50 Fun Facts About Female Rulers

Queen Victoria is credited with popularising which bridal fashion at her 1840 wedding to Prince Albert?

A white dress of silk satin and Honiton lace made Victoria look like a bride rather than a monarch. Other royals had married in white before her, but press coverage of her wedding spread the fashion.

Egypt's famous queen Cleopatra came from a ruling family whose origins lay in which ancient kingdom?

Macedonia was the homeland of Ptolemy, the general of Alexander who founded her dynasty. Her family spoke Greek for generations, and she is the only one of them known to have learned Egyptian.

Which female pharaoh was portrayed with a false beard and built a famous temple at Deir el-Bahari?

Hatshepsut took the full regalia of a king, kilt and beard included, and sent a trading fleet to the land of Punt that came home with live myrrh trees.

Elizabeth II learned of her father's death and her accession in 1952 while staying in which country?

Kenya was only a stopover on a tour bound for Australia and New Zealand. The news reached her at Sagana Lodge, just after a night spent at the Treetops Hotel.

Which former concubine proclaimed her own Zhou dynasty in 690 and became China's only female emperor?

Wu Zetian is the only woman in Chinese history to take the title huangdi, the one the emperors used. Her dynasty began and ended with her, and the Tang returned in 705.

Margrethe II of Denmark illustrated which fantasy epic under the pseudonym Ingahild Grathmer?

The Lord of the Rings drawings she sent to Tolkien in the early 1970s struck him as close to his own style. They were later used in Danish editions of the book.

Catherine the Great seized the Russian throne in 1762 by overthrowing which emperor, her own husband?

Peter III had ruled for only six months when the coup removed him, and he died eight days later. Catherine, a German-born princess, went on to reign for 34 years.

Which queen of the Iceni led a revolt against Roman rule around AD 60 and burned Londinium?

Boudica led the Iceni and other British tribes, and her army destroyed Colchester and Verulamium as well before the Roman governor defeated it.

Margaret Thatcher's nickname, the Iron Lady, was coined by an army newspaper in which country?

The Soviet Union's army paper Red Star used the name in a headline about her hard line on Moscow. Thatcher embraced it a week later, comparing it to Wellington's nickname, the Iron Duke.

Liliʻuokalani, deposed in 1893 in a coup backed by US Marines, was the last monarch of which kingdom?

Hawaii lost its only reigning queen after she tried to restore royal powers with a new constitution. She also composed the farewell song Aloha ʻOe.

Elizabeth I of England was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and which of his six wives?

Anne Boleyn was beheaded when her daughter was not yet three. Elizabeth still came to the throne at 25 and held it for 44 years without ever marrying.

Isabella I of Castile and her husband Ferdinand financed which explorer's first voyage across the Atlantic?

Christopher Columbus sailed in the year the couple took Granada, ending the long Reconquista. Isabella held the crown of Castile herself and was never merely Ferdinand's consort.

Maria Theresa, the only woman to rule the Habsburg lands, was the mother of which queen of France?

Marie Antoinette, born Maria Antonia, was her youngest daughter. Maria Theresa wrote to her every fortnight, scolding her for laziness and frivolity.

Cleopatra's eldest son, who reigned beside her as Ptolemy XV, was fathered by which Roman leader?

Julius Caesar had no other known son, and the boy was nicknamed Caesarion, meaning little Caesar. Cleopatra's twins, born some years later, were acknowledged by Mark Antony.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Queen of Sheba travels to Jerusalem with a caravan of gifts to visit which king?

Solomon and the queen had a son, Menelik, in Ethiopian tradition, and Ethiopia's royal dynasty claimed descent from him.

In Greek and Roman legend, Queen Dido fled her tyrannical brother and founded which North African city?

Carthage began, the story goes, with a trick: offered only as much land as an oxhide could cover, Dido cut the hide into fine strips and ringed a whole hill with them.

