Perhaps the adjective “greatest” is something of
hollow praise for the men on this list. After all, the
defining characteristic of conquerors is the ability to
kill others and take their stuff; moreover, to
convince people underneath you to kill people and
take their stuff. Most all of these men were great
strategists, with varying levels of intellect. In some
trains of logic, the blood of all those who died in the
wake of their armies is entirely on their hands.
Somehow, that thought didn’t stop them from
gobbling up the land of their enemies as their
empires expanded...

All of the men on these lists have had a great and
terrible influence on human history. In one sense,
these are the most influential people in history, in
the purest sense of the word “influence”. Multi-
continental war, genocide, death and destruction
are some of the tools of their influence; their legacy.
History shall always remember them as
warmongers, for better or worse.
From count down
10. George W. Bush — 423,424 Square
Miles
Number ten on the list is quite fresh in the mind of
history. During George W. Bush‘s eight-year, two-
term presidency of the U.S.A, the “war on terror”
was waged on real land, regardless of how
ephemeral of a title it suggested. In retaliation to the
September 11th attacks on American soil– the first
of its kind since Pearl Harbor– the American Military
mobilized en masse to extricate Saddam Hussein
from power in Iraq, though the link of him to
nuclear weaponry or the 9/11 attacks was tenuous at
best. Even though the extrication of Hussein was a
boon, the war raged through the country before he
was ever found. From there, the war spread across
the middle east in an effort to eradicate terrorist
cells and eliminate Taliban and Al Qaeda presences.
It’s been nearly 13 years since the war on terror, or
more accurately, the war in the middle east, began,
and it’s become quite the quagmire over that time.
Incredibly, so much ground has been covered
during the invasions that George Bush lands at 10 as
one of the greatest conquerors in history.

9. Francisco Pizarro — 480,000 Square
Miles
This Spanish Conquistador lived from 1471-1541,
and was the leader of several expeditions to South
America where he would go on to conquer
numerous parts of the continent, famously
conquering much of the Incan empire. Pizarro was
inspired to conquer South America, along with other
Spanish “explorers”, by the successes of Hernan
Cortes’ exploits, including the vast treasures he
acquired. Pizarro first unsuccessfully attacked the
western coast of South America, but on his third
expedition he landed in what is now Ecuador, and
drove to the Incan capital of Tumbes, only to find it
ruined by Incan civil war. He eventually fortuitously
came across the unprepared Incan Emperor
Atahualpa and captured him, after he had defeated
his brother in the Incan civil war. The Emperor
would later be executed, and Pizarro basically
defeated an entire nation with only horses and 160
technologically advanced (at the time) soldiers. He
later had four children with two Incan princesses,
and had conquered what is modern day Peru. He’s
remembered in Peru as a sort of confusing figure,
as he historically influenced the nation but was also
unquestionably a brutal conqueror.

8. Mahmud of Ghazni — 680,000 Square
Miles
Mahmud of Ghazni lived from 971-1030 A.D., was
the first Sultan in history, and is credited as the
founder of the Ghaznavid empire. Sultan had come
to mean that he was the ruler of a great expanse of
land that covered much of the middle east, in what
is now Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and some of
India, along with a number of smaller countries. His
conquests are largely attributed to the use of
extremely powerful archers on horseback, using
compound bows atop horses to speed across the
battlefield and kill from great distance. Mahmud is
possibly one of the best conquerors on this list, for
despite his conquests he treasured learning,
regularly bestowed honor onto wise and well read
men, and created universities and mosques across
the middle east and Asia. Though much of his
wartime policy involved the death of infidels, or all
those who did not believed the sect of Muslim that
he did, he often tolerated religious groups so long
as they didn’t pose a military threat to him. The
Mahmud of Ghanzi is undoubtedly a conqueror that
fits more into the grey areas of despotism, as he in
many ways showed a temperate and learned
disposition while ruling his empire.

7. Napoleon Bonaparte — 720,000
Square Miles
One of the more famous conquerors in history,
Napoleon was a brilliant strategist and war general
who quickly rose to the top of the military school he
was raised in. Not only did he bring France military
greatness and rose to Emperorship for 10 years
from 1804-1814, he also created the reform that
abolished feudalism and allowed widespread
religious toleration. He also created a legal code for
his people called the Napoleonic Code which served
as a major influence in creation and adjustment of
law worldwide. Napoleon led the French army to
conquer most of continental Europe, his only
blunder was invading Russia which would eventually
lead to his downfall and exile before his eventual
death on the island of Elba. Without a doubt he is
the most positive conqueror on this list, as he
espoused many of the French revolutionary ideas
that helped shape much of democracy as we know it
today.

6. Adolf Hitler — 1,370,000 Square Miles
Adolf Hitler doesn’t need much introduction. If
you’re someone who has access to the internet, then
you surely know the horrific history of one Adolf
Hitler whose very name instills thoughts of hatred,
bigotry, violence and death. He may only be #6 on
this list, but he is easily the most hated conqueror in
today’s worldview. The economic gutting of
Germany after World War I is often attributed to be
the cause of World War II, as it allowed the Nazi
party to rise in power simply by providing food and
jobs for the German people. But the mastermind,
the unquestioned leader who created the Axis that
sparked WWII, was Hitler.
Figures vary as the full scope of the war was nearly
impossible to ascertain, with events like Japanese
massacres in China being hard to historically
quantify, but it is generally accepted that more than
55,000,000 people died in World War II. In many
ways, its entirety can be lain at the feet of Hitler
himself. Hitler’s demands for purification of race
and global domination through war might not be
original, but the scope of which they were executed
remains the most horrifying periods in human
history. Of the 55 million, over 29 million were
civilian deaths, notably the 6 million Jews and other
“racially impure” people killed by Hitler’s genocide.
We can only hope that this is the the darkest stain in
human history, and will one day be looked at as a
distant history lesson.

