10 Must Brutal Acts Of Revenge In History

8. King Charles IX Of France Had Up To 100,000 People Killed In The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre... Just Because They Had Converted to Protestantism

Down the centuries religion has been one of the main triggers of warfare - as well as atrocities, with the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572 no different.

The French Wars of Religion were at their height during this time and, on the night of August 23-24, 1572, on the eve of the feast of the Apostle Bartholomew, King Charles IX was convinced by his mother (Catherine de' Medici) to brutally assassinate the French Calvinist Protestants known as the Huguenots.

With the Huguenots having turned their back on the Roman Catholic Church in France - and instead created the Protestant Reformed Church of France - during the Reformation, religious tensions arose. With many Huguenots present in Paris for the marriage of the king's sister Margaret to Protestant Henry III of Navarre (soon-to-be King Henry IV of France), up to 5,000 were murdered in the French capital.

King Charles IX also ordered the assassination of many Huguenot leaders - including their military general Admiral Gaspard de Coligny - and quickly the violence spread rapidly around the majority of France, with some estimates suggesting 100,000 Protestants in all were massacred.

If one event highlighted how contentious a topic religion is, then this is surely it - murdering people simply because they had adopted Protestantism seems unnecessary...