Wilhelmina, first of three Dutch queens in a row, made her World War II radio broadcasts from which city?

London was the home of Radio Oranje, whose broadcasts made her a symbol of resistance. Her daughter Juliana and granddaughter Beatrix followed her, so the country had no king from 1890 to 2013.

The pope treated Empress Irene's Byzantine throne as vacant in 800 and crowned which Frankish king emperor?

Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day on the pretext that a woman could not hold the title alone. Irene had been sole ruler since 797, after years as regent for her son.

Catherine the Great of Russia began buying paintings in 1764, founding the collection of which museum?

The Hermitage started with canvases bought from a Berlin merchant, Rembrandts among them. In her day it was a private retreat, and few people were allowed to see what it held.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, a reigning duchess and queen of two kingdoms, was the mother of which crusader king?

Richard the Lionheart left her to govern as regent during his long absences. Her husband Henry II had earlier kept her imprisoned for backing their sons' revolt against him.

Jadwiga was crowned in 1384 with the title of king, not queen, of which country?

Poland crowned her as king while she was still a child, to stress that she was sovereign and not a consort. Her elder sister had been crowned king of Hungary in the same way.

Tamar, styled king of kings in the medieval chronicles, presided over the golden age of which country?

Georgia's first woman to rule in her own right was called mepe, the word for a king, to set her apart from royal wives, who were called dedopali.

Which French philosopher died in Stockholm in 1650 after Queen Christina of Sweden summoned him to tutor her?

René Descartes had to give his lessons at five in the morning and caught pneumonia within months. Christina later gave up her throne, became a Catholic and settled in Rome.

Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba spent decades resisting which European power in what is now Angola?

Portugal declared war on her kingdom in 1626 and drove her into exile, but she fought on, later joining forces with the Dutch after they captured Luanda.

Empress Dowager Cixi, who began as a concubine, controlled the government of which Chinese dynasty until 1908?

Qing rule was steered by her as regent from 1861, first for her young son and then for the nephew she put on the throne. The dynasty collapsed within four years of her death.

Theodora, a former actress, became empress and adviser to which Byzantine emperor, builder of Hagia Sophia?

Justinian I had her crowned beside him in 527, and she played a crucial part in putting down the Nika riots that threatened his throne five years later.

Zenobia annexed Egypt and defied Rome in the third century as queen of which desert city in Syria?

Palmyra's queen was besieged in her capital and captured by the emperor Aurelian in 272. By most accounts he took her to Rome, where she spent the rest of her life.

Lady Jane Grey, proclaimed England's monarch in July 1553 and quickly deposed, is remembered by which nickname?

The Nine Days Queen was a teenager whom the dying Edward VI named as his heir to keep his Catholic half-sister off the throne. She was beheaded the following year.

Which monarch inherited her throne at six days old and was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587?

Mary, Queen of Scots, spent more than eighteen years as a captive in England before she was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I.

Which term describes a woman who reigns as monarch in her own right, as opposed to the wife of a king?

Queen regnant means a sovereign with all the powers of the crown. A queen regent, by contrast, only governs in place of a monarch who is a child or away from the realm.

Razia, a daughter of Sultan Iltutmish, took the throne in 1236 as the only woman to rule which sultanate?

Delhi had been left in her hands once before, when her father went away on a military campaign. She held the throne for under four years and was deposed in 1240.

Cheomseongdae, built under Queen Seondeok of Silla in seventh-century Korea, is what kind of structure?

An observatory whose name means star-gazing tower, it is the oldest still standing in Asia. Seondeok was Silla's first reigning queen.

Which daughter of Henry I fought her cousin Stephen for the English crown in the civil war called the Anarchy?

Empress Matilda captured Stephen in 1141, but hostile crowds drove her out before she could be crowned. She later escaped a siege at Oxford by crossing the frozen Thames at night.

Margaret I joined Denmark, Norway and Sweden under one crown in 1397 by founding which alliance?

