Maria Theresa of Austria

Maria Theresa was the sole female sovereign in the six-hundred-year history of the House of Habsburg, ruling as Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, and Duchess of Parma. When she ascended the throne in 1740 at age twenty-three under her father's Pragmatic Sanction, neighboring powers—led by Frederick the Great of Prussia—invaded her territories, expecting the young woman to collapse in the War of the Austrian Succession.

Instead, Maria Theresa rode to Pressburg (Bratislava), holding her infant son Joseph before the Hungarian Diet and winning the passionate military devotion of the Hungarian nobility. Through resolute courage and political shrewdness, she defended her inheritance. Guided by Chancellor Kaunitz, she orchestrated the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, allying with historic rival France against Prussia. A maternal yet iron-willed reformer, she mandated compulsory primary education, abolished judicial torture, taxed the nobility, transformed Schönbrunn Palace, and gave birth to sixteen children, including Marie Antoinette and future emperors Joseph II and Leopold II.