History’s biggest Badasses
Smedley D. Butler
Smedley D. Butler was a two-time Medal of Honor–winning U.S. Marine who spent decades fighting America’s overseas wars during the age of imperial expansion. After retiring, he became one of the nation’s fiercest critics of war profiteering, condemning the very system that had made him famous.
Rank - 148
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
John III Sobieski
John III Sobieski was the Polish king who thundered downhill at Vienna and changed Europe’s fate in a single charge.
Rank - 152
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
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Finnish marshal who led the defense of Finland during the Winter War and preserved the nation’s independence against overwhelming Soviet force.
Rank - 155
Audie Murphy
At Holtzwihr, Audie Murphy climbed a burning tank destroyer and dared an armored battalion to try and take it back.
Rank - 156
Bayinnaung
Bayinnaung rose from minor nobility to command an empire that dominated Burma, Siam, Lan Na, and Laos.
Rank - 158
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
Askia Muhmmad I
Askia Muhammad I rose from seasoned commander to empire-shaping monarch, forging the largest realm in West African history through ruthless discipline, political precision, and relentless conquest.
Rank - 164
Stefan Dušan 'the Mighty'
Stefan Dušan rode through the Balkan smoke like a man convinced the world was one good conquest away from making sense, leaving empires, enemies, and common sense trampled under his horse’s hooves.
Rank - 165
Mahāpadma Nanda
He built an empire by removing every man who thought birth alone made him safe, and the silence he left behind still sounds like power sharpening its teeth.
Rank - 166
Vlad III Tepes
Vlad III Țepeș turned a bleeding borderland into a kingdom defended by terror, crafting a legacy where strategy and brutality became the same blade.
Rank - 168