Queen Victoria

Date of Birth: 24 May 1819.

Victoria (full name: Alexandrina Victoria) was born in Kensington Palace in London. Her father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III, who both died in 1820. Victoria was raised by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in a childhood that she later described as "rather melancholy." Sounds magical.

Victoria inherited the throne at the age of 18, and she later married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840, because it's nice to keep things in the family. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across Europe, earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". Which is a better nickname than "her cousin's wife".

After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and largely vanished from the public eye. However, her popularity recovered in the later years of her reign, which is the longest of any British monarch, or any female monarch in history. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

Victoria's reign, commonly referred to today as the "Victorian era," was a time remembered not only for its massive expansion of the British Empire around the world, but also for its industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military changes within the United Kingdom.