I love top ten lists. I can literally spend hours watching All Time 10's or Watch Mojo, and i always wanted to do something similar. So while i was at work the other day, i came up with the "Top Ten Week". Simply, instead of a list of things with a picture and a few lines, i decided to separate it into five posts of two entries per post. By doing that i will be able to elaborate more on each entry, and maybe even provide some extra info. I plan to do this every now and then, and i am admitting that it also helps me to buy some time during my research for other posts (some of them turning out to be quite the challenge). For my first list i decided to kick things off with the most evil people in history, because i just happened to have a conversation on a similar subject recently, and realised that i was unaware of most of the entries you are about to see. So having researched this subject a little, i thought i could share with you some of my new found knowledge.
Please note this is not intended as a typical Top Ten list, as i avoided the ranking from least to most or vise versa. Also, be warned that some of these entries may include uncomfortable images.
Mehmed Talaat Pasha
Tallat Pasha was one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire by the time of the first World War. He began his career in politics when he became deputy of Edirne (Andrianopolis) in 1908 after the Young Turks Movement revolution, one year later, after the assassination of the Grand Vizier Mahmud Sevket Pasha, he was appointed Minister of Interior Affairs. It was then that he, along with Enver and Djemal, formed the triumvirate, later known as the Three Pashas, over their mutual hatred for Armenia people, that basically ran the entire Ottoman government. On April 24 1915 Tallad issued the order to close all political organization within the empire, and arrest all community leaders and all intellectual people, such as writers and thinkers, that are connected to them, by claiming that they were responsible for upheavals in the Ottoman Empire, and they were secretly collaborating with the Russians. Of course, the truth is that the radical Turks didn't want Christians within their empire. With the pass of his techir law, on June 1 1915, began the mass deportation of 2.000.000 Armenians to the Syrian desert were they were abandoned to starve to death.
Tallat's "Butcher Battalions" as they were named, were made up from ex-convicts and murderers, and they were order to, as one officer claimed, to "liquidity the Christin element". They would strip down the people, and marched them around naked until they were burned from the sun. The killed children and babies with no remorse, and raped women and adolescent girls in from of their families, and crucify them after.
By the end 1922 over 1.500.000 Armenians were brutally murdered, with their homes and proprieties seized, and by the end of 1923 the Armenian population was completely eliminated from Asia Minor and East Armenia leaving only 300.000 Armenians. The Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being by those few survivors.
After the Allied forces occupied Istanbul, they sought to bring to justice those responsible, among other charges, for the Armenian Genocide. Those who where caught were put under arrest at the Bekiraga division and where subsequently exiled to Malta. The Pashas, who held the highest positions in the administration and whose names were on the top of the execution lists of the Armenian assassination teams could be condemned in absentia because they had gone abroad. A few months later the British secret service located Tallat in Stockholm, and planned to apprehend him, but dropped the plan, fearing implications with Germany, instead they decided to allow the Armenian revolutionaries to carry out the verdict. Tallat was assassinated with a single bullet through the head on March 15 1921 as he came out of his house in Hardenberastrasse. His assassin was an Armenian Revolutionary Federation member from Erzurum, named Soghomon Tehlirian.
He surrender himself, and after a two day trial was fount not innocent, on grounds of temporary insanity, due to the traumatic experience he went through during the genocide.
Tehlirian died in 1960 and is buried at the Ararat Cemetery in California, in a monumental grave.
He is still considered a national hero to the Armenians.
The Turkish government still denies that the Holocaust ever took place. They claim that the Armenians were an enemy force, so extreme measures had to be taken. Turkey is considered a valuable ally to America and most western nations, so many world governments have yet to condemn the Armenian Genocide.