5. Attila the Hun — 1,450,000 Square
Miles
Attila The Hun, also known as Flagellum Dei, or
“Scourge of God” is one of the greatest barbarian
conquerors in all of history. The Scourge of God
title was bestowed upon him because of the
rampant destruction he rained down on the Roman
Empire, he led the Huns, an eastern European
barbarian tribe, to conquer much of eastern and
central Europe. His birth date is unknown, but he
reigned between 434-453 A.D., where he controlled
an empire from Italy to Germany, Russia, Poland,
and southeastern Europe. While he never was able
to successfully conquer Persia and Constantinople,
he repeatedly invaded the Roman Empire, and was
renowned for the devastation and plundering he left
in the wake of his barbarian hordes. Attila
dominated Europe during his reign, until the
Visigoths and the Romans actually joined forces to
defeat the conqueror. He died in 453 A.D., and with
no established order to follow him, the barbarian
empire crumbled soon thereafter.

4. Cyrus The Great — 2,090,000 Square
Miles
Often described as the founder of the Persian
Empire, Cyrus the great reigned from 559-530 B.C.
Persia was originally a state within the empire of
Medes, until Cyrus liberated Persia, started a
revolution and took the Median capital of Ecbatana,
and proclaimed himself ruler. His Persian Empire
was gigantic, as he conquered from India to the
middle east, northern Africa and into Greece. His
conquests led to the Persian Empire as being one of
the largest and most historically influential empires
in recorded history. Unlike Attila, Cyrus created a
political infrastructure under him that kept the
Persian Empire going long after his death, and his
exploits as a conqueror lead to the spread of middle
eastern philosophy, literature, culture and religion
across Europe and Asia. Persia remained in
existence for a long, long time and is often
attributed to the spread of Islam and the Islamic
“Golden Age”.

3. Tamerlane — 2,145,000 Square Miles
Timur, Tarmashirin Khan, or more commonly
known in history as Tamerlane, is the second
greatest Asian conqueror who founded the Timurid
dynasty. A figure of Islamic faith, he often called
himself “the sword of Islam” and used religious
rhetoric and aspirations to recreate Genghis Khan’s
Empire as a motive to drive his multicultural army
all across Asia, Africa and Europe. Incredibly, his
vast expanses of military conquest is estimated to
have caused 17 million deaths during his reign from
1370-1405. That is also thought to be about 5% of
the population of the world at that time. So it may
not surprise you to know that Tamerlane is known
most prominently as a military figure and for his
violent conquests across the world, rather than his
Muslim influences and his love for art and
architecture. Because of his religious motivations
though, his existence and subsequent empire is the
main reason why Christianity was largely expunged
from Asia, and conversely why the Muslim cultural
world flourished.

2. Alexander The Great — 2,180,000
Square Miles
Easily one the greatest conqueror in western
history, Alexander the great created an empire so
vast for its time it is staggering. He succeeded his
father, Philip II, when he was 20 years old, having
been trained in warfare and tutored by Aristotle. He
took command of the Macedonian Empire and
ceaselessly spread from Greece eastward. He
defeated the Persians, conquered Egypt and tore
through Asia Minor all the way to India where he
finally stopped his conquest at the behest of his
soldiers. His influence spread across the world,
creating around twenty cities named after him, the
most famous being Alexandria in Egypt. His empire
also created trade between the east and the west,
though that was something of an unintended
consequence, historically speaking. He also greatly
influenced Rome and Roman thinking in the military,
as Romans often looked to Alexander and his tactics
for military knowledge. In fact, his military brilliance
was so extensive that military academies around the
world still teach tactics he created to this day. After
his death in 323 B.C. his empire split into a number
of parts, as territories and rulers squabbled over
rights to rule. Despite the fall of the Macedonian
empire, his influence on the world would greatly
change the course of human history.

1. Genghis Khan — 4,860,000 Square
Miles
Without a doubt, the greatest conqueror in history,
who conquered more than double the area of land
that Alexander the Great did, is often one of the
most forgotten conquerors in the minds of people
of the western world. Genghis Khan (birth name of
Temujin) is often reduced to a caricature, a
cartoonish idea of a big barbaric Mongol who
terrorizes villages. Well, he certainly did terrorize
plenty of villages over his lifetime. He was born in
1162 in Mongolia, and created his empire first by
unifying nomadic tribes of northeast Asia into one
army, where he would sweep across Asia and
western Europe with unprecedented speed and
efficiency. He conquered what is nearly the entirety
of modern day China, as well as spilling over into
Russia, Turkey, most of the Persian middle East, and
nearly everything in between (except India). The
scope of his conquests are so enormous that it
seems nearly impossible for anyone at the time,
with only the speed of horseback to have created
such a massive empire as that of the Mongol
Empire. Though he is often credited with creating
the unified concept of the Silk Road from Asia to
Europe, that’s about the extent of the positive
depictions of Genghis Khan, as he is responsible for
the deaths and conquest of innumerable peoples
across the known world. However he is
remembered, since his death in 1227 A.D., he
remains the single greatest conqueror in human
history by a incredibly wide margin.

u said 10 why u no complete am anyway u try sha

6 - 10

2 Alexandra the Great
1 Genghis Khan