Frederick the Great

Free-thinker, misanthrope, poet, philosopher, law-maker and soldier. Frederick the Great (r. 1740-1786) was a contradictory man. His conquests made him one of the most formidable and feared leaders of his era. But the king's other -- often ignored -- accomplishments rank him among the ablest statesmen in European history. A patron of artists and intellectuals. Frederick remade Berlin as one of the continent's great capital cities, reformed Prussia's legal system, and strove to match his state's reputation for military ferocity with one for cultural achievement.