Download Russian History Timeline

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852 The year when the timeline of the Primary Chronicle starts.
c860 Novgorod was founded about this time.
862 Rus'–Byzantine War (860): military expedition of the Rus' Khaganate.
 Arrival of Varyags: Rurik comes to rule Novgorod, establishing Rurikid Dyn, traditionally considered beginning of
Russian state.
882 Oleg of Novgorod conquers Kiev and moves the capital there.
907 Rus’-Byzantine War (907): Oleg led an army to the walls of Constantinople.
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Rus'-Byzantine War (907): A Rus'-Byzantine Treaty allowed Rus' merchants to enter the city under guard.
911 Sep 2, Viking monarch Oleg of Kiev, Russia, signed a treaty with the Byzantines.
912 Oleg died and was succeeded by Igor, who may have been Rurik's son.
941 May Rus'-Byzantine War (941): A Rus' army landed at Bithynia.
 Sep Rus'-Byzantine War (941): The Byzantines destroyed the Rus' fleet.
945 Rus'-Byzantine War (941): Another Rus'-Byzantine Treaty was signed. Rus' renounced some Byzantine territories.
 Igor died; his wife Olga became regent of Kievan Rus' for their son, Sviatoslav I.
963 Olga's regency ended.
965 Sviatoslav conquered Khazaria.
968 Pechenegs besieged Kiev. Rus' general created the illusion of a much larger army, and frightened them away.
969 July 8 Sviatoslav moved the capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets in Bulgaria.
971 The Byzantine Empire captured Pereyaslavets. The capital moved back to Kiev.
972 Sviatoslav was killed by the Pechenegs during an expedition on their territory. His son Yaropolk I succeeded him.
980 Yaropolk was betrayed and murdered by his brother Vladimir I, The Great, who succeeded him as Prince of Kiev.
981 Vladimir conquered Red Ruthenia from the Poles.
988 Christianization of Kievan Rus': Vladimir destroyed pagan idols and urged inhabitants to baptize in Dnieper.
1014 Oct 6, Byzantine Emperor Basil II (958-1025) earned title "Slayer of Bulgars" after he ordered blinding of 15,000
Bulgarian troops.
 Basil II was godfather to Russia’s Prince Vladimir.
1015 Vladimir died. He was succeeded by Sviatopolk I, who may have been his biological son by rape of Yaropolk's wife.
 Sviatopolk ordered the murder of three of Vladimir's younger sons.
1016 Yaroslav I, another of Sviatopolk's brothers, led an army against him and defeated him, forcing him to flee to Poland.
1017 Yaroslav issued the first Russian code of law, the Russkaya Pravda.
1018 Polish Expedition to Kiev: Sviatopolk led the Polish army into Rus'. Red Ruthenia returned to Polish possession.
 Aug 14 Polish Expedition to Kiev: The Polish army captured Kiev; Yaroslav fled to Novgorod.
1019 Yaroslav defeated Sviatopolk and returned to princedom of Kiev.
1024 Rus'-Byzantine War (1024): A Rus fleet was annihilated by the Byzantines near the island of Lemnos.
1030 Yaroslav reconquered Red Ruthenia from the Poles.
1043 Rus'-Byzantine War (1043): Yaroslav led an unsuccessful naval raid on Constantinople.
1044-1050 The Cathedral of Saint Sophia was built in Novgorod.
1054 Yaroslav died. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Iziaslav I.
1068 Iziaslav was overthrown in a popular uprising and forced to flee to Poland.
1069 Iziaslav led the Polish army back into Kiev and reestablished himself on the throne.
1073 Two of Iziaslav's brothers, Sviatoslav II and Vsevolod I, overthrew him; the former became prince of Kiev.
1076 Dec 27 Sviatoslav died. Vsevolod I succeeded him, but traded princedom of Kiev in exchange for Chernigov.
1078 Iziaslav died. The throne of Kiev went to Vsevolod.
1093 April 13 Vsevolod died. Kiev and Chernigov went to Iziaslav's illegitimate son, Sviatopolk II.
 May 26 Battle of the Stugna River: A Russian army attacked the Cumans at the Stugna River and was defeated.
1113 April 16 Sviatopolk died. He was succeeded by Vsevolod's son, his cousin, Vladimir II Monomakh.
1125 May 19 Vladimir died. His eldest son, Mstislav I, succeeded him.
1132 April 14 Mstislav died. His brother Yaropolk II followed him as prince of Kiev.
1136 Novgorod expelled the prince appointed for them by Kiev and vastly circumscribed the authority of the office!!
1147 Moscow was founded by Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, a ruler of the northeastern Rus.
 He built the first fortress, or kremlin, along Moscow River.
1223 Battle of the Kalka River: The warriors of Russia first encountered the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan.
1227 Boyar intrigues forced Mstislav, the prince of Novgorod, to give the throne to his son-in-law Andrew II of Hungary.
1236 Alexander Nevsky was summoned by Novgorodians to become Grand Prince of Novgorod and, as their military
leader, to defend their northwest lands from Swedish and German invaders.
1237 Dec Mongol invasion of Rus: Batu Khan set fire to Moscow and slaughtered and enslaved its civilian inhabitants.
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1238 Feb 3, The Mongols took over Vladimir, Russia.
1240 July 15 Battle of Neva: Novgorodian army defeated a Swedish invasion force.
1242 April 5 Battle of the Ice: The army of Novgorod defeated Teutonic Knights on surface of Lake Peipus.
1263 Nov 14 Nevsky died, his youngest son Daniel became first Prince of Moscow.
 His younger brother Yaroslav of Tver had become the Grand Prince of Tver and of Vladimir and had appointed deputies
to run the Principality of Moscow during Daniel's minority.
1303 March 5 Daniel died. His eldest son Yury succeeded him as Prince of Moscow.
1317 Yury married sister of Uzbeg Khan. Uzbeg deposed the Grand Prince of Vladimir and appointed Yury to that office.
1322 Dmitriy the Terrible Eyes, convinced Uzbeg Khan that Yury had been stealing from khan's tribute money.
 He was reappointed to the princedom of Vladimir.
1325 Nov 21 Yury was murdered by Dmitriy. His younger brother Ivan I Kalita succeeded him.
1327 Aug 15 Ambassador of Golden Horde was trapped and burned alive during an uprising in the Grand Duchy of Tver.
1328 Ivan led a Horde army against Grand Prince of Tver, also Grand Prince of Vladimir.
 Ivan allowed to replace him in latter office.
