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Bizarre: Some of the Modern Era’s Oddest Rulers

Khalid Elhassan January 21, 2025 14 min

Bizarre - The coronation of Emperor Bokassa I — The coronation of Emperor Bokassa I. Wikimedia

4. Hitting on America’s Secretary of State

A creepy womanizer, Gaddafi often hit on female reporters. He frequently met them for interviews in bathrobes or in his underwear. He became obsessed with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and referred to her as his “darling black African woman“. He showered her during a visit to Tripoli with $212,000 worth of gifts, including a lute and a locket with his picture inside. He also saw himself as a fashion icon, and cultivated an odd collection of ensembles and sartorial choices that made him modern history’s most bizarrely dressed ruler. Changing in and out of silly uniforms multiple times a day, Gaddafi was the closest real life depiction of a James Bond baddie. The cartoonish villain look was further enhanced by his all-virgin female bodyguard, officially named the “Revolutionary Nuns”, but known more commonly as the Amazonian Guard.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.