Elizabeth, or Erzsebet, Bathory was the daughter of George and Anna Bathory, born in Nirbratoe, Hungary on 1560. As a child she spend most of her days in her families estate, castle Cachtice, located near the town of of Vishine, north east of present day Bratislava (although it is commonly mistakenly reported being in Transylvania). From a very young age she showed exceptional brilliance, and began to educate her self. By the age of 12 she was fluent at German, Latin and Greek, She showed a passion for fine arts and historians suggest that she was studying, and fascinated by, astronomy. All that in an era when most of the nobles couldn't even write their own name.
Elizabeth came from high nobility, her uncle was the former king of Hungary, and all of her family members were dukes and barons. Also her family was one of the first in Hungary to renounce the Catholic Church, and adopt Protestantism.
As a child she was subject to heavy seizures, accompanied by intense fits of rage and uncontrollable behavior, and possible even epilepsy. At the time it seems many of the peasants who were in the Bathory family service, believed her to be cursed, because of her aunt, who was rumored to be a witch.
Truth is, that it is highly possible that Elizabeth was a product of inbreeding, something that was really quite common within the nobility. Records of many dysfunctional members of her family also support this. Furthermore, she was growing in a era of war, when Hungary was overrun by the Ottoman empire, which lead to a constant series of proxy battles. On top of that, the Hungarians were influenced by the stories of Vlad the Impaler, and would mimic his brutality to instill fear to the Turks. It is suggested that Elizabeth witnessed countless brutal acts of punishment that deeply traumatize her, and psychologists believe that she was suffering from social anxiety due to these events. A historical analysis suggest that she once witnessed her father capturing a thief in his estate, witch he proceeded to beat near to death, and then sew inside the stomach of a dying horse and left to perish. So not only she was exposed to incredible violence, but her family absolutely condone attitude toward it.
Elizabeth Bathory was engaged at age 10 to a young knight named Ferenc Nadasty (known as "The Black Knight"), who was already famous for his brutal tactics against the ottomans, even though he was just 18, and were married on May 1575. He was a soldier, so he was away for long periods of time, even longer when he became chief commander of the Hungarian troops, and while he was away Elizabeth was tasked with protecting their vast estate and the seventeen villages that surround it.
A series of letters discovered later on, showed that Elizabeth would write to her husband, asking him to describe to her the ways he killed his enemies, and he would happily respond in gruesome detail. Apparently, all this gore was arousing Elizabeth to the point that she would take part in massive orgies with her servants, allowing historians to believe that she was in fact bisexual.
One day, Elizabeth suffered from a severe fit of rage, and since Ferenc was not around to restrain her, she killed a servant girl, who was supposedly jealous of too. It seems that the murderous rush was so intoxicating, that would turn young Elizabeth into the most prolific serial killer in history.
After her husband's death in 1604, nobody was left to restrain her, she was in charge of a huge territory, and bored from a comfortable life, that satisfied all her needs, Elizabeth resulted to the rush of murder. Having learned a lot from her late husband about torture, she unleashed her rage onto her servants and peasants, especially young girls. Some of her ways included:
Lady Bathory was able to remain undetected for many years, despite the complaints of the villagers about he disappearing girls. Supposedly she crossed the line when she included a noble girl in her past time activity, drawing the attention of the crown, which was more than happy to carry out an inquiry. You see the king was in great dept to the Bathory family, so if she was guilty, not only he could keep his money, but also seize her vast territory. So, after a raid on a Christmas night in 1610, Elizabeth was apprehended and put on trial, where after almost 300 testimonies she was found guilty for 650 cases of murder (even though that this this number is highly unlikely).
She was sentenced to house restriction where she died in her sleep four years later.
Now it is worth mentioning that the tale of Lady Elizabeth Bathory is surrounded by myths. For instance, there are absolutely no proof that she would bathe in her victims blood to stay young, that myth surfaced more than 100 years later and its part of the folkloric tales the villagers created, mostly to attract tourists. Also it is believed that everything was a political conspiracy orchestrated by her familie's opponents to claim her land, and erase their dept to them (Knights Templar anyone?), after her husband died. Lets not forget that at that time, almost all widowed women were scape goats, and always considered witches.
