10 Maddest People Ever To Be In Charge Of A Country

Wanting to take over the world is a pretty clear sign of having a screw loose, and few men pursued that goal with as much ruthless determination as Alexander III of Macedon, known to history as Alexander the Great.

Crazy Al became King of Macedon when his dad died in 336 BC at the age of twenty, but that wasn't enough. The city-states of Greece knew better than to deny this conquest-fuelled despot the chance to be in charge, but Greece wasn't enough either. Alexander wanted everything. Everything.

Alexander invaded Persia and defeated everything the Persians threw at him, through the force of not believing he could ever be stopped. He didn't care much about ruling what he conquered, not while there was a whole world out there resolutely refusing to be his. So he kept going until he reached freaking India, whereupon his soldiers, having marched beyond the bounds of the known world, refused to go any further.

Alexander met this disappointment with the most sensible reaction he could muster, which was to go on history's most epic bender and drink himself to death in 323BC. History called him 'Great' instead of 'Mad', perhaps afraid he would come back somehow.