Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: Who was Elizabeth the Great?
Elizabeth Petrovna () ( – ), also known as Yelisaveta or Elizaveta, was the Empress of Russia from 1741 until her death. She led the country during the two major European conflicts of her time: the War of Austrian Succession (1740–48) and the Seven Years' War (1756–63).
On 25 October 1154, Henry became king of England. Eleanor was crowned queen of England by the archbishop of Canterbury on 19 December 1154. She may not have been anointed on this occasion, however, because she had already been anointed in 1137. Over the next 13 years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan. John Speed, in his 1611 work "History of Great Britain", mentions the possibility that Eleanor had a son named Philip, who died young. His sources no longer exist, and he alone mentions this birth.
Peter the Great had two wives, Yevdokiya Lopukhina (the daughter of a minor noble) and Marfa Skavronskaya (a Lithuanian peasant, renamed Catherine after her conversion to Orthodoxy). Catherine I's rise through Peter I's Table of Ranks from a simple peasant to empress, embodied the Petrine spirit, making it seem as though Peter I literally “created” her. With the help of Aleksandr Menshikov (her advisor, ex-lover and leader of the palace guards), she gained the throne by emphasizing this connection to Peter I and her maternal nature. Due to her poor health, Menshikov did much of the ruling. With Catherine I's blessing, he created the Supreme Privy Council, which consisted of six or so members. It ultimately took over most of the functions of the Ruling Senate (an advisory body founded by Peter I to oversee judicial, financial and administrative affairs) Almost immediately, Catherine I appointed Peter II, the grandson of Peter the Great, as her successor and she died after only two years of ruling.
Elizabeth Blackwell (February 3, 1821 – May 31, 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Elizabeth Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social and moral reformer. She acted as a pioneer in promoting the education of women in medicine. Elizabeth Blackwell's contributions remain celebrated through an Elizabeth Blackwell medal that is awarded to one woman every year who has added to the cause of promoting women in medicine. Furthermore, Hobart and William Smith College recently created a statue on their campus honoring Elizabeth Blackwell.
After being appointed by Queen Elizabeth II on 13 July 2016, May became the United Kingdom's second female Prime Minister, after Margaret Thatcher, and the first female UK Prime Minister of the 21st century. May told the media on 11 July 2016 that she was "honoured and humbled" to be the party leader and to become prime minister.
The standard title for monarchs from Æthelstan until John was ' ("King of the English"). Canute the Great, a Dane, was the first to call himself "King of England". In the Norman period ' remained standard, with occasional use of ' ("King of England"). From John's reign onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of ' or "". In 1604 James I, who had inherited the English throne the previous year, adopted the title (now usually rendered in English rather than Latin) "King of Great Britain". The English and Scottish parliaments, however, did not recognise this title until the Acts of Union of 1707.
Though he expressed the conventional fears of the danger from the Turks, Gregory XIII's attentions were more consistently directed to the dangers from the Protestants. He also encouraged the plans of Philip II to dethrone Elizabeth I of England (reigned from 1558–1603), thus helping to develop an atmosphere of subversion and imminent danger among English Protestants, who looked on any Catholic as a potential traitor.
Pirate historians of the first half of the 20th century occasionally adopted Fiske's term "Golden Age," without necessarily following his beginning and ending dates for it. The most expansive definition of an age of piracy was that of Patrick Pringle, who wrote in 1951 that "the most flourishing era in the history of piracy ... began in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and ended in the second decade of the eighteenth century." This idea starkly contradicted Fiske, who had hotly denied that such Elizabethan figures as Drake were pirates.
Jane Seymour (c. 150824 October 1537) was Queen of England from 1536 to 1537 as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of her only child, a son who became King Edward VI. She was the only one of Henry's wives to receive a queen's funeral, and his only consort to be buried beside him in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Elizabeth Ashurst Biggs (1838 – 21 November 1905) was an English novelist and advocate for women's rights and anti-slavery.
The eldest granddaughter of the prominent British radical lawyer William Henry Ashurst, she was born in Leicester, Leicestershire in 1838. She was the daughter of Matilda Ashurst Biggs (1818–1866) and hosier Joseph Biggs (1809–1895), the brother of MP William Biggs. The family spent her early years in Leicester. She was close with her mother's family who remained in London. In 1841, her aunt Eliza Ashurst wrote of Elizabeth Ashurst Biggs' early political education to a friend in America. She gave the child a penny for her to donate "to help 'knock down the Corn Laws, and give poor people cheap bread' — which she learned and repeated with great pathos." When a toddler is encouraged to participate in politics, especially a girl in a country that did not foresee a time when women would be allowed to vote, it is not surprising that she would grow up to become civic-minded and engaged in national and international affairs.