1328 Moscow became the seat of the Russian Orthodox metropolitanate.
1340 March 31 Ivan died. His son Simeon succeeded him both as Grand Prince of Moscow and as Grand Prince of Vladimir
1353 Simeon died. His younger brother Ivan II, The Fair, succeeded him as Grand Prince of Moscow.
1359 Nov 13 Ivan died. His son, Dmitri Donskoi, succeeded him.
1380 Sep 8 Battle of Kulikovo: A Russian force defeated a significantly larger Blue Horde army at Kulikovo Field.
1382 The Mongol khan Tokhtamysh reasserted his power by looting and burning Moscow.
1389 May 19 Dmitri died. The throne fell to his son, Vasili I.
1395 Tamerlane, a Turkic conqueror, swept into Southern Russia and Georgia driving locals into the hills.
1407 Jan 21, Duke Vytautas led Polish and German forces for a 2nd time against the Duchy of Moscow.
1425 Feb 27 Vasili died. His son Vasili II, The Blind, succeeded him as Grand Prince of Moscow.
 His younger brother, Yury Dmitrievich, also issued a claim to the throne.
1430 Dmitrievich appealed to khan of Golden Horde to support his claim to throne.
 Vasili II retained Duchy of Moscow, but Dmitrievich was given
the Duchy of Dmitrov.
1432 Vasili II led an army to capture Dmitrov. His army was defeated and he was forced to flee to Kolomna. Dmitrievich
arrived in Moscow and declared himself the Grand Prince. Vasili II was pardoned and made mayor of Kolomna.
1433 Exodus of Muscovite boyars to Vasili II's court in Kolomna persuaded Dmitrievich to return Moscow to nephew and
move to Galich.
1434 Vasily II burned Galich.
 March 16 The army of Yury Dmitrievich defeated the army of Vasily II. The latter fled to Nizhny Novgorod.
 April 1 Dmitrievich arrived in Moscow and again declared himself the Grand Prince.
 July 5 Dmitrievich died. His eldest son Vasili Kosoy, the Cross-Eyed, succeeded him as Grand Prince.
1435 Dmitrievich's second son, Dmitry Shemyaka, allied himself with Vasili II.
 Vasili the Cross-Eyed was expelled from the Kremlin and blinded.
 Vasili II returned to the throne of the Grand Prince.
1438 Russo-Kazan Wars: The khan of the recently established Khanate of Kazan led an army towards Moscow.
1444 Cossacks were first mentioned in Russian history.
1445 July 7 Battle of Suzdal: Russian army suffered defeat by Tatars of Kazan.
 Vasili II taken prisoner; operation of gov fell to Dmitry Shemyaka
 Dec Vasili II was ransomed back to Russia.
1446 Shemyaka had Vasili II blinded and exiled to Uglich, and had himself declared the Grand Prince.
1450 The boyars of Moscow expelled Shemyaka from the Kremlin and recalled Vasili II to the throne.
1452 Shemyaka was forced to flee to the Novgorod Republic.
1453 Shemyaka was poisoned by Muscovite agents.
1462 March 27 Vasili II died. His son Ivan III, The Great, succeeded him as Grand Prince.
1463 Russia annexed the Duchy of Yaroslavl.
1471 July 14 Battle of Shelon: A Muscovite army defeated a numerically superior Novgorodian force.
1474 Russia annexed the Rostov Duchy.
1475-1509 Italian architects invited by Ivan III built the Kremlin Cathedrals of the Assumption and the Archangel.
1476 Ivan stopped paying tribute to the Great Horde.
1478 Jan 14 The Novgorod Republic surrendered to the authority of Moscow.
1480 Nov 11 Great stand on the Ugra river: Ivan's forces deterred Akhmat Khan of the Great Horde from invading Russia.
1485 Ivan annexed the Grand Duchy of Tver.
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1493 Jan 4, Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, announced the 1st war with Lithuania. In fact the war had begun in 1487.
1493 After a major fire in Moscow, Ivan III forbad the construction of wooden buildings in the old city.
1495 Feb 5, The 1st Lithuanian Russian war ended with the signing of a peace treaty in Moscow.
1495 Feb 15, Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander wed Duchess Elena of Moscow.
1497 Ivan issued a legal code, the Sudebnik.
1501 Mar 1, Lithuania and Livonia established a 10-year union for protection against Russia.
1503 Mar 28, The 2nd Lithuanian war with Russia (1500-1503) ended with a treaty. Lithuania lost a fourth of its territory.
1505 Oct 27 Ivan died. He was succeeded as Grand Duke of Russia by his son, Vasili III.
1507 Russo-Crimean Wars: The Crimean Khanate raided the Russian towns of Belyov and Kozelsk.
1510 With the approval of most of the local nobility, Vasili arrived in the Pskov Republic and declared it dissolved.
1511 Vasily III became the new patriarch of Moscow.
1514 Vasily III, ruler of Moscow, captured Smolensk from Poland.
1517 The last Grand Prince of the Ryazan Principality was captured and imprisoned in Moscow.
1530 Aug 25, Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), 1st tsar of Russia (1533-84), was born.
1533 Dec 3 Vasili died; his son Ivan IV, The Terrible, succeeded him. His wife Elena Glinskaya became regent.
1537 Mar 25, The 5th Lithuanian war with Russia (1534-1537) ended with a peace treaty.
1538 April 4 Glinskaya died. She was succeeded as regent by Prince Vasily Nemoy.
1542 Ivan the Terrible at age 12 entertained himself by dropping dogs from the higher battlements of the Kremlin.
1547 Jan 16 An elaborate ceremony crowned Ivan the first tsar of Russia.
1547 Feb 3, Russian czar Ivan IV (17) married Anastasia Romanova.
1547 Jun 21, There was a great fire in Moscow.
1552 Aug, Ivan IV of Russia began his conquest of Kazan
 August 22 Siege of Kazan (1552): Russian armed forces arrived at Kazan.
 Oct 2 Siege of Kazan (1552): The Russian army breached the walls of Kazan.
 Oct 13 Siege of Kazan (1552): The civilian population of Kazan was massacred, the city occupied.
1556 Russia conquered and annexed the Astrakhan Khanate.
1557 Feb 27, 1st Russian Embassy opened in London.
1558 Livonian War: Ivan demanded tribute from Bishopric of Dorpat. Bishop sent diplomats to renegotiate amount;
 Ivan expelled them and invaded and occupied the Bishopric.
1560 Aug 2 Battle of Ergeme: Ivan's army crushed the forces of the Livonian Order.
1561 Basilica of St. Basil in Moscow, begun in 1555, was completed under the reign of Ivan the Terrible to celebrate
conquest of Khanate of Kazan.
