Team Captain Obvious Except For Jimmy Conway picks in the Women Category.
Catherine The Great (1729 - 1796)
I won't pretend to be some great scholar here but I will tell you why I think she was kind of a cool bird. She started climbing the charts to run Russia when she was a teenager. By the time she was about 33 her husband (Tsar Peter III) had been bumped off by her boyfriend and Catherine (who was born in Poland and didn't have a real claim to the throne) took over and kept tooking over for the next 34 years.
Quote:
Catherine II, called Catherine the Great (Russian: Екатерина II Великая, Yekaterina II Velikaya; 2 May [O.S. 21 April] 1729 – reigned as Empress of Russia from 9 July [O.S. 28 June] 1762 until 17 November [O.S. 6 November] 1796). Under her direct auspices the Russian Empire expanded, improved its administration, and continued to modernize along Western European lines. Catherine's rule re-vitalized Russia, which grew ever stronger and became recognized as one of the great powers of Europe. Her successes in complex foreign policy and her sometimes brutal reprisals in the wake of rebellion (most notably Pugachev's Rebellion) complemented her hectic private life. She frequently occasioned scandal — given her propensity for relationships which often resulted in gossip flourishing within more than one European court.
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There has been a persistent rumor for lo these past 213 years since she died that her death was the result of a sexual misadventure with a horse. This is not true but it sure is a weird thing to say.
The niftiest thing about this woman is the legend of the Potemkin Villages. I don't know if "legend" is the right word, but some people think it's a legend, some people think it was based in reality.
Either way, the story goes like this -- One of her pals, a cat by the name of Potemkin, invaded the Crimea on behalf of Catherine and Russia. It was something of a desolate place and maybe didn't look like it was worth the effort. This Potemkin guy had some fake villages mocked up for Catherine and her cronies to gawk at when they drove by having a look at the new territory "they" had conquered. I don't know exactly how they pulled this off, but I picture it like they built something like film sets on the sides of hills and on the riverbanks.
Catherine wasn't stopping to mingle with the local serfs, so it looked like real actual villages as she rode by in her carriage. Far as she could tell, they hadn't taken over an empty wasteland, but a real happening joint. Like I said, this may or may not be true, but I like that story, whether it's true or not. Knowing what we know about politics and politicians (let alone tyrannical foreign women taking over the largest country in the world) it sounds plausible enough.
And further to that -- I went to Disneyland when I was a kid. I saw that Magic Castle and thought "wow, that's a hell of a thing" and then went in and there was a gift shop on the ground floor and a bunch of locked doors. No princesses, no knights, secret passages or dining halls. My sister bought a porcelain rainbow there and dropped it on the concrete half an hour later and started bawling.
Years later when I read about the Potemkin Village I thought "that's what the goddamn Magic Castle was, a Potemkin Village".
At least I got to ride the monorail to the Magic Castle though, and not some stupid old Pumpkin Carriage.