Top 18 Leaders in World History

Conquerors sit next to peacemakers here, and the empire-builders do not automatically win.

1. 1
   Nelson Mandela

   Spent 27 years in prison, then led South Africa out of apartheid without reprisals.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Napoleon Bonaparte

   Rewrote European law and the map, then lost both at Waterloo.
   763pts
3. 3
   Queen Elizabeth I

   Ruled England for 44 years and made an isolated island into a naval power.
   680pts
4. 4
   Alexander the Great

   Took an empire from Greece to the Indus before he turned 33.
   624pts
5. 5
   Queen Victoria

   Gave her name to an era and reigned over a quarter of the world's population.
   485pts
6. 6
   Abraham Lincoln

   Held the United States together through civil war and ended slavery within it.
   485pts
7. 7
   Charlemagne

   Crowned emperor in 800, he pulled most of western Europe under one administration.
   485pts
8. 8
   Mahatma Gandhi

   Turned non-violent resistance into a method and led India to independence with it.
   397pts
9. 9
   Simón Bolívar

   Led six South American countries out of Spanish rule and tried to federate them.
   397pts
10. 10
    George Washington

    Won a revolution, then handed power back twice — first the army, then the presidency.
    397pts
11. 11
    Cyrus the Great

    Founder of the Persian Empire, remembered for governing conquered peoples by their own laws.
    397pts
12. 12
    Winston Churchill

    Britain's wartime prime minister, whose broadcasts carried the country through 1940.
    397pts
13. 13
    Genghis Khan

    Built the largest contiguous land empire in history out of scattered steppe clans.
    397pts
14. 14
    Suleiman the Magnificent

    Ottoman sultan for 46 years, known at home as 'the Lawgiver' for rebuilding the legal code.
    397pts
15. 15
    Julius Caesar

    The general whose conquests and assassination ended the Roman Republic.
    291pts
16. 16
    Ashoka the Great

    The Mauryan emperor who renounced conquest after Kalinga and carved his policy into rock.
    0pts
17. 17
    Catherine the Great

    Expanded Russia's borders and its libraries across 34 years on the throne.
    0pts
18. 18
    Franklin D. Roosevelt

    The only US president elected four times, through both depression and world war.
    0pts

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