1. The Dominican Republic, led by dictator Rafael Trujillo, offered to accept between 50,000 and 100,000 Jewish refugees in 1938. Only 645 made it and upon arrival, every new Jewish settler was given 80 acres of land, 10 cows, a mule and a horse. – Source
2. Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe tried to stop a critic of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation by levying ridiculous taxes on his newspaper. The writer retaliated with advertisements printed on trillion-dollar-bills, which was cheaper than actual paper. – Source
3. Peter Tatchell, a British gay rights activist, attempted a citizen’s arrest on Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe in 1999. Tatchell walked up to Mugabe’s motorcade, grabbed the stunned dictator by the arm, and stated calmly, “President Mugabe, you are under arrest for torture.” – Source
4. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, though depicted “as physically massive and majestic,” was actually only 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m). He was shorter than Napoleon and President Truman referred to him as “a little squirt” after first meeting him. – Source
5. In 2003, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea took personal control of the national treasury, handing more than $500,000,000 to family members, ostensibly to prevent corruption by civil servants. He has also been declared a god, who “can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account.” – Source
6. Mengistu Haile Mariam, the brutal communist dictator of Ethiopia, who executed thousands of people and may have personally murdered Emperor Haile Selassie is alive and well under asylum in Zimbabwe – Source
7. In 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein received the key to Detroit for making large donations to a Detroit church. – Source
8. In 2003, the US troops found approximately $650 Million USD inside the walls of Saddam Hussein’s palace. – Source
9. According to the US soldiers who guarded him, one of the few times Saddam Hussein ever looked defeated in prison was when they brought him the wrong cereal, which was Fruit Loops. He hated Fruit Loops. – Source
10. Saddam Hussein used Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” as his campaign song in the 2002 election. – Source
11. As a young boy, Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khomeini was the leapfrog champion of his village and the surrounding area. – Source
12. Uday Hussein, Saddam’s son, murdered his father’s personal valet and food taster with an electric carving knife in front of dinner guests at Suzanne Mubarak’s birthday party for introducing his father to his second wife. – Source
13. Adolf Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942) and Ayatollah Khomeni (1979) all were TIME “Person of the Year.” – Source
14. Dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin’s official title was “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.” – Source
15. Idi Amin once sent Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere a telegram saying, “I want to assure you that I love you very much. If you had been a woman I would have considered marrying you, although your head is full of gray hairs. As you are a man that possibility does not arise.” – Source
16. Before arriving in Liberia to wage a civil war, dictator and war criminal Charles Taylor broke out of jail in Massachusetts by sawing through a bar, rappelling with knotted sheets and fleeing into the woods after which he ultimately found his way to Liberia. – Source
17. Dictator Charles Taylor, campaigned for president of Liberia on the slogan “He killed my ma. He killed my pa. I’ll vote for him.” He won the election and went on to become one of the worst war criminals in modern African history. – Source
18. George Clooney, as the spokesman for Nespresso, spends most of the money he makes from the deal on keeping a spy satellite operating. The satellite is over the North and South Sudan border, monitoring dictator Omar al-Bashir and his army. – Source
19. Media mogul Pat Robertson used his charity work as a front to mine for diamonds in Zaire and gold in Liberia, allying himself with dictators Mobutu Sese Seko and Charles Taylor (two dictators, embezzlers, and butchers). – Source
20. Dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez seized power of El Salvador in 1931 and by force of death squad killed an estimated 10,000-40,000 people who opposed him. He did manage to eradicate crime and paid all the foreign debt. – Source
21. In 1989, United States launched a military operation to depose the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. When he took refuge in the Vatican embassy, US military blasted deafeningly loud rock-and-roll music continuously for 10 days to force him out. – Source
22. In October 1988, a 10-year-old Michigan girl named Sarah York traveled to Panama to meet with her Panamanian penpal, the infamous military leader Manuel Noriega. Her parents were criticized for allowing her to visit Panama, and for encouraging her friendship with Noriega – Source
23. The U.S. dropped drug trafficking charges against Manuel Noriega after a 50 lb. stash of ‘cocaine’ found in his freezer was revealed to be a 50 lb. stash of tamales. Noriega used the tamales for ‘magic binding’ rituals against his opponents and people he wanted to control. – Source
24. In 1973, US-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected leader of Chile, Salvadore Allende. Pinochet ordered an air strike on the Presidential Palace. Labor activists and famous folk guitarists were rounded up for torture. All of them either disappeared or were killed. – Source
