Dive into the darkest corners of human vengeance as we explore some of the most brutal and shocking acts of revenge throughout history. From ancient warriors to modern-day vigilantes, these stories reveal the lengths people will go to settle scores and seek justice.
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00:00Tell them Virgil! Tell them how they knew I took the bad boy home at night!
00:04You tell them!
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be looking at the most
00:08savage and iconic tales of vengeance in the history of mankind.
00:19Timur. Timur, a ruthless conqueror, forged an empire stretching from Central Asia to Persia.
00:26Known to Europeans as Tamerlane, he was a man of unmatched ambition and cruelty.
00:32His dominance was challenged by Bayezid I, the fiery Ottoman sultan nicknamed the Thunderbolt,
00:39who disrupted Timur's rule by unseating local lords loyal to him.
00:44This defiance led to the catastrophic Battle of Ankara in 1402, in which Bayezid suffered
00:50a crushing defeat and was taken captive. To break Bayezid's spirit, Timur reportedly kept
00:56him in an iron cage, parading him as a living trophy during his campaign in Anatolia. According
01:03to legend, Timur even used Bayezid as a footstool during feasts. Humiliated, Bayezid allegedly ended
01:10his torment by striking his own head against the iron cage.
01:15Olga of Kiev. Olga of Kiev, a Viking descendant, was a woman of extraordinary cunning and resolve.
01:22After her husband Igor was murdered by the Drevlians, a neighboring tribe, she became
01:27regent of Kiev. The Drevlians boldly proposed that Olga marry their prince in order to solidify
01:33their control over Kiev. What followed was the stuff of gory legend. Olga welcomed the
01:51Drevlians' emissaries into her court only to have them buried alive, then incinerated the
01:56next delegation while they relaxed in a bathhouse. She followed this with a demand that the Drevlians
02:02hold a feast in their city, where she orchestrated the massacre of thousands of drunken revelers.
02:08Finally, Olga lay siege to their capital, using incendiary birds to burn it to the ground.
02:26Ilyahu Itzkovits. As a boy, Ilyahu Itzkovits and his Jewish family were interred at a
02:31concentration camp, where he witnessed them get killed by a Romanian guard named Stanescu. After
02:38the war, Itzkovits tracked down and killed Stanescu's son, which led to a five-year prison
02:43sentence. Upon his release, he emigrated to Israel and joined the IDF. When Itzkovits learned that
02:49Stanescu had joined the French Foreign Legion, he deserted the IDF, infiltrated the Legion,
02:54and secured his transfer to Stanescu's unit in modern-day Vietnam. After a firefight left them
03:00alone, Itzkovits confronted his family's killer and executed him with a tommy gun. He subsequently
03:05retired from the Legion and turned himself in at the Israeli embassy in Paris for deserting the IDF.
03:12Jeanne de Clisson. Jeanne de Clisson, a 14th-century French noblewoman, was known as
03:18the Lioness of Brittany. Her life took a dark turn when her husband, Olivier de Clisson,
03:23was accused of treason and executed by King Philip VI of France. Olivier's head was then
03:28displayed on a pike for all to see. Enraged by this perceived injustice, Jeanne vowed revenge
03:34against the French crown. She sold her estate and amassed an army of 400 men,
03:49leading them to sack several strongholds in Brittany. She then purchased three warships,
03:54painting them black and outfitting them with crimson sails. For over a decade, Jeanne terrorized
03:59French ships in the English Channel, ruthlessly killing their crews, but always sparing one
04:05survivor to spread her legend. Queen Boudicca.
04:25Queen Boudicca of the Iceni was a proud warrior queen in ancient Britain who was fiercely
04:35protective of her people's independence. When her husband died, the Roman Empire seized her lands,
04:40capturing Boudicca and her daughters. She was flogged and her daughters were violated, atrocities
04:46that ignited an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. Boudicca united neighboring tribes and led a
04:51massive rebellion, cutting a bloody swath across Roman Britain.
05:05She razed the cities of Camulondinum, Londinium, and Verulamium, slaughtering tens of thousands.
05:11Boudicca spared neither Roman citizen nor Britain collaborators. Her vengeance was total. Her wrath,
05:18an unrelenting storm that left Roman Britain scorched and bloodied. Though her rebellion was
05:23ultimately crushed, Boudicca's brutal retaliation shook the empire to its core.
05:39The Jewish Vigilantes of Nakam.
