It is rare to find an everyday person, even a university-educated one, who has heard of the Mamluks. Sometimes spelled as “Mameluke,” the Mamluks were slave soldiers who rebelled against their rulers to establish their own state in Egypt.

Despite many Mamluks being the captured sons of Christians, Jews, pagans, and other non-Muslim religions, the Mamluks quickly gained a reputation for being zealous jihadists. Indeed, their gory conquests outdid those of the famous Muslim warrior Saladin and his Ayyubid Empire, which the Mamluks overthrew in 1250.

At their height, the Mamluks controlled Egypt, northern India (including the major city of Delhi), the cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem, and the nation which would become known in the 20th century as Iraq.

It was the Mamluks who finally defeated and destroyed the last remnants of the Crusader states in the Middle East, and Mamluk forces held their own against the Ottoman Empire and the French Army of Napoleon. These fascinating soldiers deserve to be studied more, and we hope that this list is part of that correction.

10 Slave Origins

The Arabic term mamluk simply means “property.” The first Muslim power to use such slave soldiers was the Abbasid Caliphate based in Baghdad. Under Abbasid rule, the Islamic Empire enjoyed what is commonly called its “Golden Age.”

The Abbasid court oversaw the “Persianization” of the Islamic world, with Arab scribes and scholars translating Zoroastrian texts on medicine, philosophy, art, and poetry. Similarly, Abbasid scholars developed their own interpretations of the Greco-Roman texts that they found after Muslim armies seized Egypt.^[1]

Despite this flowering of culture, several of the Arab and Berber rulers of North Africa and Spain felt that the Abbasids had given up on the holy cause of converting the whole world to Islam. In the autonomous states of the Cordoba Caliphate of Spain, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, and Ghaznavid Empire of Central Asia, more stringent brands of Islam prevailed, which resulted in increased persecution of Christians and Jews in those areas.

To retain their control over North Africa and Central Asia, the Abbasids began converting the nomadic Turkic people of the Pontic and Caspian steppes. Christians from the Mediterranean and Caucasus Mountains were also converted or captured by the Abbasids.

Many of these converts had been sold into slavery by their impoverished families. Once Muslim, these slaves were trained to be excellent cavalry soldiers. The Mamluks pledged their loyalty to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Such a system would later be adopted by the Turkic Ottoman Empire, which used its slave Janissary soldiers to conquer large parts of southeastern Europe.

9 Takeover Of Jerusalem

Unfortunately for the Abbasids, Turkic Muslims proved to be independent-minded. In fact, the marauding Turks earned a much more fearsome reputation among Christian powers than their Arab predecessors.

In August 1071, the mighty Byzantine Empire was decisively defeated by the Seljuks, a Turkic confederation that included Mamluk veterans, at the Battle of Manzikert. Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes was captured during the battle, and from that point on, the Byzantine Empire would never be able to reclaim its control over most of Anatolia.^[2]

Two years later, Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I captured the holy city of Jerusalem. Under Malik-Shah’s reign, Seljuk Turks, with the blessing of the Abbasid caliph, conquered the breakaway territories of Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan, Syria, and Khorasan.

While Malik-Shah’s sultanate did earn a reputation for learning (including supporting the poet-intellectual Omar Khayyam), his conquest of the Holy Land saw horrific massacres that turned Christendom against his rule. This set the stage for the First Crusade, which was preached by Pope Urban II as a specifically anti-Turk war.

8 Ayyubid Soldiers

Arguably the greatest military general in Islamic history is the Kurdish warlord Saladin. Salah al-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub, or Saladin, was the nephew of Shirkuh, an earlier Kurdish general who was employed by the feared Turkic ruler of Aleppo and Damascus, Nur ad-Din. Under orders from Nur ad-Din, Shirkuh invaded Egypt to stop the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem from conquering the main grain-producing parts of that country.

When Saladin came of age, he took control of Egypt and purged it of the Shia Fatimid Caliphate. Prior to his famous exploits against the Crusader army under the command of English King Richard I (“The Lionheart”), Saladin carried out a murderous military campaign against the Shia in Egypt and established Sunni Islam as the official religion of the new Ayyubid Sultanate.

The Ayyubid army, which earned battlefield distinction and captured the city of Jerusalem after 88 years of Christian rule, was primarily composed of Mamluk horsemen and foot soldiers. Until its collapse in 1250, the Ayyubid Sultanate relied overwhelmingly on the strength and skill of its Mamluk soldiers.^[3]

7 Fighting The Fifth And Seventh Crusades

Even though Saladin thwarted the Crusaders’ desire to seize Egypt, this does not mean that the remaining Christian forces in the Middle East or the various kingdoms of Europe had given up on the idea of seizing Cairo, Alexandria, or Damietta.

Beginning in 1219, Christian armies began invading the northern reaches of Egypt. One army, led by Spanish Catholic Cardinal Pelagius, captured the port city of Damietta. This army, which included the Knights Templar, tried to take the Ayyubid capital of Cairo. But their plan failed. Before long, the Crusaders were low on supplies and men, which forced them to abandon Egypt.

In December 1244, King Louis IX of France launched the Seventh Crusade with 100 ships and approximately 35,000 men to capture the major cities of Egypt. The idea was to capture Damietta, Alexandria, and Cairo to exchange these cities for Syrian municipalities like Aleppo and Damascus.^[4]

On June 6, 1249, King Louis’s mainly French army seized Damietta. However, this victory proved short-lived when the Crusaders failed to capture the important fort of al-Mansurah. This stopped the Seventh Crusade from gaining Cairo.

In almost every battle of both these crusades, the Mamluk soldiers squared off against the Christian knights and peasant soldiers of Western Europe. Indeed, following the capture of Damietta, Shajar Al-Durr, the Ayyubid queen, won control of political power in Cairo thanks to support from the Mamluks.

In March 1250, King Louis IX, later to become Saint Louis in the Catholic Church because of his famous piety, was captured by Mamluk soldiers and ransomed for 400,000 livres.

6 The Seizure Of Egypt

The initial success of the Seventh Crusade helped to further fracture the political situation in Ayyubid Egypt. Ever since the death of Saladin, the Mamluk soldiers had had a significant say in political matters. After all, the Ayyubid army was dominated by Mamluk captains and generals and these men were not shy about using the threat of violence to keep the Ayyubid sultans in line.^[5]

When Shajar Al-Durr became the undisputed leader in Cairo, the Mamluks exerted pressure on her to get married. The man she ultimately married was a Mamluk general named Aybak. With this marriage, Aybak became the first Mamluk sultan of Egypt. Although Aybak died ignobly after being assassinated while taking a bath, he did found the Bahri dynasty, a Muslim ruling family of Cuman-Kipchak Turk origin.

From then until the 16th century, Egypt would be in the hands of Mamluk sultans. Most of them were also of Turkic origin.

5 The Most Terrifying Warlord

Baibars (aka Baybars) is the most famous (or rather infamous) of the Mamluk sultans of Egypt. Baibars’s rise to power is one of the most unlikely stories in history.

Before becoming the fourth sultan of Egypt and Syria, he was an impoverished Kipchak Turk born near the Black Sea. In 1242, the Kipchak state was conquered by the Mongols. As a result, Baibars was sold into slavery and purchased by Ayyubid Sultan as-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub. Due to his outstanding military skills, Baibars was named the chief of the sultan’s bodyguards.

Baibars’s first victory as a military commander came during the Seventh Crusade when his army turned back King Louis IX from al-Mansurah. When Aybak seized the Ayyubid throne, Baibars was forced to escape to Syria because of personal animosity between himself and Aybak. Baibars remained in Syria for a number of years.

In 1260, Baibars returned to Egypt at the invitation of Mamluk Sultan Qutuz. He wanted Baibars to lead an army against the invading Mongols, the most feared military in the world during the 13th century. Sultan Qutuz hoped that Baibars would be able to defeat the Mongols, something that almost every commander in the world had failed to do at that point in time.^[6]

4 The Battle Of Ain Jalut

Beginning in 1260, the Mongol leader Hulagu sent emissaries to the court in Cairo to negotiate the surrender of the Mamluk sultan. Hulagu’s letter warned Sultan Qutuz to “think of what happened to other countries and submit to us.” Sultan Qutuz responded to this threat by killing the two Mongol emissaries and placing their severed heads on the gates outside Cairo.

A massive Mongol army gathered in Syria and Palestine to take on the stubborn Mamluks. Unknown to the Mamluks, a civil war was brewing over the naming of the next Great Khan in Mongolia. Hulagu raced back to Mongolia to get his brother Kublai named as the Great Khan instead of Arik-Boke. Ultimately, Kublai would become khan, the creator of China’s Yuan dynasty, and the greatest Mongol conqueror besides Genghis.

