5.Saparmurat Niyazov Really Hated Dogs

4.Stalin Had His Painters Shot Because Their Paintings Were Too Accurate

Despite his status as one of the most famously dangerous and imposing figures in world history, Josef Stalin, a man infamous for being responsible for the deaths of more people than Adolf Hitler, was only 1.6 meters (5'5″) tall. At most.This may not seem like such a big deal to us, but for a man like Stalin, who was “obsessed with public image,” it served as a source of constant embarrassment and anger. In order to keep up the illusion that he was a man of physically impressive proportions, Stalin tried to never appear in photographs next to people taller than himself and he'd often hide his withered left hand (supposedly caused by a birth defect) by folding his arms across his chest.Stalin's obsession with appearance was so great that when a portrait painter finally managed to paint him looking intimidating with his arms folded neatly below his broad chest, Stalin immediately had every other painting of him destroyed. Then he killed their painters for good measure.

3.Xerxes I Was Really Annoyed About The Battle Of Thermopylae

Before you Google it to check, yes, Xerxes I was the Persian king with the solid gold throne in the film 300. Although Xerxes I won the Battle of Thermopylae through a combination of sheer numbers and a Spartan betrayal, he literally had to tear victory out of the Spartans' cold, dead hands.However, even though Xerxes managed to best one of the single greatest fighting forces on Earth at the time, he was still incredibly annoyed at how difficult it had been for his army to attain victory in the first place. As a result, when his army marched into Athens after the Battle of Thermopylae and another battle in Artemisium, he ordered the entire city to be burned to the ground.Athens was a huge hub for trade at the time, meaning that burning it to the ground was like Xerxes throwing money straight into the sea. Burning Athens also annoyed the Greeks and only strengthened their resolve to murder every Persian they came across. Xerxes eventually offered to rebuild the city as an apology after he apparently realized that destroying everything it contained had been a bad move.

2.Elagabalus Divorced His Wife Because Of A Birthmark

Elagabalus was a Roman emperor known for being more Caligula-esque than Caligula himself, and he was feared by the Roman people for his penchant for playing pranks. Some stories detail how the emperor released hundreds of snakes into the crowds that had gathered to watch the games, while others talk about how he'd terrify his dinner guests by randomly releasing leopards into the room.Perhaps one of the most curious things about Elagabalus was his seemingly fluid sexuality—the teenage emperor would reportedly bed both men and women and even supposedly prostituted himself to the people of Rome. At the behest of an adviser who wanted to endear him to the public, Elagabalus married a young woman named Julia Paula, who came from a rich Roman family. However, almost immediately after the marriage was finalized, Elagabalus divorced Paula on the grounds that she had an “unsightly blemish” on her body.

1.Kim Jong-un Lived Up To His Dad's Legacy Moments After His Death

Kim Jong-un isn't exactly known for his reserved nature and his stoic approach to leading North Korea, but this is just ridiculous.After his father died, Kim Jong-un was understandably a little upset, and we're not going to begrudge someone for mourning their father—even dictators deserve a small moment of humanity to remember the ones they care about. What we do take exception to is how Kim Jong-un reacted when he heard that one of his new ministers, Kim Chol, had been drinking and otherwise enjoying himself during the state-mandated mourning period for his father. Angered by this apparent slight at his father's memory, Kim Jong-un ordered that Kim Chol be executed. Most executions in the country are carried out by firing squad, but that wasn't enough for Kim Jong-un. He wanted to send a message, and apparently the only way to do that was to have the man blown off the face of the Earth with a direct hit from a mortar round.

翻译:赵一力 来源：前十网