05:49The entire populations of four German cities. Before Marvel popularized the Avengers,
05:55the name belonged to a group of Jewish holocaust survivors turned vigilantes. Known as Nakam,
06:01they had one mission, to exact vengeance on behalf of six million murdered Jews.
06:06Led by Abba Kavner, Nakam took bloody revenge for the wholesale slaughter of their families
06:11and communities. It conveyed the message to the world, to future generations, that
06:18Jewish blood could not be spilt with impunity. Driven by grief and fury, Nakam sought to,
06:24in their minds, even the scales by indiscriminately murdering six million Germans.
06:29Plan A aimed to poison the water supplies of major German cities. When this failed,
06:34they carried out Plan B, using arsenic to poison loaves of bread distributed to Nazi prisoners.
06:39The bread sickened more than 2,000 prisoners of war,
06:42though the arsenic was likely spread too thinly to be lethal.
06:55Secretly, Ivar was conceiving something far bigger and bloodier than a mere smash and grab
07:01raid to punish his father's killers. King Eller's reckless act would provoke Ivar into invading the
07:08whole of England. The accuracy of this tale is heavily debated by historians, so it might not
07:13be entirely accurate. The tale goes that several years after supposedly leading the sack of Paris
07:19in 845, Ragnar Lodbrok was shipwrecked on the coast of Northumbria. According to Norse sagas,
07:25the local lord, King Aella II, captured and executed him by throwing him into a pit of vipers.
07:32Aella's satisfaction would be short-lived, however, thanks to Ragnar's son, Ivar the Boneless.
07:38After his father's murder, Ivar and his forces invaded Northumbria. Together with his brothers,
07:43Ivar captured Aella and allegedly executed him by blood eagle. Aella's back was flayed,
07:50and his ribs pulled out to resemble the wings of an eagle as he died in agony.
07:55The sagas say that Aella's punishment for killing Ivar's father was to suffer the blood eagle,
08:02a stomach-churning, blood-drenched Viking ritual.
08:07Justinian II was the last Byzantine emperor of the Heraclian dynasty. Deposed in 695,
08:14his enemies mutilated him by slitting his nose, earning him the moniker rhinotomatos,
08:19or the slit-nosed. Exiled and humiliated, Justinian bided his time, stewing with rage.
08:27After a decade, he reclaimed the throne with the help of Bulgar and Slavic allies, unleashing a
08:32wave of terror upon his enemies. He fettered his usurpers, Leontius and Tiberius, in chains,
08:39parading them before the crowd at the hippodrome. There, wearing a golden prosthesis, he used them
08:45as footrests. After their humiliation in front of the jeering crowd, Justinian had them beheaded.
08:51It launched a wave of executions that left the sands of the hippodrome stained by the blood
08:56of his enemies. The 47 Ronin. Asano Naganori, lord of Akko, was reputed to be a man of great
09:10integrity. When he refused to bribe a corrupt court official, Kira Yoshinaka, he was provoked
09:16into drawing his sword. In the Shogun's court, this was a capital offense. He committed seppuku,
09:28and his devoted retainers were stripped of their honor. No longer samurai, these Ronin feigned
09:33submission while meticulously planning their revenge in secret. Eventually, they launched a
09:38night raid on Kira's estate, slaying his guards and finding him cowering in terror. They beheaded
09:45Kira and placed his head at Asano's grave as a final tribute to their fallen master. Their
09:50unwavering devotion moved the populace, forcing the Shogun to allow them to commit seppuku and
09:56retain their honor. Genghis Khan. On the road to forging the largest land empire in the history
10:16of the world, Genghis Khan conquered the Karakatans. As a gesture of goodwill, he sent a trading convoy
10:23to his new neighbors in the Khwarezmian Empire, including a group of Muslims to honor the region's
10:28dominant religion. How did this illiterate outcast turn the feuding tribes of Mongolia
10:34into a powerful nation? And how did he transform the Mongol hordes into a ruthless and disciplined
10:42fighting machine? However, Inal Chu, the governor of the capital city and ruler of the empire,
10:48dismissed Khan's power. He slew his delegation to a man, sparing only one survivor to act as
10:54messenger. Enraged, Khan responded by conquering Khwarezmia in a rage of blood and fire. As his
11:01empire fell, Inal Chu was allegedly brought before the Great Khan. According to legend,
11:06he was executed by having molten silver poured directly into his eyes and ears.
