Here's the historical figure I hate the most. And after I'm done, I bet you will too. Ladies and gentlemen, King Leopold II of Belgium.
Oh sure, he looked shy and retiring. People called him and his horse-loving wife "the stableman and the nun"...and he was the nun. But joke's on us, this guy was horrible. After his sons died in infancy and his wife could only give him girls (ew, right?) he separated from her, and at the age of 65 took up with a 16 year old courtesan.
In fact, he resented his daughters so much that he cut them out of his will and left everything to his much younger lover. But wait, here comes the actual worst part.
This man personally owned the Congo Free State. Not ruled, owned. Why? So he could make money off rubber manufacturing. And he ran it like the worst boss ever. His horrific treatment of the people led to one of the first uses of the phrase "crimes against humanity." It was so bad that the government took the colony away from their king. And here's the twist.
He burned the Congo's archives, saying, "they have no right to know what I did there." Leopold, you suck.