25. When he was a child, Fidel Castro sent Franklin Roosevelt a letter expressing his joy at Roosevelt’s re-election and asked if he could send him a 10 dollar bill, because he had never seen one. – Source
26. Fidel Castro recommended to the Kremlin a harder line against Washington, even suggesting the possibility of nuclear strikes. The pressure stopped after Soviet officials gave Castro a briefing on the ecological impact on Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States. – Source
27. Marita Lorenz, ex-lover of Fidel Castro had agreed to aid the CIA and attempted to smuggle a jar of cold cream containing poison pills into Fidel Castro’s room. When Castro learned about her intentions, he reportedly gave her a gun and told her to kill him but her nerve failed. – Source
28. In 2012, a 14-year old North Korean girl drowned while trying to save portraits of dictator Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. The government renamed her school after her. – Source
29. Kim Il Sung, founder and dictator of North Korea, had a baseball-sized growth on his neck. It was benign but could not be removed due to its location. Official photos of the “Eternal President” were therefore taken from a leftward angle to hide the growth. – Source
30. Doctors induced labor to make sure the Kim Jong Un’s child was born in 2012, which marked the 100th anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung. – Source
31. When the KGB tried to blackmail Indonesian President Achmed Sukarno with videotapes of the president having sex with Russian women disguised as flight attendants, Sukarno wasn’t upset. He was pleased. He even asked for more copies of the video to show back in his country. – Source
32. In 1958, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong ordered the people of China to kill sparrows because they steal grain. Since sparrows also eat insects, their absence caused a locust epidemic that ravaged crops and killed millions of people. – Source
33. In 1973, Mao Zedong told Henry Kissinger China had a surplus of women and offered USA 10 million Chinese women. – Source
34. President Suharto of Indonesia is considered the world’s most corrupt former head of state, embezzling between $15-$35 billion. – Source
35. A few of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge soldiers were found hiding in jungle as recent as 2005, completely unaware that dictator Pol Pot died and Vietnamese troops no longer occupied the country. – Source
36. Of the 17,000 Cambodian people imprisoned at Pol Pot’s notorious S-21 prison, only 7 survived. The rest were tortured and exterminated. – Source
37. As a result of starvation under Pol Pot, Cambodians began to hunt and eat Tarantulas in the country side for sustenance, a practice that has since become a specialty snack and popular treat for tourists. – Source
38. Kim Jong-Il’s personal sushi chef escaped from North Korea in 2001 by telling them he wanted to buy a sea urchin to cook for him. He subsequently wrote a memoir about his experiences with Kim Jong-Il. – Source
39. Kim Jong-Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, was widely consider to be the heir to the title of Supreme Leader of North Korea until he attempted to enter Japan with a fake passport so that he could go to Disneyland. – Source
40. Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed body is bathed and dressed in new clothes every year. His tomb is in the center of Moscow open to public, despite his death wish to be buried next to his wife – Source
41. Turkish dictator Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who is considered to be the “Father of the Turks”, personally ordered and supervised the massacre/genocide of tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians between 1937-1938, just a year before he died. – Source
42. In Soviet Russia, prisoners would get tattoos of Lenin & Stalin, because guards weren’t allowed to shoot at images of national leaders. – Source
43. After being shot, kicked, and spat upon, the bodies of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress were hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of an Esso gas station. The bodies were then stoned by civilians from below. – Source
44. Benito Mussolini used to offer £1,271 to couples willing to name their child “Benito.” Plus, when any family relocated to the sunny Mediterranean, the Italian government gave them £835, in addition to the £1,271 fascist bribe, because not enough Italians were getting pregnant. – Source
45. Joseph Stalin’s son shot himself because of Stalin’s harshness toward him, but survived. After this, Stalin said, “He can’t even shoot straight.” – Source
46. World War II was not the end of Fascist dictatorships in Europe. The fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, ruled Spain until 1975, and personally signed death warrants until months before his death. – Source
47. Francisco Franco ordered many of the same deadly xenophobic/religious “solutions” as Hitler and Mussolini (and was asked to join the Axis during WW2), but managed to remain neutral enough that Richard Nixon memorialized him as: “loyal friend and ally of the United States.” – Source
48. Stalin personally arranged several assassination attempts on Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito, none of which succeeded. In a correspondence between the two leaders, Tito openly wrote: “Stop sending people to kill me. We’ve already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle (…) If you don’t stop sending killers, I’ll send one to Moscow, and I won’t have to send a second.” – Source
49. The country of Albania constructed over 700,000 concrete bunkers while under the reign of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, resulting in 1 bunker for every four citizens. Today they are used as homeless shelters and makeout spots for teens. – Source
