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Peter ruled Russia jointly with his brother Ivan V from 1682 - 1696
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Nobility in Peter's family challenged his reforms, and he successfully suppressed these rebellions with increasing his absolutist power
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Peter the Great marries Catherine and she becomes empress of Russia
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Peter and Ivan V were under the regency of Ivan's ambitious sister Sophia from 1682 to 1689
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Peter spent his childhood and early youth in the village of Preobrazhenskoe, not far from Moscow, where he lived with his mother, organized "mock" regiments , learned to sail on sailboats, and only rarely traveled to Moscow for official ceremonies
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Peter was the first Russian monarch to receive an education both in Russia and abroad
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When Ivan V died in 1696, Peter was officially declared Sovereign of all Russia.
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Elizabeth was the daughter of Peter and the second ruler of Russia after Catherine and she was one of his three children to survive into adulthood
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The eldest son from his first marriage, Alexis, was convicted of high treason by his father and secretly executed in 1718
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Peter had never enjoyed the best of health and in the winter of 1723 he began to suffer problems with a blocked urinary tract. In an emergency operation, the blockage was cleared and some four pounds of urine were removed but Peter never truly recovered
