Dictators

In 1812, using his extensive network of rogues and hidden caches of supplies, Lafitte turned the tide of an entire war… then vanished a few years later. The mystery surrounding his disappearance lasted until the 1950s, when a newly discovered journal shed light on his final exploits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From his base in New Orleans, the “gentleman pirate” Jean Lafitte changed the young United States' entire outlook on piracy. In 1812, when war with England seemed imminent, it was New Orleans’ pirate admiral that the U.S. Army turned to for help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After sending a message with the destruction of the Protestant Caesar, Blackbeard knew he needed to make a bigger name for himself. So, he decided to do the unthinkable: hold an entire city hostage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No pirate captain has captured the imagination of the masses like the one known as Blackbeard. From obscure crew member to fearsome legend, his very name evokes an image of the devil incarnate…  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Captain Every led his men in a revolt that brought them to the far side of the world. Now it was time to make their fortune — and escape before England caught up with them.

In this new season of Dictators, we're looking at a unique kind of tyrant: the pirate captain. Leading dictatorial democracies, these captains held onto freedom with an iron grip. Today, we'll investigate Captain Henry Every's murky origins and the fateful mutiny that led to his career as the first pirate king.

A newspaper ad, a coastal proposal, and a honeymoon “conspiracy” involving a limbo legend… Your host Richard Rossner plots out a different kind of history in this Valentine’s Special, presented by Our Love Story. Joined by Rahla, his wife of 33 years, the couple pulls back the curtain on their biggest relationship milestones. Dive into their thrilling love story right here, then search “Our Love Story” to hear real-life couples — including more of your favorite Parcast hosts! — prove that true love exists. New episodes every Tuesday. Listen free on Spotify.

Franco was one of the only European dictators left standing after WWII, but times were changing. As much as the Generalissimo wanted — and tried — to establish a new monarchy, the tides were shifting against totalitarianism… and toward democracy.

Spanish dictator Francisco Franco came to power during the Spanish Civil War, just in time to face the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe. As the world went to war, Franco saw he would have to choose sides — or would he?

Elected president in 1946, Perón spent nine years in office. His regime became increasingly corrupt and repressive, and in 1955, he was excommunicated by the Catholic Church. But Juan Perón would not stay in exile forever.

He rose through the ranks as an ambitious infantry officer in the Argentine army, learning to play politics and enact coups. In the 1940s, after years of pulling the strings of power behind the scenes, Juan Perón became the most powerful man in Argentina. 

Embarrassed by a failing presidential campaign in 1952, Batista orchestrated a military coup that seated him in power. But as the populist leader became corrupt and violent, a young lawyer inspired thousands to bring Batista’s regime to an end. 

An ambitious young man from a poor family, Batista worked his way up through the turmoil of early 20th century Cuba to become a reform-minded leader. But when his power started to wane, Batista decided to hold onto it by whatever means necessary.

For decades, family members and sleuths have tried to determine what really happened the night of the fire. As of yet, they have been unsuccessful. But the clues remain, the questions linger, and the case unofficially stays open…  This episode is presented by Unexplained Mysteries, a Spotify Original from Parcast. For more of history’s greatest puzzles, follow Unexplained Mysteries free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In the aftermath of the fire, a startling number of tips, twists, and witnesses came forward regarding the fate of the Sodder children. Their father, George, followed the clues for decades, driven by a suspicion of the “official” story and a belief that the blaze was no accident. This episode is presented by Unexplained Mysteries, a Spotify Original from Parcast. For more of history’s greatest puzzles, follow Unexplained Mysteries free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Early Christmas day in 1945, Jennie Sodder woke up to her house on fire. The blaze consumed her home, and five of her young children. Or did it? Strange events, prescient remarks, and a lack of human remains hinted at more nefarious — though no less tragic — outcomes.  This episode is presented by Unexplained Mysteries, a Spotify Original from Parcast. For more of history’s greatest puzzles, follow Unexplained Mysteries free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Forced labor, unyielding rice quotas, and executions meant to root out anti-communist resistance plunged the country into a terrible nightmare. Pol Pot was finally forced to flee in 1984, but his reign left a grim legacy that persists to this day. 

