Historical Figures Who Hated Each Other
Will Smith vs. Chris Rock. Nicki Minaj vs. Megan Thee Stallion. Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar — these modern celebrity beefs may grab headlines, but they pale in comparison to some of history’s most notable rivalries. Long before internet feuds and catty celebrity tweets, high-profile figures were perfecting the art of the grudge — sabotaging rivals, writing scathing letters, and occasionally plotting actual downfalls. Today, a celeb might drop a diss track; back then they may have dueled to the death.
In some cases, these historical feuds were driven by professional rivalries, whether in the realm of scientific discovery, national politics, or literary endeavor. Others were very much fomented by simple personal dislike, sometimes boiling over into open hatred. Here we look at five of history’s most legendary rivalries, proving that genius and competition are in no way mutually exclusive.
Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke
Isaac Newton’s rivalry with fellow scientist Robert Hooke stretched across decades, and scientists are still taking sides more than 300 years later. Following the publication of the first book of Newton’s Principia in 1687, Hooke — who had already criticized the physicist’s earlier work — accused Newton of plagiarism. Newton was notoriously thin-skinned, which didn’t help matters. A bitter feud ensued, and the two men engaged in an open dispute over who first discovered key principles of light and gravity.
In a 1675 letter to Hooke, Newton delivered his now-famous line about “standing on the shoulders of giants,” something many historians believe may have been a subtle jab at Hooke, who was reportedly of short stature. It’s possible that Newton held onto the grudge even after Hooke’s death in 1703. When he became president of the Royal Society, Newton allegedly allowed the only known portrait of his old foe to vanish from its collection — perhaps destroying it himself — in one final blow at his decades-long rival.
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Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr
Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr’s rivalry simmered for more than a decade before reaching a fatal finale. The two men had clashed over politics before, but the feud began to get personal in 1791 when Burr defeated Hamilton’s father-in-law in a New York Senate race. The rivalry grew through repeated political clashes, including the chaotic 1800 election in which Hamilton worked behind the scenes to deny Burr the presidency, despite being no fan of Burr’s rival, Thomas Jefferson.
The animosity finally boiled over in 1804 when a newspaper published a letter in which Charles D. Cooper, a medical doctor of some standing, claimed that Hamilton had called Burr “a dangerous man,” as well as providing a “more despicable opinion” of the politician. Burr, still seething over political losses he saw as at least partially Hamilton’s fault, didn’t take the alleged insults well and challenged Hamilton to a formal duel.
The two men met on July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton fired first but missed — possibly on purpose — before Burr returned fire and fatally wounded his longtime rival, who died the following day. Burr never apologized or showed any remorse following the duel. He was never tried for Hamilton’s death, but his political career was effectively over; in many people’s eyes Burr was a murderer.
Charles Darwin and Richard Owen
Richard Owen — who, among his many other accomplishments, coined the word “dinosaur” — was arguably the most influential biologist and anatomist in Britain during the time of Charles Darwin. He and Darwin started out on cordial terms, but Owen, despite his brilliance, was widely known to be arrogant, snobbish, and highly competitive. Their relationship collapsed after the 1859 publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Owen, despite privately holding some evolutionary views of his own, wrote a scathing, anonymous review attacking Darwin’s theory (and praising his own). Darwin could immediately tell who wrote it and wasn’t at all impressed by the misrepresentation of his work or Owen’s subterfuge. Owen then tried to claim partial credit for discovering natural selection himself.
Darwin, usually mild-mannered in his private correspondence, made an exception for Owen. In an 1872 letter to his closest friend, botanist and explorer Joseph Dalton Hooker, he admitted, “I used to be ashamed of hating him so much, but now I will carefully cherish my hatred & contempt to the last days of my life.” One of the only other creatures Darwin ever expressed such hatred toward was the humble barnacle; after a lengthy and frustrating struggle to classify the crustacean, Darwin declared, “I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before.”
Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky
Joseph Stalin’s hatred of fellow revolutionary Leon Trotsky is one of the defining rivalries of Soviet history. Despite once being nominally part of the same Bolshevik Party that carried out the Russian Revolution in 1917, the two men became bitter enemies as they competed for control after Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924. Stalin gradually outmaneuvered Trotsky politically before becoming the supreme leader of the Soviet Union, at which point he had Trotsky exiled from the Soviet Union entirely.
The rivalry wasn’t simply political — there was great personal animosity, too.As author and historian Josh Ireland writes in his book The Death of Trotsky, “Stalin hated Trotsky’s delicately-balanced pince-nez and sweep of dark glossy hair, his self-confidence, eloquence and authority. Trotsky was repulsed by the Georgian’s pockmarked face, his coarse manners, his provincialism.”
The enmity didn’t end after Trotsky’s exile. Stalin always considered Trotsky a threat, and in 1940, an agent connected to Soviet intelligence assassinated Trotsky in Mexico with an ice axe, bringing the feud to a violent conclusion.
Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer
Writer and intellectual Gore Vidal never shied away from a fight. He squabbled with many notable figures of his day, including Truman Capote (who said of Vidal, “I’m always sad about Gore — very sad that he has to breathe every day”) and the political commentator William F. Buckley Jr., with whom Vidal had some now legendary live TV debates. (In one instance Vidal called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi,” to which the latter responded: “I’ll sock you in the goddamn face.”)
And then there was Vidal’s long-running feud with the novelist Norman Mailer. Sparked by a scathing review Vidal wrote of Mailer’s book The Prisoner of Sex (in which Vidal compared Mailer to the murderous cult leader Charles Manson), tensions boiled over backstage before a 1971 taping of The Dick Cavett Show. In the green room, the two men exchanged slaps before Mailer headbutted Vidal, just moments before they took the stage and continued to insult each other.
The animosity resurfaced again at a 1977 dinner party, where Mailer reportedly threw a glass of whiskey in Vidal’s face, headbutted him, and swung a punch that knocked Gore to the ground, prompting Vidal’s famous deadpan reply, “Once again, words fail Norman Mailer.” The two eventually reconciled years later, but for over a decade theirs was one of the most openly hostile rivalries in American literary circles.
