39 Facts About Osama Bin Laden, The World’s Most Infamous Terrorist

Published August 15, 2021
Updated August 19, 2021

These fascinating Osama Bin Laden facts lay bare the founder of Al-Qaeda and the mastermind of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

At the start of the 21st century, no one left an imprint on the collective human psyche like Osama Bin Laden.

The son of a billionaire construction magnate, Bin Laden turned his back on the opulent lifestyle of his family and embraced a radical interpretation of Islam that led him to organize attacks against the United States and its allies on almost every continent across the globe.

After masterminding September 11th, the deadliest terrorist attack in history, bin Laden spent a decade successfully evading a global coalition. He was eventually tracked down and killed at a safe house in Pakistan in 2011, but not before he unleashed a virulent strain of terrorism that continues to plague the world.

Below, we look at thirty-nine fascinating Osama bin Laden facts that reveal the man who made Al Qaeda a household name:

For an encapsulating look at how Osama bin Laden was tracked and killed, watch this HBO documentary Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden, which details the CIA's pursuit of bin Laden over the course of two decades:


After learning these Osama Bin Laden facts, take a look at Afghanistan before the Taliban, and for more on some of history's most infamous individuals, see our gallery of Pablo Escobar facts.

author
Alexander Baldwin
author
Alexander is a cofounder of All That's Interesting with an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in History and Economics and an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Economics.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
Based in Brooklyn, New York, John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of expertise include modern American history and the ancient Near East. In an editing career spanning 17 years, he previously served as managing editor of Elmore Magazine in New York City for seven years.
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Baldwin, Alexander. "39 Facts About Osama Bin Laden, The World’s Most Infamous Terrorist." AllThatsInteresting.com, August 15, 2021, https://allthatsinteresting.com/osama-bin-laden-facts. Accessed September 2, 2025.