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The Witch Doctor President and Other Horrific Rulers

Khalid Elhassan December 25, 2019 32 min

18. The Scourge of God

Attila the Hun (406 – 453) was born in the Hungarian Steppe into the Hun royal family, and inherited the crown jointly with his brother Bleda in 434. He ruled a multi-tribal empire that spanned Eastern and Central Europe.

During his reign, 434 – 453, he earned the moniker “The Scourge of God“, as he terrified the civilized world. Attila invaded Persia, terrorized the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, plundered the Balkans, extorted vast sums of gold from Constantinople, and invaded Gaul. Beaten back, he recoiled, then struck into Italy, before drinking himself to death on his wedding night.

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.