Half-Assed Apologies From Historic Leaders For Egregious Crimes Against Humanity

Pharaoh of The Exodus

 

When I enslaved the Israelites and ordered all their first-born sons to be killed, I was really just trying to start a productive dialogue with the state about population control.

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Caligula

 

Yes, I often called myself a god, had sex with my own sisters, turned my palace into a brothel, killed at whim, and had an entire section of an amphitheater’s audience eaten by wild beasts because I was bored. I have unaddressed daddy issues, but do I ever get any sympathy for that? Noooo.

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Genghis Khan

 

I know I killed three fourths of the population of the Iranian Plateau, and hundreds of thousands of others across the Middle East, but I got the Silk Road going so…you’re welcome.

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Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain

 

We may have been complicit in the Spanish Inquisition, and the subsequent religious persecution, torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of people over three centuries, but it was totally all Torquemada’s idea.

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Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (aka Vlad the Impaler)

 

Whoever said I invite my enemies to banquets, stab them, then impale them on spikes where they die a slow death must be thinking of some other Prince. Please come over so I can prove it to you.

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Napoleon

 

Mais Oui, I incited 17 years of war, resulting in the deaths of as many as six million Europeans, bankrupted my country, and lost our overseas colonies. Some even say I inspired Hilter’s reign. What can I say? I was tired of people calling me short.

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Leopold the II of Belgium

 

Congo Free State or my personal colony where I enslaved and killed tens of millions of Congolese? Either way, you must admit we all got some pretty sweet ivory out of it.

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Michinomiya Hirohito

 

We never intended to bomb Pearl Harbor. I told General Yamamoto to send planes filled with flowers and candy for the Hawaiian children as a gesture of peace. He must’ve misread my order. Anyway, sorry about that.

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Joseph Stalin

 

Did I say “Great Purge”? I meant, “Great Purpose!” But yeah, both involved me having tens of millions of my people murdered because they opposed my reign.

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Hitler

 

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. Sorry, what was the question again?