13 Chilling Childhood Photos Of History’s Most Infamously Evil Humans

13 Chilling Childhood Photos Of History’s Most Infamously Evil Humans

 

It’s hard to fathom that some of the most evil humans in history entered this world as innocent infants. These chilling photos remind us that, while they are known universally as some of the world’s most hated and brutal individuals, they all started off as chaste and innocent youths. All though they descended into evil over the years, their childhood photos will send a chill down your spine. Little did these photographers know that they were capturing some of the most infamous men of all time.

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  Joseph Stalin

• Widely considered a psychopath, Joseph Stalin is estimated to be responsible for anywhere from 20-40 million deaths total. Coming from a troubled childhood, he ruled Russia with an iron fist during the Red Terror. To see him as a formative youth is mind-boggling.

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  Ted Bundy

• The most infamous serial killer of all time, Theodore Robert Bundy is estimated to have killed anywhere from 40 to 100 women in unspeakably gruesome ways. It’s heartbreaking to know the future that awaits this seemingly normal child.

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  Osama bin Laden

• Bin Laden is known for founding al-Qaeda, the militant organization that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the United States, in addition to many other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. Can you tell from this childhood photo what future he had in store?

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  Adolf Hitler

• A man whose name has come to signify evil in all its capacities, Hitler is probably the most infamous and evil person in all of human history. He directly caused the death of millions of innocent Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and people with mental and physical illness, not to mention the millions of other lives lost in World War II as an indirect result of his actions. Seeing this baby photo of him is as creepy as it gets.

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  Heinrich Himmler

• The commander of the SS Schutzstaffel and head of the concentration camps, Himmler was the mastermind who gassed inmates with toxic poison in chambers and systematically worked and starved them to death. Responsible for the genocide of millions, Himmler committed suicide in 1945.

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  Charles Manson

• Manson is a murderer and conspiracist who ordered his commune members to murder rich people in Beverly Hills. He’s still in prison to this day.

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  Jeffrey Dahmer

• Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender, who committed the rape, murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders also involved cannibalism to some extent. Dahmer was beat to death in prison, but his childhood photo is chilling to look at.

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  John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

• Nicknamed the Killer Clown, Gacy was an American serial killer and rapist who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of at least 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago. From his childhood photo, however, he just looks like a standard troublemaker. Eerie.

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  Emperor Hirohito

• Hirohito served as Emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989, but is most remembered for the 1937 war crime called The Rape of Nanking (then the capital of China, now known as Nanjing). During the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army committed many atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. The death toll is estimated to be around 300,000. It’s hard to believe the happy baby in this picture could preside over such an atrocity.

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  Gary Ridgway

• Known as the Green River Killer, Ridgway was a serial killer convicted of 48 separate murders who later confessed to nearly twice that number. His childhood picture is nothing but innocent, however.

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  Albert DeSalvo

• Between June 14, 1962 and January 4, 1964, DeSalvo killed between 13 women in the Boston area. Pictured here on the left, it’s hard to believe he would grow up to be a serial killer.

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  Saddam Hussein

• The fifth President of Iraq was largely condemned throughout the world for the brutality of his dictatorship. He was executed after being convicted of charges related to the killings of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites.

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  Alexander Pichushkin

• Known as “the Chessboard Killer,” Pichushkin murdered nearly 50 elderly homeless men in and around Moscow, Russia. According to him, he murdered people because he was competing with another killer. Could you tell from his childhood picture what future awaited him?

8 Brilliant Minds in History and Their Favorite Drugs

  By Christina •June 19, 2015 History & Archaeology, Weird & Unbelievable Facts

 

Whether it’s leading countries, being part of a creative community or just wanting to experiment – at some point, some of the most famous names in history have tried or been addicted to drugs of some kind. Here’s the round-up of the most brilliant minds in history and the drugs they were once addicted to.

1. Charles Dickens

In Dickens’ time, opium was common on the Victorian streets of London and it’s fairly safe to say that Dickens himself was a fan, even referencing the drug and provided a detailed first-hand description of the opium dens in his later, unfinished work The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Dickens used the drug in the form of laudanum for many years before dying of a stroke in the 1870’s.

2. Vincent Van Gogh

Whilst cutting off his own ear was one of the wackiest things Van Gogh did, being addicted to the prescription drug Digitalis and strong spirit Absinthe can also be added to the list. Initially using the substances to treat bipolar disorder, anxiety and temporal lobe epilepsy, he soon became addicted and the yellow spots affecting sight associated with both certainly explain a lot about his artwork. Some people also believe that the use of lead-based paints also resulted in lead poisoning, further affecting his substance abuse and it was once noted by Dr Peyron that the famous artist once tried to commit suicide by swallowing paint or drinking kerosene.

