Ivan VI Antonovich of Russia was Emperor of Russia in 1740–41. He was only two months old when he was proclaimed emperor and his mother named regent. Scarcely a year later his first cousin twice-removed, Elizabeth, seized the throne in...

Britain's King George III was the 18th century monarch who lost the fight to keep control over the American colonies. The third monarch of the Hanover house and the first to be born in England, he held the throne from 1760 until 1820, a rei...

Dona Maria I was Queen of Portugal from 24 February 1777 until her death in 1816. Known as Maria the Pious in Portugal and Maria the Mad in Brazil, she was the first undisputed queen regnant of Portugal and the first monarch of Brazil. M...

Catherine II of Russia, also known as Catherine the Great, was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. Born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia as Sophie Frie...

Peter III was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was very pro-Prussian, which made him an unpopular leader. He was supposedly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine I...

Victor Amadeus III was King of Sardinia from 1773 to his death. Although he was politically conservative, he carried out numerous administrative reforms until he declared war on Revolutionary France in 1792. He was the father of the last th...

Charles Edward Stuart, commonly known in Britain during his lifetime as The Young Pretender, and often referred to in retrospective accounts as Bonnie Prince Charlie, was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of England, Scotland, an...

Empress Maria Theresa was the first and only female head of the Habsburg dynasty. She was Archduchess of Austria, and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and ruler of other territories from 1740 until her death. She also became the Holy Roman Empr...

Charles III (Spanish: Carlos III; Italian: Carlo III) was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese. In 1731, the fifteen-year-...

Joseph I, The Reformer, reigned as King of Portugal from 31 July 1750 until his death. Among other activities, Joseph was devoted to hunting and the opera. Indeed, he assembled one of the greatest collections of operatic scores in Europe....

Ferdinand VI (Spanish: Fernando VI), called the Learnt, was King of Spain from 9 July 1746 until his death. He was the fourth son of the previous monarch Philip V and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy. Ferdinand, the third member of the S...

Frederick the Great was the Hohenzollern King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786 and is regarded as one of the "enlightened despots" of 18th century Europe. He was highly educated and built his government as a model of efficiency, creating the fi...

William IV, Prince of Orange-Nassau was the first hereditary Stadtholder of all the United Provinces. William was born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, the son of John William Friso, Prince of Orange, head of the Frisian branch of the House o...

The Qianlong Emperor was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796. On 8 F...

Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved (Louis le bien aimé) was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five....