Germany

Adolf Hitler, one of the most notorious men of all time, was not only a dictator but also a man who made Germany into a superpower overnight.

Born on April 20, 1889 in the small town of Braunau on the Inn River in Austria, Adolf was the son of an Austrian customs official of moderate means. During Hitler’s early youth in Linz on the Danube, his life seems to have been influenced very little by his father and mother as he usually ran wild. His father died in 1903.

Adolf had a very good performance in elementary school. Soon enough he became rebellious and began failing “realschule,” a preparatory college school. After changing to another school, he withdrew from formal schooling altogether in 1905. In 1907, his mother died and he moved to Vienna to enroll in the famed Academy of Fine Arts. His failure to be able to pay admissions for his first and second year led to him having to quit the school, and sent him into a period of deep depression.

In May 1913, in an atte...