History in Two Minutes - The Butcher from Uganda

Known as "big daddy" to his supporters, A brutal military dictator to others.

"His Excellency President for life, Field Marshall Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of all the Beasts of the earth and fishes of the sea, and conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular"

And yes that is how you formally address him, his said to be responsible for over 250,000 deaths.

Idi Amin, who ruled from 1971-1979 was a polarized figure, after the coup that brought him to power, he was very popular amongst ugandans but he quickly became a thorn in their flesh.

He terrorized and killed his fellow ugandans to the point where the whole country lived in constant fear, homes can be raided at any time and family members could disappear without a trace.

He got rid of the British and the South Asians in his country, whom he felt where products of colonial oppression and saw them as a threat even though the South Asian community were a big part of the Ugandan middle class.

Amin dictatorial paranoia rose, after an international incident involving an hijacked plane and Israeli commandos storming Kampala to rescue the hostages, which pushed him on a killing spree at any hint of disloyalty towards his authority.

However, in 1978, his forces invaded some parts of neighboring Tanzania, whom responded with a massive military onslaught of their own in conjunction with Amin's exiled enemies with the sole goal of removing him from power.

By April 1979, Uganda's capital city, Kampala, was captured and as Tanzanian tanks rolled in, torture Chambers are quickly discovered all around the country with loads of decomposing bodies and piles of skulls in them, laying bare the level of atrocities committed by Amin, earning him the new nickname "the butcher of Uganda".

With the seemingly inevitable fall of his government, he flees and heads into exile in Saudi Arabia, where he spent the rest of his days till his death in 2003.