A catalog of horrific evil, from the 1st century AD to the present day evil is a fact of life. We can see it, not only in the reigns of Stalin & Hitler, but also in everyday crimes like murder, rape & assault--quite apart from the millions of lives brutalized by political or religious oppression, poverty, disease & starvation. One factor unites the 16 featured in this book & the evil acts they committed: they all had unlimited power over the people whose lives they controlled. Their reigns a terror cover a time-span of nearly 2000 years, from the rule of Caligula over the Roman Empire starting in 37AD, to the genocide of educated Cambodians under Pol Pot during the 1980's. Motivated by power, religion, political belief or by sadism & lust, sometimes by insanity, they've become bywords for terror. Introduction Caligula, the schizophrenic emperor Nero, fifth emperor of Rome Attila the Hun, the "storm from the east" King John, a callous, cold-hearted monarch Torquemada, the Spanish inquisitor Prince Vlad Dracula, "the impaler" Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of the Incas "Bloody" Mary I, "a Catholic queen in a Protestant country" Ivan IV, 'The terrible", tsar of all the Russias Elizabeth, Countess Bathory, "Countess Dracula" Rasputin, the "mad monk" who brought down a dynasty Josef Stalin, a 20th-century tyrant Adolf Hitler, father of the final solution Ilse Koch, the "bitch of Buchenwald" Pol Pot, architect of genocide Idi Amin, the butcher of East Africa