Name: 10 Historical Figures Who Got Away With Doing TERRIBLE Things
Uploaded: 2026-02-02T17:23:36.000Z
Duration: 13 min 47 s
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A titan of the Second World War and a monster of the 20th century who got away with it.

And today we're looking at powerful historical figures who were not punished for their atrocities.

Often described as one of history most prolific female serial killers, Elizabeth Bathory was accused of killing hundreds of young women between 1590 and 1610.

According to legend, servants and peasants who worked in her castle were not safe from the Hungarian noblewoman's cruel whims.

Her sadistic reputation was beginning to strike fear into the hearts of all who heard her name.

You must imagine these people cowering outside the walls of her castles, never knowing what exactly is going on in there, but

knowing at the same time that they are absolute be subject to this person's power, to this person's whim.

Some tales even claimed she bathed in their blood to preserve her youth, though many historians now suspect that part is exaggerated.

Still, many people believed Bathory was guilty.

At the time, more than 300 witnesses testified against her, and

body parts were reportedly found when her castle was raided.

With one imprisoned for life, Bathory herself escaped the noose.

She was instead confined to her castle, Jata, until her death in 1614, she was allowed to live.

And that no one was allowed to talk about her or say her name for 100 years meant that they almost just wrote it out of history.

This evil doctor remains one of the clearest examples of how some Nazi perpetrators escaped justice after World War II.

Josef Mengele has become the poster boy for Nazi medical experiments.

What is it about Mengele that makes him so notorious?

As an SS officer and a physician at Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp, Josef Mengele carried out gruesome medical practices.

We're talking about horrific experiments on twins, pregnant women, and people with deformities.

Mengele sent thousands to the gas chamber, earning the chilling nickname the angel of Death.

Mengele kept her from feeding her newborn child in order to see what would happen to the child, how long it could live, until it starved.

Mengele fled Europe, living under false identities in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.

Despite being one of Nazi's most wanted war criminals, he was never caught or tried.

Rather, he reportedly drowned while swimming in Brazil.

Escaping the punishment many believe he deserved, Mengele was Not the only Nazi doctor carrying out this kind of work, quote, unquote.

And the reason why we think about him is because he got away with it.

He is Henry viii, infamous even half a millennium later for his fabled charm and terrible cruelty.

With Henry viii, it didn't matter who you were, wife, advisor, friend or rival.

If you stood in his way, your head could roll.

Two of his six wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, met the executioner's blade, as did once loyal allies like Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell.

After declaring him head of the Church of England, Henry forced subjects to swear loyalty to him over the Pope.

Estimates suggest tens of thousands perished under his reign.

Yet for all his tyranny, he was never held to account.

Henry actually elevates himself beyond kingship and proclaims that he is an emperor of his own empire.

Even though he ruled through fear and blood, some historians still portray him as a great monarch.

Henry died painfully from illness in 1547.

In 1965, Jean Bidel Bokassa seized power and ruled the Central African Republic with terrifying cruelty.

He later crowned himself Emperor Bokassa I in a lavish coronation that cost millions.

His regime was marked marked by executions of political rivals, rumors of cannibalism and reports of mutilating thieves.

Things worsened when school kids protested against wearing uniforms made by one of his companies.

After being overthrown in 1979, he fled into exile, but

was later convicted of murder, embezzlement and other crimes.

Though sentenced to death, it was later commuted to life imprisonment.

He was ultimately released under a general Amnesty ordered in 1993, then posthumously pardoned by President Francois Beauziset in 2010.

Sentenced to death, he spent a total of seven years in prison before being released in 1993 under an amnesty.

He died of a heart attack three years later.

Isn't it deeply tragic that Idi Amin never faced any trial for all of the atrocities he committed during his presidency, People lived in constant fear and around 300,000 Ugandans died as a result of his cruelty.

After establishing military rule in Uganda, Amin demonstrated eccentric and ruthless behavior.

Mass executions, ethnic persecutions and widespread human rights abuses became the norm, with anyone suspected of disloyalty being swiftly executed.

His reputation for brutality earned him the nickname the Butcher of Uganda and infamous rumors of cannibalism.

Amin ordered Massive massacres motivated by ethnic, political and financial factors.

Yet, like too many dictators, Amin escaped the reckoning he deserved.

When he was overthrown in 1979, he fled to Libya, then settled in Saudi Arabia.

There, far from the chaos he created, he lived until his death in 2003.

Augusto Pinochet From 1973 to 1990, Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile.

After seizing power in a military coup, his regime unleashed a brutal crackdown on political rivals.

Thousands were tortured, executed, or simply disappeared.

Out on the streets of Santiago, leftists, protesters, artists and intellectuals were all being rounded up and marched to the internment camps that were springing up across the city.

Beyond the brutality, Pinochet was accused of embezzling millions in state funds and dabbling in illegal arms and drug deals.

While visiting London in 1998, Pinoch Mochet was arrested on a Spanish warrant issued by Judge Baltazar Garzon.

After 16 months of house arrest in Britain, he returned to Chile to face justice.

I want to know when my father was killed, on what day?

Though courts began stripping his immunity, his lawyers argued he was too ill to stand trial.

Despite multiple house arrests, he was never convicted and died at 91 without spending a day in prison.

Some time ago, I would have said that the dictatorship was behind us and hadn't played such an important role in Chile.

But I wasn't fully aware of what had really happened and how it had happened.

Pol Pot Few people on earth have unleashed such chaos as Pol Pot.

It may surprise many that a ruthless figure like Pol Pot never truly faced justice for his crimes.

This was a leader whose reign saw nearly 2 million Cambodians perish.

Determined to build a pure agrarian communist society, he abolished education and religion, emptied cities and targeted anyone seen as a threat, especially intellectuals.

Pol Pot believed cities were evil and planned to rebuild Cambodia as an agrarian society.

Cambodia became a nation of mass graves and despair.

Temples, money and property were abolished, and the purge that followed gave us the phrase the killing fields.

In 1979, Pol Pot was finally overthrown by Vietnam, but continued leading the Khmer Rouge from the jungle.

His own movement eventually placed him under house arrest and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

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10 Historical Figures Who Got Away With Doing TERRIBLE Things

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