The killing jar was introduced in the 1850s, after the royal physician used chloroform to ease the delivery of Queen Victoria's eighth child, and net-wielding country vicars across Great Britain realized they could amass their collections of marbled whites and Camberwell beauties without overt violence.

NPR: Excerpt: 'At Large and At Small'

On a quick gallop round Europe's courts over eight centuries, she does indeed turn up a galaxy of formidable female rulers, from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Russia's Catherine the Great (though Britain's Queen Victoria gets no mention).

ECONOMIST: Women in chess