Famous Dictators Quiz #1

I guess it depends on your age. Aside from the obvious Hitler, Napoleon and Mussolini, I can remember all of these being in power except for Sulla (obviously). I also couldn't place Trujillo for the life of me, though I knew his name. The rest were easy only because the news was full of them in their heydays.

Only Castro stepped down voluntarily (to be succeeded by his own brother), Mugabe is still power. Mao, Tito, Duvalier, Kim, Franco and Brezhnev all governed until they died of more or less natural causes. The rest (except Sulla) were all either kicked out or assassinated.

But to be fair, Sulla is probably the only one one the list whose official job description actually was "dictator" (:

Alongside several other people, this comment defends someone from the calumny of being a dictator, associated with repression, imprisnoment without trial, murder and genocide. Yet the quiz doesn't do anything of the sort. It doesn't say "these people were evil monsters" it simply describes them as dictators, which they all were, and asks you to name the country they ruled, which they all did. Lucassar actually says "Yes, he was a dictator, but of the good sort". Nobody said any different. The quiz isn't making any judgements, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

There are evil dictators and sometimes there are benevolent ones, they're still dictators.

Napoleon is far from the worst on here, but he's more flawed than a lot of people think. His government reinstated slavery and led a pretty brutal response to the Haitian Revolution that involved massacres and (I believe?) the first use of poisonous gas in conflict. Also, while he didn't mass kill civilians on purpose, his wars did probably kill several million people, including Frenchmen and civilians, and really didn't serve any purpose other than to make him more powerful.

At the same time, I'll acknowledge that he made many positive reforms, such as Napoleonic Code, and that he did bring stability to France for a while. I'd still call him an "enlightened despot," but even if he was a good ruler I don't think that made him a good person.

Dictator of Germany, not necessarily born in Germany.

The last King, didn't James McAvoy succeed him :)

You just made my day, bro :)

I got Mobuto quickly. But I had the advantage of visiting Zaire whilst he was dictator there. The extent of his evil grip on power amazed me.

I sort of agree, in that if the question said Stalin, nobody would complain about calling him a dictator.

That's pretty bad not gonna lie.

For a 12 year old? I'd say it's pretty good actually.

The average score is 14 so yes, I would say that is good for a 12 yo. Definitely not bad. Most of the people on this site are older than that, and could have heard of several from the news. Only some are covered in history classes.

So anyone saying getting 11 is bad for a 12 yo, has got some issues. (inferiority or superiority.. always hard to tell..)

even it it was bad, no need to rub it in someone's face.

I doubt I would have done that well on a similar quiz when I was 12. Mubarak and Gaddafi would have still been in power but I doubt I could have named them.

He's in the next one

In modern English, "dictator" pretty much is a synonym of "authoritarian leader".

Now DR Congo ofc

Since when is Italy a country? 'Rome' or 'Roman Empire' are the most appropriate answers for Sulla.

Italy didn't exist as a country at the time. Sulla was the dictator of Rome. The quiz is correct.

Arguably, Rome has been a country longer than Italy has. You had the Roman Kingdom (752-509 BC), Roman Republic (509-27 BC), Roman Empire (27 BC - 285 AD), Western Roman Empire (285-476), and the Papal States (754-1870). The Kingdom of Italy incorporated Rome in 1871 and in 1946 became the Italian Republic. Rome was a country for either 2,344 years or 1,228 years if you don't want to count the Papal States as Rome. Italy has been a country for 160 years.

Russia and DRC work for the Soviet Union and Zaire, respectively.

Why would the quiz need to define "dictator"? It's a common word. I teach political studies, though, so I'll go over what I know. Dictatorships are typically ruled by a single authoritarian leader, but in some cases they can be oligarchical. Most dictatorships today control the political process and media to the point that there is no challenge to their power. Dictators today also often have a cult of personality. The term dictator has historically been used simply to mean a single person who has achieved power in non-democratic or monarchical ways (i.e., no vote and no longstanding tradition to explain their power). There can be bad dictators, despots, and good leaders, commonly called benevolent dictators. Lee Kuan Yew is probably the best example of a benevolent dictator. Also, keep in mind that there are different forms of dictatorship. Totalitarianism is an extreme type of dictatorship that more or less tries to control the lives and beliefs of its citizens.

Brezhnev is more fun to spell? Stalin appears in a lot of quizzes already so Quizmaster decided to spread the love around a little?

In that case Merkel would also be a fine addition.

Poe's law