History’s biggest Badasses
Mehmed II “The Conqueror”
Mehmed II “the Conqueror” was the Ottoman sultan who captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire and reshaping the balance of power between East and West. A scholar-warrior with ruthless ambition, he fused gunpowder, centralized rule, and imperial vision to build the foundation of a world-spanning Ottoman state.
Rank - 140
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
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
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
Godfrey of Bouillon
Godfrey of Bouillon stormed Jerusalem with holy fire in his eyes and left it bathed in the kind of righteousness that smells like smoke and blood.
Rank - 184
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon’s life reads like a battlefield map—bold advances, scorched retreats, and a legacy carved in dust, defiance, and the fine print of history’s moral gray zone.
Rank - 187
Khalid ibn al-Walid
Khalid ibn al-Walid, the undefeated “Sword of God,” carved an empire from the desert with speed, faith, and a blade that never once tasted defeat.
Rank - 189
Artemisia I of Caria
Artemisia I of Caria led her boat through the chaos of Salamis, proving that cunning could strike harder than any bronze ram.
Rank - 196
Zenobia of Palmyra
She turned a desert outpost into an empire, crowned herself against Rome, and rode into history as the queen who made rebellion look divine.
Rank - 197