Brutal Things That Were 'Normal' For History's Deadliest King

History has its fair share of brutal monarchies. Kings and Queens who put their royal subjects through wars, punish so-called traitors, and lived lavishly while their subjects starved. But there is one recent monarch who may be the most brutal in recent history. King Leopold II of Belgium may be remembered as “The Builder King”, but there is a side to his reign that was destructive to a whole country.

Hello, and welcome back to Nutty History. Today we’re talking about King Leopold II of Belgium, and why he’s known as history’s most evil ruler.
A quick note, today’s video deals with some sensitive subject matter, so viewer discretion is advised. The matter of colonialism and foreign sovereignty is one that many people are still learning about and examining today, and Leopold II is a major figure in this process.

------------------------------------

Chapter Timestamps
0:00 Intro to mid-roll ads
0:15 Wait, Who?
1:52 Host with the Most!
3:19 Mine! Mine! Mine!
4:40 But Why?
6:38 Ouch!
7:43 It wasn’t great…
8:51 It gets better…

------------------------------------

More Nutty History 🥜

⛩History of Asia:

☠️ Mafia Inspired Stories

🐫 Egyptian History

------------------------------------

Thank you so much for watching our video! We really love the support that you all bring to each and every video ❤️

#NuttyHistory #kingleopoldII

[NuttyProductionsOfficial]

Name your most ruthless & brutal kings 🤴& queens👸

[fluffyg]

"Hey you, this is mine now. You belong to me." -Humans

[thomascrownrg]

"If we don't learn from our past
(or choose to ignore/erase it)
we are doomed to repeat it."

[stevensilva]

Read “King Leopold’s ghost” by Adam Hochschild. The book does a great job on explaining everything that happened during leopolds reign over the Congo.

[JadenNeko]

It's disgusting how this is NOT thought in school and we wonder why people are so ignorant.

[zach]

I've heard his name more times than ever. Watched a documentary called White King, Red Rubber, Black Death.

[Тсонга]

If they're willing the tell us this, imagine how bad it really was. Considering that History is written by the victors, I can guarantee it must have been 10x worse.

[cynhiacations]

This horrible horrible man also had families of the Congolese people bought to Belgium to be put on show in a type of human zoo. The area was set up as a village with the people dressed as they would at home. They would live their lives on show to the paying public. In winter they were expected to wear their normal clothes as worn in the tropical country if their birth. Of course they would freeze and find it very hard to live as though they were at home. Those poor people died from all kinds of diseases and from influenza. The king as well as the administration caused more misery by not recognising these people were worth more than being a sideshow attraction.

[greenviolist]

He was so crazy that other lesser insane despots put him on blast and shunned him until he relented. Such a horrible person

[МихаилМосков-ьс]

And today the "former" colonial powers are insanely zealous about human rights. But not a single word about returning the stolen.

[Larez]

His reign wasn't controversial. It's clear he committed crimes against humanity. It's repulsive he tried to hide behind private property laws to say Belgian government and others had no right to even know what he did on his property.

[sirbunningham]

I’ve honestly never heard of him before today but I’m completely blown away by how he ruled.

[kimberlypatton]

What a fantastic job you've done in this video! The amount of facts is superb! Great job, Nutty history! Quality video! ♥️

[tayejupa]

King Leopold's Soliloquy by Mark Twain. I wrote a research paper on the Congolese Rape Crisis of 1960. My roommate was from the country called, Zaire back then. Western Colonialism in Africa has never been paternal or for "humanitarian" reasons.

[NoahBodze]

“The late Matiamvo sometimes indulged in the whim of running a muck in the town and beheading whomsoever he met, until he had quite a heap of human heads. Matiamvo explained this conduct by saying that his people were too many, and he wanted to diminish them. He had absolute power of life and death."

— David Livingstone

[afrikasmith]

In short: Leopold was a fool on a chair so high that he couldn't see anyone suffering and didn't want to anyway.

[EastBayFlipper]

So it seems that Billy Joel was right in his song "we didn't start the fire" when he mentions "Psycho Belgians in the Congo"😏

[gooseface]

'King Leopold's Ghost' by Adam Hochschild is a shocking, but excellent account of Leopold's psycopathy

[randomobserver]

Colonialism, foreign sovereignty and exploitation weren't in any way new things in the world in his day, but Leopold's regime in Congo was so ghastly and his and his officers' attitude so cavalier about it it caused worldwide political uproar, moral outrage and media furor. Not perhaps the earliest example of this, but enormous and durable for such an early period and even eventually effective. Remarkable.

[eamonosullivan]

Good that you covered this horrific atrocity. Although I think the topic deserved a much less flippant approach.