Emperors vs Kings: Who Ruled More

Emperors outranked kings by ruling many peoples at once. Charlemagne revived the title in the West when Pope Leo III crowned him on Christmas Day in the year 800.

Charles V later inherited Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and American colonies, an empire on which the sun never set. Napoleon I took his crown from his own hands in 1804, and Queen Victoria added Empress of India in 1876.

Each profile here shows how the title inflamed ambition, from Peter I of Russia to the last tsar Nicholas II..