50. In 1989, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu banned the board game scrabble deeming it “too intellectual.” – Source
2. Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe tried to stop a critic of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation by levying ridiculous taxes on his newspaper. The writer retaliated with advertisements printed on trillion-dollar-bills, which was cheaper than actual paper. – Source
3. Peter Tatchell, a British gay rights activist, attempted a citizen’s arrest on Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe in 1999. Tatchell walked up to Mugabe’s motorcade, grabbed the stunned dictator by the arm, and stated calmly, “President Mugabe, you are under arrest for torture.” – Source
4. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, though depicted “as physically massive and majestic,” was actually only 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m). He was shorter than Napoleon and President Truman referred to him as “a little squirt” after first meeting him. – Source
5. In 2003, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea took personal control of the national treasury, handing more than $500,000,000 to family members, ostensibly to prevent corruption by civil servants. He has also been declared a god, who “can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account.” – Source
6. Mengistu Haile Mariam, the brutal communist dictator of Ethiopia, who executed thousands of people and may have personally murdered Emperor Haile Selassie is alive and well under asylum in Zimbabwe – Source
7. In 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein received the key to Detroit for making large donations to a Detroit church. – Source
8. In 2003, the US troops found approximately $650 Million USD inside the walls of Saddam Hussein’s palace. – Source
9. According to the US soldiers who guarded him, one of the few times Saddam Hussein ever looked defeated in prison was when they brought him the wrong cereal, which was Fruit Loops. He hated Fruit Loops. – Source
10. Saddam Hussein used Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” as his campaign song in the 2002 election. – Source
11. As a young boy, Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khomeini was the leapfrog champion of his village and the surrounding area. – Source
12. Uday Hussein, Saddam’s son, murdered his father’s personal valet and food taster with an electric carving knife in front of dinner guests at Suzanne Mubarak’s birthday party for introducing his father to his second wife. – Source
13. Adolf Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942) and Ayatollah Khomeni (1979) all were TIME “Person of the Year.” – Source
14. Dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin’s official title was “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.” – Source
15. Idi Amin once sent Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere a telegram saying, “I want to assure you that I love you very much. If you had been a woman I would have considered marrying you, although your head is full of gray hairs. As you are a man that possibility does not arise.” – Source
16. Before arriving in Liberia to wage a civil war, dictator and war criminal Charles Taylor broke out of jail in Massachusetts by sawing through a bar, rappelling with knotted sheets and fleeing into the woods after which he ultimately found his way to Liberia. – Source
17. Dictator Charles Taylor, campaigned for president of Liberia on the slogan “He killed my ma. He killed my pa. I’ll vote for him.” He won the election and went on to become one of the worst war criminals in modern African history. – Source
18. George Clooney, as the spokesman for Nespresso, spends most of the money he makes from the deal on keeping a spy satellite operating. The satellite is over the North and South Sudan border, monitoring dictator Omar al-Bashir and his army. – Source
19. Media mogul Pat Robertson used his charity work as a front to mine for diamonds in Zaire and gold in Liberia, allying himself with dictators Mobutu Sese Seko and Charles Taylor (two dictators, embezzlers, and butchers). – Source
20. Dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez seized power of El Salvador in 1931 and by force of death squad killed an estimated 10,000-40,000 people who opposed him. He did manage to eradicate crime and paid all the foreign debt. – Source
21. In 1989, United States launched a military operation to depose the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. When he took refuge in the Vatican embassy, US military blasted deafeningly loud rock-and-roll music continuously for 10 days to force him out. – Source
22. In October 1988, a 10-year-old Michigan girl named Sarah York traveled to Panama to meet with her Panamanian penpal, the infamous military leader Manuel Noriega. Her parents were criticized for allowing her to visit Panama, and for encouraging her friendship with Noriega – Source
23. The U.S. dropped drug trafficking charges against Manuel Noriega after a 50 lb. stash of ‘cocaine’ found in his freezer was revealed to be a 50 lb. stash of tamales. Noriega used the tamales for ‘magic binding’ rituals against his opponents and people he wanted to control. – Source
24. In 1973, US-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected leader of Chile, Salvadore Allende. Pinochet ordered an air strike on the Presidential Palace. Labor activists and famous folk guitarists were rounded up for torture. All of them either disappeared or were killed. – Source
25. When he was a child, Fidel Castro sent Franklin Roosevelt a letter expressing his joy at Roosevelt’s re-election and asked if he could send him a 10 dollar bill, because he had never seen one. – Source
