Curated playlist
Perpetrators of filicide
- Constantine the GreatConstantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, was baptized only on his deathbed.
- Joseph GoebbelsJoseph Goebbels was Chancellor of Germany for a single day.
- Abbas the GreatA delayed execution during holy days saved the future Abbas the Great.
- Rose WestIn October 1996, workers pulled down 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester and destroyed every scrap of rubble so that nobody could keep a souvenir. The press had long called the three-storey house the House of Horrors. Rose West, born Rosemary…
- Suleiman the MagnificentSultan Suleiman the Magnificent sent assassins to strangle his grand vizier Ibrahim in his sleep.
- VitelliusVitellius ruled Rome for just eight months in AD 69. His last words were "Yet I was once your emperor."
- Fred WestFred West was at work in Stroud on the 24th of February 1994 when police arrived at his home, 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, with a search warrant. The officers were looking for one missing girl, the West family's eldest daughter,…
- Peter the GreatAfter Russia's army was routed at Narva in 1700, Peter the Great had church bells melted into cannons.
- Lucius Junius BrutusAt Delphi, Lucius Junius Brutus pretended to trip and kissed the ground. He read the oracle's "mother" as the earth.
- Herod the GreatHerod the Great, king of Judea, inspired a joke from the Roman emperor Augustus that was still being retold around 400 CE. The writer Macrobius recorded it. Augustus heard that Herod had ordered his own son killed, and he remarked, "It is…
- Ivan the TerribleThe "terrible" in Ivan the Terrible was meant as a boast, not an insult. It meant formidable.
- Abu Bakr al-BaghdadiAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi left so faint an impression on Ahmed al-Dabash that al-Dabash dismissed him as insignificant. Al-Dabash led the Islamic Army of Iraq and fought the allied invasion in 2003. He said he had known the insurgency's leaders…
- Andrea YatesAndrea Yates, a woman from Houston, Texas, was alone with her five children on the morning of the 20th of June 2001. Her husband's mother was due to arrive one hour later to take over. In that hour, Yates drowned all five children in the…