On September 3, 1260, the 20,000-man Mongol army, which Hulagu had left behind in the Levant, faced off against a similarly sized Mamluk force. At the Ain Jalut oasis near the Jezreel Valley in Palestine, the Mamluks used a feigned retreat to lead the Mongols into a trap.^[7]

This is precisely what happened, and the faster horses used by the Mamluk cavalry overwhelmed and decimated the Mongols. The Mongol commander, Ketbuqa, was decapitated. This victory marked the beginning of the end for Mongol expansion into the Mediterranean world.

3 The Capture Of Antioch

After helping Sultan Qutuz’s army to defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut, Baibars decided that he had had enough of taking orders. On the way back from the battle, soldiers loyal to Baibars assassinated Qutuz and proclaimed their loyalty to the new sultan. With this, Baibars became Baibars I, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt and Syria.

Between 1265 and 1271, Baibars, a devout Muslim who believed in violent jihad, began attacking the last Crusader towns and villages in Syria and Palestine. Baibars’s Mamluk soldiers soon became the rulers of Christian coastal cities like Arsuf and Jaffa.

In 1268, the Mamluks began their devastating siege of Antioch, the last Crusader state still standing in the Holy Land. Although the Christians fought bravely until the bitter end, the city ultimately fell to Baibars.

Once inside the city’s walls, Baibars oversaw a grotesque slaughter of the population. According to French historian Rene Dussaud, Baibars turned the once-thriving metropolis into a glorified village.

By 1271, Baibars’s army had captured the last Crusader castles in the Middle East, including the majestic Krak des Chevaliers. Due to these victories, Baibars became a great Muslim hero. For the Christians, Baibars became the personification of evil. Whatever the perspective, it is undeniable that Baibars was the man who forever ended the dream of the Crusaders.^[8]

2 The War Against The Ottomans

Despite sharing a common Turkic ancestry, the Ottomans and the Mamluks were bitter enemies during the 15th and 16th centuries. For the Ottomans, the Mamluks stood in the way of their plans to unite the entire Sunni Muslim world under one caliph. For the Mamluks, the upstart Ottomans had no right to lay claim to the Mamluk lands of Egypt and Syria.

The first war between the two powers began in 1485. During that decade, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror had already achieved great victories against European Christians at Rhodes and Otranto. Mehmet also had designs on conquering all of southern Italy and giving direct military aid to the rebellious Muslims of Granada.

However, by 1481, Sultan Bayezid II was in control of the Ottoman Empire, and he was nowhere near as capable a military commander as his father. The first Ottoman invasions of Mamluk-controlled Anatolia and Cilicia ended in stalemates.

Out of fear of the Ottomans, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, Castile and Leon, and Sicily formed a military alliance with the Mamluks. This meant that the Mamluks enjoyed a steady supply of Spanish foodstuffs and weapons until the war ended in 1491.

One year later, the Nasrid dynasty of Granada surrendered to the Spanish crown because they could not rely on Ottoman support. This ended the “Reconquista” of Spain and Portugal.^[9]

Between 1516 and 1517, the Ottomans fought another war against the Mamluks. This war would prove to be decisive for the Ottomans. Under the command of Sultan Selim I, Ottoman armies captured Aleppo, Palestine, and, ultimately, Cairo. This war ended the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt and brought most of the Muslim world under the yoke of the Ottomans.

1 Battle Of The Pyramids And Egyptian Independence

Despite losing their sultanate in Egypt, the Mamluks remained a powerful force in the politics of that country. The Ottomans actually kept the Mamluks around and incorporated them into the Ottoman army. Even as late as 1798, a Mamluk bey, or military chieftain, was still in control of Egypt. This time, though, Murad Bey had to answer to Ottoman authority.

In 1798, the brilliant French military general Napoleon led his army into Egypt and captured Cairo. The goal of this move was to seize control of the Red Sea and the wealth of Egypt to fund Napoleon’s military campaigns in Europe. Only about 25,000 Mamluks defended Alexandria and Cairo and put up very little resistance.

Although the Battle of the Pyramids turned out to be a military embarrassment for the Ottomans, Napoleon failed to maintain power in Egypt thanks to the involvement of the British Royal Navy. Ten days after taking Egypt, Napoleon’s navy was handily defeated by Admiral Horatio Nelson during the Battle of the Nile.

Napoleon’s brief victory in Egypt exposed the fact that the Ottoman military and government in Cairo was in the firm grip of the Mamluks, many of whom were tired of fighting on behalf of Istanbul. By 1805, Ottoman Egypt was all but officially independent thanks to the administration of Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman viceroy of Albanian extraction.

Muhammad Ali went on to found the royal dynasty that ruled Egypt until 1952. Muhammad Ali’s creation of the antonymous Khedive of Egypt would never have happened without the aid of Mamluk soldiers and Muslim mercenaries from the Balkans.^[10]

Benjamin Welton is a freelance writer based in Boston.

There are instances when conflict arises not between states, but within a particular country. There are different reasons why civil wars happen. It can be political, religious or even political divide that drives a country to implode. These are instances when bloody civil wars of modern era could actually take its toll on the population. This could lead to human rights abuses, not to mention hamper progress.

It is common to see both economic and social drawbacks to countries that have engaged in these types of wars. Unfortunately, these wars could go for years or even decades at a time. Here are 12 bloody civil wars of modern era.

List of most brutal civil wars of modern era.

What was the most brutal modern civil war? What was the most recent civil war? Listed below are top 12 bloody civil wars of modern history.

12. Bosnian War

There are countries that are just waiting to erupt. This is exactly the case with Bosnia during the early 1990s. During the early 1990s, we’ve seen the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bosnia being a multi-cultural country has resulted to a civil war. In fact, it has been viewed by many human rights advocates as ethnic cleansing.

Bosnia along with Herzegovina and other former republics under Yugoslavia declared war. Bosnian Serbs attacked mainly the Muslim population in 1992. This civil war lasted for more than three years. Estimated total number of casualties is from 90,000 to 300,000.

The nationalist Croats and Serbs attacked the countryside which can be considered ethnic cleansing. The problem was only resolved by the UN after air strikes and sanctions. In the end, both parties agreed to enter a peace treaty.

11. Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

There are constant attacks to different groups in Pakistan. The usual targets are Sunni, Shia, Ahmad, Hindu and Christian groups. From 1987 to 2007, there were 4,000 deaths between Shia and Sunni sectarian conflicts alone. The groups blamed for the sectarian attacks are TTP, Sunni Militant Groups and even ISIS.

10. Islamic Resistance and Communism in the Philippines

Another one that made it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is The Philippine armed conflicts with communist guerrillas and Muslims. The Philippines is familiar with armed conflict. There are many insurgents that the Philippine government is dealing with.

To give you a background of the insurgencies happening in the Philippines, it can all be traced during the Martial Law years in 60s and 70s. Moro National Liberation Front was formed almost at the same timeline as the Communist Party of the Philippines. Both factions were fighting to free the country from a dictator, while the Muslim insurgents are also looking to secede from the country. Most of the gun fights happened in the countryside. Until today, these insurgencies are still present in the country.

The country has tried to enter different treaties in the past in order to potentially stop the gun fight in the countryside. However, it has resulted to more Muslim insurgents, Islamic extremists and a thriving communist guerrilla group.

9. Chinese Civil War

The Chinese Civil War officially started during the the 1920s. However, during the Second World War, both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Ze Dong’s communist party decided to unite in order to defeat the Japanese invaders.

Chang Kai-shek did not believe in democracy. Instead, he believes in ruling China under one ruler which is backed by a military. With right wing tactics, Chiang Kai-shek rooted out opposition in China including communists. What Mao Ze Dong believed in is to utilize the poor people from the countryside and unite them to with the war against Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. By the end of the Chinese Civil War, Taiwan was formed.

What made the Chinese Civil War on our list of bloody civil wars in modern era is the protracted nature of its revolution that incurred 8 million casualties.

8. Sri Lankan Civil War

In 2011, UN released a report saying that the Sri Lankan Civil War has lost over 100,000 lives in a span of 26 years. The war was fought between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the local government of Sri Lanka.

A war that started in 1983, it only ended in 2009 when the Tigers considered to surrender. Unfortunately, civilian casualty is at 40,000 especially in the last five months of the conflict. With casualty of this magnitude, Sri Lankan Civil War made it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern.

Though peacetime was welcomed by Sri Lankans, there were a number of problems that still emerged after the civil war. For instance, restoration of rule of law has been quite difficult. Also, investigations regarding violations of human rights are still yet to be completed.

