1. Two books about the Empress Dowager cast new light on the iconic ruler and controversial historical figure.
2. This courtyard restaurant was once the place where Qing Empress Dowager Ci Xi enjoyed Peking Opera.
3. Every morning Empress Dowager Cixi applied face powder made up of pearls and skin cream made of flower distillate.
4. But his reform failed in a coup launched by the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi, the widow of Emperor Xianfeng and aunt of Guangxu.
5. No doubt the Empress Dowager would've enjoyed puffing away on the opium bed to Mediterranean lounge music.
6. Renamed two years later as Yihe Yuan or the Garden of Health and Harmony, it was supposed to serve as a summer resort for the Empress Dowager Cixi.
7. She was not only the matriarch of this world, she was nearly its dowager empress.
8. Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the shop to produce all the medicines used by the imperial court.
9. The Empress Dowager believed in the potency of martial arts, so she declared war on the whole world.
10. This is the house where the Empress Dowager lived as a girl before she married into the Forbidden Palace.