Legend has it Catherine was intimately involved with one of her prized stallions, with who she often spent a great deal of unsupervised time with. One evening, while attempting to have sexual ...

In 1745, after being received into the Russian Orthodox Church, and changing her name to Catherine, she married Grand Duke Peter, grandson of Peter the Great and heir to the Russian throne.

Potemkin first garnered Catherine’s attention when he was a member of the elite Horse Guards regiment. They grew closer after he helped her during her coup of 1762. Between 1968-1774 he distinguished ...