7. Angolan Civil War

Angola fought for its independence from Portugal. With the help of the Cubans and Soviet Union, Angola gained its freedom and established a socialist government. Soon after, civil war broke out. Union for Total Independence of Angola or UNITA, backed by the CIA fought against the Movement for the Liberation of Angola. For nearly 27 years, the battle was fought by both sides. It is considered by many as one of the most prolonged civil wars in modern history.

The Angolan Civil War ended in 2002 when Jonas Savimbi was killed. Right after, both parties agreed on having a ceasefire and had an election. Unfortunately, the Angolan Civil War left the economy in ruins, and left 500,000 deaths.

6. The Laos Secret War

The Laotian Civil War, otherwise known as the Secret War was fought between communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government. It was called the Secret War because of CIA’s involvement in the crisis. After the French left the Indochina region, the Royal Lao Government received the power but excluded the anti-colonial armed nationalist movement. The number of people lost during this war is at 450,000 for Laos and 600,000 in Cambodia. Refugees have also exceeded a million. Other than the numbers, another reason why it is considered as part of our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is because of the use of chemical warfare. >> 10 Deadliest Wars In Human History.

5. Somali Civil War

Since 1991, the Somali Civil war is still going on until the present. Home to a number of people, Siad Barre during the late 80s was their unpopular leader. In response, he attacked opposing forces which even accelerated his removal from power. In 1990s, he was reinstated in power using a revolution. After this, Northern part of the country declared independence. However, it is still unrecognized.

Until today, Somalia is among the top countries receiving help from the UN. UN constantly sends peacekeeping forces in order to facilitate aids distributed into the populace.

4. Iraq Civil War

Right after 9-11 when America decided to attack Iraq in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction, it has left the country in ruins. In effect, it has created a civil war that has been responsible for the creation of ISIS. It is part of our list of bloody civil wars because of number of other countries directly or indirectly affected by Iraq’s conflict.

It started when Fallujah and Mosul were conquered by ISIS. This forced the resignation of PM Nouri Al-Maliki. Also, this problem resulted to massive number of refugees and civilian casualties.

3. Boko Haram Insurgency

Boko Haram is a jihadist group that decided to take arms in 2009 against the government of Nigeria. By 2012, there were different factions that have been formed from Boko Haram. The most dominant and violent faction is led by Abubakar Shekau. In 2015, there were other Boko Haram groups that have joined Al Qaeda.

By 2013, 1,000 people already died as a result of this conflict. By 2014, it escalated even more and casualties reached to over 10,000 deaths. Today, the conflict has been seen in other African countries.

2. War in North West Pakistan

Another one making it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is the War in North West Pakistan. The War in North West Pakistan is a conflict which is also known as War in Waziristan. The state of Pakistan is involved in an armed conflict with groups such as Terik-i-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) and ISIS. It started in 2004 when the government was searching for possible Al Qaeda members in Waziristan. Eventually, it has escalated into fully armed resistance. Cumulative number of casualties is at almost 60,000 today and it is still ongoing. >> Political Experiments On Pakistan In 70 Years.

1. Spanish Civil War

During 1936 to 1939, The Spanish Civil War can be considered as one of the bloodiest civil wars in modern history. It is included in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era simply because of the actions of the fascist Nationalist group.

The conflict is supporters of Nationalists led by General Franco and democratically elect president. The thing that makes Spanish Civil War significant in history is its prelude to the Second World War. Nazi Germany supported Franco who eventually ruled the country as a dictator, while Soviet Union supported the opposing side.

There are many conflicts within countries. From rebel groups trying to gain power to religious groups trying to get rid of each other, these are just some of the reasons why some conflicts are present in some countries. However, there are also instances when it is initiated by other factors such as presence of foreign influence such as CIA supporting groups that can protect US interest.

Bloody Civil Wars of Modern Era

1. Spanish Civil War
2. War in North West Pakistan
3. Boko Haram Insurgency
4. Iraq Civil War
5. Somali Civil War
6. The Laos Secret War
7. Angolan Civil War
8. Sri Lankan Civil War
9. Chinese Civil War
10. Islamic Resistance and Communism in the Philippines
11. Sectarian Violence in Pakistan
12. Bosnian War

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The Ptolemaic Kingdom is an interesting part of history. Its rise and fall were bookended by the deaths of two of the most famous figures of ancient history: Alexander the Great and Cleopatra.

The Ptolemies were very protective of their lineage. They were Greek rulers in Egypt. They often married siblings to maintain the bloodline. Despite this, they weren’t shy about using betrayals and assassinations to gain power. As you will see, the biggest danger to a Ptolemy was another Ptolemy in most cases.

10 The Rise Of The Dynasty

The death of Alexander the Great plunged the ancient world into chaos as many of his generals fought for power in a series of conflicts that lasted almost 50 years and were known as the Wars of the Diadochi (“successors”). Prior to this, though, one general named Perdiccas came closer than anyone to gaining control over the empire of the deceased king.

There were two camps—one wanted rule to be granted to Alexander’s half-brother Arrhidaeus, while the other one thought it should go to his unborn child by Roxana, the future Alexander IV. In the end, the two were named joint kings while Perdiccas served as regent of the empire and commander of the army.

This was just a ploy for Perdiccas to consolidate his power. He began orchestrating the deaths of his opponents. In 323 BC, the generals who supported him were named satraps to various parts of the empire at the Partition of Babylon.

Ptolemy I Soter was given Egypt. His governorship didn’t last long, though. First, he arranged the arrest and execution of Cleomenes, a powerful official who was in Alexandria to serve Perdiccas’s interests. Then he stole Alexander’s body to be buried in Egypt instead of the tomb prepared in Macedonia.

Perdiccas considered this an act of war. He tried to invade Egypt but failed to cross the Nile and lost thousands of men. He was assassinated by his own officers in 321/320 BC. Some historians contend that Ptolemy could have claimed the regency of the empire for himself at this point, but he chose to start his own dynasty in Egypt.^[1]

9 Three Intrigues, An Execution, And An Exile

Ptolemy I was followed by his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, but it was his daughter, Arsinoe II, who proved to be adept at intrigue and ruthless enough to seize power. The true extent of her influence is debated by historians, but every court she arrived at seemed to have someone quickly lose power in her favor.

Ptolemy II strengthened his rule through two diplomatic weddings with Lysimachus, king of Thrace and another of Alexander’s Diadochi. Circa 299 BC, Lysimachus married Ptolemy’s sister, Arsinoe II, while the pharaoh wed the Thracian’s daughter, also called Arsinoe.^[2]

The Ptolemaic Arsinoe gave Lysimachus three sons, but none of them was positioned for the throne as the king already had a son named Agathocles. However, the heir apparent was convicted of treason around 282 BC and executed. Some historians claimed this was the work of Arsinoe to secure the kingship for her sons. This made certain cities in Asia Minor revolt against Lysimachus. The king tried to quell the rebellion but was killed in battle.

Arsinoe then married her half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus who wanted to strengthen his claim to the kingdoms of Thrace and Macedonia. She may have plotted against him, but the queen’s plan failed and Ceraunus killed two of her sons.

Eventually, Arsinoe made her way back to Egypt. The Thracian Arsinoe, who was her brother’s wife, was soon exiled for planning to murder the king. Again, rumors appeared that the accusations were the work of the pharaoh’s sister. Soon after that, she married her brother and became queen of Egypt.

8 A Purge Of Ptolemies

Ptolemaic Egypt is generally considered to have reached its peak during the rule of Ptolemy III Euergetes following his triumphs in the Third Syrian War. Conversely, his son and heir, Ptolemy IV Philopator, was described by historians as a weak ruler who was easily controlled by his associates as long as they indulged his vices. His reign marks the beginning of the decline of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Ptolemy IV became king of Egypt in 221 BC when he was 23–24 years old. He dedicated himself to a life of debauchery while the administration of the kingdom was mainly handled by his chief minister, Sosibius. The Greek historian Polybius named the minister as the instigator behind the deaths of several of the young pharaoh’s relatives.^[3] They included Ptolemy’s mother, Berenice II, as well as his brother, Magas, and his uncle, Lysimachus.

Like his grandfather, Ptolemy IV married his sister, Arsinoe III. She met her demise soon after Ptolemy’s death in 204 BC. This was done by Sosibius and another official called Agathocles to ensure that they would become regents until Ptolemy V came of age.

7 Anything For Power

Many members of the Ptolemy family showed themselves capable of ruthlessness and cruelty to ascend to power, but few, if any, outdid Ptolemy VIII Physcon.

He had a decades-long fight for the throne with his older brother, Ptolemy VI Philometor. In 145 BC, the elder Ptolemy died on campaign and his sister-wife, Cleopatra II, wanted her young son, Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator, to rule.

