German-Russian monarch Catherine of Russia, better known as Catherine the Great was BOTD in 1762. Born in the Kingdom of Prussia (now modern-day Poland) to German nobility, she was sent to Russia in 1744 to marry her cousin, the future Tzar Peter III. The couple ascended the throne in 1762. Six months later she conspired with her lover Count Orlov to have Peter overthrown, and became sole Empress of Russia. During her 34-year reign, she oversaw the expansion and modernisation of the Russian empire, encouraged a renaissance in culture and sciences, and showed relative tolerance to Muslims and other immigrants. She had at least 20 male lovers, most of them her junior, promoting them to powerful positions and then pensioning them off when they became tiresome. She was the frequent target of rumours of her nymphomania, lesbianism and collection of phallic furniture, many of them spread by her nemesis Friedrich the Great. She died in 1796 aged 67 – not after having sex with a horse, as many rumours claimed. Her life and love affairs been portrayed many times, most notably by Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s 1934 film The Scarlet Empress and by Helen Mirren in a 2019 TV series.