So, guilty or not, the legend of Lady Bathory is what inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula, one of themost famous novels, and create the vampire mythos, that would live to become an insuperable part of popular culture.
Thank you for reading
*All sources will be posted on the final post of the list
For any personal comments, hate or praise, ideas or simply anything, please feel free to contact me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/vlasis.sephirothz or twitter https://twitter.com/The_Vlasis
Please note this is not intended as a typical Top Ten list, as i avoided the ranking from least to most or vise versa. Also, be warned that some of these entries may include uncomfortable images.
Mehmed Talaat Pasha
1874-1921
Tallat Pasha was one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire by the time of the first World War. He began his career in politics when he became deputy of Edirne (Andrianopolis) in 1908 after the Young Turks Movement revolution, one year later, after the assassination of the Grand Vizier Mahmud Sevket Pasha, he was appointed Minister of Interior Affairs. It was then that he, along with Enver and Djemal, formed the triumvirate, later known as the Three Pashas, over their mutual hatred for Armenia people, that basically ran the entire Ottoman government. On April 24 1915 Tallad issued the order to close all political organization within the empire, and arrest all community leaders and all intellectual people, such as writers and thinkers, that are connected to them, by claiming that they were responsible for upheavals in the Ottoman Empire, and they were secretly collaborating with the Russians. Of course, the truth is that the radical Turks didn't want Christians within their empire. With the pass of his techir law, on June 1 1915, began the mass deportation of 2.000.000 Armenians to the Syrian desert were they were abandoned to starve to death.
| Ottoman Armenians are marched to a prison by armed Turkish soldiers in April 1915. |
| Armenian Christian girls crucified in the desert |
After the Allied forces occupied Istanbul, they sought to bring to justice those responsible, among other charges, for the Armenian Genocide. Those who where caught were put under arrest at the Bekiraga division and where subsequently exiled to Malta. The Pashas, who held the highest positions in the administration and whose names were on the top of the execution lists of the Armenian assassination teams could be condemned in absentia because they had gone abroad. A few months later the British secret service located Tallat in Stockholm, and planned to apprehend him, but dropped the plan, fearing implications with Germany, instead they decided to allow the Armenian revolutionaries to carry out the verdict. Tallat was assassinated with a single bullet through the head on March 15 1921 as he came out of his house in Hardenberastrasse. His assassin was an Armenian Revolutionary Federation member from Erzurum, named Soghomon Tehlirian.
He surrender himself, and after a two day trial was fount not innocent, on grounds of temporary insanity, due to the traumatic experience he went through during the genocide.
Tehlirian died in 1960 and is buried at the Ararat Cemetery in California, in a monumental grave.
He is still considered a national hero to the Armenians.
Lady Elizabeth Bathory
1560-1614
Elizabeth, or Erzsebet, Bathory was the daughter of George and Anna Bathory, born in Nirbratoe, Hungary on 1560. As a child she spend most of her days in her families estate, castle Cachtice, located near the town of of Vishine, north east of present day Bratislava (although it is commonly mistakenly reported being in Transylvania). From a very young age she showed exceptional brilliance, and began to educate her self. By the age of 12 she was fluent at German, Latin and Greek, She showed a passion for fine arts and historians suggest that she was studying, and fascinated by, astronomy. All that in an era when most of the nobles couldn't even write their own name.
Elizabeth came from high nobility, her uncle was the former king of Hungary, and all of her family members were dukes and barons. Also her family was one of the first in Hungary to renounce the Catholic Church, and adopt Protestantism.
As a child she was subject to heavy seizures, accompanied by intense fits of rage and uncontrollable behavior, and possible even epilepsy. At the time it seems many of the peasants who were in the Bathory family service, believed her to be cursed, because of her aunt, who was rumored to be a witch.