1561 Nov 28 Livonian Order agreed to Union of Wilno, Livonian Confederation was partitioned
1563 Feb 15, Ivan IV led Russian forces in the takeover of Polocka, defended under the leadership of Stanislav Davaina.
1564 Jan 26, A Lithuanian Army under Radvila the Brown defeated a Russian force 5 times larger and stopped its entry into
Lithuania.
1565 Feb Ivan established the Oprichnina, a Russian territory ruled directly by the tsar.
1569 July 1 The Union of Lublin was signed. Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania were merged into Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth;
1569 Dec 23, St. Philip, metropolitan of Moscow, was martyred by Ivan the Terrible.
1570 Jan 2, Tsar Ivan the Terrible began a march to Novgorod.
1570 Jan 9, Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of Muscovy, sacked the city of Great Novgorod, massacring most of its inhabitants
1572 The Oprichnina was abolished.
1577 Tsar Ivan sent an army to Volga region with orders to kill as many Cossacks as possible.
1577 Cossacks under Yermak migrated northeast and negotiated a deal with Stroganoff brothers to serve as "frontier
guards" in the Ural Mountains.
1579 A 13th century Icon of the Virgin Mary miraculously resurfaced in Kazan.
1580 Jul, Some 540 Cossacks under Yermak invaded the territory of the Vogels, subjects to Kutchum, the Khan of Siberia.
1581 Nov 16 Ivan killed his eldest son.
1581 Stephen Bathory, King of Poland, invaded Russia.
1581 Russia began the conquest of Siberia. Cossacks under Yermak subdued Vogul towns and captured a tax collector of
Khan Kutchum.
1582 Jan 15 Livonian War: Peace of Jam Zapolski ended Polish-Lithuanian participation in war.
 Russia gave up its claims to Livonia and the city of Polatsk.
 May, Cossacks under Yermak advanced on the capital of Sibir.
 Jun 29, Tatar forces attacked invading Cossacks on the Tobol River but Cossack gunfire again repelled them.
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Aug 10, Russia ended its 25-year war with Poland.
Sep, Tatar forces that included Voguls and Ostiaks gathered at Mount Chyuvash to defend against invading Cossacks.
Oct 1, Cossacks attempted to storm the Tatar fort at Mount Chyuvash, but were held off.
Oct 23, Cossacks attempted to storm the Tatar fort at Mount Chyuvash for a 4th time when the Tatars counterattacked.
Nov, Ivan IV sent letter to Stroganoff brothers accusing them of provoking Voguls and Ostiaks by sending Yermak and
Cossacks into Siberia.
1583 Livonian War: The war was ended with the Treaty of Plussa. Narva and the Gulf of Finland coast went to Sweden.
1583 Envoys of Yermak reached Tsar Ivan IV and presented him with valuable bundles of furs from Siberia.
1584 March 18 Ivan died of mercury poisoning. Throne fell to his mentally retarded son Feodor I;
 his son-in-law Boris Godunov took de facto charge of government.
1585 Aug 7, Tatar forces of Khan Kutchum attacked a sleeping Cossack expedition under Yermak near the mouth of the
Vagay River in Siberia.
1589 Boris Godunov asserted Moscow’s Independence from Constantinople.
1589 The first Russian patriarch, Lov, was consecrated by Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias of Constantinople
1590 Jan 18 Russo-Swedish War (1590–1595): The Treaty of Plussa expired. Russian troops laid siege to Narva.
 Feb 25 Russo-Swedish War (1590–1595): A Swedish governor on the disputed territory surrendered to the Russians.
1591 May 15 Dimitriy Ivanovich, Ivan the Terrible's third and youngest son, died in exile from a stab wound to the throat.
1595 May 18 Russo-Swedish War (1590–1595): The Treaty of Tyavzino was signed. Ingria went to Russia.
1598 Jan 7 Feodor died with no children.
 Feb 21 A zemsky sobor elected Godunov the first non-Rurikid tsar of Russia.
1602-1603 Famine claimed the lives of an estimated 2 million people, or about one-third of the population,
1603 Nov 5, Irini Fedorovna, Russian daughter of Czar Boris Godunov, died.
1604 Oct False Dmitriy I, a man claiming to be the murdered Dmitriy Ivanovich, invaded Russia.
1605 April 13 Boris died. His son Feodor II was pronounced tsar.
 July 1 A group of boyars defected in support of False Dmitriy, seized control of the Kremlin, and arrested Feodor.
 June 20 False Dmitriy and his army arrived in Moscow.
 July 20 Feodor and his mother were strangled.
 July 21 False Dmitriy was crowned tsar.
1606 May 8 False Dmitriy married a Catholic, inflaming suspicions that he meant to convert Russia to Catholicism.
 May 17 Conservative boyars led by Vasili Shuisky stormed the Kremlin and shot False Dmitriy to death during his
escape.
 May 19 Shuisky's allies declared him Tsar Vasili IV.
1607 False Dmitriy II, another claimant to identity of Dmitriy Ivanovich, obtained financial and military support from a
group of Polish magnates.
1609 Feb 28 Vasili ceded border territory to Sweden in exchange for military aid against the government of False Dmitriy II.
 Sep Polish-Russian War (1609-1618): The Polish king Sigismund III led an army into Russia.
1610 Feb 14, Polish king Sigismund III forced Dimitri #2 and the Romanov family to sign covenant against Czar Vasili
Shuishki
 July 4 Battle of Klushino: Seven thousand Polish cavalrymen defeated a vastly superior Russian force at Klushino.
 July 19 Vasili was overthrown. A group of nobles, the Seven Boyars, replaced him at the head of the government.
 July 27 Polish-Russian War (1609-1618): A truce was established. The boyars promised to recognize Sigismund's son
and heir Władysław as tsar, conditional on severe limits to his power and his conversion to Orthodoxy.
 Aug Polish-Russian War (1609-1618): Sigismund rejected the boyars' conditions.
 Aug 27, Polish King Wladyslaw was crowned king of Russia.
 Dec Hermogenes, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, urged the Russian people to rise against the Poles.
 Dec 11 False Dmitriy II was shot and beheaded by one of his entourage.
1612 Sep 12, Russia’s Tsar Vasili IV (b.1552) died.
 Oct 22, Russians, inspired by vision of captive Greek Archbishop Arsenios, won victory and took Chinese quarter, and
two days later, Kremlin.
 Oct 27, A Polish army which invaded Russia capitulated to Prince Dimitri Pojarski and his Cossacks.
