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During her reign, Catherine the Great greatly expanded the Russian Empire and made it the dominant power in southeastern Europe after her defeat of the Ottoman Empire in two Russo-Turkish Wars in the latter decades of the eighteenth century. In 1780 she established a League of Armed Neutrality which attempted to defend neutral shipping from the British Navy during the American Revolution. She was involved in virtually every major European political event of her time and fostered the expansion of Russia's relations with Japan. Within Russia, she patronized the arts and subscribed to the ideals of the Enlightenment while at the same time strengthening the ties holding Russia's serfs to the land. Catherine died on November 16, 1796, and was succeeded by her son Paul I.
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