Catherine the Great

As I'm sure you'll come to realise, I love History. I wonder if you can get that on a T-shirt...Anyway, today I was reading about Catherine the Great from Russia. I think she was a really brave woman. She went to Russia to marry this guy named Peter who was next in line to the Throne, but he turned crazy on her. First he was very handsome and kind[ but very mean to his servants], and then he caught the smallpox during his and Catherine's engagement and his face became hideous and scarred and disgusting. She married him anyway because she was to afraid to say no. He was rude and ignored his wife. She gave birth to his son and didn't even get to see the baby for 6 weeks because the Empress, Peter's mother, whisked the baby away and wanted to raise him herself. The Empress soon died and Peter went even more off his rocker and no one liked him so Catherine plotted to take over the throne. All this while she was pregnant with his second child. Crazy woman.
Anyway in the end Catherine ruled for thirty years. She wasn't the best ruler, and tried to hide from the fact that her peasants were starving but a lot of her subjects loved her.
There is a bit of a history lesson for you.

:]