The details of his reign are a bone of contention among historians as some aren’t sure that he ever became king at all. If he did rule, his reign was short-lived. Due to lack of support, Cleopatra had to marry Ptolemy VIII and rule jointly. Once Neos Philopator was deposed, his uncle had him executed.

Once he was in power, Physcon renamed himself Ptolemy Euergetes after his honored ancestor. He married his niece, Cleopatra III, while still married to her mother.

In 131 BC, the elder Cleopatra managed to stage a rebellion against Ptolemy, who left Alexandria with Cleopatra III. They stayed in exile in Cyprus for four years during which Cleopatra II served as regent until her son, Ptolemy Memphites, came of age. This never happened, though, as Ptolemy Physcon was reunited with his son and had him murdered. He then cut off the boy’s head, hands, and legs and had them delivered to Alexandria on Cleopatra’s birthday.^[4]

Despite these “squabbles,” Ptolemy and Cleopatra eventually had a public reconciliation and ruled jointly alongside Cleopatra III until Physcon’s death in 116 BC.

6 Violent Ends For Violent People

Certainly, a black eye for the 300-year rule of the Ptolemaic family was the brief but violent reign of Ptolemy XI Alexander II.

He took the throne in 80 BC, succeeding his father, Ptolemy X Alexander I. He also married his father’s wife, Berenice III, who was also his cousin. Before the marriage, there was a brief window where Berenice ruled alone and managed to endear herself to the people of Egypt.^[5]

However, her new husband-stepson-cousin didn’t like her. Less than three weeks after getting married, Ptolemy XI had his wife assassinated. This severely angered the people of Alexandria, and a mob stormed the palace and killed the young pharaoh in the Gymnasium.

5 Rome Intervenes

Ptolemy XII Auletes ascended to the throne in 80 BC. By this time, Egypt was a client of Rome and had to pay a substantial tribute which resulted in heavy taxes on the Egyptian people. His popularity reached an all-time low in 58 BC when the Romans took over Cyprus and his brother, King Ptolemy of Cyprus, killed himself.

The people wanted Ptolemy to either demand Cyprus back or denounce Rome. He was unwilling to do either, and a rebellion forced him out of Egypt. He went to Rome where he stayed with Pompey.

While in Rome, there was talk in the Senate of going into Egypt and restoring Ptolemy to the throne. At one point, a delegation of 100 Egyptians, led by philosopher Dio of Alexandria, formed to state their case for the Roman Senate. They intended to present their complaints against Ptolemy.

However, the exiled pharaoh used his money and Pompey’s connections to ensure that no envoy would make it. According to Cassius Dio, most of the messengers were assassinated, including Dio of Alexandria, and those who survived were bribed.

Ptolemy might have succeeded in dealing with one problem through murder, but there was a divine issue which could not be solved with violence.

As they were known to do in times of crisis, the leaders of Rome consulted the oracles. Specifically, they turned to a collection of prophecies known as the Sibylline Books.

According to Cassius Dio, they said, “If the king of Egypt come requesting any aid, refuse him not friendship, nor yet succour him with any great force; else you shall have both toils and dangers.”^[6]

4 The March Gabinius

The oracle prophecies made the Roman Senate deny Ptolemy military support. But in the end, it was greed which triumphed over godly resolutions. It was Pompey again who sent one of his generals, Aulus Gabinius, to invade Egypt. He didn’t have Senate approval, but Pompey was powerful enough to avoid consequences.

During Ptolemy’s exile, his daughter, Berenice IV, ruled Egypt. She tried to secure an alliance by marrying Seleucus of Syria. He turned out to be less influential than expected, and Berenice had him killed and married Archelaus.

Her new husband died when Gabinius conquered Alexandria. He reinstated Ptolemy and left him a Roman legion to protect him from future rebellions. They became known as the Gabiniani.

Back on the throne, Ptolemy put his daughter to death.^[7] He also killed Egypt’s richest citizens to seize their fortunes as he had a large debt to repay to Gabinius and Pompey.

Alas, Gabinius couldn’t enjoy his plunder for long. The people of Rome were outraged at his defiance of the Sibylline verses and the Senate, and he was arrested when he returned. The most serious charge was high treason.

Through the generous dispersal of influence and bribes, the Roman general was found not guilty. There were other lesser charges, however. Cassius Dio claimed that Gabinius got too confident and too stingy with his bribe purse as he was found guilty. He was exiled, and his property was confiscated.

3 The Murder Of Pompey

In 52 BC, Ptolemy XII named his daughter, Cleopatra VII Philopator, as his coregent. This would be the famous Cleopatra. He wanted her to rule Egypt together with her brother, Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator. However, the young pharaoh wanted to rule alone, although he was actually under the heavy influence of the eunuch Pothinus, his regent. Together, in 48 BC, they deposed Cleopatra.

Both would-be rulers wanted Roman support, but Rome had its own problems to worry about. By this point, Julius Caesar had started the civil war that would end the republic. He had just earned a decisive victory over Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus.

Pompey went to Egypt, expecting support and refuge from Ptolemy XIII as he had once provided to the pharaoh’s father. Ptolemy, however, preferred to ingratiate himself with Caesar.

He sent men to greet Pompey under the guise of friendship. But they stabbed him, decapitated him, and threw his body in the water. As far as who committed the deed, Plutarch names two Gabiniani: a former tribune named Lucius Septimius and a centurion named Salvius, alongside Egyptian commander Achillas.^[8]

The plan backfired as Caesar was disgusted when presented with the head of Pompey and was said to burst into tears when he received the seal ring of his former friend-turned-rival.

2 War Of The Ptolemies

Whether the assassination of Pompey influenced Caesar is hard to say, but he decided to support Cleopatra. However, he lacked the troops to stage open war. Therefore, he barricaded himself in Alexandria in 47 BC as Ptolemy’s forces, led by Achillas, laid siege to the city.

Another child of Ptolemy XII, Arsinoe IV, got involved in the war as she also had a claim to the throne. She sided with her brother, Ptolemy XIII, but had Achillas put to death and replaced with her tutor, Ganymedes.

Eventually, Caesar received reinforcements from his ally, Mithridates of Pergamum. He was victorious against his rivals at the Battle of the Nile in 47 BC.^[9] Ptolemy XIII drowned in the river at age 15 while his sister Arsinoe was first marched through Rome as a prisoner and then banished to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. She was later executed at the insistence of Cleopatra.

1 The End Of The Dynasty

Cleopatra regained the throne of Egypt, but Caesar made her rule jointly with another brother, Ptolemy XIV. Their marriage was brief. In March 44 BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome. Two months later, Ptolemy XIV died in Egypt, and several historians, such as Cassius Dio and Josephus, claimed that he was poisoned by Cleopatra.

If she did kill him, it was so that Cleopatra could position her son as pharaoh. He was Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, better known as Caesarion. As was obvious from his name, Cleopatra was hailing him as the son of Julius Caesar.

With the Roman leader dead, the Egyptian queen took on Marc Antony as her new lover. Antony was part of the political alliance with Octavian and Marcus Lepidus which governed Rome. The alliance was known as the Second Triumvirate.

In 34 BC, Marc Antony enacted the Donations of Alexandria.^[10] He bestowed lands and titles upon Cleopatra’s children, which included three of his own by that point.

Crucially, though, he acknowledged Caesarion as the legitimate heir of Julius Caesar. This didn’t sit well with the Romans who felt that Antony had abandoned them in favor of Egypt. Furthermore, Caesarion being considered an heir made him a target for Octavian who was Julius Caesar’s adopted son.

War broke out between Antony and Octavian. The latter won following his victory at the Battle of Actium and subsequent siege of Alexandria. Antony and Cleopatra ostensibly committed suicide, while Caesarion was put to death on Octavian’s orders.

Egypt was annexed and became a province of the Roman Empire. Octavian renamed himself Augustus Caesar and became the first Roman emperor. Thus ended the story of Marc Antony and Cleopatra and the rule of the Ptolemies in Egypt.

Today more than 48 million surgeries are performed in the United States alone. Surgeries have become so commonplace and usual that we may not even bat an eye if we’re told a friend is being put under the knife. After all, 28 million of those surgeries in the United States are ambulatory surgeries (commonly called outpatient surgeries), where the patient doesn’t even spend the night in the hospital afterward. The concept has become so usual that we can easily forget just how life changing, marvelous, or dangerous some procedures we now consider routine really were when they were first devised. These are the fascinating origins of ten such surgeries.

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10 First Appendectomy: Removal of an 11-Year-Old Boy’s Appendix in 1735

Appendicitis, a condition where the appendix becomes swollen, inflamed, and filled with pus is a common condition effecting 8% of people at some point in their lives. If left untreated, the Appendix will burst, spilling bacteria and debris into the abdominal cavity—likely proving fatal unless treatment is performed immediately.

