1Dowager Lüi
Empress Dowager Lüi of the Han Dynasty tortured one of her husband's concubines by hacking off her hands and feet, putting out her eyes, deafening her, and forcing her to live in a pigpen sty.
2. Hatshepsut was the most successful female pharaoh of ancient Egypt. But after her death, her successor destroyed her statues to obliterate her memory.
3. Isabel Ingram (Right from image) was an American tutor to Wanrong, the Empress Consort of Puyi, the Last Emperor of China. From age 20, she lived in the Forbidden City, where she taught Wanrong the speech, modes, and manners of the West. The two also tried to look like one another and traded clothes.
4. Queen Soraya Tarzi of Afghanistan fought hard to improve the rights of women in the 1920's. She was also the minister of education for Afghanistan and the first Muslim consort to appear in public with her husband. In 1929, her husband was deposed and all their reforms were undone.
5. The 17th century Swedish Queen Christina surprisingly abdicated her throne. Very bright, and a lover of arts, she almost bankrupt Sweden in her extravagance. Speculators suggest her abdication was a result of her proclivity towards "men's pursuits," wearing men's clothing and refusal to marry.
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6Empress Irene
Empress Irene of the Byzantine Empire, among other things, became empress by winning a beauty contest, after her husband died became the first empress to rule in her own right in Byzantine History, and blinded her own son in order to retain power.
7. At the age of 16, Queen Anne of Romania fled from the Nazi Germans in 1939 and eventually escaped to the United States. She attended college in New York and worked as a sales assistant at Macy’s department store. In 1943, she volunteered for military service in the French Army, where she received the Cross of war.
8. Queen Isabella of France; frustrated, humiliated, and tired of her husband; fled England, tricked him to send their son, invaded England with her lover (enemy and fugitive of her husband), and defeated him.
9. In 1632, a year after the death of Mumtaz Mahal, the Empress consort of the Mughal Empire, her husband emperor Shah Jahan had her body exhumed and brought to Agra. Then he started work on building her a mausoleum. 22 years later the Taj Mahal was finished.
10. Mary, Queen of Scots who was suspected of murdering her husband fled to England for help. Her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, threatened by Mary’s claim to her throne, imprisoned her for 19 years then beheaded her. Elizabeth had no children so Mary’s son ironically became the first king over England, Scotland, and Ireland.
11Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian is the only reigning Empress of China who was the wife of two different emperors. She eventually usurped the throne and ruled through brutal use of murder, betrayal, and secret police forces.
12. Queen Victoria, the matriarch of the British Empire proposed to her future husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha because according to tradition a man couldn’t propose to the queen.
13. Velu Nachiyar was the first queen to fight against the British colonial power in India. After her husband was killed by British soldiers, she raised an army and repelled the British in 1780. She is one of the few rulers who regained her kingdom and ruled it for 10 more years.
14. A Russian queen named Olga buried Nobles alive, burned the royalty, slayed everyone at her husband’s funeral, and set their remaining town on fire, with birds, because they killed her king.
15. Elizabeth of Russia received little education, no one wanted to marry her because her mother was a peasant, and her finacé was murdered. Regardless, when she became Empress of Russia she built the University of Moscow, the Winter Palace, and would pay the dowry of future brides.
16Cleopatra
Cleopatra, while born Egyptian, traced her origins to Greece, may have been more renowned for her intellect than her appearance. She spoke as many as a dozen languages, was well educated and was later described as a ruler “who elevated the ranks of scholars and enjoyed their company.”
17. Empress Kōken of Japan nearly made a Buddhist monk Dōkyō her successor on the throne. This would have broken the line of Japanese monarchs all being descendants of Amaterasu, and completely shifted the Imperial dynasty forever.
18. Dowager Empress Marie, the mother to the last Russian Tsar, was moved from Denmark to St. Petersberg in 2006, 77 years after her death. During the reinterment ceremony, the crowding around the coffin caused a young danish diplomat to fall into the grave.
19. Queen Anne of England was pregnant 17 times. The first time at the age of 18, and the last at the age of 34. She either miscarried or gave birth to stillborn babies. One child died under a year, another at a year and a half, and the oldest died at the age of 11 in 1700.
20. 19th Century Empress Elisabeth of Austria washed her hair with brandy, bathed in olive oil, and slept in a face mask lined with raw veal. She was supposedly considered one of the most beautiful women in Europe.
21Teuta of Illyria
Queen Teuta of Illyria was a warrior queen who oversaw a fleet of hardcore pirates, led armies and navies that conquered cities and islands along the Adriatic coast and forcefully challenged the Roman Republic by declaring piracy legitimate business and killing their diplomatic envoys.
22. In the 1700s, Queen Caroline of Great Britain had smallpox inoculation trialed on six prisoners in return for commuting their death sentences. When this was successful, she inoculated her own children, popularising the process.
23. Queen Elizabeth II once went for a walk near her Balmoral estate with one of her protection officers and met some American tourists who didn’t recognize her. They asked her if she’d ever met the Queen and she said “No”, then pointed to her officer and said, “he has”. They didn’t connect the dots.
24. Iran's Queen Tadj ol-Molouk played an important part in the abolition of the veil in Iran during the reign of her husband. She was the first Iranian Queen to show herself in public when she attended a graduation ceremony in modern clothes with her two daughters, without veils.
25. French queen Marie Antoinette was offered in 1787, a boy from Senegal as a servant but instead of taking him as a servant she adopted him as her son and baptized him as Jean. During the revolution, Jean was separated from the royal family and left by revolutionaries to die on the streets at the age of 10.
