50 Fun Facts About Dictators

Which facial feature shared by Charlie Chaplin's Tramp and Adolf Hitler helped inspire The Great Dictator?

A toothbrush moustache was the Tramp's trademark years before Hitler's rise, and the likeness gave Chaplin his plot. The two men were also born four days apart in April 1889.

Which American magazine named Adolf Hitler its Man of the Year for 1938, months before World War II began?

Time gives the title to whoever most shaped the year's events, for better or for worse, which is why a dictator could take it.

Forest Whitaker won the Best Actor Oscar for playing which African dictator in The Last King of Scotland?

Idi Amin ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979 and claimed to be the uncrowned king of the Scots, which gave the film its title. He also styled himself Conqueror of the British Empire.

Which country printed a 100-trillion-dollar banknote during the hyperinflation of Robert Mugabe's long rule?

Zimbabwe saw the note become so worthless that it could not pay for a bus fare. In April 2009 the country stopped printing its own money and switched to foreign currencies.

Which famous small car did Adolf Hitler commission from engineer Ferdinand Porsche in the 1930s?

Volkswagen Beetle development began after Hitler demanded a cheap family car for Germany's new motorways. It outlived the regime by decades, with 21.5 million built worldwide.

Which Cuban leader survived a string of CIA assassination plots, reportedly including an exploding cigar?

Fidel Castro was the target of 638 schemes by his own security chief's count, among them a contaminated diving suit and a booby-trapped seashell. He outlived them all and died in 2016, aged 90.

In The Great Dictator's most famous scene, Charlie Chaplin's tyrant dances a ballet with which inflatable object?

A globe, in fact a balloon, becomes the tyrant's dance partner as he daydreams of owning the world. Chaplin chose the opera prelude that plays under the wordless scene himself.

Which Central American strongman surrendered in 1990 after US troops blasted loud music at his Vatican embassy refuge?

Manuel Noriega held out for ten days in Panama City while loudspeakers played AC/DC, Guns N' Roses and Van Halen, whose song Panama was on the playlist.

Sacha Baron Cohen's 2012 comedy The Dictator opens with a mock dedication to which real leader?

Kim Jong Il died months before the release, and the opening credits salute him. Before taking power, the North Korean heir had a South Korean director kidnapped to improve his country's movies.

Adolf Hitler ruled Germany but was born across the border in which country, in the town of Braunau am Inn?

Austria was part of Austria-Hungary when Hitler was born there in 1889. He moved to Germany in 1913, gave up his original citizenship in 1925 and spent almost seven years stateless.

Which ranting dictator, a parody of Adolf Hitler, does Charlie Chaplin play in The Great Dictator?

Adenoid Hynkel holds the title of Phooey, Chaplin's jab at the German word Führer. His henchmen get the same treatment, with names like Herring and Garbitsch.

Benzino Napaloni, the dictator of Bacteria in The Great Dictator, is a parody of which real leader?

Benito Mussolini is the target, and the character's surname adds a dig at Napoleon Bonaparte. His official title in the film is the Diggaditchie of Bacteria.

Besides the dictator, Charlie Chaplin plays which Jewish tradesman in The Great Dictator, his exact double?

A barber who lost his memory fighting in World War I is the film's hero. In the finale he is mistaken for the tyrant and handed the microphone at a victory rally.

Which format did Charlie Chaplin, Hollywood's last great holdout, finally embrace in full with The Great Dictator?

Sound film had ruled Hollywood for a decade while Chaplin, alone among major directors, kept making silent pictures. The Great Dictator was his first true talkie.

Which actress, Charlie Chaplin's partner and Modern Times co-star, plays Hannah in The Great Dictator?

Paulette Goddard was introduced by Chaplin as his wife at the film's 1940 premiere, a rare public word from either of them about their marriage.

In The Great Dictator, the scheming minister Garbitsch is a parody of which member of Hitler's inner circle?

Joseph Goebbels ran Nazi propaganda, and Garbitsch holds the same post in the film. Henry Daniell plays him as the stoic schemer at the tyrant's side.