Æthelstan is regarded as the first King of England by some modern historians. Although it was Eadred who would achieve the final unification of England by the permanent conquest of Viking York, Æthelstan's campaigns made this success possible. His nephew Edgar called himself King of the English and revived the claim to rule over all the peoples of Britain. Simon Keynes argued that "the consistent usages of Edgar's reign represent nothing less than a determined reaffirmation of the polity created by Æthelstan in the 930s". Historian Charles Insley, however, sees Æthelstan's hegemony as fragile: "The level of overlordship wielded by Æthelstan during the 930s over the rest of Britain was perhaps not attained again by an English king until Edward I." George Molyneaux argues that:
The Kingdom of the Picts just became known as Kingdom of Alba in Gaelic, which later became known in Scots and English as "Scotland"; the terms are retained in both languages to this day. By the late 11th century at the very latest, Scottish kings were using the term "rex Scottorum", or King of Scots, to refer to themselves in Latin. The Kingdom of Scotland was merged with the Kingdom of England to form a single Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. Thus Queen Anne became the last monarch of the ancient kingdoms of Scotland and England and the first of Great Britain, although the kingdoms had shared a monarch since 1603 (see Union of the Crowns). Her uncle Charles II was the last monarch to be crowned in Scotland, at Scone in 1651. He had a second coronation in England ten years later.
Local history holds that, around 960, a Jewish Queen named Yodit (Judith) or "Gudit" defeated the empire and burned its churches and literature. While there is evidence of churches being burned and an invasion around this time, her existence has been questioned by some modern authors. Another possibility is that the Aksumite power was ended by a southern pagan queen named Bani al-Hamwiyah, possibly of the tribe al-Damutah or Damoti (Sidama). It is clear from contemporary sources that a female usurper did indeed rule the country at this time, and that her reign ended some time before 1003. After a short Dark Age, the Aksumite Empire was succeeded by the Agaw Zagwe dynasty in the 11th or 12th century (most likely around 1137), although limited in size and scope. However, Yekuno Amlak, who killed the last Zagwe king and founded the modern Solomonic dynasty around 1270 traced his ancestry and his right to rule from the last emperor of Aksum, Dil Na'od. It should be mentioned that the end of the Aksumite Empire didn't mean the end of Aksumite culture and traditions; for example, the architecture of the Zagwe dynasty at Lalibela and Yemrehana Krestos Church shows heavy Aksumite influence.
Edward the Elder was succeeded by his son Æthelstan, who Simon Keynes calls the "towering figure in the landscape of the tenth century". His victory over a coalition of his enemies – Constantine, King of the Scots, Owain ap Dyfnwal, King of the Cumbrians, and Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin – at the battle of Brunanburh, celebrated by a famous poem in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", opened the way for him to be hailed as the first king of England. Æthelstan's legislation shows how the king drove his officials to do their respective duties. He was uncompromising in his insistence on respect for the law. However this legislation also reveals the persistent difficulties which confronted the king and his councillors in bringing a troublesome people under some form of control. His claim to be "king of the English" was by no means widely recognised. The situation was complex: the Hiberno-Norse rulers of Dublin still coveted their interests in the Danish kingdom of York; terms had to be made with the Scots, who had the capacity not merely to interfere in Northumbrian affairs, but also to block a line of communication between Dublin and York; and the inhabitants of northern Northumbria were considered a law unto themselves. It was only after twenty years of crucial developments following Æthelstan's death in 939 that a unified kingdom of England began to assume its familiar shape. However, the major political problem for Edmund and Eadred, who succeeded Æthelstan, remained the difficulty of subjugating the north. In 959 Edgar is said to have "succeeded to the kingdom both in Wessex and in Mercia and in Northumbria, and he was then 16 years old" (ASC, version 'B', 'C'), and is called "the Peacemaker". By the early 970s, after a decade of Edgar's 'peace', it may have seemed that the kingdom of England was indeed made whole. In his formal address to the gathering at Winchester the king urged his bishops, abbots and abbesses "to be of one mind as regards monastic usage . . . lest differing ways of observing the customs of one Rule and one country should bring their holy conversation into disrepute".
With Henry VII's accession to the throne in 1485, the Wars of the Roses came to an end, and Tudors would continue to rule England for 118 years. Traditionally, the Battle of Bosworth Field is considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England, although Henry did not introduce any new concept of monarchy, and for most of his reign his hold on power was tenuous. He claimed the throne by conquest and God's judgement in battle. Parliament quickly recognized him as king, but the Yorkists were far from defeated. Nonetheless, he married Edward IV's eldest daughter Elizabeth in January 1486, thereby uniting the houses of York and Lancaster.
After the fall of the Spanish Republic many Republican exiles sought refuge in France, including the Roussillon which is part of the called Northern Catalonia. Many died of malnutrition, disease and other afflictions. Many pregnant woman were destined to lose their unborn children, or worse, die in childbirth. Elisabeth had arrived in Madrid on April 24, 1937 as a volunteer as part of an aid team but had relocated to the South of France. Appalled by the situation of mothers and children amongst the refugees, Elizabeth decided to convert an abandoned mansion in Elne (adjacent to Argelès-sur-Mer) into a maternity home.
