In the very long history of China, it has had exactly one female ruler.

She was a woman who managed against all odds to inch her way closer to power over a period of years,

until she reached a point where she could claim power for herself.

By all accounts she was beautiful, brilliant, cunning, and absolutely ruthless.

Learn more about Wu Zetien, China's only female emperor, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. In the ancient world there were very few female rulers. Rome had absolutely none.

There were no women who ruled Persia, Babylon, Greece, or Assyria.

Egypt did have a few including Het Sephiut, who ruled in her own right, as did Cleopatra.

Celtic and Germanic tribes would sometimes be led by a woman like Queen Budica in Britain.

Likewise, Razzia Sultana ruled the Delhi Sultanate in India in the 13th century.

Usually when a woman amassed a great deal of power in the ancient world, she wasn't the power in name, only in fact.

They may have exercised their power from behind the throne and not on it.

They had husbands or sons who ruled and then they controlled their men.

So how was it that in a civilization like China, which had strict legal and cultural rules preventing women from ruling,

that a woman managed to make it all the way to sit on the imperial throne,

and not just sit on the throne but actually be considered one of the greatest

emperors in Chinese history. Well it took an extremely talented and ambitious woman.

The story of Wu Zetien begins with her birth in 624 during the very early years of the Tang Dynasty. Zetien was born to a father who was a wealthy timber merchant and a Chancellor under the Tang Dynasty.

She was born in the Shanxi region of northern China.

And I should address the issue of her name because it can be confusing.

Wu is the surname of her father which always goes first in Chinese.

Over the course of her life she had several different names and titles that she went by.

To this extent she is a lot like the Roman Emperor Augustus who went by different names throughout his life.

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