25-05-2025
17 Historical Figures Who Had Some Of The Most Brutal Deaths In History
Warning: This post discusses intense violence.
They say history is always written from the perspective of the victor, even though those who have been defeated in gruesome deaths find themselves immortalized in some capacity. Their endings aren't pretty by any means, though they're remembered more vividly than those who've left this world on a less disastrous note.
Recently, I did a deep dive on r/AskReddit where, in one post, someone asked users to name the "famous historical figures [who] had deaths proportionally brutal to their level of fame." Here's what people had to say:
Note: Some responses have been condensed and edited for clarity.
1."Ulysses S. Grant, but it was still a noble death."
"After losing all his money to a Ponzi scheme, he defied a throat cancer diagnosis in order to write his memoirs (published by Mark Twain) so that the proceeds would sustain his wife after his death. He wrote one thousand words a day, every day, until the cancer left him too weak to write. At this point, he hired a stenographer and dictated the final chapters through the pain of advanced throat cancer, for which he was denied morphine to keep his mind sharp. At the end, he was forced to wear a wool scarf for all public appearances to hide the fist-sized tumor in front of his neck.
After a year's work and 366,000 words written, he gave the manuscript to Mark Twain to publish and was told that 100,000 copies had been pre-ordered. One week later, he succumbed to cancer. Julia Grant and their children received the modern equivalent of 12 million dollars. The work was such a commercial success, it outsold Twain's other work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
–u/maejaws
2."Julius Caesar's death is pretty wild. Stabbed to death on the Senate floor by people he thought were his political allies and personal friends."
–u/JackC1126
3."Blackbeard the Pirate (Edward Teach). Cornered by the British Navy, he went down fighting. When his body was examined, he had been shot five times and had 20 sword cuts. The British sailors fired another 20 shots into his body and cut off his head to be displayed as a warning to other would-be pirates."
–u/Johhnymaddog316
4."Sigurd the Mighty. A Norwegian Jarl of Shetland who conquered part of Northern Scotland."
"At one point, he challenged Máel Brigte the Buck-Toothed, a local leader, to a battle with 40 men to each side. Dishonorably, he brought 80 men to the battle instead of 40 and, as you might imagine, easily won. Máel Brigte was beheaded, and Sigurd rode home victorious with the head strapped to his saddle. That victory proved to be his last, however, as Máel Brigte the Buck-Toothed proved that his nickname was well earned. As Sigurd rode, the teeth of the severed head rubbed up against his leg, causing an open sore which became infected, leading to the death of Sigurd the Mighty."
–u/Paige_Railstone
5."Charles of Navarre (Charles the Bad) died a quite terrible death. At 54 years old (1387), he fell seriously ill, and on the doctor's advice, they wrapped him in linen soaked in brandy. Because, you know, medieval medicine. Unfortunately, the maid tripped and dropped a candle, which set the brandy ablaze, burning the man alive."
–u/MinuteCow8927
6."Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII must have actually loved her at one point, to then turn around and have her not only executed, but then erase her as much as he possibly could afterwards. He felt so betrayed (despite being the betrayer himself), he tried to erase her existence."
–u/TrespianRomance
7."Jamestown governor John Ratcliffe, the villain in Disney's Pocahontas. Had his skin peeled off and thrown in a fire in front of him."
–u/Pantastic_Studios
8."Joan of Arc, a 19-year-old girl being slowly burned to death by the same church she dedicated her life to, while chanting Christ's name over and over. Only to be named a Saint by that same church centuries later."
–u/SemperFun62
9."Qaddafi getting sodomized with a bayonet has to be up there."
–u/flightist
10."Robespierre. Shot in the jaw, unable to speak, which is what helped start the Terror in the first place — his words. Taken to the guillotine like so many others."
–u/drulaps
11."Roland Freisler died a fittingly brutal death. He was a Nazi judge who oversaw a lot of torture and thousands of death sentences. Differing accounts say that he was killed either when a piece of his courtroom crushed him in an air raid, or when shrapnel hit him and he ran out only to bleed to death on the courthouse steps."
–u/petitecrivain
12."Stalin lay on the ground in his office for about 11 hours after having a stroke, dying slowly in pain. The staff were too scared to enter his private office without explicit permission, so they waited until a senior person showed up."
–u/unclear_warfare
Luther King Jr., as the most visible leader of the Civil Rights Movement, was assassinated in a brutal act of racial violence intended to silence his powerful message. Instead, his death became a rallying cry for the movement and further elevated his status as a global icon of peace and justice."
–u/Spice-Fairy04
14."Bonnie and Clyde. Holy shit, that car had a lot of bullet holes in it."
–u/PreparedStatement
15."Joseph Smith."
"Today, he is best known for founding the Mormon religion, but he had higher ambitions than that. He started a large cult, very similar to what you see today, where he was a godlike leader who had multiple wives and required complete adherence from his followers. But this was the 1830s in the 'Wild West,' where people were distracted with other things, so before time caught up with him, he had developed as a full-on nation-state, with thousands of members, in Western Illinois. For the second time in a 10-year span, Smith amassed a large, heavily armed militia, overthrew the government, destroyed the newspapers, imposed martial law, and declared that he was running for US president, at which point it was assumed he would attempt to take over the entire country, whether he won or lost.
Smith was charged with treason and taken to an Illinois prison. Before he could face trial, hundreds of men stormed the jail, shot Smith repeatedly, at which point Smith tried to escape by jumping from the second-story window, which probably killed him, but the mob went outside and beat and repeatedly shot Smith's corpse just to be was a murder trial for some of the mob members who killed Smith, but all the defendants were acquitted, partially due to jury nullification, but also because there were so many people who shot, beat, and took credit for killing him, it was impossible to prove that one person actually did the deed."
–u/Many_Collection_8889
16."William the Conqueror died of a massive infection caused by an injury he received from the pommel of his saddle."
–u/MartialBob
17."Samuel Doe (21st President of Liberia). He faced 12 hours of torture (which included his ears getting cut off and some of his fingers and toes amputated) before he was finally murdered."
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.