The Edwardian War was the first phase of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. It was named after King Edward III of England, who claimed the French throne in defiance of King Philip VI of France. The dynastic conflict was caused by disputes over the French feudal sovereignty over Aquitaine and the English claims over the French royal title. The Kingdom of England and its allies dominated this phase of the war.
The Elizabeth Bishop House, also known as the Bulmer House, is an historic single-family house that today is used as an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia. The house is associated with Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Bishop who in her youth lived in the house each summer with her maternal grandparents, William Brown Bulmer and Elizabeth (Hutchinson) Bulmer. Bishop based many of her stories (such as "In the Village") and poems (such as "Filling Station") on aspects of Great Village and Nova Scotia. Although the Bulmers bought the property in 1874, it is not known when it was built. On May 21, 1997, the Bulmer House was recognized as a Nova Scotia Provincially Recognized Heritage Site for its connection to Elizabeth Bishop and her writings as well as for its architectural significance; it is a good example of a typical -storey Classical Revival dwelling dating from between 1800 and 1850, a type common to rural Nova Scotia.
Suleiman I ( '; or '; 6 November 1494 – 6 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Kanunî Sultan Süleyman (; "The Lawgiver Suleiman") in his realm, was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566. Under his administration, the Ottoman state ruled over 15 to 25 million people.
The death of their only child worsened the relationship between Carol and Elisabeth and they did not have any further children. In 1875, Karl Storck created a bust of the sleeping princess which was erected by her tomb. This bust inspired Elisabeth to write many emotional poems. When Queen Elisabeth died in 1916, according to her wishes, her daughter's remains were exhumed and the casket placed on her coffin for the public procession. Mother and daughter were then buried together in the same tomb at the Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș. At the Elisabeta Palace, one can still see an 1880s style piece of furniture that contains a plaster-mold of the infant princess.
The SS "Great Eastern" was launched in 1858 and was six times bigger than any ship before. She was the third ship designed by Brunel. The "Great Eastern" had six masts as well as coal fired engines driving paddle wheels. It was designed to carry enough coal to travel to Australia and return, and was intended to carry 4,000 passengers (or 10,000 soldiers). Work started on the ship in 1854 but there were many problems in building and launching the ship. After fitting out at Deptford she undertook trials in September 1859 but the heater attached to the paddle engine boilers exploded. As the ship had been fitted with watertight bulkheads she survived and was repaired. Because of the opening of the Suez Canal, she was not used on the Australian route as envisaged but on the Atlantic crossings. Passengers did not like the rolling in storms and she was sold to a cable laying company after only six years. The "Great Eastern" was used to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable and many others subsequently. She was broken up in 1888.
In 2012, to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, David was chosen by BBC Radio 4 as one of the 60 Britons who have been most influential during the 60 years of the Queen's reign. In 2013 her portrait was one of a series of first-class stamps issued to celebrate the centenary of ten "Great Britons". In 2016 an English Heritage blue plaque was erected on her former home at 24 Halsey Street, Chelsea, where she had lived for 45 years: she was the first food writer to receive this form of recognition.
The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely due to the intervention of Sophie's mother, Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Historical accounts portray Johanna as a cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Her hunger for fame centred on her daughter's prospects of becoming empress of Russia, but she infuriated Empress Elizabeth, who eventually banned her from the country for spying for King Frederick of Prussia. The Empress Elizabeth knew the family well: she had intended to marry Princess Johanna's brother Charles Augustus (Karl August von Holstein), who had died of smallpox in 1727 before the wedding could take place. In spite of Johanna's interference, Empress Elizabeth took a strong liking to the daughter, who, on arrival in Russia in 1744, spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with the Empress Elizabeth, but with her husband and with the Russian people. She applied herself to learning the Russian language with zeal, rising at night and walking about her bedroom barefoot, repeating her lessons (even though she mastered the language, she retained an accent). This practice led to a severe attack of pneumonia in March 1744. When she wrote her memoirs, she said she made up her mind when she came to Russia to do whatever was necessary, and to profess to believe whatever was required of her, to become qualified to wear the crown.
Elizabeth Zouche (died after 1552), was an English abbess. She was the last abbess of Shaftesbury Abbey, a Benedictine nunnery founded by Alfred the Great which was one and largest and richest in England. It was she who had to sign the deed of surrender on 23 March 1539 which brought to an abrupt end the 650 year life of the abbey and granted all its property and wealth to Henry VIII.
The great event of Elizabeth's later years was the Seven Years' War. Elizabeth regarded the Convention of Westminster (16 January 1756) in which Great Britain and Prussia agreed to unite their forces to oppose the entry of or the passage through Germany of troops of every foreign power, as utterly subversive of the previous conventions between Great Britain and Russia. Elizabeth sided against Prussia over a personal dislike of Frederick the Great. She wanted him reduced within proper limits so that he might no longer be a danger to the empire. Elizabeth acceded to the Treaty of Versailles, thus entering into an alliance with France and Austria against Prussia. On 17 May 1757 the Russian army, 85,000 strong, advanced against Königsberg.