6 Queens You Should Know About for Women's Herstory Month
6 Queens You Should Know About for Women's Herstory Month
Ever since March became Women's Herstory Month in the U.S. in 1987, it has been a time to reflect on and share stories about influential women — of which queens are certainly obvious, colorful examples. If the only queens you can name off the top of your head are Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria and "Queen Bey" then peruse this round-up of notable women in charge, presented in no particular order, who range from revered rulers to royal pains:
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Olympias (on the throne 375–316 B.C.E.)
Alexander the Great's mother and queen to Philip II of Macedonia, she was perhaps history's most extreme, and certainly one of the earliest, examples of a helicopter mom. "After Philip was stabbed to death by his jealous male lover — an act that had Olympias’ fingerprints all over it — she arranged for the assassination of Alex’s two siblings from another mother," says Kris Waldherr, author of Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends. In her spare time, she enjoyed worshiping the god Dionysus and dancing with snakes.
Njinga of Angola (1622-1663)
She was the queen of Ndongo, an area around the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo and is considered the "Cleopatra of central Africa" — whose political instincts rivaled those of Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great, according to the first full-length study in English of her life that was just published, Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen by Boston University historian Linda Heywood. According to the new PBS documentary Africa's Great Civilizations, she dressed like a man and insisting on be called "king" — and kept concubines — and yet was still discriminated against by rulers of other countries for being a woman. For example, she negotiated a treaty with the Portuguese on behalf of her brother while sitting on the back of her servant, who crouched on all fours so that she could look the Portuguese in the eye after they refused to get her a chair.
Berenice III (81 BC-80)
"She was the first queen of Egypt to rule without a consort in over a millennium," according to Waldherr. "Though her reign was less than a year, her example inspired her descendant Cleopatra to rule alone." The example was particularly driven home by what happened after Berenice gave in to outside pressure from Rome and married a man to help her rule as her consort: just a few weeks later, he killed her and took the crown for himself.
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http://time.com/4684843/womens-history-6-queens/
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