History’s biggest Badasses
Ibrahim Pasha
Ibrahim Pasha was an Ottoman-Egyptian general and son of Muhammad Ali, famed for his modernized army and ruthless efficiency. He played a decisive, brutal role in suppressing revolts and reshaping power in Greece, Syria, and the eastern Mediterranean during the early 19th century.
Rank - 129
Robert the Bruce
The Scottish king who turned exile, defeat, and civil war into a long, grinding campaign for independence through patience, guerrilla warfare, and ruthless resolve. His victory at Bannockburn made him a national symbol of endurance, proving that stubborn survival can outlast empires built on force alone.
Rank - 130
Paddy Mayne
A founding member of the SAS and one of World War II’s most feared raiders, leading audacious nighttime attacks that destroyed enemy airfields and shattered the myth of rear-area safety. Brilliant, violent, and deeply unstable, he embodied the brutal effectiveness of irregular warfare and became a lasting archetype of special forces legend.
Rank - 131
Saigō Takamori
Saigō Takamori helped forge modern Japan, then died trying to stop it, leading the last samurai into a hopeless stand against rifles, artillery, and the future itself. His defeat at Shiroyama ended feudal warfare and transformed a failed rebel into an immortal symbol of honor crushed by progress.
Rank - 135
Queen Amina of Zazzau
She turned the savannah into her empire and built walls strong enough to outlast the men who doubted her.
Rank - 136
Hari Singh Nalwa
Hari Singh Nalwa was a leading general of the Sikh Empire who secured its northwest frontier and halted repeated Afghan incursions into Punjab. Serving under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he became a symbol of Sikh military power and frontier rule, remembered for his campaigns from Kashmir to the Khyber Pass.
Rank - 143
John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi (c. 1407–1456) was a Hungarian military commander and crusader who repeatedly halted Ottoman expansion into Central Europe. His decisive defense of Belgrade in 1456 delayed Ottoman advances for decades and cemented his reputation as the Balkans’ last great shield.
Rank - 144
Tipu Sultan
When the walls of Seringapatam fell, he didn’t flee—he fought until the tiger stripes faded from his own blood.
Rank - 146
Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni (c. 971–1030) was a Turkic ruler and the first major sultan, renowned for his highly mobile cavalry campaigns that projected Ghaznavid power across Central Asia and deep into the Indian subcontinent. Both a fierce military raider and a calculated patron of Persian culture, he left a legacy shaped equally by conquest, wealth extraction, and enduring historical controversy.
Rank - 147
Tiglath-Pileser I
Tiglath-Pileser I was an Assyrian king of the 12th century BCE who expanded his empire through relentless military campaigns and the calculated use of terror as state policy. His meticulously recorded conquests turned violence into propaganda and set the template for later Assyrian imperial power.
Rank - 149
Baldwin I of Jerusalem
Baldwin I of Jerusalem was the first king of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, a hard-edged Frankish warlord who turned conquest into governance. He secured and expanded the kingdom through relentless warfare, political pragmatism, and a clear-eyed understanding that survival mattered more than sanctity.
Rank - 150
Georgios Karaiskakis
Greek revolutionary commander of the War of Independence, famed for ruthless guerrilla tactics, obscene candor, and battlefield brilliance. A klepht turned national hero who fought the Ottoman Empire with ambushes, audacity, and a terminal disregard for authority.
Rank - 151
Haji Murad
Mountain warlord, double-crossing survivor, and nightmare of the Russian Empire. He fought for faith, power, and family in that order—then died doing all three at once, proving the Caucasus never belonged to anyone who wanted it neatly.
Rank - 153
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the soldier-statesman who crushed an invasion at Gallipoli and then dismantled a collapsing empire to build a fiercely secular modern Turkey.
Rank - 154
Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui
He rebuilt the Andes into an orderly machine and made the world climb with him.
Rank - 159
Topa Inca Yupanqui
He conquered the Andes with mathematics, sunlight, and an unreasonable sense of direction.
Rank - 160
Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Yūsuf ibn Tāshfīn carved an empire from the Sahara to al-Andalus with austere discipline, relentless cavalry, and a quiet ruthlessness that outlived every king who underestimated him.
Rank - 162
Moulay Ismail ibn Sharif
Moulay Ismail ruled Morocco like a furnace with a crown, forging unity through terror, the Black Guard, and a fifty-year rei gn where mercy was the only thing he never built.
Rank - 163
Abd el-Krim
Abd el-Krim was the Amazigh strategist who united the Rif tribes, shattered Spain at Annual, and became a defining symbol of 20th-century anti-colonial resistance.
Rank - 171