Top 10 leaders facts

Bank robbery. Before the Russian Revolution, Communist paramilitaries were often raising money through robberies and ransom kidnappings. Particularly notable was the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, in which Stalin participated (playing minor role). The robbery resulted in 40 deaths and the theft of 341,000 rubles (equivalent to around US $3.4 million today).

Benito Mussolini. Mussolini (second from left) was captured and executed near Lake Como by Italian partisans. His body was then taken to Milan and hung upside down at a petrol station, the same place that the fascists had displayed the bodies of fifteen Milanese civilians a year earlier after executing them in retaliation for resistance activity.

Mao Tse-Tung. In 1966, all regions across China were ordered to build hundreds of new printing houses to publish the "Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung". The most popular versions were printed in small sizes that could be easily carried and were bound in bright red covers, becoming commonly known in the West as the Little Red Book. The book was printed in about 1 billion copies, which makes its second only to the Holy Bible.

David Ben-Gurion born David Grün (16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of Israel.

Mikhail Gorbachev is a Russian politician, author of perestroika (recreating), glasnost (publicity), uskorenie (acceleration) which purpose was to abolish communism in the USSR and to finish a Cold War. He left his post 25 Dec 1991 what symbolised the end of the almost 70 years of this country's tradition. In Russia, Gorbachev is remembered to have been responsible for destroying an empire. He got the Nobel Prize in 1990. Nowadays he is still active in public life but not taking part in Russian politics.

Pakistan. Noted for her charismatic authority, Benazir Bhutto was nicknamed "Iron Lady" because of her hard line against the trade unions and tough rhetorical opposition to her rivals. In 1988, she became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state.

Georgian. Stalin's original Georgian name was "Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili". The surname means son of Juga, and is derived from Georgian djuga, meaning "steel". This later became the root of his adopted name "Stalin", from the Russian word for "steel".

Karl Dönitz was the last president of the Third Reich and Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy. He authorized Alfred Jodl to sign the act of unconditional surrender that ended World War II in Europe.

Revenge of Queen Anne. Queen Anne's Revenge was a fully rigged ship, most famously used as a flagship by the pirate Blackbeard (Edward Teach). Although the date and place of the ship's construction are unclear, it is believed she was built in Bristol in 1710 and named Concord. Blackbeard used the ship for less than a year,[5] but captured numerous prizes using her as his flagship.

Black Baron. Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (1878-1928) was a Russian officer in the Imperial Russian Army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War. After his side lost the civil war in 1920, he left Russia and became one of the most prominent exiled White émigrés.Wrangel is immortalized by the nickname of "Black Baron" in the marching song The Red Army .