Truth is, that it is highly possible that Elizabeth was a product of inbreeding, something that was really quite common within the nobility. Records of many dysfunctional members of her family also support this. Furthermore, she was growing in a era of war, when Hungary was overrun by the Ottoman empire, which lead to a constant series of proxy battles. On top of that, the Hungarians were influenced by the stories of Vlad the Impaler, and would mimic his brutality to instill fear to the Turks. It is suggested that Elizabeth witnessed countless brutal acts of punishment that deeply traumatize her, and psychologists believe that she was suffering from social anxiety due to these events. A historical analysis suggest that she once witnessed her father capturing a thief in his estate, witch he proceeded to beat near to death, and then sew inside the stomach of a dying horse and left to perish. So not only she was exposed to incredible violence, but her family absolutely condone attitude toward it.
| The emblem of the Bathory family |
Elizabeth Bathory was engaged at age 10 to a young knight named Ferenc Nadasty (known as "The Black Knight"), who was already famous for his brutal tactics against the ottomans, even though he was just 18, and were married on May 1575. He was a soldier, so he was away for long periods of time, even longer when he became chief commander of the Hungarian troops, and while he was away Elizabeth was tasked with protecting their vast estate and the seventeen villages that surround it.
A series of letters discovered later on, showed that Elizabeth would write to her husband, asking him to describe to her the ways he killed his enemies, and he would happily respond in gruesome detail. Apparently, all this gore was arousing Elizabeth to the point that she would take part in massive orgies with her servants, allowing historians to believe that she was in fact bisexual.
One day, Elizabeth suffered from a severe fit of rage, and since Ferenc was not around to restrain her, she killed a servant girl, who was supposedly jealous of too. It seems that the murderous rush was so intoxicating, that would turn young Elizabeth into the most prolific serial killer in history.
After her husband's death in 1604, nobody was left to restrain her, she was in charge of a huge territory, and bored from a comfortable life, that satisfied all her needs, Elizabeth resulted to the rush of murder. Having learned a lot from her late husband about torture, she unleashed her rage onto her servants and peasants, especially young girls. Some of her ways included:
- Severe beatings administered by Elizabeth herself, who reportedly beat girls in the face "until their bones broke"
- Applying red hot irons to the soles of girls feet
- Mutilation of the face, fingers and genitals
- Sexual abuse of the most depraved nature
- Placing oil rages between a girls legs ans setting them on fire
- Mock "surgery"
- She forced a girl to reportedly cut of, cook and eat her own flesh
- Biting of their flesh until they die
- Stabbed with needles under the finger nails
- Doused with water and left in the cold
- Forced girls in small cages filled with spikes and set on fire
- Covered with honey and left outside to be killed by the bugs
- Starvation
Lady Bathory was able to remain undetected for many years, despite the complaints of the villagers about he disappearing girls. Supposedly she crossed the line when she included a noble girl in her past time activity, drawing the attention of the crown, which was more than happy to carry out an inquiry. You see the king was in great dept to the Bathory family, so if she was guilty, not only he could keep his money, but also seize her vast territory. So, after a raid on a Christmas night in 1610, Elizabeth was apprehended and put on trial, where after almost 300 testimonies she was found guilty for 650 cases of murder (even though that this this number is highly unlikely).
She was sentenced to house restriction where she died in her sleep four years later.
Now it is worth mentioning that the tale of Lady Elizabeth Bathory is surrounded by myths. For instance, there are absolutely no proof that she would bathe in her victims blood to stay young, that myth surfaced more than 100 years later and its part of the folkloric tales the villagers created, mostly to attract tourists. Also it is believed that everything was a political conspiracy orchestrated by her familie's opponents to claim her land, and erase their dept to them (Knights Templar anyone?), after her husband died. Lets not forget that at that time, almost all widowed women were scape goats, and always considered witches.
So, guilty or not, the legend of Lady Bathory is what inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula, one of themost famous novels, and create the vampire mythos, that would live to become an insuperable part of popular culture.
Thank you for reading
*All sources will be posted on the final post of the list
For any personal comments, hate or praise, ideas or simply anything, please feel free to contact me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/vlasis.sephirothz or twitter https://twitter.com/The_Vlasis