This condition has been well documented throughout history. As early as A.D. 130 the anatomical writings of Galen described the condition and it continued to be discussed off and on by medical practitioners for millennia. Strangely though, the cause of this condition was unknown. The appendix itself was only discovered in the late 1400s and its link to the pains written about ever since the time of Galen were only confirmed by German surgeon Lorenz Heister in 1711. In all of that time, 8% of every human that ever existed suffered and likely died from the condition without ever knowing why.

But knowing why wasn’t as critical as finding a solution. Decades after the appendix was discovered, the very first appendectomy was performed on an 11-year-old-boy in 1735 by Doctor Claudius Amyand. In this case, the boy’s appendix had been punctured by a pin that he had swallowed. The surgery alone was a landmark case, but the boy also had a rare condition—a type of inguinal hernia (a hernia where a piece of intestines pokes through a weak portion of abdominal muscles) that came to be named after Amyand himself.

In one fell swoop the first appendectomy was performed and the first Amyand hernia discovered. It would be another 24 years until an appendectomy was finally used as a treatment for appendicitis. Today almost 300k appendectomies are performed every year just in the United States, saving that 8% of the population from immense pain and death.^[1]

9 First Brain Surgery: Trepanation Performed On Our Distant Ancestors

Surrounding our brain is a thin layer of protective tissue called meninges, which contains an abundance of blood vessels. Sometimes when dealt head trauma, the meninges can tear and bleed. This blood is then trapped between our brain and our skull and as the bleed continues, pressure builds and pushes dangerously against our brain. This is a condition known as subdural hematoma. If allowed to continue building, this pressure will eventually cause damage to the brain and could even led to death. To treat this condition, a small hole can be drilled into the skull that allows the blood to be released—like a pressure valve. These are called burr holes and the procedure is called trepanation.

Though this may sound like a very modern solution, this form of brain surgery has been practiced for 5,000 years. In fact, 5-10% of all skulls found from the Neolithic period (which lasted from about 12,000 years ago to 4,000 years ago approximately) have burr holes. Even thousands of years ago, this method was used to treat subdural hematomas in an age long before modern painkillers of anesthetics.

But the procedure wasn’t always a treatment.

Twelve human skulls were all found within a 31 mile radius in southern Russia. All 12 dated back to the copper era and all 12 had burr holes located in the exact same place on the skull—the obelion, located in the back top of the skull, roughly where we might set a ponytail. None of these skulls showed any signs of trauma, suggesting they were all healthy at the time of the operation. Elena Batieva, an anthropologist from the Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don concluded that these 12 individuals were perfectly healthy and needed no trepanation. Instead she suggests that their skulls were ritually drilled. This is particularly fascinating, because the obelion is an especially dangerous place to place a burr hole. Indeed, several of the skulls showed no signs of healing which is proof their owners died from the trepanation.

The exact nature of their ritual and what they hoped to gain from it are not written in their bones. We can only guess at their motivations.^[2]

8 First Biopsy: A Hollow Needle in A.D. 1000

Though the term biopsy (retrieving a sample of tissue for examination as a way of diagnosing a patient, most commonly with a hollow needle to reach deep tissue) was first coined in 1879 by Ernest Besnier, but the practice itself long predates the vocabulary. The earliest biopsy was performed by court physician Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi (also known as Albucasis) who lived between A.D. 936-1013 He used a long needle to reach and examine tissue from the thyroid gland. Ultimately this method allowed him to diagnose what he called “Elephant of the throat”, with a procedure much like an FNA (fine needle aspiration) that’s used today.

Albucasis’ writings also included detailed descriptions of his instruments, showing that he used the first hollow needles described in medicine—The precursors to the tools we use today for everything from biopsies and injections to drawing blood.^[3]

7 First Successful Cesarean: Mother and Child Saved In 1794

Originally a cesarean delivery of a baby was an operation only performed when a mother was either dead or dying. The mother would already be considered a lost cause and the cesarean would all but guarantee her demise, but it could still save her baby. In this context there have been many successful cesarean operations since ancient times. Even in mythology it was commonplace. In Greek Mythology the demigod Asclepius was born when his father Apollo removed him from his dead mother’s womb.

But a cesarean section where BOTH the child and mother survive was the holy grail of the operation. Attempts were made even in the middle ages, even supposedly successful ones (but the validity of their claims is in question). But the first unquestionably successful operation took place in America in 1794. Elizabeth Bennett was suffering through a difficult childbirth and, fearing for her child’s life, requested that her physicians perform a Cesarean and save her baby. The physicians refused on moral grounds, a cesarean would surely kill her. Instead, her husband Jessie Bennett, also a doctor by trade, stepped in to save his own child. Against all odds, he successfully saved both his child and wife—A first for history.

Today, one third of all births in the United States are done by cesarean section.^[4]

6 First Cataract Surgery: Ancient “Couching” Technique

Cataracts are a build up of protein within the lens of the eye that creates an opaque, foggy layer that blocks light and blurs eyesight. Most commonly cataracts develop because of the aging process and have plagued humans all throughout our history. One of the earliest surviving records of the condition is an Egyptian statue depicting a priest reader named Ka-aper from 2457-2467 B.C. In this statue, the priest is depicted with one heavily clouded eye.

For just as long as we have suffered from them, we have also striven to cure them. In a tomb of a Pharaoh’s surgeon, built in 2630 B.C. were found a very particular sort of instrument—a copper needle or lancet. These were used to reach to the cataract within the eye and forcible dislodge them, sinking them deeper into the vitreous body of the eye, between the lens and the retina. This was deemed, “couching”. Though not removed, the operation would usually result in clearer vision for the patient, who may no longer be gazing directly through the concentrated protein.

It was this procedure that was likely discussed in the famous Code of Hammurabi, an ancient king who ruled starting in 1750 B.C. One of his laws stated, in part, “If a doctor operates…on the eye of a patrician who loses his eye in consequence, his hands shall be cut off.”

This operation continued to be commonplace until 1748 when a French doctor named Daviel performed the first cataract extraction surgery.^[5]

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5 First Cholecystectomy: Removal of the Gallbladder in 1882

The Gallbladder is a small pouch shaped organ just below the liver responsible for storing and dispensing bile produced in the liver after a meal to help digest fat. It can develop problems such as gallstones, infections, or even cancer on rare occasions. It was these sort of issues that troubled the patients of Carl Johann August Langenbuch, a 27 year old German physician in Berlin in the 1880s. To help relieve his patient’s ailments he would perform the common treatment of the day and surgically open their abdomen , cut into the gallbladder, and clear out its contents—be they gallstones or infections. This was a painful process and only offered temporary relief. This frustrated Mr. Langenbuch.

So he decided on a new approach. One discussed among physicians, but its outcome was uncertain. He wanted to completely remove the gallbladder, but no one knew exactly what would happen. Some were worried the effects could even amount to death. He practiced the operation first on a cadaver and finally in 1882 removed the gallbladder from a living patient who had suffered from gallstones for 17 years. The patient was cured overnight with extremely limited side effects.

By 1897 over 100 Cholecystectomy operations had been performed and today it is the second most commonly performed operative procedure.^[6]

4 First Coronary Artery Bypass Graft: Performed in 1960

A Coronary Artery Bypass Graft surgery (CABG) is a procedure to circumnavigate a blocked area of blood vessels in the heart with a new section of vessel taken from elsewhere in the body. The story of the CABG is one of small evolutions. As early as 1910 the ground work was being laid by a doctor named Alexis Carrel who mused about operating on the coronary circulation and then successfully did so on dogs. In 1935 a Claude Beck worked on inserting various substances into the pericardium (soft tissue that surrounds the heart) itself. Arthur Vineberg in 1946 introduced the idea of a bypass by connecting left internal thoracic artery into the front wall of the left ventricle. Finally in 1956 one Charles Bailey successfully performed a coronary endarterectomies (instead of bypassing the blocked area, the blockage is striped away). The last and possibly most important piece happened by accident when Mason Sones mistakenly injected a contrast dye into the right coronary artery of a patient. He realized this method could be used for a coronary angiogram, which allows a doctor to X-ray and visualize arteries in the body. They were no longer working “blind”.

Each of these doctors and each of these advances slowly perfected on the technique and it culminated in 1960 when the first CABG was performed after extensive training by four doctors lead by Robert Goetz. The operation was a success, but not without setbacks. The patient died 13 months later, but an autopsy revealed that the graft itself had held and the operation was not the cause of death.^[7]

3 First Tonsillectomy: Common even in 1000 B.C.

A Tonsillectomy is the removal of the tonsils, two small glands in the back of the throat. In many cases this will be a child’s first exposure to the idea of a surgery when either they or a friend have their tonsils removed, usually because of infection and frequent sore throats.

