Rulers & Leaders

Alexander the Great built one of antiquity's largest empires and reportedly never lost a battle he personally led.

Julius Caesar reshaped Roman politics before his assassination by senators on the Ides of March.

Augustus became Rome's first emperor and ushered in roughly two centuries of relative peace across the empire.

Cleopatra ruled Ptolemaic Egypt and formed alliances with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

Genghis Khan united rival Mongol tribes and founded the largest contiguous land empire in history.

Charlemagne united much of Western Europe and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day in the year 800.

Akbar expanded and consolidated the Mughal Empire in India and is remembered for his religious tolerance.

Hammurabi's Babylonian law code, inscribed on a large stone stele, ranks among history's earliest legal texts.

Ashoka embraced Buddhism after a bloody conquest and spread his teachings through edicts carved across his empire.

Saladin recaptured Jerusalem and later faced Richard the Lionheart during the Third Crusade.

Elizabeth I's reign is remembered as a golden age and included England's defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Queen Victoria presided over a vast expansion of the British Empire, giving her name to an entire historical era.

Napoleon crowned himself emperor of France before his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

Catherine the Great ruled Russia longer than any other female monarch and significantly expanded its territory.

Peter the Great modernized Russia into a major European power and founded the city of Saint Petersburg.

Louis XIV reigned longer than any other recorded European monarch and built the vast Palace of Versailles.

Abraham Lincoln led the United States through the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

George Washington became the first US president and set the precedent of stepping down after two terms.

Elizabeth II reigned for over seventy years, longer than any other monarch in British history.

Suleiman the Magnificent reigned longer than any other Ottoman sultan and led the empire at its peak.

Ramesses II ranks among ancient Egypt's most celebrated pharaohs and commissioned the temples at Abu Simbel.

Kublai Khan founded China's Yuan dynasty and hosted the Venetian traveler Marco Polo at his court.

Ivan the Terrible became the first formally crowned Tsar of Russia, ruling through both reform and brutal repression.

Otto von Bismarck engineered German unification and became the new empire's first chancellor.

Mahatma Gandhi led India's independence movement through nonviolent resistance that inspired later civil rights movements.

Nelson Mandela led South Africa's transition away from apartheid and became its first democratically elected president.

Winston Churchill led Britain through World War II and later won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Henry VIII, remembered for his six marriages, broke from the Catholic Church to found the Church of England.

Wu Zetian became the only woman to rule China as emperor in her own right, founding her own short-lived dynasty.

Attila led the Hunnic Empire and was known to Romans by the fearsome title Scourge of God.

Moctezuma II ruled the Aztec Empire when Hernán Cortés and Spanish forces arrived in Mexico.

Shaka built a powerful Zulu kingdom in southern Africa through military reorganization and new tactics.

Haile Selassie reigned as emperor of Ethiopia for decades and came to be regarded as a divine figure by Rastafarians.