The Kalmar Union, named for the Swedish town where it was agreed, held the Scandinavian kingdoms together for over a century.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first female prime minister in 1960, leading which island nation?

Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, turned to her the year after her husband, the prime minister, was assassinated. She went on to hold the office three times.

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became the world's first elected woman president in 1980 in which country?

Iceland kept her in office for 16 years. She had been a theatre director, and in 1972 she became the first single woman in her country to adopt a child.

Indira Gandhi, no relation to Mahatma Gandhi, was the daughter of which first prime minister of India?

Jawaharlal Nehru took her on his foreign trips as his official hostess. Her famous surname came from her husband, Feroze Gandhi, and she led the country herself for some fifteen years.

Which early Frankish legal code is best known for excluding women from inheriting thrones, as France long did?

Salic law was compiled around 500 under the Frankish king Clovis. In its own day it only kept women from ancestral land, and a later king amended it so that daughters could inherit when there were no sons.

Benazir Bhutto became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim-majority country as prime minister of which nation?

Pakistan elected her at 35, which also made her the youngest prime minister in the world at the time. Her father, a former leader of the country, had been ousted in a coup and hanged.

Isabel Perón, once a nightclub dancer, became the world's first woman president in 1974 in which country?

Argentina's vice-president at the time, she took over when her husband, Juan Perón, died in office. She was not elected to the top job, and the first woman to win a presidency came six years later.

Æthelflæd, who ruled Mercia and captured Derby from the Vikings, was the eldest child of which king of Wessex?

Alfred the Great's daughter ruled as Lady of the Mercians from 911 and extended his network of fortified towns. Derby, which her army took in 917, was the first of the Danelaw's Five Boroughs to fall.

Golda Meir, Israel's first female prime minister, grew up and trained as a teacher in which American city?

Milwaukee became her home as a child, after her family left Kiev in the Russian Empire. She trained as a teacher there and embraced the Labor Zionist movement as a young woman.

Angela Merkel, the first woman elected chancellor of Germany, earned a doctorate in which scientific field?

Quantum chemistry kept her busy as a research scientist in East Germany until 1989. She was also the first chancellor of the reunified country to have grown up in the east.

Which 1713 edict of Emperor Charles VI let his daughter Maria Theresa inherit the Habsburg lands?

The Pragmatic Sanction took her father years of diplomacy to get recognised abroad. Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria and France all repudiated it the moment he died, and she had to fight an eight-year war.

Herodotus says Tomyris, queen of the Massagetae, defeated and killed which founder of the Persian Empire?

Cyrus the Great had first asked to marry her, hoping to gain her kingdom that way. She saw through the offer and refused, so he invaded, and the campaign cost him his life.

Lakshmibai, a leader of the 1857 rebellion against British rule, was the queen of which Indian princely state?

Jhansi was annexed by the East India Company, which refused to recognise the heir her dying husband had adopted. She died in battle near Gwalior the year after the uprising began.

The Spanish Armada that Elizabeth I's navy defeated in 1588 was sent by which king, once her brother-in-law?

Philip II had been king of England for four years as the husband of Elizabeth's half-sister, the previous queen. He stayed on friendly terms with Elizabeth at first, before the two countries slid into war.

Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to celebrate which jubilee, for 70 years on the throne?

Platinum jubilees had never been reached by any earlier British monarch. Victoria, the previous record holder, got as far as a Diamond Jubilee for her 60 years in 1897.

The Trưng sisters led a rebellion against Chinese rule in AD 40 and ruled for three years in which country?

Vietnam honours the two as national heroines, and the elder, Trưng Trắc, is counted as the country's first female monarch.

Ranavalona I spent 33 years keeping European powers and missionaries out of which island kingdom?

Madagascar's queen worked to cut political and trade ties with Europe and to stamp out the island's young Christian movement, which British missionaries had started under the previous king.