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Aug 25, 1530
Ivan The Terrible
Ivan IV (August 25, 1530 - March 18, 1584) was the first ruler of Russia to assume the title of tsar. He is also known as Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozny). Ivan the Terrible retains his place in the Russian folk tradition simply as Ivan Vasilyevich, Vasily III's son. Ivan came to the throne at age three and was crowned tsar at age sixteen on January 16, 1547. The early part of reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. Ivan revised the law code, created a standing army, established the -
The Romanov Dynasty
The Romanov Dynasty had ruled Russia since 1613. Michael Romanov took the title 'Emperor and Autocrat of all Russia'. The Emperor of Russia became known as the Tsar (Czar) and imposed autocratic rule - government by one man. -
Peter the Great
Peter the Great born on May 30, 1672, from his second marriage to Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina. Having ruled jointly with his brother Ivan V from 1682. During his reign, Peter undertook extensive reforms: He created a regular army and navy, subjugated the Church to the state and introduced new administrative and territorial divisions of the country. -
Caterine the Great
One of the most interesting, industrious and powerful personages to grace the pages of history during the eighteenth century is Catherine II, Empress of all the Russias. Historians have not always been kind to her memory, and all too often one reads accounts of her private life, ignoring her many achievements. -
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Illich Ulyanov (later known as Lenin) was born in Simbirsk, Russia, on 10th April, 1870.
was a leader of the Russian Revolution, and founded the Bolsheviks. Lenin was also the first head of the USSR. Lenin lived for the good of the future, and believed that Communism was the only way to save the future generations from the present. -
Joseph Stalin
He was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, in Gori, which is now in the Republic of Georgia, in 1879.He was the longtime ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe following the end of World War II in 1945.At one point he studied for priesthood, and during this time read forbidden literature, including the works of German political philosopher Karl Marx. -
Leon Trotsky
Lev (Leiba) Davidovich Bronshtein 7 November 1879.
Trotsky shifted from the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP to Lenin's Bolshevik faction and became a leading socialist theoretician.
He became president of the Petrograd Soviet just before the October Revolution and was deeply involved in planning the Bolshevik insurrection that became known as the October Revolution. -
The Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1917 is also called the Bolshevik Revolution or the October Revolution. In 1917 there were actually two revolutions in Russia. One was the February Revolution in which the Tsar abdicated his throne and the Provisional Government took power. -
The Soviet Union
The Soviet Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is a former country which included the modern-day Russian Federation and a number of adjacent states, including the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania), Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and others. The Soviet Union was a major world power during its existence, which began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and continued until its collapse in 1991. The Soviet Union and the United States were major rivals from the end of WWII until the late 1980s, -
World War 2
During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history and violating an earlier non-aggression pact between the two countries. The Soviet Union suffered the largest loss of life in the war, but halted the Axis advance at intense battles such as Stalingrad, eventually driving through Eastern Europe and capturing Berlin in 1945. -
Soviet War in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year war during the Cold War fought by the Soviet Army and the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen guerrilla movement and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers. The mujahideen received wide military and financial support from Pakistan, also receiving direct and indirect support by the United States and China.The Afghan government fought with the intervention of the Soviet. -
The End of the Soviet Union
The Soviet economy was slowly becoming stagnant, whilst military spending went through the roof.Communism was also simply not delivering the promised "workers paradise", wages were stagnant, housing shoddy.The event that pushed the Soviet Union into the history books was the failed coup of August 1991, when communist hard-liners tried to remove Gorbachev from office, and put in place a more Stalinist system - within two months of this coup the Soviet Union was no more.
