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The Women Who Took the Throne

Across three thousand years in which nearly every civilization reserved power for men, a few women still seized the throne with their own hands. From pharaohs to empresses, from the Nile to the Volga, this trail lines them up — across civilizations and eras, the same nerve.

  1. Step1👸HatshepsutWorld CivilizationsEgypt, 15th century BC: she crowned herself pharaoh, even donning a false beard to fit the title of "king".See this figure →
  2. Step2🐍Cleopatra VIIWorld CivilizationsThe last queen of the Ptolemies, maneuvering among Rome’s strongmen to buy Egypt one more breath.See this figure →
  3. Step3👑Wu ZetianWorld CivilizationsThe only female emperor China broadly acknowledges — she changed the dynasty’s very name and took the throne as her own.See this figure →
  4. Step4🌹Elizabeth IEuropean HistoryThe never-married queen of England who pushed a second-rate island kingdom to the threshold of sea power.See this figure →
  5. Step5👑Catherine the GreatEuropean HistoryA German princess who took the Russian throne by coup and drove the empire to its height.See this figure →

This trail ends here — keep exploring in any universe.