11:18Joaquin Murrieta
11:24The widely known story of Joaquin Murrieta is a mix of history, myth, and legend.
11:37While it is generally accepted that he existed during the 19th century, most of the established
11:41details of his life seem to have come from a fictional biography written by John Rollin Ridge.
11:46Legend has it that Murrieta and his brother were attacked after being wrongly accused of
11:51stealing a horse. This resulted in his brother's death. Fueled by a quest for vengeance, Murrieta
11:56reportedly recruited a gang and hunted down the killers one by one. These crimes drew significant
12:07attention and led to a bounty being placed on Murrieta's head. He is said to have been killed
12:12in a gunfight with the California Rangers in 1853. Buford Pusser
12:25Soon after becoming the sheriff of McNary County in Tennessee,
12:29Buford Pusser waged war on crime syndicates in the area.
12:33This certainly didn't make him any friends in the criminal underworld.
12:45Pusser was the target of several attempted assassinations and managed to escape all of
12:49them alive. Unfortunately, his wife wasn't so lucky. In the early hours of August 12, 1967,
12:56Pusser's car was ambushed by gunmen who killed his wife Pauline and left him severely injured.
13:04Pusser vowed to avenge Pauline's death, linking the attack to Kirksey Nix,
13:10a former Dixie Mafia boss and also naming other accomplices. While Pusser never got to exact
13:16his revenge on Nix, the other named accomplices were all reportedly killed under mysterious
13:21circumstances. Pierre Picot, the real-life Count of Monte Cristo. After his engagement
13:33to a rich woman in 1807, Pierre Picot, a shoemaker from Nimes, France, was wrongfully
13:39accused of treason by his envious friends, Lupin, Solari, and Chabar.
13:51Upon his release from prison, Picot spent a decade devising his revenge plot. Seemingly
13:58without much effort, he ended the lives of Solari and Chabar. But for Lupin,
14:03who eventually married Picot's fiancée, things took a twisted turn.
14:08Picot went after Lupin's children, arresting his daughter's husband,
14:21which led to her dying of shock, and having his son sent to jail. He also gutted Lupin's
14:27finances by having his restaurant burned down before eventually killing him.
14:38This elaborate plot only came to light after Picot confessed to the police.
14:43Julius Caesar. Years before he became a member of the First Triumvirate of Rome,
14:49a then 25-year-old Julius Caesar was traveling across the Aegean Sea when he was abducted by
14:54Cilician pirates. His ransom was set at 20 talents of silver, but Caesar himself asked
14:59them to raise their offer to 50. During this period, Caesar maintained his nobility and refused
15:12to behave like a captive. He reportedly promised the abductors that after his release, he'd return
15:18and crucify them all. And he did just that. Upon regaining his freedom, Caesar assembled a fleet
15:30of ships, with which he pursued and captured the pirates. The future Roman dictator kept his word
15:36and crucified every last one of them. The women of Kasturba Nagar, India.
15:47Kasturba Nagar is an Indian slum that was terrorized by a notorious criminal known as
15:52Akku Yadav. Yadav assaulted dozens of women, killed at least three people, and was known to
15:58invade people's homes and extort from them. On August 13, 2004, Yadav was scheduled to appear
16:04in court for a bail hearing. After word got around that he was likely to be released,
16:09hundreds of women swarmed the courthouse with knives and chili powder. Right there in the
16:14building, he was lynched by the women, many of whom had been his victims. Akku Yadav, a local
16:20criminal, was stabbed and stoned to death today. They stabbed him multiple times and poured chili
16:25powder on his face, leaving the man that had tormented them in a pool of his own blood.
16:30It was an arranged, planned murder, which had something very fishy, which is still unexplored.
