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History’s Top Executioners of All Time

Khalid Elhassan June 5, 2020 34 min

12. A Royal Serial Killer

Korea’s Crown Prince Sado (1735 – 1762) was the son of King Yeongjo, and heir to the throne. He never got to inherit, and is best remembered today as a monstrous serial killer. Sado was the king’s second son, but the first one had died in 1728. For years, the king’s wives and concubines had given him only daughters, and he despaired of ever getting another male heir. When Sado was born in 1735, his arrival was met with widespread rejoicing.

The infant was set up in his own palace with an army of maids, governesses, and servants. However, his father took little part in raising or supervising his upbringing. So Sado was spoiled rotten, and grew up doing whatever he liked. On the few occasions when the king visited, he was highly irritable, and grew angry at even trivial missteps by his son. Sado grew up oscillating between a great fear of his father, and a desperate need to please him.

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.