Wu Zetian

Wu Zetian rose from junior consort to empress at the Tang court, and in 690 she proclaimed her own Zhou dynasty, becoming the only woman in Chinese history to reign as emperor in her own name. She first entered the palace as a consort of Emperor Taizong, became empress to his son Gaozong in 655, and after his death in 683 governed through her sons before taking the throne herself. She made Luoyang her “Divine Capital”, was a generous patron of Buddhism and widened the recruitment of officials through the examinations. In 705, old and ill, she was made to step down, the Tang dynasty was restored, and she died later that year. Traditional historians, writing in a culture that disapproved of women in power, often described her harshly, and her reign is still judged in very different ways.