Pol Pot (1925–1998)
Born 1925 CE, died 1998 CE.
Pol Pot (born Saloth Sâr; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian politician, revolutionary, and dictator who ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 until his overthrow in 1979 during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Ideologically a Maoist and Khmer ethnonationalist, Pot led Cambodia's Communist movement, known as the Khmer Rouge, which seized power in 1975 and established a one-party state under the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Over the next four years, the Khmer Rouge perpetrated the Cambodian genocide, in which an estimated 1.5–2 million people died—approximately one-quarter of the country's pre-genocide population. In December 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to remove the Khmer Rouge from power, ending the genocide and establishing a new Cambodian government, with the Khmer Rouge restricted to the rural hinterlands in the western part of the country. He is widely believed to be one of the most brutal despots in modern world history. Born to a prosperous farmer in Prek Sbauv, French Cambodia, Pol Pot was educated at some of Cambodia's most elite schools.
Text from the Wikipedia article Pol_Pot, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.