-
Mar 1, 1552
Ivan the Terrible
In 1552 the first Tsar Ivan a.k.a Ivan the Terrible crushed the Tartar stronghold of Kazan. St. Basil's Cathedral was constructed under his command to commemorate the invasion of Kazan. Legend has it that after completion of the Cathedral, Ivan had his architect blinded so there would be nothing built like it. -
Feb 1, 1560
St. Basil Cathedral
The Cathedral of Intercession a.k.a St Basil's Cathedral was build from 1555-60. This cathedral was built to capture the Tatar stronghold of Kazan in 1552, which occured on the Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin. -
Peter the Great
Peter began his plan to recreate Russia in the image of Western Europe. He banned the traditional wear for men, intruduced military conscription, established technical schools, replaced the church patriarchy with a holy synod answerable to himself, simplified the alphabet, changed the calender, changed his title, etc. -
Battle of Narva
In November Charles XII reached a village near Narva, with his army he began his unexpected attack on a Russian camp. The Russians had 40,000 men, but they were in poor shape but mentally and physically. Peter the Great had been defeated, losing around 8-10 thousand men, both killed or taken as prisoner -
St. Petersburg
In 1703 Peter the Great made the drastic decision to move the capital from it origin in Moscow to a new city built from the ground up on the Gulf of Finland. Over the course of nine years blood, sweat, and tears went into the completion of St. Petersburg. -
Battle of Poltava
Peter the Great and his army of 42,000 men had defeated Charles XII and his forces of 24,000 in Poltava -
The Battle of Tannenberg
Russian forces were deployed to eastern front under the command of Generals Samsonov & Rennenkampf. Each force had 400,000 men. Rennenkampf's army was set to control the west. Samsonov and his force were to go east and infiltrate the German's Rear. Planning on trapping the German's between Vistula, Masurian Lakes, and the Russian forces. In hopes of victory and an early end to the war. -
The Battle of the Masurian Lakes
The battle of the Masurian Lakes occured in September of 1914. Ludendorff and Hindenburg had seen off Samsonov at Tannenburg, they wanted the second part of the Russian pincer movement in East Prussia defeated - Rennenkampf's First Army. The Germans began the attack on Sept. 7th, by the 9th Rennenkampf was outnumbered 3 to 1, ordered a surrender. -
First Lightning
In a remote location in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan the USSR successfully detonates their first atomic bomb, code namimg it "First Lightning." In order to test the blast affects the Soviet scientists constructed a series of civilian structures in the perimeter of the bomb. Also they had caged animals around the site to examine effects of the nuclear radiation on human-like mammals. -
Spy Plane
On the 1st of May the an unarmed plane was shot down by the Soviet forces. The plane was said to be located 1,200 miles inside the Soviet Union near Sverdlovsk.
