History’s biggest Badasses
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
William Marshall
William Marshal (c.1147–1219) was an English knight and statesman who served four kings and became the most celebrated tournament fighter and battlefield commander of the High Middle Ages. Renowned for his unwavering loyalty and mastery of mounted combat, he helped preserve the English crown during civil war and was later mythologized as the living ideal of chivalry.
Rank - 137
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
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
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
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
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
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
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
The general who won with charm, math, and other forms of subtle violence.
Rank - 167
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