 Nov 1 Polish-Russian War (1609-1618): Russian nationalists rising against the Poles recaptured the Kremlin.
 Nov 4, Russia drove Catholic Poles and Lithuanians out of Moscow. This marked the end of the "Time of Troubles,"
1613 Ingrian War: Sweden invaded Russia.
 Feb 21 A zemsky sobor elected Michael Romanov, a grandson of Ivan the Terrible's brother-in-law, the tsar of Russia.
1614 The Don Cossacks made a pact with the Russian Czar and gained self-government in exchange for military service.
1617 Feb 27 Ingrian War: The Treaty of Stolbovo ended the war. Kexholm, Ingria, Estonia and Livonia went to Sweden.
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1617 Mar 9, The Treaty of Stolbovo ended the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.
1618 Dec 11 Polish-Russian War (1609-1618): Truce of Deulino ended war. Russia ceded Smolensk and the Czernihów
Voivodeship to Poland.
1619 Feb 13 Feodor Romanov, Michael's father, was released from Polish prison and allowed to return to Russia.
1623 The 1st case of smallpox in Russia was reported.
1631 Jul 23, Sweden's King Gustavus II repulsed an imperialist force at Werben, Russia.
1632 Oct Smolensk War: With the expiration of the Truce of Deulino, a Russian army was sent to lay siege to Smolensk.
1634 Feb 19, At the Battle at Smolensk Polish king Wladyslaw IV beat the Russians. [see Mar 1]
1634 March 1 Smolensk War: The Russian army, surrounded, was forced to surrender.
 June 14 Smolensk War: The Treaty of Polyanovka was signed, ending the war. Poland
1640 Russia completed its conquest of Siberia and reached the Pacific Ocean.
1643 Piotr Golovin, Cossack governor of Yakutsk province, sent an expedition under Vasily Poyarkov into the far eastern
Amur watershed.
1645 July 13 Michael died. His son, Alexis I, succeeded him.
1648 Jan 25 Khmelnytsky Uprising: A Polish magnate, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, persuaded Cossacks of Zaporizhian Sich to
join him against the king.
 June 1 Salt Riot: Upset over the introduction of a salt tax, the townspeople launched a rebellion in Moscow.
 June 11 Salt Riot: A group of nobles demanded a zemsky sobor on behalf of the rebellion.
 July 3 Salt Riot: Many of the rebellion's leaders were executed.
 Dec 25 Khmelnytsky Uprising: Khmelnytsky entered the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
1649 Jan A zemsky sobor ratified a new legal code, the Sobornoye Ulozheniye.
1649 In Russia serfs were made part of the land that they inhabited. A later edict allowed them to be sold with the land.
1653 Raskol: Nikon, the Patriarch of Moscow, reformed Russian liturgy to align with the rituals of the Greek Church.
1653 Oct 1, Russian parliament accepted annexation of Ukraine.
1654 Khmelnytsky Uprising: Under Treaty of Pereyaslav, Left-bank Ukraine, the territory of the Zaporozhian Host, became
a Russian protectorate.
 July Russo-Polish War (1654–1667): The Russian army invaded Poland.
1655 Deluge (history): Sweden invaded the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
 July 3 Russo-Polish War (1654–1667): The Russian army captured Vilnius.
 July 25 Deluge (history): The voivode of Poznań surrendered to the Swedish invaders.
 Nov 2 Russia negotiated a ceasefire with Poland.
1656 July Russo–Swedish War (1656–1658): Russian reserves invaded Ingria.
1656 Oct 24, Treaty of Vilnius (Lithuania): Russia and Poland signed an anti-Swedish covenant.
1658 Feb 26 Dano-Swedish War (1657-1658): Treaty of Roskilde ended Sweden's war with Denmark, allowing her to shift
troops to eastern conflicts
 Sep 16 Russo-Polish War (1654–1667): The Treaty of Hadiach established a military alliance between Poland and the
Zaporozhian Host, and promised the latter a separate state within the Commonwealth.
 Dec 28 Russo–Swedish War (1656–1658): The Treaty of Valiesar established a peace.
1660 April 23 Deluge (history): The Treaty of Oliva ended the conflict between Poland and Sweden.
1661 Russo-Polish War (1654–1667): Polish forces recaptured Vilnius.
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The Treaty of Valiesar expired. Russia returned Ingria to the Swedish Empire by the Treaty of Cardis.
1662 July 25 Copper Riot: In early morning, a group of Muscovites marched to Kolomenskoye and demanded punishment
for gov ministers who had debased Russia's copper currency.
 On their arrival, they were countered by the military; a thousand were hanged or drowned. The rest were exiled.
1665 Lubomirski's Rokosz: A Polish nobleman launched a rokosz (rebellion) against the king.
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The pro-Turkish Cossack noble Petro Doroshenko defeated his pro-Russian adversaries in the Right-bank Ukraine.
1667 Raskol: A church council anathematized the Old Believers, who rejected Nikon's reforms.
 Jan 30 Russo-Polish War (1654–1667): The Treaty of Andrusovo ended the war. Poland agreed to cede the Smoleńsk
and Czernihów Voivodships and acknowledged Russian control over the Left-bank Ukraine.
1667 The Cossack Stenka Razin led a peasant uprising.
1669 Doroshenko signed a treaty which recognized his state as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.
1670 The Cossack Stenka Razin began a rebellion against the Russian government.
1671 Jun 16 (NS), Stenka Razin, Cossack rebel leader, was tortured & executed in Moscow. [see Jun 6]
1672 May 30, Peter I (the Great) Romanov, great czar (tsar) of Russia (1682-1725), was born [OS]. [see Jun 9]
1674 Cossacks of Right-bank Ukraine elected pro-Russian Ivan Samoylovych, Hetman of the Left-bank Ukraine, to replace
Doroshenko and become Hetman of a unified Ukraine.
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1675 Aug 6, Russian Czar Aleksei banned foreign haircuts.
1675 In northern Russia Solovki monks resisted church reforms. Tsarist forces broke through, following a 7-year siege.
1676 Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681): The Ottoman army joined Doroshenko's forces in an attack on city of Chyhyryn.
 Jan 29 Alexis died. His son Feodor III became tsar.
1680 Russo-Crimean Wars: The Crimean invasions of Russia ended.
1681 Jan 3 Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681): The war ended with Treaty of Bakhchisarai.
1681 Jan 8, The treaty of Radzin ended a five year war between the Turks and the allied countries of Russia and Poland.
1682 Feodor abolished the mestnichestvo, an ancient, unmeritocratic system of making political appointments.
 April 14 Avvakum, the most prominent leader of the Old Believer movement, was burned at the stake.
