These children grew up to be people who changed the world enormously. The question must be asked, are villains and heroes born or made? Did fate have a role in the lives of these children? Did they know they were destined for fame and infamy? What events in their young lives influenced what was to come?
Fidel Castro, pictured at 14, was a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. All That Is InterestingHermann Göring, pictured at 14, was a German political and military leader as well as one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party. He achieved the rank of Reichsmarschall, the highest position in the German armed forces. He was second in line to replace Hitler. All that Is InterestingHugo Chavez (right) was a Venezuelan politician and revolutionary who served as the President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. All That Is InterestingJosef Mengele was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Mengele was a member of the team of doctors responsible for the selection of victims to be killed in the gas chambers and for performing deadly human experiments on prisoners. All That Is InterestingNicolae Ceausescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and hence the second and last Communist leader of Romania. All That Is InterestingRichard Nixon, pictured at 14, was the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he resigned from office, the only U.S. president to do so. He had previously served as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953-1961. All That Is InterestingFrancisco Franco, right, was a Spanish general who ruled over Spain as a military dictator from 1939 until his death in 1975. All That Is InterestingJoseph Stalin, pictured at 13, was a Georgian-born Soviet revolutionary and political leader. Governing the Soviet Union as its dictator from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953, he served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and as Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1953. All That Is InterestingKim Jong-un is the Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and has been the Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011. All That Is InterestingSaddam Hussein was President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. In 2003, a coalition led by the U.S. invaded Iraq to depose Saddam, in which U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused him of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having ties to al-Qaeda. All That Is InterestingBenito Mussolini, pictured age 14, was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista; PNF), ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943—constitutionally until 1925, when he dropped all pretense of democracy and set up a legal dictatorship. All That Is InterestingAdolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP), Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer (Leader) of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. All That Is InterestingVladimir Putin, here 7 or 8, is a Russian statesman and the current President of Russia since 7 May 2012, previously holding the position from 2000 until 2008. All That Is InterestingOsama Bin Laden was the founder of al-Qaeda, the organization that was responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States, along with numerous other mass-casualty attacks worldwide. All That Is InterestingBashar Al-Assad is the 19th and current President of Syria, holding the office since 17 July 2000. He is also commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party and Regional Secretary of the party’s branch in Syria. All That Is Interesting
Vladimir Lenin was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. All That Is InterestingChe Guevara, pictured at age 6, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist and a major figure of the Cuban Revolution. All That Is InterestingMao Zedong, pictured at 19, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, poet, political theorist and the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, which he ruled as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. All That Is InterestingKim Jong-il was the leader of North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), from his father’s death in 1994 until his own death in 2011. All That Is InterestingAn undated photo of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. He was first made deputy governor of Riyadh in 1954, at about age 19. IndependentRussian President Vladimir Putin as a young child in Russia in the 1950s. IndependentEight-year-old Justin Trudeau, future prime minister of Canada, feeds pigeons with his father, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau, in Venice in 1980. IndependentJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a child, left, with his family in 1956. His father, Shintaro Abe, was foreign minister between 1982 and 1986. IndependentQueen Elizabeth II, right, practices bandaging with her sister, Margaret, who both joined the 1st Buckingham Palace Company of Girl Guides, in 1943. The two stripes on her uniform indicate that she’s patrol leader. Associated PressFormer US President Bill Clinton on a pony near his childhood home in Arkansas. ReutersBritish Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, then president of the Oxford Union, speaks with Melina Mercouri, Greek minister for culture, in 1986. ReutersBrazil’s Dilma Rousseff, center, in an undated photo with her family. The Senate of Brazil suspended her powers and duties for up to six months in May 2016. IndependentFormer US President Franklin D. Roosevelt with a bow and arrow, circa 1890. IndependentMahatma Gandhi, right, with his brother Laxmidas in 1886. Independent