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March Revolution
The March Revolution in Vienna was a catalyst to revolution throughout the German states. Popular demands were made for an elected representative government and for the unification of Germany. Fear on the part of the princes and rulers of the various German states caused them to concede in the demand for reform. -
Reign of Czar Alexander III
Considered Russia's last true autocrat, Alexander III was the epitome of what a Russian Tsar was supposed to be. Forceful, formidable, fiercely patriotic, and at 6' 4" towered over his fellow countrymen. He was the embodiment of the fabled Russian bear. He came to power at a critical point in Imperial Russian history. -
Reign of Czar Nicolas II
During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernisation based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. -
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War definition was a military conflict between Russia and Japan between 1904 and 1905. This war started with a Japanese surprise attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet. The main cause of the war was the conflict between Russia and Japan over the control of Manchuria and Korea. -
Start of World War I
The German government believed that the onset of war and its support of Austria-Hungary was a way to secure its place as a leading power, which was supported by public nationalism and further united it behind the monarchy. -
Lenin's return to Russia
February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia and played a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime. -
Establishment of Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II. -
Bolshevik Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917, Revolution that overthrew the imperial government and placed the Bolsheviks in power. Increasing governmental corruption, the reactionary policies of Tsar Nicholas II, and catastrophic Russian losses in World War I contributed to widespread dissatisfaction and economic hardship. -
Russian Civil War
The Civil War was a result of the emergence of opposition against the Bolsheviks after November 1917. These groups included monarchists, militarists, and, for a short time, foreign nations. Collectively, they were known as the Whites while the Bolsheviks were known as the Reds. -
The Red Terror
The Red Terror was a campaign of political repression and executions in Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine, as well as occupied territories in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland, which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. -
The Teatry of Brest-Litovsk
The treaty marked Russia's final withdrawal from World War I and resulted in Russia losing major territorial holdings. In the treaty, Bolshevik Russia ceded the Baltic States to Germany; they were meant to become German vassal states under German princelings. -
Execution of the Romanovs
The Russian Imperial Romanov family were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night. -
Establishment of Bolshevik rule/Creation of the USSR
Revolution, four socialist republics were established on the territory of the former empire: the Russian and Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republics and the Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republics. -
Lenin's death
Vladimir Lenin, leader of the October Revolution and the first leader and co-founder of the Soviet Union, died in Gorki aged 53 after falling into a coma. The official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels. -
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday, demonstration in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, on Sunday, January 30, 1972, by Roman Catholic civil rights supporters that turned violent when British paratroopers opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 14 others (one of the injured later died).