Russia Timeline
1200s BC The Cimmerians, a Balkan people, settled in the region that is now the Ukraine.
700s BC The Cimmerians were defeated by the Scythians, an Iranian people.
200 BC The Scythians were defeated by the Samaritans. The Samaritans lived in close contact with the Greeks and then later the Romans, bringing their influence into their society.
200 AD The Goths, a Germanic tribe, conquered the region.
370 AD The Huns invaded the area and conquered the Goths.
453 The Hun empire broke apart after Atilla died. The Avars, a tribe related to the Huns, began to rule the region.
600s The Khazars, an Asian people, took control of the southern Volga and northern Caucasus regions. These people became Jews.
800s Eastern Slavic tribes settled in different regions in Russia.
862 Varangian families led by Rurik, a prince, settled in Novgorod. The area became known as the Land of the Rus.
882 Oleg, a Varangian, captured and took control of Kiev.
988 Grand Prince Vladimir I, ruler of the state of Kievan Rus, converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church. As a result Russian architecture reflected the Byzantine style for hundreds of years.
Mid 1000s The power of Kievan Rus began to decline.
1200s Tartars, a group of Mogols, swept across Russia.
1237 Batu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, led approximately 200,000 troops into Russia and destroyed one city after another.
1240 Kiev was destroyed by the Mongols. Russia came under Mongol rule.
Early 1300s Prince Yuri from Moscow married the sister of the khan.
1318 Yuri was appointed the Russian Grand Prince. Mongol troops helped him to maintain his leadership.
1300s Moscow became an important state in Russia.
1380 Grand Prince Dmitriy defeated the Battle of Kulikovo
1480 Ivan III made the finally break from the Mongols
1547 Ivan IV, or Ivan the Terrible, became the first person to be crowned czar. Ivan began to pass laws to bind the peasants to the land as serfs. He extended the power of czar over all of Russia.
1598 Fedor I, who was then Czar, died without a male heir. Boris Gudunov was elected czar by the zemskii sobor (land council). However, Gregory Otrepiev, claimed to be Dmitriy, the younger brother of Fedor. He fled to Lithuania to avoid arrest.
1604 The False Dmitriy brought Polish troops and invaded Russia. This marked the beginning of civil war and political confusion known as the Time of Trouble in Russia.
1605 The False Dmitriy became Czar.
1606 The False Dmitriy was killed and Prince Basil Shuisky became czar.
1610 Polish troops occupied Moscow.
1610-1612 Several groups of pretenders and other False Dmitirys tired to win the throne. Meanwhile peasants began to stage revolts throughout the country.
1612 Russians united and drove the Polish forces out of Moscow.
1613 The zemskii sobor elected Michael Romanov to be czar.
1600s Russia annexed the Ukraine and extended its control from Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.
1682 Peter the Great became Czar. He was at first a co-czar with his brother Ivan V. Peter did not come to full power until 1696 when Ivan died. He introduced Western European culture to Russia.
1703 Peter the Great formed St. Petersburg. He brought in Western European artists and architects to help design it.
1712 Peter the Great moved the capitol to St. Petersburg.
1725 After Peter the Great died, a series of struggles arose over the throne.
1762 The fight over who would be the next czar ended, and Catherine the Great became empress.
1767 Catherine called together a legislative assembly to reform Russian laws.
1700s As Western Europe began to develop and industrialize, Russia lagged behind and most of the people remained uneducated, poor peasants.
1773-1774 Peasants from the Ural Mountains to the Volga River staged revolts. They were led by Emelian Pugachev. However, before they reached Moscow, government troops crushed the revolutionaries.
1775 Catherine made some laws which tightened the landowners control over the serfs.
Late 1700s Austria, Prussia, and Russia divided Poland amongst themselves. Russia received Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine from Poland.
1796 Catherine died. Her son Paul became czar.
1801 Paul was murdered. His son Alexander I became Czar. Alexander issued several reforms and talked about freeing all the serfs and starting public schools. However, he did nothing to end serfdom.
June 1812 Napoleon, of France, led troops into Russia.
September 1812 Napoleon led his troops easily into Moscow. However, the city was soon set on fire. Many historians believe that Russians set the fire.
October 1812 French forces retreated from Moscow, because they feared they might not survive the approaching winter. On their retreat the lack of supplies, cold, and constant attacks by the Russians helped to bring an end to Napoleon's power. Of the 600,000 troops that had begun the retreat, only 100,000 were left at the end.
1816 Many young aristocrats began forming secret revolutionary groups.
1825 Alexander died. Nicholas I became czar.
December 1825 A group of revolutionaries called the Decembrists staged a revolution at the Senate Square in St. Petersburg. They fired a few shots, but they were put down by government cannons. As a result of the Decembrist Revolution, Nicholas got rid of many aristocrats in government office and he replaced them with professional military officers. He tightened his control throughout the country by placing heavy restrictions on the people.
1828-1829 Russia fought two wars with the Ottoman Empire. As a result Russia won more territory around the Black Sea.
Mid-1800s The Russian ballet became internationally famous.
1853 The Crimean War broke out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
1855 Nicholas died. Alexander II became czar.
1856 Russia was defeated and the Treaty of Paris was signed. The treaty forced Russia to give up territory around the Black sea that it had previously won from the Ottomans
1858-1860 Russia received territory from China; lands north of the Amur River and east of the Ussuri River.
1861 Alexander freed the serfs and divided land among them. He issued a series of reforms to help Russia catch up with Western Europe.