Charlie Chaplin later wrote that he could not have made The Great Dictator had he known the extent of what?

The Holocaust lay ahead when filming began in 1939, though Nazi persecution of Jews already drove the plot. In his 1964 autobiography Chaplin said he could not have made fun of the Nazis had he known of the camps.

In The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin's tyrant rules which fictional country, a stand-in for Nazi Germany?

Tomainia loses World War I in the opening scenes and has become a dictatorship twenty years later. Its neighbours get joke names too, including Bacteria.

Sacha Baron Cohen's Admiral General Aladeen rules which fictional oil-rich nation in the 2012 comedy The Dictator?

Wadiya is placed on the Horn of Africa, where Eritrea lies in real life. Its ruler was modelled on real strongmen with personality cults, from Gaddafi to Mobutu.

Dressed as The Dictator's Aladeen, Sacha Baron Cohen spilled fake ashes over which host at the 2012 Oscars?

Ryan Seacrest was interviewing arrivals for cable television when the urn was tipped over him. The ashes were later reported to be pancake mix.

Which Scary Movie star plays Zoey, the activist who gives Aladeen a job, in The Dictator (2012)?

Anna Faris won a role that Kristen Wiig had also been considered for. Her character runs an alternative-lifestyle co-operative in New York and hires the tyrant without knowing who he is.

Which Sacha Baron Cohen comedy was directed by Larry Charles, who also made The Dictator?

Borat and The Dictator were both directed by Larry Charles, a former Seinfeld staff writer. The later film dropped the mockumentary style for a fully scripted story.

Which Soviet leader trained for the priesthood at a seminary in Tiflis before turning to revolution?

Joseph Stalin enrolled on a scholarship in 1894 and left five years later, having swapped scripture for secret workers' meetings.

Which Khmer Rouge leader emptied Cambodia's cities and declared a fresh start for society called Year Zero?

Pol Pot, born Saloth Sâr, ruled for under four years. His forces marched over two million people out of Phnom Penh, falsely promising they could return in three days.

Which European country returned to monarchy when the dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975?

Spain got King Juan Carlos, the successor Franco had picked himself. Instead of carrying on the dictatorship, the new king led the country's transition to democracy.

Which deposed dictator did US troops find hiding in a spider hole near Tikrit in December 2003?

Saddam Hussein gave up without a fight on a remote farm. Three years earlier a romance novel credited to him, Zabibah and the King, had been published anonymously in Iraq.

Which North African country did Muammar Gaddafi rule from a 1969 coup until rebels overthrew him in 2011?

Libya was a monarchy until the young army officer deposed King Idris in a bloodless coup. He later dropped formal offices and styled himself the Brotherly Leader.

Which country's dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown in December 1989, then tried and shot on Christmas Day?

Romania tried him and his wife Elena before a court convened in a small room and had them shot the same day, ending 42 years of Communist rule.

Which general seized power in Chile in 1973 by overthrowing the elected president Salvador Allende?

Augusto Pinochet had been made army chief by Allende himself less than three weeks before the coup. In 1998 he was arrested in London on an international warrant.

Mobutu Sese Seko gave the Congo which new name in 1971, a name scrapped when rebels ousted him?

Zaire lasted until 1997, when rebels drove out the ruler in the leopard-skin hat. He had renamed himself too, taking a string of names that boasted of endless conquest.

Which African ruler crowned himself emperor in 1977 in a lavish ceremony inspired by Napoleon?

Jean-Bédel Bokassa spent a huge share of the Central African Republic's yearly budget on the two-day coronation. He was overthrown less than two years later.

Which Caribbean nation was ruled by François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier and his feared Tonton Macoute militia?

Haiti knew him first as a physician, and his patients gave him the nickname. His son, known as Baby Doc, inherited the presidency at just 19.

Which ancient state created the office of dictator as a temporary post for dealing with a crisis?

Roman Republic dictators were given full authority over one specific problem and then expected to resign. After Julius Caesar took the title for life, the office was abolished.

