated that he is responsible for the death of twenty million people. (Source | Photo)

10. Ilse Koch (1906-1967), "The Bitch of Buchenwald"

The story of Ilse Koch is just one of the tales of horror to emerge from the Holocaust. Ilse Koch was married to Karl Koch, one of Adolf Hitler's commandants at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Ilse Koch lived with her husband at Buchenwald, but instead of living the life of the typical commandant's wife, she joined the Nazi movement wholeheartedly, becoming a SS Aufseherin (overseer) of the camp.

Ilse embraced her position with the zeal of a true sadist, often riding her horse through the camp and brutally whipping prisoners (often to death) for no reason at all. She enjoyed randomly picking out prisoners who had skin that interested her; she would then have the prisoner killed and their skin tanned in order to make gruesome items like skin lampshades, book bindings, and clothing. She was particularly proud of a handbag that she often carried that was made out of human flesh.

Koch was eventually arrested for her war crimes, and her husband was executed in Munich in 1945. Later, Koch was sentenced to life in prison. Ilse and Karl Koch's only son committed suicide after the war, apparently unable to live with himself after learning about his parents' part in the Holocaust. While in prison, Koch was impregnated by an unknown man, and nineteen years later her son became a frequent visitor to her jail cell. After twenty years in jail, Koch suddenly took her own life on the night before she was expecting a visit from her son. (Source | Photo)

11. Ranavalona I (1778-1861), The Mad Queen of Madagascar

Ranavalona I was the Queen of the Kingdom of Madagascar for thirty-three years. During that time, Ranavalona worked tirelessly to reduce Madagascar's dependency on Europe, repel French attacks, and grow a formidable army. Ranavalona's preferred method of amassing her thirty thousand-strong army was to force peasants who were behind on their taxes to take up arms, build public works, and work without pay as a way to repay their debts. Millions of people perished during her reign thanks to constant warfare, disease, famine, harsh punishments for minor crimes, and forced labor.

During her lifetime, Ranavalona was viewed as a tyrant who may or may not have been certifiably insane. Her frequent use of excessive force on both her people and Europeans (especially the French) caused many Europeans to refer to her by names such as "The Mad Queen of Madagascar," "Ranavalona The Cruel," "The Bloody Mary of Madagascar," the "Most Mad Queen of History," the "Wicked Queen Ranavalona," and the "Female Caligula." (Source | Photo)

12.Liu Pengli (Unknown - Approximately 144 BC), One of the First Serial Killers Ever

*Note: The above image is not Liu Pengli. There are no known images of Pengli.

Liu Pengli was the Prince of Jidong, China and a cousin of the Emperor. Pengli was both arrogant and cruel. He enjoyed taking groups of his equally-corrupt kinsmen and slaves on ambushes of local villages, where they would rape, loot, murder, and take more slaves as souvenirs. Pengli terrorized people for sport, stealing from them, murdering their loved ones, and leaving them for dead. The people of Jidong lived in fear of their prince, hiding in their homes and avoiding being out and about at night. Pengli is responsible for the deaths of at least one hundred confirmed victims, but there are likely many more that went unreported.

Pengli's crimes were finally reported to the Emperor, but the Emperor refused to execute his own cousin, so he removed Pengli's royal ties and took away his land and fortune, making him a commoner, and banished him to a distant county. (Photo)

13. Belle Gunness (1859-?), "Hell's Belle"

Belle Gunness was born in Norway, and according to some sources she lead a relatively normal life until she was kicked in the stomach by a man in her teens, causing her to miscarry her first child. Gunness's personality then changed drastically. Also, perhaps coincidentally, the man who hurt her died shortly afterward from "stomach cancer."

In 1881, Gunness immigrated to the U.S. where she worked as a servant, got married, and had children. Gunness learned how to work the insurance system, taking out large policies on her family members and their place of business. Soon after the policies were in place, her children started dying of stomach issues, and their business burned to the ground. Later, Gunness's husband also died from intestinal distress, reportedly the one day of the year on which two of his life insurance policies overlapped. Gunness collected all of the policy payouts and then remarried.

Within a week of her second marriage, her husband's child from his previous marriage died while under Belle's care. Within a year, her second husband was dead from a mysterious head wound. Once again, Gunness collected the insurance money and moved on.

Eventually, Gunness's crimes were brought to light by a handyman whose affections she had spurned. It was determined that she had killed most of her suitors and boyfriends as well as her two daughters, and it is suspected that she killed both of her husbands and all of their children (approximately twenty to forty people) over a period of about twenty years. She grew quite rich by collecting life insurance, cash, and valuables from her victims. Gunness was never jailed for her crimes; she emptied her bank accounts and disappeared sometime in the early 1900s.

14. Empress Wu Zetian (625-705), The "Enchanting" Empress

*Photo is an artist's rendition of Empress Wu Zetian.

Wu Zetian was the only female empress in Chinese history, and she is known as being a fearsome, ruthless person who never hesitated to resort to murder to benefit herself or her country. Empress Zetian lead China to a period of political and military leadership, and she is responsible for a major expansion of the Chinese empire. However, she was a heartless, cruel, sexually-depraved and brutal leader who even had her own infant daughter killed to further her political career.

Every day of her reign, Wu Zetian ordered tortures, executions, and forced suicides. She organized the murder of her rivals, family members, clergymen, and countless more people. Empress Zetian also ordered tens of thousands of her people to be killed by poison, or boiled alive, or sometimes simply mutilated. She ruled China until her death, by natural causes, at the age of eighty-one.

15. Thug Behram (1765-1840), The World's Most Prolific Serial Killer

Between the years of 1790 and 1840, an Indian cult leader called Thug Behram murdered nine hundred and thirty-one people in Avadh, India. The English word "thug" is derived from Behram's name, and the gang itself was called "Thuggee." Using a ceremonial cloth called a "Rumal," similar to a handkerchief or a cumberbun, Behram would strangle his victims in a ritualistic killing style witnessed by many members of his cult.

In 1840, Behram was executed for his crimes by hanging.

adapted from 

1. http://www.oddee.com/item_98641.aspx

2. http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-terrifying-historical-figures