 April 27 Feodor died with no children. Peter was declared tsar. His mother became regent.
 May 17 Moscow Uprising of 1682: Streltsy regiments belonging to the faction of Alexis's first wife, Maria
Miloslavskaya, took over the Kremlin, executed Naryshkina's brothers, and declared Miloslavskaya's invalid son Ivan V
the "senior tsar," with Peter remaining on the throne as the junior.
1685 Jun, Qing Emperor Kangxi forces in a siege against Russians at Albazino on far eastern Amur River.
1686 Russians returned to Albazino on the far eastern Amur River and were again attacked by the Manchus.
1687 May Crimean campaigns: The Russian army launched an invasion against an Ottoman vassal, the Crimean Khanate.
 June 17 Crimean campaigns: Faced with a burned steppe incapable of feeding their horses, the Russians turned back.
1689 June Shaklovity, head of Streltsy persuaded Alekseyevna to proclaim herself tsarina and attempted to ignite a new
rebellion in her support. The streltsy instead defected in support of Peter.
 Sep 1, Russia began taxing men's beards.
 Oct 11 Shaklovity was executed.
1689 Oct 11, Peter the Great became tsar of Russia.
1689 Russian and Manchu delegates met at Nerchinsk and drew up a treaty in Latin.
1692 Peter the Great granted the Stroganoff family their lands in perpetuity.
1696 Jan 29 Ivan died.
 April 23 Second Azov campaign: The Russian army began its deployment to an important Ottoman fortress, Azov.
 May 27 Second Azov campaign: The Russian navy arrived at the sea and blockaded Azov.
 July 19 Second Azov campaign: The Ottoman garrison surrendered.
1697 Mar 21, Czar Peter the Great began a tour through West Europe. [see Mar 9]
1698 June 6 Streltsy Uprising: Approximately four thousand streltsy overthrew their commanders and headed to Moscow,
 June 18 Streltsy Uprising: The rebels were defeated.
 Aug 25, Czar Peter the Great returned to Moscow after his trip through West-Europe.
 Sep 5, Russia's Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards.
 Peter the Great spent several months at the Shipwright’s Palace in England learning how to build the Russian navy.
1699 Feb 4, Czar Peter the Great executed 350 rebellious Streltsi in Moscow.
1699 Dec 20, Peter the Great ordered Russian New Year changed from Sept 1 to Jan 1.
1699 Peter the Great of Russian bans traditional dress, introduces Western fashions, and reforms the Russian calendar.
1700 Jan 1, Russia replaced the Byzantine with the Julian calendar.
 Jun 23, Russia gave up its Black Sea fleet as part of a truce with the Ottoman Empire.
 Aug 19 Great Northern War: Russia declared war on Sweden.
 Oct 16 Adrian, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, died. Peter prevented the election of a successor.
 Nov 20, Sweden's 17-year-old King Charles XII defeated the Russians at Narva.
1701 Mar 9, In Birzai Augus II and Russia’s Czar Peter I signed a treaty.
1701 German artisans created an amber room for Frederick I of Prussia. He presented it as a gift to Peter the Great in 1712
1703 May 27, Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg (Leningrad) as the capital of Russia.
1707 Oct 8 Bulavin Rebellion Don Cossacks killed a Russian noble searching their territory for tax fugitives.
1708 Jul 4, Swedish King Karel XII beat Russians.
1708 July 7 Bulavin Rebellion: After a series of devastating military reversals, Bulavin was shot by his former followers.
1708 Sep 28, At the Battle at Lesnaya the Russian army captured a Swedish convoy.
 Dec 18 An imperial decree divided Russia into eight guberniyas (governates).
1709 June 28 Battle of Poltava: A decisive Russian military victory.
1709 Jul 8, Peter the Great defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, effectively ending the Swedish empire.
1709 Dec 29, Elisabeth Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine, was born.
1710 Feb 4, Aug II with support of Russian army was recognized by parliament in Warsaw as King of Lithuania and Poland.
1710 Oct 14 The Russian guberniyas were divided into lots according to noble population.
 Nov 20 Russo-Turkish War (1710–1711): Charles XII persuaded Ottoman sultan to declare war on Russia.
7
1711 Feb 22 Government reform of Peter I: Peter established the Governing Senate to pass laws in his absence.
1711 Mar 19, War was declared between Russia and Turkey.
 July 21 Russo-Turkish War (1710–1711): Peace was concluded with the Treaty of the Pruth.
1711 Aug 1, Czar Peter the Great fled Azov after being surrounded.
1712 King Frederick I presented his amber room, made as a gift by German artisans in 1701, to Peter the Great [1716].
1712 Feb, Peter the Great married Catherine.
1713 May 8 The Russian capital was moved from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.
 July 17 The Riga Governorate was established on the conquered territory of Livonia.
1714 Jan 15 The northwestern territory of Kazan Governorate transferred to Nizhny Novgorod Governorate.
1714 Peter the Great instituted the Order of St. Catherine in honor of his wife, Catherine.
1714 Peter the Great of Russia founded a pharmaceutical firm later named Oktyabar.
1715 Oct 11 Peter demanded that his son endorse his reforms or renounce his right to the thron.
1715 Peter the Great held a funeral for his favorite court dwarf.
1716 Alexei fled to Vienna to avoid military service.
1716 Nov 3, Pacification Treaty of Warsaw Czar Peter the Great (1672-1725) guaranteed Saxon monarch Aug I's
(1682-1718) Polish kingdom.
1716 Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I gave the Czar of Russia an elaborately carved amber chamber.
1717 Aug 4, A friendship treaty was signed between France and Russia.
1717 Nov 22 The Astrakhan Governorate was formed on the southern lands of Kazan Governorate.
 Dec 12 Government reform of Peter I: Peter established collegia, government ministries that superseded the prikazy.
1718 Jan 31 Alexei returned to Moscow under a promise he would not be harmed.
 Feb 18 After torture, Alexei publicly renounced the throne and implicated a number of reactionaries in a conspiracy to
overthrow his father.
 June 13 Alexei was put on trial for treason.
 June 26 Alexei died after torture in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
1718 Peter imposed a tax on entire male peasant population while exempting the wealthiest, the nobles and the merchants.
1719 May 29 Lots were abolished.
 The Nizhny Novgorod Governorate was reestablished.
 The Reval Governorate was established on the conquered territory of Estonia.
1721 Jan 25, Czar Peter the Great ended the Russian orthodox patriarchy.
 Aug 30 Great Northern War: The Treaty of Nystad ended the war. Sweden ceded Estonia, Livonia and Ingria to Russia.
