Ranked by page views
Jeanne de Clisson's husband, Olivier, spent years defending Brittany from the English, only to be executed by King Phillip VI of France, who suspected him of betraying his homeland. Olivier's head was publicly displayed on a pole outside the castle of Bouffay, igniting Jeanne's desire for revenge.
Fuelled by revenge, Jeanne gathered a small band and defeated the pro-French troops in Brittany as a tribute to her late husband. She then liquidated all their assets, purchased three warships, and embarked on a maritime adventure akin to piracy. Jeanne scoured the English Channel for French ships under King Philip's command. Most of the crew met their fate at her hands, sparing only a handful to relay her deeds to the king. From then on, her fleet became known as "The Black Fleet," and she earned the moniker "The Lioness of Brittany."
After Prasutagus, the leader of the Iceni tribe during Roman rule, passed away in 60 CE, he left his wealth to his daughters and Emperor Nero, aiming to safeguard his family's future. Sadly, the Romans ignored his wishes and annexed all of his kingdom. Boudica, his wife and a formidable queen and warrior, protested against this injustice. Heartbreakingly, she faced violence, enduring beatings, while her daughters suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the Romans.
Boudica sought revenge and revolted against the empire, devastating the Roman cities of Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium, resulting in the slaughter of approximately 70,000 Romans.
This is one unsaintly saint. Olga's husband, Igor I, Prince of Kyiv, was murdered by a group living in Kyiv known as the Drevlyans, because they didn’t want to pay him what they thought was an excessive tribute. Olga and Igor's son was still an infant, so she became the land’s ruler, and the Drevlyans soon sent ambassadors to negotiate a marriage between her and their choice for king. When they arrived, it's said she had a moat dug and buried them alive.
Olga didn't settle for just any suitors; when the Drevlyans sent more men her way, she locked them inside a bathhouse and set it ablaze. Later, she paid a personal visit to the Drevlyans. They hosted a grand feast in her honor, but once they were drunk, her soldiers mercilessly wiped them out.
After realizing her power, the Drevlyans pleaded for mercy and proposed a trade of goods. In response, Olga made a peculiar request - asking for three sparrows and pigeons from every household in the city. Seemingly harmless, she secretly attached sulfur pieces to the birds using cloth and set them free, resulting in the city being engulfed in flames.
Genghis Khan was looking to establish trading relations along the Silk Road with the Khwarazmian Empire, and sent a trade caravan of 500 men to its city of Otra. But its governor, Inalchuq—uncle of the Khwarazmian Shah—was suspicious and with the Shah’s permission executed the Mongols. When Khan found out, he gave them another chance and sent three ambassadors to meet with the Shah and explain his trade intent and demand that Inalchuq be punished.
The Shah unwisely shaved the beards of the two ambassadors and beheaded the third, sending the beards and head to Khan. In response, Khan captured the city of Otra and put Inalchuq to death in a brutal manner, by pouring molten silver into his eyes and ears. Moreover, he completely annihilated the Khwarazmian empire. Additionally, there are rumors that Khan went as far as diverting a river away from the Shah's birthplace to render it unlivable.
During Japan's Edo period, samurai frequently swore loyalty oaths to their lords, promising to avenge their master's death if necessary. In this tale, nobleman Asano Naganori had 47 dedicated samurai sworn to him, so when he was compelled to commit seppuku (to take his own life) in 1701 after a conflict with nobleman Kira Yoshinaka, the samurai's oath was activated.
The samurai felt the seppuku was unjustified, but they waited two whole years, giving Yoshinaka a false sense of security, before enacting their revenge. Then, one night, the 47 ronin (a term for samurai who lack a master) snuck into Yoshinaka’s home, confronted him, and offered him a chance to commit seppuku. When he didn’t, they removed his head and placed it in front of their master’s tomb. They later surrendered to the authorities, however, and were sentenced to commit seppuku themselves.
