Dictatorships

Fidel Castro, one of the world's most controversial leaders, rose to power in Cuba, a large island nation only 90 miles off the coast of Florida. A brilliant and charismatic leader, Castro defied all odds when he led a successful effort to depose the corrupt Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in the late-1950s. Soon after, Castro began to reshape Cuba into a communist state while allying himself with the United States' Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union....

In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power in China after a long and brutal civil war. He and his Chinese Communist Party immediately set out to transform their nation into a Communist state. They seized land from wealthy and middle-class farmers and distributed it to poor peasant farmers. The government also took over ownership of all industries. Citizens who resisted these changes were branded counterrevolutionaries," and thousands were imprisoned or executed....

Saddam Hussein, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power through Iraq's powerful Baath Party and became the nation's president in 1979. His goals included achieving pan-Arabism, more evenly distributing the nation's oil wealth, and extending the party's power by reaching into every aspect of Iraqis' lives. However, through his failed economic programs, greed, corruption, and the murder of thousands, Hussein and his government brought...

Pol Pot, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power in the 1960s in the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia. In the mid-1900s, Cambodia had been chafing for centuries under Thai, Vietnamese, and French control. As leader of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's communist rebel movement, Pol Pot won control of Cambodia in 1975. He intended to establish a farming utopia. Declaring that society needed purification, he set out to extinguish capitalism,...

Profiles the dictatorship of the Assads in Syria, from their rise to power to the present day.

Than Shwe was part of a military coup that took over Burma in the 1960s. The British had granted Burma independence in 1948, but the country, with its many ethnic groups, had trouble building a democratic government. Than Shwe rose through the military ranks, and after the army stepped in to quell demonstrations and riots that began on August 8, 1988, he emerged as head of the military council. He became one of the most secretive and repressive leaders...