The secretive leader of the communist Khmer Rouge was responsible for killing around a quarter of Cambodia’s population — one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century. He was born Saloth Sar in 1925, but is most recognizable by one of his many nicknames: Pol Pot. 

Now in total control, Mao Zedong had a nation to build. But his ambition to transform China into a global superpower led to one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity. Forced to retreat from his failure, Mao’s attempt to recapture power would send China into ten more years of violent chaos. 

The Qing Dynasty fell in 1911, ending imperialism in China. But the instability created a power struggle over the country’s future. Between the Warlords, the Nationalists, the Communists, and even the Japanese, one man seized control of China and turned it into the second largest communist nation in the world.

Today we’re bringing you a special two-part episode from another Spotify Original from Parcast. If you enjoy these episodes, check out Medical Murders on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!  Before he was a fanatical Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele was a mediocre student studying medicine and anthropology. His quest for renown drove an obsession with human experimentation, and a horrific tenure at Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

Today we’re bringing you a special two-part episode from another Spotify Original from Parcast. If you enjoy these episodes, check out Medical Murders on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!  Before he was a fanatical Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele was a mediocre student studying medicine and anthropology. His quest for renown drove an obsession with human experimentation, and a horrific tenure at Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

As the Great Fire of Rome wreaked havoc on the city, the emperor practiced his singing. Nero's artistic obsessions led not only to Rome's downfall, but his own.

He never wanted to be emperor, but his mother Agrippina was determined to put the young Nero on the throne. The boy artist followed her wishes… and led Rome to destruction.

In 37 CE, Caligula became the third emperor of Rome, ushering in a brief era of prosperity before pilfering the treasury and embarking on a quest to conquer Britannia. Before too long, his sadistic — and sometimes darkly comedic — rulings inspired a fatal conspiracy. 

As a child, Caligula lived in the shadow of his father, Germanicus — a hero of Rome. When Germanicus suddenly dies, Caligula is forced to spend his teenage years at the mercy of Emperor Tiberius. And a once pampered life quickly descends into hell.

In the final years of Emperor Tiberius’s reign, he built lavish villas on Capri, hosted orgies with young boys and girls, and tortured and executed people who spoke out against him. He was more than a dictator. He was a monster.

This legendary ruler of Rome, known for his wickedness and depravity, was never meant to be emperor. Tiberius came into power in 14 CE only after his adopted father’s heirs all died. He ruled for a decade with surprising moderation before descending into madness. 

Despite an auspicious early ruling period, Mary’s reign was upended by an event that triggered deep emotional distress. Her pain manifested in burning her perceived enemies at the stake—a punishment that earned her the nickname that has defined her legacy: Bloody Mary. 

As the daughter of England’s most famous king, Mary Tudor spent much of her life in Henry VIII’s shadow, forced to navigate his capricious moods and murderous whims. But she played the long game, outlasting nearly everyone around her to assume the throne in 1553 as Britain’s first ruling queen. 

In the 15th century, Queen Isabella became convinced that heretics and infidels were threatening Christendom. She became the architect of a 300-year-long religious genocide: The Spanish Inquisition. Then she set her sights to the West, and funded an audacious plan by an Italian navigator. 

She was never supposed to be queen. But in 1474, when Isabella of Castile’s half-brother King Enrique died, she seized her chance to take what was hers. And after holding onto the crown from Portuguese invaders, Isabella set out to do what no other Spanish monarch had been able to accomplish in nearly 700 years: reclaim Granada. 

Tired of playing second fiddle, Isabella decided to turn on her husband and join forces with his enemies: the exiled barons. Together, they planned an invasion of England to take the throne from Edward II and install Isabella's young son as king... with Isabella as the ruling regent.

