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Ivan IV Vasilyevich, later to be known as Ivan the Terrible, is born.
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Ivan the Terrible's father died when Ivan was three years old. His father said that Ivan would become the ruler of Russia at age fifteen. Until then, Ivan's mother took the throne, along with other trusted aristocrats.
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Ivan was often neglected when growing up. The aristocrats in Russia at the time, known as boyars, would often ignore him and only pay attention to him if they were required to. Ivan's mother and other boyars were often fighting to take the throne, so Ivan saw many murders and beatings when he was growing up. Since he couldn't attack those neglecting him, he often took his anger out on defenseless animals.
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Ivan's mother suddenly dies. There were rumors that she got poisoned, however her cause of death is not yet confirmed.
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Ivan calls a meeting to criticize the boyars, who were the upperclassmen and Royalty of Russia, for their neglect of Ivan and the rest of the nation. Ivan throws Prince Andrew Shuiksy, the leader of the boyars, into a cell full of starving dogs.
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Ivan publicly confesses the sins of his childhood.
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Shortly after Ivan was crowned Tsar in 1547, he married Anastasia Romanovna. Much later, Anastasia died. This traumatized Ivan very much, and it was shortly after this when he started killing many people. Ivan had multiple wives after Anastasia died, however none could fill the void of her death.
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Ivan ends up having many different wives after the death of his first wife. Sometimes he would divorce his wife shortly after marrying her. None of his marriages were as significant to him as his first one.
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Ivan secretly leaves Moscow and states that he doesn't want to be in power anymore. People panicked, and demanded that Ivan come back to the throne. Ivan agreed to come back if he given full power over punishing anyone who is disloyal.
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Ivan creates the Oprichniki as his personal army. They would often kill many people. At one point they destroyed a city called Novgorod and killed thousands of people. Many boyars were publicly executed.
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Ivan the Terrible got into an argument with his daughter-in-law over the way she dressed. Ivan attacked her and caused her to miscarry. Ivan's son Ivanovich stepped up to protect his wife, and Ivan killed him. Ivanovich would have been the only respectable leader of Russia, but since Ivan killed him, the next leader would be Fyodor, who was unintelligent and not a good leader.
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