So Vlad seems like he was basically psychotic, and anyone who’s watched The Hoarder Next Door or Jeremy Kyle will know that if someone has a screw loose there’s probably a reason for it. Vlad is no different. As a child, he and his brother were held as prisoners by Sultan Murad. During their imprisonment they were badly beaten on a daily basis and regularly starved. Through a narrow window, Vlad was able to watch as less fortunate prisoners were tortured to death, often via impalement. So that gives us a bit of an insight doesn’t it? Where’s Oprah when you need her?

For those who want to know more of the gory details, impalement involved being lowered slowly onto a large wooden spike, men through the anus, women through the vagina. Death was slow and excruciating of course and Vlad couldn’t get enough of it.

The only plus side to all of this was that Wallachia under Vlad’s control was virtually crime free. He’d managed to install pure terror into every beating heart. He used to leave a gold cup in the town square as proof that no one would dare thieve anything. Despite there being 60,000 people living in abject poverty, the cup was never nicked.

Vlad III Dracula’s hatred of everyone knew no bounds as demonstrated by this tale:

One day Vlad was travelling through the countryside and saw a farmer wearing an incomplete garment. Vlad asked why and the farmer said that his wife had been too ill to finish it. Vlad thought this was a rubbish excuse, had her dragged from her sick-bed and impaled immediately. In 1459 Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire sent a couple of envoys to collect “tribute” from The Impaler Lord, i.e. a tax of 10,000 ducats and 500 recruits for his army. Vlad wanted Wallachia to remain independent and didn’t like giving loads of cash to his enemies. So in a show of brutal defiance he killed the envoys by nailing their turbans to their heads. Ouch.

☛ Next Up: Most Brutal Execution Methods #3: Death By Slow Slicing (NSFW)