26. Fidel Castro recommended to the Kremlin a harder line against Washington, even suggesting the possibility of nuclear strikes. The pressure stopped after Soviet officials gave Castro a briefing on the ecological impact on Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States. – Source
27. Marita Lorenz, ex-lover of Fidel Castro had agreed to aid the CIA and attempted to smuggle a jar of cold cream containing poison pills into Fidel Castro’s room. When Castro learned about her intentions, he reportedly gave her a gun and told her to kill him but her nerve failed. – Source
28. In 2012, a 14-year old North Korean girl drowned while trying to save portraits of dictator Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. The government renamed her school after her. – Source
29. Kim Il Sung, founder and dictator of North Korea, had a baseball-sized growth on his neck. It was benign but could not be removed due to its location. Official photos of the “Eternal President” were therefore taken from a leftward angle to hide the growth. – Source
30. Doctors induced labor to make sure the Kim Jong Un’s child was born in 2012, which marked the 100th anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung. – Source
31. When the KGB tried to blackmail Indonesian President Achmed Sukarno with videotapes of the president having sex with Russian women disguised as flight attendants, Sukarno wasn’t upset. He was pleased. He even asked for more copies of the video to show back in his country. – Source
32. In 1958, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong ordered the people of China to kill sparrows because they steal grain. Since sparrows also eat insects, their absence caused a locust epidemic that ravaged crops and killed millions of people. – Source
33. In 1973, Mao Zedong told Henry Kissinger China had a surplus of women and offered USA 10 million Chinese women. – Source
34. President Suharto of Indonesia is considered the world’s most corrupt former head of state, embezzling between $15-$35 billion. – Source
35. A few of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge soldiers were found hiding in jungle as recent as 2005, completely unaware that dictator Pol Pot died and Vietnamese troops no longer occupied the country. – Source
36. Of the 17,000 Cambodian people imprisoned at Pol Pot’s notorious S-21 prison, only 7 survived. The rest were tortured and exterminated. – Source
37. As a result of starvation under Pol Pot, Cambodians began to hunt and eat Tarantulas in the country side for sustenance, a practice that has since become a specialty snack and popular treat for tourists. – Source
38. Kim Jong-Il’s personal sushi chef escaped from North Korea in 2001 by telling them he wanted to buy a sea urchin to cook for him. He subsequently wrote a memoir about his experiences with Kim Jong-Il. – Source
39. Kim Jong-Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, was widely consider to be the heir to the title of Supreme Leader of North Korea until he attempted to enter Japan with a fake passport so that he could go to Disneyland. – Source
40. Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed body is bathed and dressed in new clothes every year. His tomb is in the center of Moscow open to public, despite his death wish to be buried next to his wife – Source
41. Turkish dictator Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who is considered to be the “Father of the Turks”, personally ordered and supervised the massacre/genocide of tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians between 1937-1938, just a year before he died. – Source
42. In Soviet Russia, prisoners would get tattoos of Lenin & Stalin, because guards weren’t allowed to shoot at images of national leaders. – Source
43. After being shot, kicked, and spat upon, the bodies of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress were hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of an Esso gas station. The bodies were then stoned by civilians from below. – Source
44. Benito Mussolini used to offer £1,271 to couples willing to name their child “Benito.” Plus, when any family relocated to the sunny Mediterranean, the Italian government gave them £835, in addition to the £1,271 fascist bribe, because not enough Italians were getting pregnant. – Source
45. Joseph Stalin’s son shot himself because of Stalin’s harshness toward him, but survived. After this, Stalin said, “He can’t even shoot straight.” – Source
46. World War II was not the end of Fascist dictatorships in Europe. The fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, ruled Spain until 1975, and personally signed death warrants until months before his death. – Source
47. Francisco Franco ordered many of the same deadly xenophobic/religious “solutions” as Hitler and Mussolini (and was asked to join the Axis during WW2), but managed to remain neutral enough that Richard Nixon memorialized him as: “loyal friend and ally of the United States.” – Source
48. Stalin personally arranged several assassination attempts on Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito, none of which succeeded. In a correspondence between the two leaders, Tito openly wrote: “Stop sending people to kill me. We’ve already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle (…) If you don’t stop sending killers, I’ll send one to Moscow, and I won’t have to send a second.” – Source
49. The country of Albania constructed over 700,000 concrete bunkers while under the reign of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, resulting in 1 bunker for every four citizens. Today they are used as homeless shelters and makeout spots for teens. – Source
50. In 1989, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu banned the board game scrabble deeming it “too intellectual.” – Source