All her life, Isabella of France knew she was going to be Queen consort of England. But when her husband took the throne in 1307, it became obvious that he had chosen another as his favorite: Piers Gaveston. To survive, Isabella walked the tightrope of court politics, proving she was more than a pawn in the ever-changing relationship between England and France.

He attacked the press, oversaw egregious human rights violations, and even welcomed a notorious Nazi war criminal into his country. For decades, Alfredo Stroessner largely acted with impunity—until the late 1980s, when a chaotic schism in his party drove him into exile.

In 1932, 20-year-old Alfredo Stroessner was a cadet at the Paraguayan military academy. It would take a little over two decades for him to seize power through a military coup, and begin his 35-year reign as an implacable autocrat. 

From 1973 to 1990, Augusto Pinochet ruled over Chile with a brutality that left tens of thousands people missing, tortured, or dead. Despite his atrocities—and an unprecedented arrest—Pinochet escaped conviction for his crimes. 

He was a career military man until a coup against socialist President Salvador Allende installed him as Chile’s next leader. But Augusto Pinochet relished his newfound power, and in June 1974, passed a law naming himself the “Supreme Chief” of Chile. 

After establishing himself as a military dictator, Videla fought a bloody conflict against citizens of his own country. With his public perception suffering, he turned to an American advertising agency to help him repair his global image… 

In 1976, after thirty years as a military officer, Videla led a coup against the disastrous President Isabel Perón. He named himself president and waged a brutal war against political opponents and everyday citizens alike. By the time he stepped down, close to 30,000 citizens were missing or dead.

In a move inspired by his hero, Napoleon, Bokassa named himself Emperor of the Central African Republic in 1977. But his lavish spending and absolute rule drew the ire of the nation’s students. When peaceful protests erupted in violence, Bokassa’s end would be at the hands of the country he adored: France. 

Orphaned as a six-year-old in the late 1920s, Jean-Bédel Bokassa eventually found stability and prestige in the French Army. When he finally returned home to the newly established Central African Republic, he used his military career and family connections to secure power. Government officials grew to fear him—but unfortunately for them, Bokassa struck first. 

His early life, before seizing power in 1968, is shrouded in mystery. But what we do know is that Francisco Macias Nguema used the colonial system as a means to grasp his own power. But instead of British colonialists, in Nguema’s case, it was the Spanish.

Throughout the 1970s, Idi Amin ruled over Uganda with an ironfist as means to make sure he stayed in the spotlight. Mass crimes against humanity, like the ethnic purges, and the harboring of terrorists were meant to anger his former British colonizers and their allies. But as the years passed, his erratic behavior would ultimately prove to be his undoing.

Growing up in colonial Uganda in the 1930s and ‘40s, Idi Amin chose to embrace his British colonists by joining the British Army. Climbing the ranks, he became a natural choice to lead the Ugandan Army after independence. But as Amin gained power, corruption seeped in. 

As he continued the family legacy of oppression, Kim Jong-un looked to show the world he was more than just a laughing stock. Not only did he flex his might by allegedly assassinating his half-brother in 2017, but he finally did what his grandfather had dreamed: he obtained nuclear weapons.

For the first two decades of his life, the world was unaware of the existence of Kim Jong-un. Hidden in the penthouses of Pyongyang and educated in Europe, Kim Jong-Un was introduced to the world as his father's successor in the late 2000s. Any hope of a loosened grip over North Korea would quickly vanish.

After carrying the legacy of his father into the 1990s, Kim Jong-il took a defensive stance against the world, isolating North Korea from global affairs. The “Dear Leader” kept North Korea armed to the teeth and starving, while his propaganda machine sang his praises. 

Born in a guerilla camp in the early 1940s, Kim Jong-il seemed destined to take his father's place. Under the grooming of his father, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il experienced a meteoric rise through North Korea's communist ranks before forming the first communist dynasty.

In the aftermath of the Korean War, Kim Il-sung used propaganda and violence to exert total control of North Korea and its people—transforming it into the most isolated nation on earth.

