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These Historic Figures Should Have Been Famous for their Weird Habits

Khalid Elhassan June 22, 2022 37 min

King Farouk, left, with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Imgur

17. For a Medieval Fundamentalist, Osama Bin Laden Sure Kept a Lot of Videos

Habit Facts - Osama bin Laden — Osama bin Laden. Flickr

Osama bin Laden (1957 – 2011), Al Qaeda’s founder, probably history’s best-known terrorist, and the twenty-first century’s most notorious villain (so far – looking at you, Putin), hardly needs an introduction The terror attacks masterminded and carried out by his organization, particularly those of September 11^th, 2001, have seared his name in global, and especially American, memories. Less known, however, is how bin Laden liked to pass his free time when he was not running a virtual terror state.

Apparently, he did not spend all his time issuing fatwas against Jews, infidels, and backsliding Muslims, or declaring and waging Jihad against opponents of his ‘Make Islam Great Again!‘ vision. In 2017, the CIA released over 470,000 files seized from his compound in the 2011 raid that ended him. The contents included about 174 gigabytes of video, 7.4 gigabytes of image files, and 18 gigabytes of assorted documents. As it turned out, bin Laden had some hobbies and interests that stood in jarring contrast to his reputation and image.

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.