Which dystopian novel is set in Oceania, a superstate led by the all-seeing dictator Big Brother?

Nineteen Eighty-Four props up its leader with a cult of personality manufactured by the Thought Police. It was George Orwell's last completed book, published in 1949.

Which book did Adolf Hitler begin in Landsberg Prison while jailed for a failed coup in Munich?

Mein Kampf sold slowly at first and became a bestseller only after Hitler took power in 1933. His deputy Rudolf Hess did most of the editing.

Which Chinese leader oversaw the Great Leap Forward, a campaign followed by one of history's deadliest famines?

Mao Zedong set out to collectivise farming and industrialise at speed between 1958 and 1962. The famine that followed killed an estimated 15 to 55 million people.

Which Central Asian president renamed April after his mother and built a rotating gold statue of himself?

Saparmurat Niyazov led Turkmenistan until his death in 2006. His 12-metre gold-plated likeness turned through the day so that it always faced the sun.

Which European country did Enver Hoxha stud with a vast network of concrete bunkers against invasions that never came?

Albania built the bunkers from the 1960s to the 1980s. Hoxha had his defence minister arrested as a traitor after the general publicly criticised the scheme in 1974.

Which country's People Power Revolution drove out Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, exposing his wife's vast shoe collection?

The Philippines saw the Marcos family flee to Hawaii on American advice. Reports from the abandoned palace listed Imelda's wardrobe, said to include 3,000 pairs of shoes.

Which Caribbean strongman renamed the Dominican Republic's capital, Santo Domingo, after himself in 1936?

Rafael Trujillo had the city called Ciudad Trujillo for 25 years, and an electric sign there paired his name with God's. The old name came back after his assassination in 1961.

Which country did economics professor António Salazar rule for 36 years under his Estado Novo regime?

Portugal kept his regime going even after he left office in 1968. The Estado Novo finally fell in the Carnation Revolution of 1974, four years after his death.

What name is given to Adolf Hitler's failed 1923 coup in Munich, which landed him in Landsberg Prison?

The Beer Hall Putsch began in the Bürgerbräukeller, one of the city's largest drinking halls. Hitler meant it as a base for a march on the national government in Berlin.

Which German officer planted the briefcase bomb that nearly killed Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in 1944?

Claus von Stauffenberg slipped out before the blast, flew to Berlin to launch the coup and was shot by firing squad that same night. Tom Cruise played him in the 2008 film Valkyrie.

Which country's military junta collapsed after its failed 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands?

Argentina's generals lost the war in June 1982, and their regime began to fall apart. They gave up power the next year with the election of President Raúl Alfonsín.

Whom did Adolf Hitler marry in his Berlin bunker less than two days before their joint suicide?

Eva Braun had been his companion for years but did not appear with him at public events until 1944. She was 33 at the brief civil ceremony.

Which country did Josip Broz Tito lead from World War II until 1980, co-founding the Non-Aligned Movement?

Yugoslavia kept out of both Cold War blocs under Tito, who had commanded its wartime Partisans. Critics call his rule authoritarian, while others describe him as a benevolent dictator.

Italy's Fascist paramilitaries, who marched on the capital in 1922, were nicknamed for shirts of which colour?

Black shirts, worn with a matching tie and fez, were modelled on the uniform of the Arditi, Italy's elite troops of World War I. Hitler's stormtroopers became known for brown ones.

President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler to which German office on 30 January 1933?

Chancellor was a post Hitler gained by appointment, not by winning a majority. Franz von Papen, who had held the job himself, and other conservatives talked Hindenburg into it.

Which breed was Blondi, the dog Martin Bormann gave Adolf Hitler as a puppy in 1941?

German Shepherd dogs were a long-standing favourite of his: he had owned one called Prinz in 1921. Blondi stayed at his side in the bunker and slept in his bed there.

Which title did Oliver Cromwell take in 1653 to rule England, Scotland and Ireland without a king?

Lord Protector was the title he kept for the last five years of his life. He was sworn in wearing plain clothing in place of any royal regalia.