In the 14th century, Pedro I of Portugal, also known as Peter, was wedded to Constanza Manuel of Castile at the young age of 16 as a political strategy organized by his father, King Alfonso XI. However, he fell in love with his wife's cousin, Inês de Castro. Their love affair went public after Constanza died, and Peter started a family with Inês. But his father still disapproved and had her murdered and buried while Peter was away hunting.
Peter attempted to declare war against his father but suffered defeat. However, two years later, his father passed away and he assumed the throne. One of the first things he did was order the public execution of Inês’ killers by ripping their hearts out. He then revealed he’d married Inês and demanded she be recognized as Queen of Portugal. Legend has it her remains were exhumed, clothed, and crowned, while the king compelled his courtiers to pay homage to her lifeless hand through kisses.
In 75 BCE, a 25-year-old Julius Caesar was reportedly captured by Cilician pirates in the Aegean Sea, who held the young nobleman captive for a ransom of 20 talents. Caesar laughed and told them to raise the amount, which they did, to 50 talents. For 38 days, he reportedly made himself at home among the pirates and treated them like his subordinates, reading them poems and playing their games, all while warning them he would have them crucified once free.
The ransom arrived, Caesar was set free, and the first thing he did was raise a small naval force in Miletus to find the pirates. They were exactly where he’d left them, clearly not believing his threat. Caesar captured them, took back the ransom, and turned them over to the governor Marcus Junius. But when Junius was indecisive about punishment, Caesar finished his revenge by taking the pirates out of prison and crucifying them.
Pierre Picaud was a 19th-century shoemaker in Nîmes, France, who in 1807 was living well and set to marry a wealthy woman. But three “friends” of his—Chaubart, Solari, and Loupian—accused him of spying for England, and Picaud was sent to prison for the next seven years. There, he befriended an Italian priest who, upon his death, bequeathed a hidden fortune to Picaud. When the French imperial government fell in 1814, Picaud was released, and spent the next 10 years plotting his revenge. If this sounds like Alexandre Dumas's novel, that's no coincidence.
Having acquired the treasure and assuming a new identity, Picaud proceeded to eliminate Chaubart, either through his own hand or by orchestrating an assassination. He then sought out Solari and successfully administered fatal poison. However, his most wicked act was reserved for Loupian, who had married Picaud's former fiancée. Picaud manipulated Loupian's daughter into marrying a criminal, only to have the criminal apprehended, resulting in her demise due to a nervous breakdown. Moreover, Picaud set fire to Loupian's restaurant, leaving him destitute, and ensured Loupian's son was arrested for pilfering gold. In the end, he personally ended Loupian's life with a stab wound.
On November 28, 1724, Peter the Great reportedly ordered the public beheading of Willem Mons in Saint Petersburg, just eight days after his arrest. Though Mons was charged with embezzlement and breach of trust, the word on the street was that Mons was having an affair with Peter's wife, Catherine, to whom he was private secretary.
According to reports, Mons had entered the court through Peter’s mistress Anna Mons. Nevertheless, Peter remained jealous. It is rumored that he gave his wife the head of her lover, which he kept on their nightstand as a reminder.
The Nakam, meaning "Revenge" in Hebrew, was a cohort consisting of around 50 Holocaust survivors. In 1945, their primary aim was to exact vengeance on Germans and Nazis for the genocide of six million Jews during the Holocaust. Adhering to the principle of "a nation for a nation," their leader, Abba Kovner (depicted in the picture), devised a Plan A to contaminate the water supply in Nuremberg, Weimar, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Munich with poison. Kovner's plan was foiled, and he was compelled to discard the toxic substance.
They resorted to an alternative strategy by focusing on imprisoning Germans soldiers held by the United States. They managed to infiltrate the bakeries providing bread to the prison camps and, utilizing arsenic obtained from the area, they poisoned around 3,000 loaves of bread at a bakery located in Nuremberg. This malicious act resulted in over 2,000 German prisoners of war at Langwasser internment camp falling ill. Notably, no fatalities have been directly linked to the actions of the group.