16:39Maria Oktyabrskaya. As the wife of a Soviet army officer, Maria Oktyabrskaya developed a
16:45flair for the military and acquired extensive weapons knowledge. After being evacuated to
16:50Siberia during World War II, Oktyabrskaya learned that her husband had been killed on the front
16:55lines. In a bid to avenge his death by Nazi soldiers, Oktyabrskaya sold all her belongings
17:00and purchased a T-34 tank, which she requested to drive herself. When 38-year-old Maria Oktyabrskaya
17:07arrived with her T-34 tank in Smolensk, the soldiers thought it was a joke. Following a
17:12five-month training program, Oktyabrskaya joined the war and participated in multiple assaults
17:17against German forces. It was widely considered as an act of ridicule and almost no one treated
17:22her seriously. However, Maria, seeking revenge on the Germans, proved very quickly how wrong they
17:28were. Unfortunately, in January of 1944, she was struck by a shell fragment and went into a coma
17:34for two months. She died in March and was posthumously conferred the title Hero of the
17:40Soviet Union. For her courage and acts of fortitude, she was awarded the highest medal of the Soviet
17:46Diana the Hunter. In August of 2013, two bus drivers in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez
17:52were killed by a blonde woman who had boarded their buses. There are details in the investigation
17:57files showing similarities between the crimes, the times, and how they were committed and the
18:03weapon used. A few days after the murders, local news outlets received emails from an unknown woman
18:08who called herself Diana the Hunter of Bus Drivers. In the letters, Diana owned up to the killings,
18:14which she claimed to have carried out as revenge for the many ladies who suffered assault at the
18:19hands of bus drivers in the area. That's why I am an instrument that will take revenge for
18:23many women. We are seen as weak, but in reality, we are not. We are brave. In the years prior,
18:30dozens of women in Ciudad Juarez had disappeared after last being seen on buses, but hardly anyone
18:36paid for those crimes. The identity of Diana the Hunter, however, has since remained unknown. In at
18:42least one instance, she was described as being dressed up in a cap, plaid shirt, and jeans, but
18:47beyond this, the details were practically non-existent. The Dachau Revenge. The Dachau Concentration Camp,
18:54located in the state of Bavaria in southern Germany, was the first of its kind opened under
18:58the Nazi regime. Up to 30,000 people were entombed here at one time, and 30,000 were present when the
19:06Allies reached Dachau. Although it was initially intended to hold political prisoners, it eventually
19:11became a place of confinement and torture for citizens of other countries occupied by Germany.
19:16On April 29th, 1945, Dachau was liberated by American soldiers, who were horrified by the
19:22conditions in which they found its prisoners. Driven by rage, the soldiers reportedly lined
19:28up dozens of SS officers and guards who oversaw the horrors that took place in Dachau. They then
19:34allegedly executed them in retaliation for these crimes. There were some guards who tried to flee
19:39dressed as peasants. However, they were recognized and killed as well. The controversial ordeal has
19:44been seen by some historians as a possible war crime. Nobody has ever stood trial before the
19:49court for this reprisal. General Patton, then military governor of Bavaria, dismissed all the
19:55charges. Operation Wrath of God. The 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich were largely overshadowed by
20:02the massacre of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team by a Palestinian militant group called Black
20:08September. Once the firing stopped, all nine of the Israeli hostages, a German policeman, and five
20:15of the eight terrorists were dead. In response, then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir sanctioned
20:21a secret operation known as Wrath of God to avenge their deaths. The campaign, which was carried out
20:26by Mossad agents, was targeted at those directly and indirectly involved in the Munich massacre.
20:31Over the next few months, Mossad agents executed covert assassination plots, taking the lives of
20:37more than a dozen people they believed were linked to the Olympics incident.
20:42Yes?
20:48In 1973, following the murder of an innocent man in Norway after being misidentified as one of the
20:54targets, the operation was suspended. But as long as you're going after the bad guys, people can
20:58either look the other way or quietly applaud you. The minute you make a mistake, then it all turns
21:05downwards. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get
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21:23The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings. Before the 7th of December, 1941, the United States
21:30remained neutral during World War II. That all changed after the naval base at Pearl Harbor in
21:35Hawaii was unexpectedly attacked by Japan, leading to the deaths of more than 2,000 Americans.
21:41The plan for attacking Pearl Harbor was to destroy the U.S.'s Pacific Fleet, a move which
21:46would give the Japanese time to carry out its plans to keep control of the Pacific
21:51without U.S. interference. Fast forward nearly four years later, on the 6th and 9th of August,
21:561945, the U.S. respectively dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Japanese cities.
22:12Soon after, Japan surrendered to the Allied forces. The devastating attacks killed between 129,000
22:19and 226,000 people and left long-lasting effects in the communities. In an address to the nation
22:26after the bombings, then-President Harry Truman referred to them as reciprocation for the attack
22:31on Pearl Harbor. As long as there have been people wronging one another, there have been people out
22:36for vengeance. Do you know of a tale of bloody revenge? Let us know in the comments below!
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