Haman

Haman the Agagite המן האגגי, or Haman the evil המן הרשע) is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. In the story, he is a vizier in the Persian empire under King Xerxes I. When he thinks he has been insulted by Mordecai, a leader of Susa's Jewish community, Haman plans the complete genocide of Jewry. In the process, he builds a proudly ostentatious gallows on which he plans to hang Mordecai specifically. Unknown to Haman, Xerxes' consort Queen Esther, a secret Jewess and the niece of Mordecai, has learned of the plan. Mordecai and Esther concoct a plan which entraps Haman into perjuring himself before the King, leading to his being hanged on the very same gallows he built for Mordecai.

Haman's defeat is celebrated in the popular Jewish holiday of Purim (named after the "lots" Haman used to calculate strategy). This holiday is celebrated annually in March, and often involves pageants and puppets portraying Haman as an exaggerated comic villain.

Secular historians doubt the veracity of the Purim story, as the surviving accounts of Xerxes' inner circle do not mention any figures resembling Esther or Haman. The similarity of Mordecai and Esther to the Babylonians deities Marduk and Ishtar, and Haman's similarity to Ahriman, a Zoroastrian Devil-like figure, may indicate that the story was originally about gods.

Haman in Turtledove's work
Haman's story is referred to in proverbial shorthand by characters in various Harry Turtledove works, who declare that certain traitors and other malefactors will be "hanged higher than Haman." Such proclamations can be found in The Guns of the South, "Must and Shall", The Man With the Iron Heart, "Lee at the Alamo", and several volumes of the Southern Victory series. The phrase was used in famous OTL speeches by Stephen Douglas and Woodrow Wilson, which may have inspired Turtledove's use of the catchphrase.