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Bloody Sunday
Peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard while approaching the city center and the Winter Palace from several gathering points. -
1905 Revolution
A wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. -
Russia enters the First World War
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February Revolution
The first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the capital Petrograd in March (late February in the Julian calendar). Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II -
The Oct ober Revolu tion
It was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917. -
Russian Civil War
A multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviet -
Execution of the Tsar and his family
Tsar and his family were initially kept as prisoners near St. Petersburg and then transported beyond the Ural Mountains finally ending up in the town of Ekaterinburg in the Spring of 1918. During the early morning hours of July 17 the Tsar, his wife, children and servants were executed. -
Death of Lenin
Three days after his death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor, so remaining until 1991 until the USSR dissolved -
First 5 Year Plan
This was intended to improve the efficiency of agriculture and eliminate the "kulak" class of landowners, which was deemed hostile to the Soviet regime. The disruption and repression associated with collectivization was a primary cause of the famine of 1932, which resulted in millions of deaths. -
The Second Five Year Plan
The Second Five-Year Plan gave heavy industry top priority, putting the Soviet Union not far behind the Germans as one of the major steel-producing countries of the world.