Empress Dowager Cixi: The Woman Who Ruled an Empire

Celebrating Women's History Month with a badass a day.

There’s a story that feels like a storm, one of a woman who looked at a world that wanted to silence her and said, “No.” Her name was Empress Dowager Cixi, and she wasn’t just a ruler. She was a force of nature.

Cixi was born in 1835 into a modest Manchu family in China. At 16, she was selected as a concubine for the Xianfeng Emperor, a role that should …