Women Rulers Posters, “C...-”
for the social studies classroom, home schoolers and theme decor.

Catherine the Great
b. 5-2-1729; Poland
d. 11-7-1796; suffered a stroke

Catherine II of Russia is better known as Catherine the Great: she ruled Russia for 34 years and epitomizes the description “enlightened despot”.

Catherine II was born Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst in Poland to minor nobility. When she became wife to the prospective tsar — Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, and despite the intrigues of her social climbing mother, she had made up her mind “to do whatever seemed necessary, and to profess to believe whatever required of her”, in order to become qualified to wear the crown. When her husband was deposed, she was proclaimed Empress.

• Portrait Bust of Catherine the Great, Marie-Anne Collot
• The Memoirs of Catherine the Great

Queen Charlotte
b. 5-19-1744; Mirow, Germany
d. 11-17-1818; Kew Palace

Queen Charlotte, née Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the queen consort of George III under whose reign the Crown lost the Revolutionary War of the American Colonies, and that Great Britain and Ireland joined to become the United Kingdom.

Charlotte was a patron of the arts, having Johann Christian Bach as her music teacher and, at her request, a then eight year old Mozart dedicated his Opus 3 to her. Charlotte was also an accomplished amateur botanist whose work established what has become Kew Gardens, and proved a strong supporter of the health and education of women by establishing orphanages and a hospital for expectant mothers.

Charlotte, as directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese Royal House, has made a rally point for abolitionists.

Charlotte and George were the parents of six daughters in a family of fifteen children, the grandparents (through their son William) of Queen Victoria, and great-great-great-grandparents of Elizabeth II.

• George III: A Personal History

Christina of Sweden
b. 12-8-1626; Stockholm, Sweden
d. 4-19-1689; only one of four women to be buried in St. Peter's Bascilia

Christina of Sweden was the ruler of Sweden from 1632 (age 6) to 1654 when she converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, abdicated the throne and spent the rest of her life in Rome and France devoting herself to art and science (with several forays into exploring the possibility of regaining a crown).

She was noted for her wearing of men's clothes and masculine mannerisms; her father had ordered that she be brought up as a prince since both of her male siblings had died. Mathematician and philosopher René Descartes was one of her tutors.

FYI- The city of Wilmington, Delaware was founded as Fort Christina in the Swedish colony of New Sweden.

• Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric

Empress Dowager Cixi
b. 11-29-1835; China
d. 11-15-1908; Beijing

Tz'u-Hsi ruled China from 1861 to 1908. She had been born into a relatively ordinary family, then selected as a concubine to the Emperor. Having produced the first male child she was able to rise in power, eventually becoming the ruler from “behind the curtain” and identified as the cause of the fall of Imperial rule in China.

• Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China

Cleopatra
b. January, 69 BC; Alexandria
d. 8-12-30 BC; Alexandria, by taking her own life with an asp (venomous snake).

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator was the last pharoah of Ancient Egypt, marking the end of the Ptolemic dynasty in the Hellenistic era and the beginning of the Roman era.

Much struggle and intrigue lead up to Cleopatra securing power in her name alone and she solidified her position by forming a liason with Julius Caesar. (It is told she had herself rolled up in a luxurious rug she was giving to Caesar and when it was unrolled, he was unable to resist the “invitation”.)

When Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March Cleopatra then aligned herself with Marc Antony, a Roman general. Antony was defeated in a Roman civil war and when told that Cleopatra was also dead, he commited suicide. Cleopatra then took her own life by asp (venomous snake).

Cleopatra was a direct desendent of Ptolemy I Soter, the founder of the Ptolemy dynasty in Egypt. Ptolemy I was a close companion and general of Alexander the Great (and also possibly his half brother). Ptolemy is a Greek name, very common among the upper classes of Macedonia.

• Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth