Dictators

Throughout the 1970s, Idi Amin ruled over Uganda with an ironfist as means to make sure he stayed in the spotlight. Mass crimes against humanity, like the ethnic purges, and the harboring of terrorists were meant to anger his former British colonizers and their allies. But as the years passed, his erratic behavior would ultimately prove to be his undoing.

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Growing up in colonial Uganda in the 1930s and ‘40s, Idi Amin chose to embrace his British colonists by joining the British Army. Climbing the ranks, he became a natural choice to lead the Ugandan Army after independence. But as Amin gained power, corruption seeped in. 

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As he continued the family legacy of oppression, Kim Jong-un looked to show the world he was more than just a laughing stock. Not only did he flex his might by allegedly assassinating his half-brother in 2017, but he finally did what his grandfather had dreamed: he obtained nuclear weapons.

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For the first two decades of his life, the world was unaware of the existence of Kim Jong-un. Hidden in the penthouses of Pyongyang and educated in Europe, Kim Jong-Un was introduced to the world as his father's successor in the late 2000s. Any hope of a loosened grip over North Korea would quickly vanish.

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After carrying the legacy of his father into the 1990s, Kim Jong-il took a defensive stance against the world, isolating North Korea from global affairs. The “Dear Leader” kept North Korea armed to the teeth and starving, while his propaganda machine sang his praises. 

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Born in a guerilla camp in the early 1940s, Kim Jong-il seemed destined to take his father's place. Under the grooming of his father, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il experienced a meteoric rise through North Korea's communist ranks before forming the first communist dynasty.

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In the aftermath of the Korean War, Kim Il-sung used propaganda and violence to exert total control of North Korea and its people—transforming it into the most isolated nation on earth.

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We are thrilled to bring you a brand new episode of Dictators today and for the foreseeable future. We thank you for your patience during this unprecedented time.

He rose from anti-Japanese freedom to the leader of a Soviet-led puppet government in North Korea. But just as North Korea gained its independence, Kim Il-sung led the country to the brink of extinction, by dragging it into a costly and destructive civil war against South Korea and the United States.

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If you enjoy the true stories told in Dictators, check out this episode from our series Kingpins: He was the Panamanian politician who ran one of the most successful drug and gun trafficking rings in the world in the 1970s and 80s—until an American coup brought him down.

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