Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

The only surviving child of King William III, Wilhelmina took the throne at ten in 1890 after her father's death, spending her first years under her mother's regency. She steered the Netherlands through neutrality in World War I and worked through the country's industrial troubles, earning broad popularity while building a fortune that made her the first woman to reach billionaire status in U.S. dollars. The German invasion in May 1940 sent her to Britain, where she set up a government-in-exile and broadcast regularly to occupied Holland, becoming the voice and symbol of Dutch resistance. She returned to a liberated country in 1948 as the lone survivor among the 17 European monarchs who had reigned when she started, then abdicated that September in favor of her daughter Juliana. She spent her final years at Het Loo Palace, where she died in 1962, still regarded - even by Dutch republicans - as the queen who held the line.