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Retrieved September 19, 2013
Dark Lord (magical): Voldemort (Tom Marvolo Riddle)
Tom Marvolo Riddle, otherwise known as "Lord Voldemort", "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", and "You-Know-Who" (the later two due to a magical protection, called a taboo, he put on the name "Voldemort"), was a Dark Lord in the United Kindom in the mid-to-late twentieth century (active 1961 through 1981). He was born on December 31, 1926 in London, and was killed in a magical backlash on October 31, 1981 in Godric's Hallow, Herefordshire. While the exact cause of his death is unknown, two competing theories were established in the 1980s, both linked to his final victim, Lily Evans Potter, and her son, Harry Potter. Due to the Statute of Secrecy many of Riddle's victims during his twenty year terrorist campaign were attributed to non-magical terrorists. While Riddle did little to grow his power base beyond Great Britain, unlike many Dark Lords before him, it is widely believed that, had he not been defeated when and how he was, he was years away from taking over the magical government of the United Kingdom, and from there the mundane government.
Riddle's followers were called Death Eaters, and were predominantly from the children of the magical aristocracy of the United Kingdom. That he was able to convince those already having great power that he could give them more in his own quest for power is an example of his infamous charisma. Riddle marked his Death Eaters with a magical tattoo called the Dark Mark, which in addition to identifying his followers, also served as a secure message delivery method and is rumored to transfer some of the marked follower's magical power to Riddle, though these claims are not generally accepted.
While Riddle was ultimately unsuccessful in his goals, he remains famous as the last Dark Lord in the Western World before the repeal of the Statute of Secrecy less than twenty years after his death.