 Oct 22 Peter was declared Emperor.
1722 Jan 24, Peter introduced the Table of Ranks.
 Apr 6, In Russia Peter the Great ended tax on men with beards.
 July Russo-Persian War (1722-1723): Russian expedition sailed in support of independence of two Christian kingdoms,
Kartli and Armenia
 Sep 12, The Treaty of St. Petersburg put an end to the Russo-Persian War.
 Peter the Great granted nobility status to the Stroganoff family.
 Russian troops fought against Chechen tribes for the 1st time.
1723 Sep 12 Russo-Persian War (1722-1723): Persian shah signed a peace treaty ceding Derbent and Baku and provinces of
Shirvan, Guilan, Mazandaran and Astrabad to Russian Empire.
1725 Czar Peter chose Vitus Bering to lead an expedition to discover whether or not Asia was connected to America.
1725 Feb 8, Peter I (52) "the Great" Romanov, czar of Russia (1682-1725), died.
1725-1727 Catherine I (b.1684) served as empress of Russia.
1726 The Smolensk Governorate was reestablished.
 Feb 8 Catherine established an advisory body, the Supreme Privy Council.
1727 Catherine established Belgorod and Novgorod Governorates and adjusted borders of several others.
 Districts were abolished; uyezds were reestablished.
 May 7, Jews were expelled from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I of Russia.
 May 17 Catherine died.
 May 18, Peter II Alekseyevich (1715-1730) was proclaimed autocrat of Russia.
 The Supreme Privy Council was to hold power during his minority.
 Sep 9 Supreme Privy Council expelled its most powerful member, the liberal Menshikov.
1728 Feb 10, Peter III Fyodorovich (d.1762), czar of Russia (1761-62), was born in Germany.
 Feb 25, Peter II Alekseyevich (1715-1730) was crowned as czar of Russia.
 Vitus Bering (47), discovered the Bering Strait between Asia and North America.
8
1730 Jan 30 Peter died of smallpox.
 Feb 1 Supreme Privy Council offered the throne to Anna Ivanovna, the daughter of Ivan V, on the conditions that the
Council retain the powers of war and peace and taxation, among others, and that she never marry or appoint an heir.
 March 4 Anna tore up the terms of her accession and dissolved the Supreme Privy Council.
1733-1811 Sergeievich Strogonoff was an enlightenment aesthete.
1734 Mar 9, The Russians took Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.
1736 May 20 Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739): The Russian army captured the Ottoman fortifications at Perekop.
 June 19 Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739): The Russians captured Azov.
1737 July Russo-Turkish War (1735-1739): Austria joined the war on the Russian side.
1739 Aug 21 Russo-Turkish War (1735-1739): Austria agreed by the Treaty of Belgrade to end its participation in the war.
 Sep 18 Russo-Turkish War (1735-1739): Treaty of Nissa ended the war.
 Oct 3, Russia signed a treaty with the Turks, ending a three-year conflict between the two countries.
1740 Oct 17 Anna died of kidney disease. She left the throne to her adopted infant son, Ivan VI.
 Oct 18 Anna's lover, Ernst Johann von Biron, was declared regent.
 Nov 8 Biron was arrested on the orders of his rival, the Count Burkhard Christoph von Munnich.
1741 Apr 11, Count Biron guilty of treason and sentenced him to death, was commuted to banishment for life in Siberia.
 Jul 16, Vitus Bering (1680-1741) first sighted Mt. St. Elias, the second highest peak in Alaska at 18,008 feet.
 Aug 8 Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743): Sweden declared war on Russia.
 Nov 25 Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Peter led Preobrazhensky to Winter Palace to install herself as empress.
 Dec 2 Ivan was imprisoned in the Daugavgriva fortress.
 Dec 5-6, Russian princess Elisabeth Petrovna grabbed power. Petrovna (31), daughter of Peter the Great, and her
husband led a coup d’etat, deposed the infant Czar Ivan VI, had him imprisoned and reigned until her death in 1762.
 Dec 7, Elisabeth Petrovna became tsarina of Russia.
 Dec 8, Vitus Bering, died on an island off the Kamchatka Peninsula, later named Bering Island.
1742 Sep 4 Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743): Encircled by the Russians at Helsinki, the Swedish army surrendered.
 Dec 1, Empress Elisabeth Petrovna ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Russia.
 Russia’s Empress Elisaveta Petrovna presented lands south of Pskov to the A.P. Gannibal
1743 Aug 7 Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743): Treaty of Åbo was signed, ending war.
 Aug 17, By the Treaty of Abo, Sweden ceded southeast Finland to Russia, ending Sweden's failed war with Russia.
1744 The Vyborg Governorate was established on conquered Swedish territories.
1745 Jan 8, England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands formed an alliance against Russia.
1750-1756 The Smol’ny Convent was built in St. Petersburg.
1752 In Russia Abram Petrovich Gannibal became a Major-General and was appointed in charge of all military engineering.
1755 Jan 12, Tsarina Elisabeth established the 1st Russian University.
1756 Aug 29 Seven Years' War: The Kingdom of Prussia invaded the Austrian protectorate of Saxony.
1757 May 1 Diplomatic Revolution: Second Treaty of Versailles, Russia joined the Franco-Austrian military alliance.
 May 17 Seven Years' War: Russian troops entered the war.
1758 Aug 25, The Prussian army defeated Russians at the Battle of Zorndorf.
1759 Jul 23, Russians under Saltikov defeated Prussians at Kay in eastern Germany, one-fourth of Prussian army of 27,000
was lost.
1760 Oct 9, Austrian and Russian troops entered Berlin and began burning structures and looting.
1761 Dec 25 The miracle of the House of Brandenburg: Elizabeth died. Her nephew, Peter III, became tsar.
1762 May 5 Seven Years' War: The Treaty of Saint Petersburg ended Russian participation in the war at no territorial gain.
 Jun 28, Catharine II, Russian Tsarina, grabbed power. [see Jul 17]
 Jul 17, Peter III of Russia was murdered and his wife, Catherine II, took the throne.
 Aug 5, Russia, Prussia and Austria signed a treaty agreeing on the partition of Poland.
1762-1796 Catherine the Great ruled over Russia.
1763 Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Crimean Tartars and Ottoman Turks.