James Annesley was born into a wealthy, noble family in Ireland during in the early 18th century but his uncle Richard was determined to inherit James' wealth. Richard got rid of even his own brother, James’ father Arthur, with poison, historians suspect. Then he had James, then 12, kidnapped and taken to America, where he was held as an indentured servant for 12 years. At 25, James finally worked off his servitude and found his way back to London.
He began restoring his identity, sharing his story, and reclaiming his fortune from his uncle in court. Though he died before he was able to regain control of the family wealth, he had successfully dragged his uncle’s reputation in the public sphere so that for the rest of Richard's life he was known as a schemer.
Mariya Oktyabrskaya was a firm communist, so when her husband was killed in a German attack in Kyiv, she was filled with hatred. She sold their house and all their belongings and bought a T-34 tank. But instead of just donating it to the Red Army, Oktyabrskaya is said to have personally written to Joseph Stalin asking for permission to be the one to drive it.
Her wish was granted, and after some training, Oktyabrskaya and her tank, which she had nicknamed "Fighting Girlfriend," were headed to war. In her first battle, in October of 1943, Oktyabrskaya's tank was reportedly the first to breach enemy lines. She wrote to her sister after, "I’ve had my baptism by fire." She died in battle in January 1944, though she went out with a bang.
In 2003, the internet had proliferated and so had spam email, a controversy of which Michigan entrepreneur Alan Ralsky was at the center. Known as the "spam king," Ralsky sent millions of bulk emails for a variety of businesses and earned a lavish lifestyle from it, but when an article pointed out his enormous home, some early internet trolls managed to find the spam king's physical address.
In a hilarious bid of revenge, hundreds of trolls signed Ralsky's address up for huge amounts of physical junk mail—it’s said he received hundreds of pounds of junk mail each day—on numerous sites across the web. Ralsky threatened to sue anyone involved, but before he could act on it he was booked for a separate stock scheme and eventually received a 51-month prison sentence.
Canadian folk-pop group Sons of Maxwell had a rocky start to their tour of Nebraska in 2008 when they saw United Airlines baggage handlers tossing their instruments into the plane, and upon arrival found that Dave Carroll’s US$3,500 Taylor guitar was broken. When nine months of customer service ended in Carroll’s claim being denied to cover the US$1,200 it would take to fix the guitar, he decided to put it in song.
Carroll created a series of songs called the 'United Breaks Guitars' trilogy, which became extremely popular on YouTube. According to reports, United's stock decreased in value by 10% of its market cap, equivalent to US $180 million, within just four days of the first video's release. This loss could have been avoided if United had simply paid for the necessary repairs!
Sources: (Britannica) (HowStuffWorks) (History Answers) (Grunge) (Ancient Origins) (History Collection)
The history of revenge essentially goes back as far as humans have existed. There's something biological about the desire to exact vengeance on others who have wronged us, and it indeed triggers a release of satisfying hormones—though in the long term it might bring less pleasant consequences.
Revenge is even in our social contract, as we seek to serve justice to those who have wronged and been wronged, though it almost always feels more potent in our personal relationships. The personal flair we see in how vengeance is carried out can tell you a bit about that person’s inner workings. For some, those inner workings are beyond devious.
Click through to see some of the greatest and most terrible ways revenge has played out in the past.
History's most shockingly brutal acts of revenge
From the ingenious to the imaginative
LIFESTYLE Vengeance
The history of revenge essentially goes back as far as humans have existed. There's something biological about the desire to exact vengeance on others who have wronged us, and it indeed triggers a release of satisfying hormones—though in the long term it might bring less pleasant consequences.
Revenge is even in our social contract, as we seek to serve justice to those who have wronged and been wronged, though it almost always feels more potent in our personal relationships. The personal flair we see in how vengeance is carried out can tell you a bit about that person’s inner workings. For some, those inner workings are beyond devious.
Click through to see some of the greatest and most terrible ways revenge has played out in the past.