Fear is a basic human emotion we all experience, and even the most celebrated figures in history were not immune. In fact, these ten remarkable personalities each carried a strange, specific dread that clashes with the fearless image history often paints them with – welcome to the world of 10 surprising phobias that shaped the lives of powerful leaders.
10 Surprising Phobias
10. Fire
Although he famously declared that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt harbored a deep, personal terror of fire. This anxiety likely sprouted from childhood incidents, including a vivid memory of his aunt Laura sprinting down stairs with a burning dress after an alcohol lamp spilled.
In 1899, young Roosevelt helped rip up part of a parlor floor to douse a cellar blaze and joined a bucket brigade to extinguish a stable fire near Groton School. He later recounted the “horrible scene… the poor horses lying under the debris with their hide entirely burned off and fearfully charred because there was no back door.”
The phobia intensified after he lost the use of his legs in the 1920s; he dreaded being trapped in a burning building, unable to escape. During his presidency, his fear of fire even eclipsed his fear of assassination, prompting him to refuse locking the presidential bedroom door at night, forcing the Secret Service to patrol the hallway nightly.
His wife allegedly commissioned an architect to design a special fire‑escape chute for him, though it’s unclear if it was ever built. Despite his dread, Roosevelt insisted his family Christmas tree be lit with candles rather than electric lights.
9. Dogs
Legend and passages from the Secret History of the Mongols reveal that Genghis Khan feared only three things: his mother, his wife, and dogs. As an eight‑year‑old boy named Temujin, his father Yesugei warned his future in‑laws, “my son is afraid of dogs. My kinsman, don’t let my boy be frightened by dogs!”
Critics sometimes label this fear as cowardice, but the Mongolian dogs of the era were massive, ferocious beasts known to attack travelers without warning. The Mongols described them as “big and bony brutes, long‑haired and shaggy, loud‑voiced and vicious… they will jump at you even if you are on a horse or camel.”
Thus, Genghis’s aversion to dogs was likely a prudent precaution against these dangerous animals that could jeopardize his campaigns.
8. Flying
Former North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il was notoriously terrified of flying, preferring armored trains even for long diplomatic trips to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His father, Kim Il Sung, also flew regularly, yet both developed a severe distrust of air travel after several unsettling incidents.
Swedish ambassador Ingolf Kiesow recounted that Kim Jong Il bore a scar from a 1976 helicopter crash that left both physical injury and lingering psychological trauma. In 1982, after a test flight of a newly purchased IL‑62 exploded, killing 17 people—including his personal pilot—Kim Il Sung refused to ride in aircraft piloted by North Koreans, opting instead for Russian pilots on rare occasions.
Unlike his son, Kim Jong Un shows no such aversion, frequently disembarking from planes and even sitting in the cockpit.
7. Disease
King Henry VIII, notorious for his many marriages, harbored an intense dread of disease, especially the plague and the mysterious sweating sickness that swept England during his reign. The Tudor tradition of “progresses”—royal tours of the countryside—continued under Henry, but the specter of contagion forced him to isolate whenever outbreaks flared.
During a sweating‑sickness outbreak in 1528, Henry fled London with Queen Catherine and his mistress Anne Boleyn, hopping from house to house before finally sheltering at the Abbot of St Albans in Hertfordshire, far from the infection. When one of Anne’s handmaidens fell ill, he retreated another 20 km away, ordering Anne back to her father’s estate while dispatching the second‑best physician to tend to her.
When Cardinal Wolsey suggested the plague was divine punishment for Henry’s desire to annul his marriage, the king erupted in fury, reportedly saying he would give “a thousand Wolseys for one Anne Boleyn.” The epidemic eventually subsided, allowing the court to return, though the fear lingered.
6. Lightning
According to Suetonius, Augustus Caesar was unnerved by thunder and lightning. While traveling at night during the Cantabrian campaign, a bolt struck near his litter, scorching it and killing a slave who carried a torch ahead of him.
Superstitious and fearful, Augustus commissioned the Temple of Jupiter the Thunderer to placate the god, yet his anxiety persisted. He reportedly kept a seal‑skin amulet for protection and, when storms approached, would retreat to an underground vault, possibly stocked with candles.
