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World War II political leaders

  • Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down, and he was careful never to be seen in his wheelchair.
  • Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill escaped a prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria by hiding on freight trains. It made him famous.
  • Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin once trained to be a Russian Orthodox priest. He later led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death.
  • Neville ChamberlainNeville Chamberlain waved a single sheet of paper at a crowd after signing away part of Czechoslovakia.
  • Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Himmler died by biting a hidden cyanide pill during a British exam. He was dead within 15 minutes.
  • Mohammad Reza PahlaviOn his first day at a Swiss boarding school, Iran's crown prince got beaten up.
  • George VIGeorge VI, known to his family as Bertie, wrote an anguished line in his diary about the day before his brother gave up the crown. He had gone to London to tell his mother, Queen Mary, what had happened. His entry read: "When I told her…
  • Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was rejected twice by Vienna's art academy. He later became dictator of Germany.
  • Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini was named after a Mexican president. His socialist father chose the name to honor Benito Juárez.
  • Alexei KosyginHenry Kissinger once mistook Alexei Kosygin for the real leader of the Soviet Union.
  • Chiang Kai-shekWestern observers once called Chiang Kai-shek the Red General. In 1927 he purged thousands of suspected Communists.
  • Harry S. TrumanHarry Truman became president knowing nothing about the atomic bomb. He had been vice president for only 82 days.
  • Vyacheslav MolotovFinns named the Molotov cocktail after Vyacheslav Molotov, who called bombing raids food deliveries.
  • Charles de GaulleCharles de Gaulle tried five times to escape German prison camps in the First World War. He even posed as a nurse.
  • Clement AttleeClement Attlee told the King, "I've won the election," and the King replied that he already knew.
  • Carol II of RomaniaCarol II of Romania fled in 1940 as gunmen fired on his train. It carried 30 truckloads of his fortune.
  • Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl WavellArchibald Wavell beat Italy's army in Libya, then Winston Churchill replaced him in June 1941.
  • Pope Pius XIIPope Pius XII was elected on the 2nd of March 1939, which happened to be his 63rd birthday. The cardinals needed only one day and three ballots to choose him. According to rumour, he asked for one more ballot to be sure the result was…
  • Joachim von RibbentropJoachim von Ribbentrop sold champagne before he became Nazi Germany's foreign minister.
  • Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco was shot in the abdomen at 23 and was not expected to live. He ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975.
  • Ion AntonescuHitler's ally Ion Antonescu at times refused to hand Romanian Jews to German death camps.
  • Mamoru ShigemitsuMamoru Shigemitsu signed Japan's surrender on a cane and an artificial leg. A Shanghai bomb took his leg in 1932.
  • HirohitoEmperor Hirohito's first radio broadcast announced Japan's defeat.
  • Josip Broz TitoTito once wrote to Stalin: stop sending assassins to murder me. He said five had already been caught.
  • Lutz Graf Schwerin von KrosigkHitler's finance minister was among the first to say "Iron Curtain" on radio, on 2 May 1945.
  • Subhas Chandra BoseSubhas Chandra Bose is remembered in India as Netaji, a Hindustani title that means Respected Leader. The name did not begin on Indian soil. It was first used in early 1942, in Berlin. The speakers were soldiers of the Indische Legion,…
  • Philippe PétainPhilippe Pétain left behind a verdict that fits on one line. Charles de Gaulle, who came after him at the head of France, judged that Pétain's life had been "successively banal, then glorious, then deplorable, but never mediocre". Each of…
  • Hideki TojoHideki Tojo shot himself in the chest as American soldiers surrounded his house.
  • İsmet İnönüİsmet İnönü said no to Winston Churchill inside a railroad car in 1943. Churchill wanted Turkey to join the Allies.
  • 14th Dalai LamaA two-year-old asked a disguised monk for an old mala that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama.
  • PuyiPuyi, the last emperor of China, was born in Beijing on the 7th of February 1906 and died on the 17th of October 1967. A commentator named Wen Yuan-ning once quipped that Puyi had been "made emperor three times without knowing why and…
  • Haile SelassieIn 1992, the bones of Haile Selassie I were found beneath a concrete slab on the grounds of a palace. The man buried there had been born Tafari Makonnen. He had ruled Ethiopia as emperor from 1930 to 1974. How does a ruler of such rank end…

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