1864 Russian troops defeated Muslim rebels in Caucasus.
1865-1876 Russia staged several military campaigns in which they won a lot of territory.
1866 A revolutionary tried to kill Alexander. As a result he began to weaken many of his reforms. Many revolutionaries then claimed that Alexander had not been sincere in his reforms at all.
1867 Russia sold its Alaska territory to the United States.
1870s Revolutionaries tired to get the peasants to revolt. After their efforts failed a terrorist group called the People's Will emerged. They tried on several occasions to assassinated Alexander.
1881 Alexander died from a terrorist's bomb. Alexander III became czar and established a program of harsh rule.
1894 Nicholas II became Russia's last czar.
1894 Russia formed an alliance with France.
1890s A series of bad harvests led to discontent of the people.
1898 The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was established by the Marxists.
1899-1904 Several workers strikes and protests took place.
1903 The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party split into two groups, the Bolsheviks (members of the majority) and the Mensheviks (members of the minority). V. I. Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks.
February 1904 The Russo-Japanese War broke out.
22 January 1905 Thousands of unarmed workers marched on Nicholas' Winter Palace. Government troops fired on the crowd killing hundreds
February 1905 Nicholas agreed to elect a lawmaking body called the Duma.
September 1905 The Russo-Japanese War ended in Russian defeat.
1906-1907 The first two Dumas met. It was dissolved after a few months, because they could not work with Nicholas.
1907 The Triple Entente was formed between Russia, France, and the United Kingdom.
1907-1912 The Third Duma met. The peasants were given little representation.
1912-1917 The fourth Duma met.
1914 World War I broke out. The Germans crushed the Russians in battled in East Prussia and in Tannenberg. Russia crushed the Austrians in battles Lemberg and in Galicia.
1915 The German and Austrian forces drove back the Russians.
1916 Russians advanced about 50 miles against the Germans and Austrians.
December 1916 Grigori Rasputin, an advisor, to the czar was murdered.
1917 Russians moved into Carpathian Mountains.
1917 Revolutionaries overthrew the Russian government.
July 1918 The Czar and his family were assassinated by the revolutionaries.
1918 Russia became the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (R.S.F.S.R.)
1918-1920 Civil war waged between the communists and anti-communists for control of the government.
1921 Lenin established the New Economic Policy. It allowed small businesses to control their own operations and peasants to control their farms
1922 The R.S.F.S.R. joined with three other republics to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR)
1924 Lenin died. Joseph Stalin began to rapidly gain power.
1924 St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad.
1929 Stalin became the dictator of the Soviet Union.
Late 1920s Stalin began a socialist economic program.
1930s Russians began moving from the rural areas into the cities.
Mid 1930s Stalin began a program called the Great Purge. Millions of people were arrested and sent to labor camps.
August 1939 Germany and Russia signed a non-aggression pact insuring that neither nation would attack each other.
September 1939 German forces invaded Poland from the west. As a result World War II began. Meanwhile Russia occupied Poland from the east.
June 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union.
1943 The Germans were defeated in the Battle of Stalingrad.
April 1945 The Soviets began an attack on Berlin.
2 May 1945 Berlin fell to Russia.
August 1945 The Soviet Union declared war on Japan.
2 September 1945 Japan surrendered and World War II was officially over.
1948 By this year many of the eastern European countries had became satellite nations of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union cut off almost all contact with the West starting the Cold War.
5 March 1953 Stalin died. Nikita S. Khrushchev became the head of the Communist Party of few months later.
1956 The Soviet Union consisted of 15 republics.
1958 Khrushchev became the premier of the Soviet Union.
1964 Khrushchev was overthrown by high ranking officials. Leonid I. Brezhnev became Communist Party head, and Aleksei N. Kosygin became premier.
1970s Russians began to demand greater variety in clothing than was being produced by the Soviets. As a result more attention was given to style and quality.
Mid 1970s Brezhnev became the most powerful Soviet leader. He set up a policy known as detente to help ease the tensions between the East and the West.
Late 1970s Detente began to collapse. Relations worsened between the East and the West.
1985 Mikhail. S. Gorbachev became the head of the Communist Party. He issued many changes throughout the Soviet Union. He worked to improve relations with the West.
1989 The Soviet Union held its first contested elections for the newly created Congress of People's Deputies.
March 1990 The Soviet constitution was amended allowing more than just the Communist Party. Gorbachev was elected as president of the Soviet Union.
June 1991 Russia held its first free presidential election.
July 1991 Gorbachev signed a treaty which gave the satellite countries of the Soviet Union a large amount of self-government.
19 August 1991 A coup was staged against the government. Gorbachev was imprisoned with his family in his vacation home.
21 August 1991 The coup ended. Boris Yeltsin led the opposition against the coup. Gorbachev regained his position as president but he resigned as head of the communist party.
1991 Leningrad became St. Petersburg again.
1991 The Communist rule of the Soviet Union collapsed. The republic broke apart.
25 December 1991 Gorbachev resigned as president.
1992 Russia established a transitional government headed by Boris Yeltsin.
1992 The Russian government cut spending on the military.
1992 The government lifted price controls causing prices to soar.
December 1993 Russia adopted a constitution. They established a permanent government.
August 1998 The Russian government was unable to make payments on its loans. This caused an economic crisis.
1999 Yeltsin resigned. Vladimir Putin became the acting president.
2000 Putin was elected president.
2002 Russia joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a group originally formed to oppose the Soviet Union.
Works Cited
Raleigh, Donald J. "Russia." Worldbookonline.com