The origins of the surgery are ancient. Earliest reports describe the procedure preformed by ancient Hindus as far back as 1000 B.C. But perhaps the most detailed ancient account of Tonsillectomies comes from the Roman Cornelius Celsus in A.D. 40 who described how it was performed in his day with great detail. Namely, it was common for the doctor to bluntly remove the entire tonsil—by hand. The effects of removing the entire tonsil in this way were to be preferred over just cutting off a slice. This method was favored even into the 20th century.^[8]

2 First Orthopaedic Surgery: A 3,000 year old Knee Pin

For decades an ancient Eqyption Mummy dating to around from the 11th-16th Centuries B.C. was in the possession of the Rosicrucian Museum in California. As far as preserved ancient bodies go, apparently unremarkable. In 1995, a examination of six of the Museum’s mummies included an X-ray and one mummy proved itself very remarkable. The mummy is called Usermontu, but that’s a case of stolen identity. Usermontu was a priest and his sarcophagus was labeled with his name and title, but at some point after his death his sarcophagus was reused for a new mummy. That new mummy was the one in the Museum’s possession. Having no known name for itself, it came to be called Usermontu all the same.

When “Usermontu” was X-rayed, the scientists were surprised to discover a 9-inch metal pin in its left knee expertly placed. It was so unbelievable in fact that the head of the project, Professor Griggs, said, “I assumed at the time that the pin was modern. I thought we might be able to determine how the pin had been inserted into the leg, and perhaps even guess how recently it had been implanted into the bones. I just thought it would be an interesting footnote to say, ‘Somebody got an ancient mummy and put a modern pin in it to hold the leg together.’”

The team drilled a small hole in the body large enough for a camera to be inserted to examine the pin and for samples to be collected. What they discovered was a resin similar in function to modern bone cement and ancient fat and textiles. The pin was not a modern addition, but was the result of a surgery performed 2,600 years ago.

“We are amazed at the ability to create a pin with biomechanical principles that we still use today—rigid fixation of the bone, for example,” said Dr. Richard Jackson, a Utah county medical doctor involved with examining the Mummy. “It is beyond anything we anticipated for that time.”

This surgery though, was not performed to give “Usermontu” a better life, but rather—a better afterlife. The ancient Egyptians believed that the physical body of a person was their vessel in the afterlife. Great care was taken to preserve and repair any damage so that the deceased would have a well working body to continue using. This operation, so carefully and expertly handled, was done after the patient’s death so that he would have a working knee again when he reached the afterlife.^[9]

1 First Plastic Surgery: An Ancient Indian Nose Job

A common misconception about the term Plastic Surgery is that it refers to plastic material, but instead its actually based on the Greek word plastikos, which means “To Give Form” or “To Mold”. So it comes as no surprise then that the first cosmetic surgeries predate the plastic material by more than 1,500 years. The Sushruta Samhita, a foundational Indian medical book dated to the 6th century A.D., includes a description of many medical procedures. One such operation is described like this:

“The portion of the nose to be covered should be first measured with a leaf. Then a piece of skin of the required size should be dissected from the living skin of the cheek, and turned back to cover the nose, keeping a small pedicle attached to the cheek. The part of the nose to which the skin is to be attached should be made raw by cutting the nasal stump with a knife. The physician then should place the skin on the nose and stitch the two parts swiftly, keeping the skin properly elevated by inserting two tubes of eranda (the castor-oil plant) in the position of the nostrils, so that the new nose gets proper shape. The skin thus properly adjusted, it should then be sprinkled with a powder of licorice, red sandal-wood and barberry plant. Finally, it should be covered with cotton, and clean sesame oil should be constantly applied. When the skin has united and granulated, if the nose is too short or too long, the middle of the flap should be divided and an endeavor made to enlarge or shorten it.”

In total the Sushruta Samhita includes the descriptions of 1,120 illnesses, 121 medical instruments, and 300 surgical procedures. The medical procedure described above wasn’t replicated in the west until 1794 when a similar procedure was published in Gentleman’s Magazine of London, which described the surgery being used to reconstruct the nose of a mutilated cart-driver.^[10]

Top 10 Disturbing Facts About Doctors

If Donatien Alphonse François, the Marquis de Sade, were alive today and wrote film scripts instead of novels, he might have written the screenplays for the ten bloody, disgusting horror movie franchises on this list.

Each of them is exploitative, taking sex and violence to extremes that are both horrific and revolting. These pictures are most definitely not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. Most are also extremely misogynistic, although, in some, women avenge themselves against the brutal attacks, sexual, violent, or both that the movies’ villains perpetrate against them.

One might wonder who would watch such fare. However, the fact that each original film spawned a series of one or more sequels, developing into a franchise suggests that plenty of people have not only enjoyed the first films but have returned to watch others in the series. There’s no doubt that there is an audience for bloody, disgusting horror movie franchises. What this truth implies about their fans is another matter.

Related: 10 Horror Films Based On True Stories

10 Guinea Pig Franchise

Director Satoru Ogura’s 1985 Japanese horror movie Guinea Pig: Devil’s Experiment, which showcases the torture of a kidnapped woman, launched the Guinea Pig franchise, a total of six brutal films replete with blood, guts, and gore. According to the horror movie magazine Fangoria, the second installment of the franchise, Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985), also launched a probe by the U.S. FBI.

Horrified by what he saw and certain that the movie was a genuine snuff film, which shows actual murder, actor Charlie Sheen not only notified the FBI but also gave agents the copy he’d viewed. Both the FBI and the Japanese police had already begun an investigation. At the end of their inquiry, they concluded that Guinea Pig 2 was not the real deal but a simulation of a snuff film, featuring “a guy dressed as a samurai dismembering and disemboweling a young woman.” A British court made the same finding during the trial of a defendant caught importing a copy of the film.

Subsequent films in the series depict similar heinous acts of sadism and murder. Attempted suicide, mutilation, and decapitation are depicted in Guinea Pig 3: Shudder! The Man Who Never Dies (1986). Murder and dismemberment are pictured in Guinea Pig 4: Mermaid in a Manhole (1988). Mutilation, exploding heads, perspiring blood, and the slicing of flesh are on display in Guinea Pig 5: Devil Woman Doctor (1990).^[1]

9 Entrails of a Virgin, Entrails of a Beautiful Woman, and Female Inquisitor

Reviewer James Mudge regards director Kazuo “Gaira” Komizu’s 1986 film Entrails of a Virgin as a misogynistic mix of softcore pornography. It focuses on violence against women and heaping helpings of sex in which female characters are subjected “to awful acts of perversion before they die” at the hands of a thoughtful swamp creature resembling “a guy covered in mud and a little white face paint” who spouts “hilarious and incomprehensible philosophies.”

Despite such unintentional comedy, Entrails makes an effort, at least, to have a plot: after getting lost in the fog-shrouded forest where they’d been shooting a pornographic movie, a film crew holes up in an abandoned building to party and engage in “kinky sex games, humiliation, and a lot of wrestling” before the swamp monster interrupts, killing victims one by one.

Mudge also reviews Entrails of a Beautiful Woman (1986), which, he says, is another slice of softcore sex, misogyny, and violence, “with a penis-headed monster thrown in for good measure.” According to a Horror News review, the franchise’s third installment, Female Inquisitor (1987), also known as Rusted Body: Guts of a Virgin, subjects its female characters to the torturous examinations of an “oversexed female interrogator with a penchant for sadomasochism and torture” who is bent on extorting money from an embezzler.^[2]

8 Men Behind the Sun & Its Three Sequels

Men Behind the Sun (1988), directed by T. F. Mou, is about violence, not sex. A TV Tropes review of the film calls it disturbing in its depiction of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731, which during World War II conducted “medical research and biological/chemical weapon experiments on captive human subjects,” often in nauseating detail. However, the movie’s scenes are not based on historical accounts of the atrocities. Its basis is a serialized novel that ran in a Japanese Communist Party newspaper of “questionable” reliability, and its reputed facts are “dubious.”

Although the picture may not be based on facts, it prompted three others, Laboratory of the Devil, Narrow Escape, and Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre, each of which portrays additional atrocities and Japanese war crimes, including the removal of a well-developed fetus from the belly of a pregnant woman, the beheading of a man, and a number of bloody, disgusting experiments.^[3]

7 Hostel I, II, and III

Owen Gleiberman sees a trend in recent horror films that is reflected in Eli Roth’s 2005 Hostel. Sadism, long a mainstay of the genre, he states in his film review, has become just about horror’s only element. He adds that “the fear of death [is] replaced by the fear of torture—a fate worse than death.” Hence, the movie’s meat hook, power drill, and other instruments of torture.