We are thrilled to bring you a brand new episode of Dictators today and for the foreseeable future. We thank you for your patience during this unprecedented time. He rose from anti-Japanese freedom to the leader of a Soviet-led puppet government in North Korea. But just as North Korea gained its independence, Kim Il-sung led the country to the brink of extinction, by dragging it into a costly and destructive civil war against South Korea and the United States.

If you enjoy the true stories told in Dictators, check out this episode from our series Kingpins: He was the Panamanian politician who ran one of the most successful drug and gun trafficking rings in the world in the 1970s and 80s—until an American coup brought him down.

If you enjoy the true stories told in Dictators, check out this episode from our series Kingpins: How did Manuel Noriega rise from nothing to become the drug-smuggling, secret-selling, military dictator of Panama in the 1980s? He had a great deal of help from the American CIA.

He purged Wallachia of enemies and retained an iron grip on power in the region. But as Vlad the Impaler's power expanded, so did his violent, paranoid and psychotic behavior—until he alienated everyone around him and was violently deposed.

Born between 1428-1431, Vlad the Impaler was abandoned by his father as a boy and betrayed by everyone he trusted. He channeled his resentment into an unquenchable lust for power and violence—eventually becoming the ruler of Wallachia.

After uniting the Mongol tribes in 1206, Genghis Khan used his military prowess to assert dominance over the Ottoman Empire and the Chinese Jin Dynasty. By 1222, his empire spanned from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

A nomad exiled from his tribe as a child, Genghis Khan used populism and meritocracy to unite the tribes of the Mongolian Steppe and become the ruler of all of Mongolia from 1206-1227 CE.

After the death of his beloved first wife, Tsar Ivan the Terrible descended into madness and paranoia. He turned his hatred and fear against his own people dragging the empire he had built with his own hands down into poverty and despair.

Ivan Vasilyevich the Fourth was crowned Grand Prince of Muscovy at 3 years old after his father died. After a traumatic childhood of chaos and coups, Ivan would crown himself the first Tsar of Russia and go on to create the Russian Empire. The first half of his reign would have made him a legend... if the second half did not turn into a waking nightmare that would earn him the name "Ivan the Terrible."

Once he was appointed Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler was finally in the position to implement his long-awaited vision. It was a vision that plunged the entire world into war, and led to the systematic genocide of over six million Jews and countless innocent people.

As a young man, nobody would have expected aspiring artist Adolf Hitler to become one of history's cruelest dictators. But once he realized he had a talent for politics, Hitler began a lifelong quest for absolute power...and he was willing to do anything to get it.

Now in total power, Joseph Stalin went on to transform the Soviet Union into a modernized country—but at the cost of millions of lives. In order to fulfill his vision of communism, the deaths of peasants and political enemies were required. 

Before he became the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world, Joseph Stalin was an idealistic, but ruthless revolutionary. A Marxist from a young age, he devoted much of his life to overthrowing Imperial Russia. But as his star rose among the Russian socialists, so too did his list of enemies. 

Il Duce’s ineffective economic policies left Italy completely unprepared for World War II, and yet he forced the country into it anyway. What followed was a defeat so embarrassing that it remains legendary for its incompetency to this day.

The Italian "Il Duce" had one of the most dramatic transformations of any politician in history. An ardent socialist for the first three decades of his life, he abruptly left the party and developed his own brand of nationalist, totalitarian belief. This system would become known as fascism, and it would change the course of history.

Welcome to Parcast's newest original, DICTATORS. Every Tuesday starting January 21st, delve into the minds behind some of the world’s most infamous leaders. Hear more about the men who claimed to love their country, but were intricately responsible for killing millions of their own people. Men such as prime minister Benito Mussolini, supreme leader Kim Jong-un, and even Julius Caesar himself. Discover the governments that fell, the lives that were destroyed, and evil at its highest level in the Parcast original series, DICTATORS.