This week's 
Theodora was born into a family of entertainers. Her father was a bear trainer and her mother was a dancer and an actress. She was believed to be born the year 500 AD in Syria, hundreds of miles away from the then capital of the empire, Constantinople. At the age of four, her father died and her and her sisters were put to work as actresses by her mother, moving to the capital. From then Theodora moved from place to place as an actress, entertainer, and as a sex worker. Through her work and travels she befriended and betrothed to men who had some power within the empire, eventually getting the attention of an informant of her soon to be husband Justinian. By the time she was 25, she had married the most powerful man west of India.
Together, Justinian and Theodora ruled as a team. Justinian was a brilliant man who had a mind for military, practicality, strategy, and law. Theodora was the iron will behind most, if not all of Justinian's direct actions as emperor. During the Nika Riots in 532 Justinian was preparing to give way to the rioter's demands and abandon his position as emperor. As he and his advisers were preparing to leave, Theodora gave the motivational speeches to end all motivational speeches:
My lords, the present occasion is too serious to allow me to follow the convention that a woman should not speak in a man’s council. Those whose interests are threatened by extreme danger should think only of the wisest course of action, not of conventions. In my opinion, flight is not the right course, even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a person, having been born into this world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be a fugitive. May I never be deprived of this purple robe, and may I never see the day when those who meet me do not call me empress. If you wish to save yourself, my lord, there is no difficulty. We are rich; over there is the sea, and yonder are the ships. Yet reflect for a moment whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you would not gladly exchange such safety for death. As for me, I agree with the adage that the royal purple is the noblest shroud.
(William Safire, „Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History“, Rosetta Books)
Justinian pulled up his socks and snuffed out the rebellion, allowing for the two of them to reshape Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire into what is now considered as Rome's last hurrah before it faded into Byzantia obscura. This is why I chose Theodora. After the riots, the two rulers went on to reform and condense what had become of Roman law to a few dozen volumes, laying a foundation of what our legal systems are based off of today. Without Theodora, we would still be scaling our witches with ducks and strange women lying in ponds distributing swords would be a basis for a system of government.
In addition to her achievement of making her husband do things, she also fought for things like women's rights, and making it illegal for prostitution to be forced on another, expanded the rights of women as property owners after a divorce or death, made it illegal to kill a wife who had been adulterous, and propositioned for death to be the penalty for rape. She was a ruler that showed she cared for her subjects by protecting those that were most vulnerable.
It should also be noted that after Theodora's death, Justinian never put any more useful laws into effect.
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