1763-1864 The Circassians, residents of the northwest Caucasus, fought against the Russians in the Russian-Circassian War
1764 July 5 A group of soldiers attempted to release the imprisoned Ivan VI; he was murdered.
1767 Oct 13 Repnin Sejm: Four Polish senators were arrested by Russian troops and imprisoned in Kaluga.
1768 Feb 24, Lithuania-Poland signed an eternal friendship treaty with Russia along with a guarantee of protection.
 Feb 27 Repnin Sejm: Delegates of Sejm adopted a treaty ensuring future Russian influence in Polish internal politics.
 Feb 29 Polish nobles established the Bar Confederation in order to end Russian influence in their country.
 Sep 25 Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774): The Ottoman sultan declared war on Russia.
1770 Jul 6, Ottoman fleet was defeated and destroyed by the Russians at the battle of Chesme [Cesme] on the Aegean Sea.
9
1771 Sep 15 Plague Riot: A crowd of rioters, broke into the Kremlin and destroyed the Chudov Monastery.
 Sep 17 Plague Riot: The army suppressed the riot.
1772 Aug 5 First partition of Poland announced.
1773Sep 14, Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully stormed a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey.
 Pugachev's Rebellion: The army of the Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev attacked and occupied Samara.
 September 18 A confederated sejm was forced to ratify the first partition of Poland.
1774 July 21 Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774): The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca was signed.
 The Crimean Khanate received independence from the Ottoman Empire,
 Sep 14 Pugachev's Rebellion:, Pugachev's officers delivered him to the Russians.
1775 Catherine received an ornament containing over 1000 diamonds, the "Sultan Feather" from Turkish Sultan.
1775 The Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev was captured and beheaded.
1776 The Bolshoi Theater was founded.
1777 Dec 23, Alexander I, Czar of Russia, was born.
1779 Mar 31, Russia and Turkey signed a treaty by which they promised to take no military action in the Crimea.
1779 Catherine the Great bought the art collection of Sir Robert Walpole from Walpole’s grandson.
1783 April 8 The Crimean Khanate was incorporated into the Russian Empire.
 Jul 24, Georgia became a protectorate of tsarist Russia.
 Catherine the Great annexed the Crimea to the Russian empire. 83% or the residents were Tatars.
1784 Aug 14, The 1st Russian settlement in Alaska was established on Kodiak Island.
1785 Apr 21, Russian Tsarina Catharina II ended nobility privileges.
1787 Aug 13, The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia.
1787 Jan 7 –June 27 Catherine journey down the Dnieper to Crimea
1788 May 4 John Paul Jones arrives in Moscow.
Sep 15, An alliance between Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands was ratified at the Hague.
1788 Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792): The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia and imprisoned her ambassador.
 June 27 Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790): Swedish army playacted a skirmish between themselves and the Russians.
 July 6 Battle of Hogland: The Russian navy dispersed a Swedish invasion fleet near Hogland in the Gulf of Finland.
 Oct 6 Great Sejm: A confederated sejm was called to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1789 Sep 22, Russians drove Turks from the Rymnik River, upsetting Turkish invasion of Russia.
1790 Jul 9, The Swedish navy captured one third of the Russian fleet at the naval battle of Svensksund in the Baltic Sea.
1790 Aug 14 Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790): The Treaty of Värälä ended the war, with no changes in territory.
1791 May 3 Great Sejm: Poland's Constitution of May 3 was ratified in secret.
 Oct 5, Death of Potemkin
 Dec 23 Catherine established the Pale of Settlement,
1792 Jan 9 Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792): The Treaty of Jassy was signed, ending the war.
 May 18, Russian troops invaded Poland.
1793 Jan 23 Polish-Russian War of 1792: The second partition of Poland
 Nov 23 Grodno Sejm: The last sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ratified the second partition.
1794 March 24 Kościuszko Uprising: An announcement by Tadeusz Kościuszko sparked a nationalist uprising in Poland.
 Jun 23, Empress Catherine II granted Jews permission to settle in Kiev.
 Sep 28, The Anglo-Russian-Austrian Alliance of St. Petersburg, which was directed against France, was signed.
 Oct 10, Russian Army under Gen’l. Alexander Suvorov took Warsaw
 Nov 4 Battle of Praga: Russian troops captured the Praga borough of Warsaw and massacred its civilian population.
 Nov 5 Kościuszko Uprising: The uprising ended with the Russian occupation of Warsaw.
 Nov 16, Warsaw capitulated to the Russian Army and the revolution ended.
 Odessa was founded.
1795 Sep 11 Battle of Krtsanisi: The Persian army demolished the armed forces of Kartl-Kakheti.
 Oct 24 The third partition of Poland divided up the remainder of its territory.
1796 April Persian Expedition of 1796: expedition to punish Persia for its incursion into protectorate of Kartl-Kakheti.
 Nov 6 Catherine died. The throne fell to her son, Paul I.
1797 Jan 15, In St. Petersburg Russia, Prussia and Austria signed and act that terminated the Lithuanian-Polish state.
1798 Dec 24, Russia and England signed a Second anti-French Coalition.
1801 Jan 8 Paul authorized the incorporation of Kartl-Kakheti into the Russian empire.
 March 11 Paul was killed in his bed.
 March 23 Paul's son, Alexander I, ascended to the throne.
 South Ossetia was absorbed into the Russian Empire along with Georgia.
10
1802 Alexander established the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).
1804 Russo-Persian War (1804-1813): Russian forces attacked the Persian settlement of Üçkilise.
1805 The Ottoman Empire dismissed the pro-Russian hospodars of its vassal states, Wallachia and Moldavia.
 Aug 9, Austria joined Britain, Russia, Sweden and Piedmont-Sardinia in the Third Coalition.
 Dec 2, Napoleon Bonaparte celebrated the first anniversary of his coronation with a victory at Austerlitz over a Russian
and Austrian army.
 Dec 26 War of the Third Coalition: The Treaty of Pressburg ceded Austrian possessions in Dalmatia to France.
1806 Oct To counter the French presence in Dalmatia, Russia invaded Wallachia and Moldavia.
 Dec 26, Napoleon’s army was checked by the Russians at the Battle of Pultusk.
 Dec 27 Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812): The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia.
1807 Feb 8, At Eylau, Poland, Napoleon’s Marshal Pierre Agureau attacked Russian forces in a heavy snowstorm.
 June 14 Battle of Friedland: The Russian army suffered a defeat against the French, suffering twenty thousand dead.
 Jun 25, Napoleon and Czar Alexander I met near Tilsit.
 July 7 Treaty of Tilsit signed. Alexander agreed to evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia and ceded the Ionian Islands and
Cattaro to the French.
 The treaty ended Russia's conflict with France; Napoleon promised to aid Russia in conflicts with the Ottoman Empire.