The victims, captured tourists, are mutilated for fun by those who delight in such entertainment. They are willing to pay $25,000 for the pleasure of killing the hapless captives by whatever means pleases the clients. If the movie has a message, Gleiberman suggests, it may be that “a society ruled by the profit of illicit desire” has created a nightmare.

It seems safe to say that Mark Kermode is not a fan of Hostel II (2007). In his review of the film, published in The Guardian, he labels Eli Roth’s 2007 movie “infantile tripe.” The picture, set in a “Slovakian torture camp,” features a trio of female characters who, Kermode notes, “are due to be sliced and diced by loathsome misogynist[ic] businessmen” while sadists, also women, enjoy the spectacle of the victims’ torment. The whole affair is a disaster, Kermode suggests, as he offers a bit of parting advice to the filmmakers: “Oh, do grow up.”

As the franchise continued, it devolved instead of evolving, Chris Nashawaty suggests in his review of Hostel III (2011). Nashawaty attributes the decline in the franchise’s third installment to its change of setting, “from grimy Eastern Europe, where life is cheap,” to Las Vegas, and the change in the franchise’s director, from Eli Roth to Scott Spiegel. The result of these miscalculations, he adds, is that a movie that wants to be “The Hangover with a body count” is, instead “just a bloody mess.”^[4]

6 Angel Guts Franchise

Roman porno, or “romance porno,” saved Nikkatsu when Japan’s oldest film studio faced financial ruin, says Jim McLennan, in his Film Blitz review of the five-film franchise produced between 1978 and 1994. Inspired by Takashii Ishii’s manga comic book Tenshi No Harawata (also known as Angel Guts), the series involves a woman, Nami, who, despite sharing the name with the series’ later films, “is not the same character in each film.” A victim both of physical violence and rape, she suffers the consequences of the crimes throughout the films.

The differences in the character seem to stem from the fact that four directors were involved in the making of the five films. If the disturbing series can be said to have a theme, McLennan agrees with Artmagic’s contention that the Angel Guts series can be seen as “a tribute to the courage of [a] violated woman in a world of male violence.”^[5]

5 Red Room and Red Room 2

Daisuke Yamanouchi’s Red Room (1999) has a simple premise: four candidates for a million-dollar prize compete against one another to become the survivor of the escalating torture they impose on each other inside a locked room. Dave Jackson, who reviewed the movie for the Mondo Exploito website, found that, initially, the torments challenged the players’ personal limits. Soon, however, the characters began to experience sexual humiliation, degradation, and physical pain. The action, he adds, although perverse, was offset to some degree by the movie’s “absurdity and unabashed goofiness.”

The 2000 sequel, Red Room 2, offered more of the same. Although reviewer Alex Davis had not seen Red Room, he found the sequel less gory than its predecessor is said to have been. He was surprised, he said, that “many of the tasks were more based on psychological than physical torture,” the movie mixing physical pain and trauma with sexual abuse. What intrigued him most, Davis recalls, was the strategy of the players, as he sought to anticipate “who will win, who will form allegiances,…and what will they do.”^[6]

4 Freeway and Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby

Directed by Matthew Bright and starring Kiefer Sutherland, Reese Witherspoon, and Brooke Shields, among others, the 1996 movie Freeway, inspired by the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood,” is not typical of most of the films on this list. The others were shot on low budgets and featured casts and crews that are not on Hollywood’s A-list.

Despite its dark comedy, the movie contains elements both of horror and suspense. Joe Leydon, who reviewed the picture for Variety, characterized it as roadkill, an apt description of the plot: psychiatrist Bob Wolverton, who represents the wolf, is a serial killer, while 16-year-old Vanessa is Little Red Riding Hood. After Vanessa shoots and robs her would-be killer, she steals his car, but he survives his wounds. Lots of gore ensues.

Overall, the sequel, Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (1999), was not well-received. Also directed by Bright, it is based on another fairy tale, “Hansel and Gretel.” Freeway II struck reviewer Jason Korsner as “perhaps the most gratuitously violent and vulgar road-movie imaginable.”

In place of Gretel, we have White Girl (Natasha Lyonne), a teen who’s imprisoned for 25 years for armed robbery. She and her cellmate, lesbian lifer Cyclona (Maria Caledonio), a mass murderer, escape together, only to run into the movie’s version of Hansel, Sister Gomez (Vincent Gallo), a transwoman nun. Lots of gore ensues.^[7]

3 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Franchise

An insane family of Texas cannibals, one of whom, Leatherface, wears a mask made of human skin and wields a chainsaw as his weapon of choice—could a horror movie be any more bizarre? Despite—or perhaps because of—its gore, Tobe Hooper’s ghastly The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) engendered eight additional movies, the last of which (to date, anyway) was released in 2022. Fans of the franchise don’t seem to be able to get enough of the series’ madness, mayhem, guts, and gore.

Reviewing the picture for The Guardian, Derek Malcolm found the first film “a quite formidable piece of directorial artifice, a horror comic brought to the screen with frenetic energy and life.” In particular, he found the scene where the chainsaw-wielding villain pursues an escaped girl “a first-class piece of sweat-inducing cinema.” If the movie is “morally retrograde,” that’s all right, Malcolm suggests, pointing out, so are nightmares.

Unlike his colleague, Chris Peachment, in reviewing the series’ first film for Time Out, found Hooper’s movie a misogynistic exploitation of women “about as subtle as having your leg sawed off without anesthetic…notable only for taking woman-in-jeopardy about as far as she can go.” In general, however, the movie was well-received by both critics and audiences alike, as the enterprise of making eight more installments of the franchise seems to indicate.^[8]

2 Saw Franchise

In 2004, James Wan’s Saw was released to revolt and terrify thousands of moviegoers and earn over a hundred million dollars worldwide. The movie earned mixed results from critics. Those who favored the film described it as having a compelling mystery and a satisfying ending (Trace Thurman) and a sure charm (Shaun Monroe); as “fine and dandy nonsense” (Matt Soergel); and as “impressively loathsome and extravagantly twisted” (Peter Bradshaw).

Others dismissed the picture as “cruelly empty and infantile” (David Germain); as having “more high concepts stuffed into its 100 minutes than it can handle” (Mike Goodridge); as “bloody sick” (Derek Malcolm); and as “dumber than a box of rocks” (Scott Tobias).

While the franchise certainly isn’t for everyone and has its faults (several critics consider the movies that followed the initial one of the series to be badly flawed), the fact that there are nine installments and that the franchise has kept audiences on the edges of their seats all the way to the present (the last installment to date was released in 2021) suggests that the franchise works for quite a few others.^[9]

1 Nekromantic and Nekromantic 2

Directed by Jörg Buttgereit, Nekromantic is about a woman who becomes smitten with a corpse her boyfriend Bob has brought home, preferring the cadaver to Bob himself. Ironically, Buttgereit made the movie to protest government censorship. However, it was the sequel, Nekromantic 2 (1991), that German authorities banned, confiscating it in a Munich theater, before raiding Buttgereit’s home, trying to destroy the negative and seeking to charge him with glorifying violence, a very serious allegation.

Buttgereit believes that the authorities took such actions against the sequel rather than the first film because, when he released Nekromantic in 1987, they had no idea who he was. However, when they saw that he intended to persist in making controversial movies, they decided to take these actions. Fortunately for the director, an art historian interpreted Nekromantic 2 as “a metaphor for East Germany,” and a judge who’d viewed the movie accepted this view, lifting the ban.^[10]

Mary I of England was the only surviving child of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine. As the Catholic queen of a country that had fallen into religious conflict and established a breakaway church, she saw it as her duty to bring her subjects back under the “true” religion. This led her to persecute hundreds of Protestants after she came to power.

Overshadowed by her sister and successor, the Protestant Elizabeth I, Mary has largely been pushed aside in the public’s imagination. Today, most people associate her reign only with the Marian persecutions, and her chilling moniker, “Bloody Mary,” is probably more famous than she is. But as with most historical figures, there’s more to her story.

Here are ten reasons Mary wasn’t as evil as we’ve been taught.

10 Born into a Divided Family

Mary’s mother was Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess who’d been betrothed from a young age to young Arthur of the House of Tudor, then heir to the English throne. Shortly after the marriage, Arthur, in typical medieval fashion, succumbed to an untimely death, leaving the teenaged Catherine a widow in a foreign land. Arthur’s father, Henry VII, was also widowed and considered marrying Catherine himself but eventually proposed she wed his younger son and new heir, the future Henry VIII.