Some scholars argue his aversion may have been less about a true phobia and more about insomnia or boredom during sleepless nights, but the fear of lightning remained a noted quirk.
5. Water
Byzantine emperor Heraclius, after a series of victories against Persia, faced defeats at the hands of expanding Muslim armies, which sparked a nervous condition that included a pronounced fear of water. While retreating after a crushing loss in Syria, he hesitated to cross the Bosphorus, lingering weeks in his palace at Hiereia before finally being coaxed onto a bridge of boats lined with tree branches.
His dread was so severe that he ordered several cisterns in Constantinople to be filled with soil, effectively disabling them. Modern archaeologists have uncovered such filled‑in cisterns, although later emperors like Basil I cleared some of them.
Astrologer Stephanos of Alexandria reportedly warned that Heraclius would meet his end by drowning, a prophecy that may have fueled his water‑related anxiety.
4. Insects And High Ceilings
Peter the Great harbored a distinct aversion to cockroaches; he would flee any building where one appeared. During tours of the countryside, he instructed his servants to sweep every room thoroughly to ensure they were roach‑free.
One anecdote tells of Peter asking his host whether the house contained cockroaches. The officer replied, “Not many,” and added, “And the better to get rid of them, I have pinned a living one to the wall.” Upon seeing the pinned insect next to his head, Peter rose, punched the officer, and left with his entourage.
Peter also displayed a mild fear of open spaces, disliking wide rooms and lofty ceilings. He would avoid large palaces abroad, and when staying in a high‑ceilinged chamber, he would request a canvas be hung low to create a cozier, more confined atmosphere.
3. Heights And Long Flights
Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi was infamous for his eccentric phobias of heights and prolonged flights over open water. Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal he could not endure more than eight hours of airborne travel over water, prompting his staff to devise complex itineraries with frequent layovers.
One such plan involved stopping in Portugal on a trip to the United States and arranging a Newfoundland layover on the return from Venezuela. His aversion also influenced his lodging choices; U.S. Ambassador Gene Cretz reported Gaddafi would not climb more than 35 steps and insisted on staying on the first floor of any building.
He favored a New Jersey mansion nicknamed “Thunder Rock” or simply pitched a Bedouin tent, both options allowing him to avoid the discomfort of upper‑floor rooms.
2. Public Speaking
Winston Churchill, now celebrated as a master orator, once grappled with a stutter that made early public speaking attempts terrifying. At age 29, during his inaugural speech to the House of Commons, he froze for three minutes before retreating to his seat and covering his face with his hands.
Determined never to endure that embarrassment again, Churchill began preparing speeches weeks in advance, which also gave him a deeper grasp of the issues at hand. He even practiced nonsense phrases while walking, such as “The Spanish ships I cannot see since they are not in sight,” to overcome his speech impediment.
Some scholars argue his difficulty was a lisp rather than a stutter, but regardless, his perseverance turned him into one of the most iconic speakers of the 20th century, famously declaring, “My impediment is no hindrance.”
1. Dentists
Adolf Hitler harbored a pronounced phobia of dental visits, a surprisingly humanizing detail. In 2009, Menevse Deprem‑Hennen published Dentist of the Devil, chronicling the career of Dr. Hugo Blaschke, the SS’s Deputy Chief Dental Surgeon who tended to Hitler for nearly two decades.
Documents uncovered by Jewish dentist Fedor Bruck, who hid in Berlin during the war, revealed Hitler’s chronic oral health problems—bad breath, yellowed teeth, abscesses, and gum disease—exacerbated by his dental dread. He once demanded a simple root canal be stretched over eight days, claiming he could not bear the pain.
Hitler’s aversion was so intense that he reportedly told Benito Mussolini he’d rather have “two or three teeth out” than endure a difficult meeting with Spain’s Francisco Franco. Even Hermann Göring, the Luftwaffe chief, feared the dentist, often crying before entering the chair.
These revelations offer a glimpse into the vulnerabilities that lurked behind the iron façade of one of history’s most infamous dictators.