3. Adolf Hitler

It is a well-known fact that Hitler used a cocktail of drugs to suit his needs, through the help of his many men. A USA Military Dossier states that Theodor Morell would assist Hitler in his drug-taking needs, using barbiturate tranquilizers, morphine, crystal meth, bull semen and many others. Some accounts claim that Hitler took crystal meth before his 2-hour long rant during a meeting with Mussolini and in his last hours in the bunker, it is said that he took nine shots of methamphetamine.

4. Thomas Edison

Vin Mariani was invented in 1863 and was essentially, a cocaine elixir. The wine was made from coca leaves and the ethanol content in the Bordeax could extract cocaine from these leaves exceeding 7mg per fluid ounce of wine. During this period, it wasn’t uncommon to consume the wine that had been laced with Cocaine and it became popular with the late Thomas Edison.

5. Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs may have been a technological genius, but in the 1960’s he was also usingLSD. He was also said to think that certain people around him, who hadn’t tried recreational drugs, just didn’t understand him.

6. Stephen King

The famous horror writer is said to have been a practiced user of a self-made cocktail of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, beer, marijuana and tobacco. After an intervention by his family, King is said to have gone to Rehab to fix his problems and to this day, remains clean and sober. Apparently…

7. Winston Churchill

Whilst not quite as wild as others on this list, Churchill is said to have taken amphetamines on a regular basis in order to be able to stay awake to plan strategies in World War II. Add this to his reputation for smoking cigars and drinking whisky and it’s not hard to see how the previous UK Prime Minister died of a stroke in 1965.

8. Ernest Hemingway

If you’re familiar with Ernest Hemingway, it’s more than likely you’re aware of his alcohol problems. Although being one of America’s most famous authors and winning a Nobel Prize, Hemingway lost himself to alcohol consumption and turned to this after the lonely life of being a writer, apparently. Sadly, the drinking worsened his depression and caused a great deal of confusion, resulting in him eventually taking his own life.

With drugs and alcohol overtaking some of the smartest, most creative minds in human history, what hope does that leave for the rest of us? Whilst a lot of these claims can’t actually be verified, it’s still interesting to learn about the hidden past of some of these famous historical figures.

References:

https://www.distractify.com/brilliant-people-and-their-drugs-of-choice-1197892615.html

WHO WANTS TO BUY SADDAM HUSSEIN’S RIFLE ONLINE?

You Can Now Buy Saddam Hussein’s Rifle Online

Posted By Peter Sullivan  Friday, August 30, 2013 – 11:00 AM   Share

The rifle above belonged to a brutal dictator who gassed to death thousands of his own citizens and had the gall to erect a giant arch modeled after his own fists. Now it can be yours for an estimated $7,500 to $15,000.

The Rock Island Auction Company is auctioning off Saddam Hussein’s personal Ruger M77 bolt-action rifle, which has changed hands several times since the days when  Hussein allegedly held the gun aloft during rallies (the Illinois-based firearms auction house is also selling a pocket pistol “attributed to Adolf Hitler,” if you’re in the market). According to an affidavit posted on the company’s website, a Sufi militia group found the rifle in the rubble of the presidential palace in Baghdad soon after the beginning of the American invasion in 2003. The group then “turned over” the rifle to the CIA in 2004. When the Baghdad station chief at the time retired from the agency in 2012, the CIA gave him the rifle. He is now putting it up for auction, as he explains in signed documents on Rock Island’s site.

Whoever wrote the language hawking the item apparently didn’t think this history spoke for itself, choosing instead to describe Hussein rather like a wrestler about to enter the ring. “This brutal dictator needs NO introduction to the American people, as he is one of the most despised and hated Middle East leaders of the 20/21st Century,” the description observes. After noting that the rifle “was the one used ceremoniously in numerous worldwide newsreels shown on national TV,” the pitch finishes strong, promising an “impeccably well documented historic rifle that once belonged to one of the most known bad guys of recent times, the late Saddam Hussein!”

Saddam Hussein-related artifacts have been circulating around the world for quite some time now. In 2009, the U.S. Army returned to the Iraqi government a chrome-plated AK-47 that was part of acollection of chrome- and gold-plated weaponry that Hussein gave out as gifts. Former president George W. Bush kept in his private study the pistol found when Hussein was captured, and proudly showed it to visitors.

Among the more bizarre items in the genre is a bronze buttock from iconic Saddam statue in Baghdad, recovered when Marines and Iraqis symbolically toppled the monument in 2003. The section, which Iraq later argued was part of its “historical and cultural heritage,” was auctioned in Britain in 2011 but failed to sell when bidding stopped at £21,000, short of the six-figure minimum price.

Compared to that asking price, Saddam’s bolt-action rifle is a steal.

Related articles

• US returns stolen Saddam Hussein sword to Iraq (ndtv.com)
• CIA Files Show America Helped Saddam Hussein As He Gassed Iran (news.firedoglake.com)