Negotiations over the marriage took so long that by the time it happened, Henry had already succeeded his father, and Catherine was in her twenties. It was into this tangled mess that Mary arrived in 1516 after several failed pregnancies. Her birth came at a time when royal parents were not exactly on the up and up regarding daughters being equal to sons. Altogether, Catherine gave birth to six children, including three sons, but none survived except Mary. The absence of a male heir eventually completely pulled Henry VIII away from his family.^[1]

9 Traumatized as a Teenager by Her Father

With no male heir, Henry VIII grew increasingly obsessed with the topic, seeking desperately to find an explanation for his lack of sons. Renaissance enlightenment principles aside, he concluded that by taking his brother’s widow as his wife, he’d broken the laws of God and been cursed with no heirs, even though the marriage had been sanctioned by the Vatican. Whether he legitimately believed this or simply found it a convenient pretext to remarry, only he knew.

Although Mary was already being educated as heiress presumptive, Henry remained vehemently opposed to a female successor. First, he appealed to the Pope to dissolve his marriage to Catherine. When that failed, he enlisted allies to continue with annulment proceedings domestically, undertook a secret marriage to his mistress, Anne Boleyn, and appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church in England. To uphold the claim that his marriage to Catherine had never been valid to begin with, he delegitimized the teenage Mary and removed her from the line of succession, all before Anne’s first child had even been born.^[2]

8 Humiliated and Forced to Wait on Her Baby Sister

In 1533, Anne gave birth to Elizabeth, her first and only child with Henry. Having been stripped of her royal titles, Mary was further humiliated by being made an attendant to her infant sister, who had replaced her in the line of succession. To make matters worse, Mary’s mother, Catherine, by this point, had been banished from court, and mother and daughter were officially forbidden from communicating.

For years, Mary refused to cave to pressure to accept her illegitimacy and recognize her father as head of the church, a testament to her strength of character in the face of what must have seemed insurmountable odds. Eventually, she did make those pronouncements but sent a secret message to the Pope explaining she’d done so under duress. Despite what Elizabeth’s birth and position represented for her, Mary loved her sister and was influential in getting her back on good terms with their father after he executed Elizabeth’s mother, Anne, for treason.^[3]

7 Spared the Life of Her Usurper

After Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to a son named Edward, Mary assumed she’d never be queen. If all went according to Henry’s plan, Edward would succeed him and have sons of his own. And Mary would live the life of any ordinary princess. Edward did become king but lived only a few years after that, dying in his teens of a respiratory illness, having neither married nor had children. Although their father had reinstated Mary to the line of succession, Edward again removed her as he lay dying, not because he didn’t want a female heir but because he didn’t want her to undo the work of the Reformation, in which he’d been brought up.

Edward and Mary’s sister Elizabeth had also been raised Protestant, like Edward, but legally it would’ve been inadvisable to exclude only Mary, who held the stronger claim as the eldest. To this end, he also bypassed Elizabeth and instead designated his Protestant cousin, Jane Grey, as heir. After Edward’s death, Jane’s reign lasted a matter of days, with Mary rallying supporters and marching on London. Knowing Jane had only followed orders, Mary spared her life. Tragically, Jane remained a pawn in the conspirators’ dealings and eventually was put to death to thwart further attempts to unseat Mary.^[4]

6 Courageous and Trailblazing for the Time

Although feminism wasn’t exactly a hot topic in Mary’s time, her life was as close an example to it as we might expect for a sixteenth-century queen. In one of her most daring moments, Mary fled to a loyalist outpost as soon as she heard that her brother, Edward VI, was near death. If she’d remained nearby, she’d have been imprisoned and prevented from ascending the throne by Edward’s supporters, spelling the end of the Tudor dynasty. She was bold, decisive, and politically astute in an era when women were chiefly praised for modesty and obedience.

As Henry VIII’s eldest surviving heir, Mary based her claim to the throne on legitimacy, sidelining the topic of religion. This gained her support from both Catholics and Protestants. Both the common people and gentry came to her side, and Jane Grey’s government fell apart within days. Not long after Mary’s proclamation, Parliament passed an act enshrining the full and absolute power of the crown irrespective of gender, establishing equal rights between kings and queens regnant.^[5]

5 Guided by the Religious Conventions of Her Time

Today, we’d be horrified at the idea of burning someone at the stake for any reason, let alone their religious beliefs. But Mary grew up in a time when the importance of practicing the true religion was a matter of salvation. She believed her brother’s death proved God wanted a Catholic on the throne. Seeing the Pope as God’s representative on earth, she rejected the title of Supreme Head of the Church.

For Mary, finding herself on a throne she thought she’d never ascend was a vindication of her beliefs. To allow England to continue its course of separation from the Vatican would’ve been an affront to her duties as sovereign. Protestants who refused to convert back to Catholicism paid with their lives in a gruesome manner, but everything Mary had been taught told her it was her obligation to root out heresy in her dominions.^[6]

4 No Different from Other Monarchs of the Age

Giving someone the title “Bloody Mary” conjures up images of a cold, ruthless killer. And though you might argue the shoe fits, the truth is Mary was no different from other monarchs of the time when it came to eliminating disobedient subjects. In pursuit of his ambition to leave his marriage and father sons with other women, Henry VIII, who never quite reconciled his Catholic upbringing with his zeal for reform, put both Catholics and reformers to death, including death by burning.

Mary’s successor, Elizabeth I, not only executed many of her own subjects but even put to death a fellow queen. While it’s true that Mary’s infamous burnings reached almost 300 in a short period, Elizabeth once ordered over twice as many executions after quashing a Catholic rebellion early on in her rule. Of course, neither sister ever reached the dizzying heights of their father. By the end of his 36-year reign, Henry VIII had executed an estimated 57,000 people, a bone-chilling average of 1,500 death sentences a year. Among the victims were two of his own wives. And these numbers leave out what was happening in other parts of the world whose leaders were often even more brutal.^[7]

3 Counter-Reformation Was Popular During Her Reign

Since it was ultimately unsuccessful, it’s easy to imagine Mary’s attempt to re-Catholicize England as unpopular, but the truth is it wasn’t. Of course, those who subscribed to the principles of the Reformation were opposed, but Mary came to the throne less than a quarter-century after her father’s break with Rome. At that time, the question of religion in England was far from resolved, with Catholics still outnumbering Protestants.

Before Mary even set out her religious policy, news of her accession brought the revival of Catholic Mass in churches across the realm. She was no tyrant either—Parliament largely supported Mary’s policies and repealed most of her brother’s and father’s reforms. Eighteen months into her reign, England was fully realigned with the Catholic Church. Had Mary produced an heir, the child would’ve been raised Catholic, the Reformation may have fizzled out, and the restoration would’ve gone down in history as a cornerstone of her reign.^[8]

2 Laid the Groundwork for Some of Her Successor’s Achievements

Mary’s reign has largely been characterized by historians as ineffective and backward-looking, but these are oversimplifications. The two biggest “failures” of Mary’s reign—attempting to re-Catholicize England and the loss of the historically English territory of Calais in France—are often judged out of context (as we’ve already seen concerning the restoration). Future English monarchs presided over the loss of territories much more extensive than Calais, but it didn’t define their reigns, nor was it seen as evidence of their unsuitability.

In fact, Mary was a conscientious monarch who worked tremendously hard. Although her marriage to a foreigner was initially unpopular, she ensured her rights as queen were not ceded to her husband. During her reign, she undertook reforms in the navy as well as in coinage and the militia, reendowed several hospitals, and established a groundbreaking trading company with Russia. A revised customs book increased crown revenue and remained in effect through the reign of her successor. She also had plans drawn up for currency reform, which were carried out after her death.^[9]

1 Died Too Soon to Consolidate Her Policies

Despite having suffered from ailments of the reproductive system for years, Mary was eager to birth an heir and secure the succession. In 1554, she married the future Philip II of Spain, but the union produced no children. Although Mary was genuinely in love with her husband, by the time it was apparent she wouldn’t become pregnant, he’d retreated to his own dominions abroad. His absence affected her greatly, perhaps eliciting bitter memories of abandonment from her youth.

Only five years into her reign, Mary died during a flu epidemic at 42, having spent the last months of her life suffering from the same chronic disorders that had plagued her since adolescence. With no heir of her own, she had no one to carry on her legacy, and her reign proved much too short for her policies to take effect. Although considered illegitimate by Catholics, her sister Elizabeth was crowned in 1559 and soon reestablished the Protestant church. Her reign has largely gone down in history as a golden age, in sharp contrast with Mary’s.

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. Mary I of England, whose motto as queen was “Truth, the daughter of time,” would probably agree.^[10]