20 Executive Facts About World’s Presidents

Corazon Aquino was the wife of a staunch political opponent against the dictator of the Philippines. Upon the assassination of her husband by the dictator, she ran for president against him, winning and restoring democracy to the Philippines.

In 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an order making beer an alcoholic drink. The law went into effect on Jan 1st, 2013. Before this, any drink under 10% alcohol was considered a soft drink.

Even though he died in 1994, Kim Il-sung remains president of North Korea. The constitution was revised in 1998, declaring him 'Eternal President of the Republic', making North Korea the only necrocracy in the world - a government that still operates under the rules of a dead former leader.

In 1941, Élie Lescot, the President of Haiti declared war on Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. Only Romania bothered to declare war on Haiti in return.

Former Chinese President Yang Shangkun told his doctor before his death that the crackdown on June 4 had been the Communist Party's "most serious mistake in its history, a mistake he couldn't correct but which would eventually be corrected." He had initially opposed the use of force on students.

Seretse Khama was a Botswana monarch who was exiled from his country for marrying a white woman. After his return as a private citizen, he started an independence movement, became a president, and led Botswana to prosperity.

Indonesian President Sukarno ordered a Christian Architect to build the largest Mosque in the country and laid the foundation stone was in 1961. He also ordered it to be built next to a Cathedral and a Church as a symbol of national-religious harmony and tolerance. (Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population).

In 1987, Thomas Sankara (then president of Burkina Faso) was killed in a coup held by Blaise Compaoré. Ten years earlier, they were in a band together called 'Tout-à-Coup Jazz'.

Russia's Vladimir Putin once brought a large dog with him to a round of negotiations with Germany's Angela Merkel, knowing that she had a pathological fear of dogs, in order to gain a psychological edge.

"His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular" was the official title of Idi Amin, who ruled Uganda.