 Nov 16 Alexander demanded that Sweden close the Baltic Sea to British warships.
1808 Feb 21 Finnish War: Russian troops crossed the Swedish border and captured Hämeenlinna.
1809 March 29 Diet of Porvoo: The four Estates of Finland swore allegiance to the Russian crown.
 Sep 17 Finnish War: The Treaty of Fredrikshamn was signed, ending the war and ceding Finland to the Russian Empire.
1809-1917 Finland was an autonomous grand duchy under the Czar of Russia.
1810 The first military settlement was established near Klimovichi.
 Jan 1 Alexander established the State Council, which received the executive powers of the Governing Senate.
 Feb 20 The Russian government proclaimed the deposition of Solomon II from the throne of Imereti.
1811 Feb 2, Russian settlers established Ft. Ross trading post in northern California.
1811 March 27 Regional military companies were merged into the Internal Guard.
1812 May 28 Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812): Treaty of Bucharest ended the war and transferred Bessarabia to Russia.
 June 24 French invasion of Russia (1812): The French army crossed the Neman River into Russia.
 Jul 18, Great Britain signed the Treaty of Orebro, making peace with Russia and Sweden.
 Aug 17, Bonaparte's army defeated the Russians at the Battle of Smolensk during the Russian retreat to Moscow.
 Sep 7, On the road to Moscow, Napoleon won a costly victory over the Russians under Kutuzov at Borodino.
 Sep 14 French invasion of Russia (1812): French army entered a deserted Moscow.
 Sep 18, A fire in Moscow (set by Napoleon's troops) destroyed 90% of houses and 1,000 churches. [see Sep 14]
 Oct 19, French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte began their retreat from Moscow.
 Nov 6, The first winter snows fell on the French Army as Napoleon Bonaparte retreated form Moscow.
 Nov 27, One of the two bridges across the Beresina River in Russia collapsed.
 Nov 29, The last elements of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armee retreated across the Beresina River in Russia.
 Dec 6, The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggered into Vilnius, Lithuania.
 Dec 14 French invasion of Russia (1812): The last French troops were forced off of Russian territory.
 Russia acquired Bessarabia,
 Dec, Vilnius, Lithuania, was recaptured by Russian forces.
1813 Jan 2, In Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Army head M. Kutuzov announced the end of war in Russia.
 Feb 18, Czar Alexander entered Warsaw at the head of his Army.
 Feb 28, Russia and Prussia formed the Kalisz union against Napoleon.
 Mar 4, The Russians fighting against Napoleon reached Berlin. The French garrison evacuated the city without a fight.
 Aug 26-27, Battle of Dresden was Napoleon’s last major victory against allied forces of Austria, Russia and Prussia.
 Oct 18, The Allies defeated Napoleon Bonaparte at Leipzig.
 Oct 24 Russo-Persian War (1804-1813): According to the Treaty of Gulistan, the Persian Empire ceded its
Transcaucasian territories to Russia.
1814 Sep, The Congress of Vienna convened in late Sep and continued to June 8, 1815.
1814 Alexander I of Russia entered Paris at the head of an anti-Napoleon coalition.
1814-1876 Mikhail Bakunin was an authoritarian anarchist.
1815 June 9 Congress of Vienna: Duchy of Warsaw divided between Prussia, Russia.
 Sep 26, Russia, Prussia and Austria signed a Holy Alliance.
 Nov 20, The treaties known collectively as the 2nd Peace of Paris were concluded.
1817 Mar 25, Tsar Alexander I recommended the formation of Society of Israeli Christians.
11
1818 Apr 17, Alexander II, son of Nicholas I and Tsar of Russia (1855-1881), was born.
 Nov 21, Russia's Czar Alexander I petitioned for a Jewish state in Palestine.
 Grozny was established as a Russian fortress.
1819 Russia declared Odessa to be a free port.
1820 Sep 4, Czar Alexander declared Russian influence in North America extended as far south as Oregon and closed
Alaskan waters to foreigners.
1820s The last jihad started by mullahs alone forced Persian Empire to war against Christian Russia. Persia lost Caucasus.
1824 Apr 17, Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54' 40'.
1825 Feb 22, Russia and Britain established the Alaska/Canada boundary.
 Nov 19 Alexander died of typhus. The army swore allegiance to his eldest brother, Grand Duke Pavlovich.
 Constantine, however, following Alexander's choice of successor, swore allegiance to his younger brother, Nicholas I.
 Dec 12 Under pressure from Constantine, Nicholas published Alexander's succession manifesto.
 Dec 14 Decembrist revolt: 1825 Decembrists consisted of idealistic military officers who plotted unsuccessfully against
the Russian tsar.
1826 decree established Second Section of Chancery, concerned with codifying and publishing law, and Third Section,
which operated secret police.
 July Nicholas established the office of Chief of Gendarmes, in charge of the Gendarmerie units of the Internal Guard.
 July 16 Russo-Persian War (1826-1828): The Persian army invaded the Russian-owned Talysh Khanate.
 Sep 26, The Persian cavalry was routed by the Russians at the Battle of Ganja in the Russian Caucasus.
1827 Oct 20, British, French and Russian squadrons entered Navarino, Greece, and destroyed most of Egyptian fleet.
1828 Feb 21 Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) Persia signed the Treaty of Turkmenchay.
1828 Apr 26, Russia declared war on Turkey to support Greece's independence.
 May The Russian army occupied Wallachia.
 June Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829): The Russian armed forces crossed into Dobruja, an Ottoman territory.
 1828 Russia conquered the Armenian provinces of Persia,
1829 Feb 11, Alexander Griboyedov Russian diplomat was beheaded by a mob attack on the Russian embassy in Tehran.
1829 Sep 14 Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829): Treaty of Adrianople signed, ceding eastern shore of Black Sea and mouth of
Danube to Russians.
1829 Nov 20, Jews were expelled from Nikolayev and Sevastopol, Russia.
1830 Nov 29 Nov Uprising: A group of Polish nationalists attacked Belweder Palace, the seat of the Governor-General.
1831 Jan 25 Nov Uprising: An act of the Sejm dethroned Nicholas from the Polish crown.
 Jan 29 Nov Uprising: A new government took office in Poland.
 Feb 4 Nov Uprising: Russian troops crossed the Polish border.
 Feb 20, Polish revolutionaries defeated the Russians in the Battle of Growchow.
 Feb 25, The Polish army halted the Russian advance into their country at the Battle of Grochow.
 May 26, Russians defeated the Poles at battle of Ostrolenska.
 Sep Battle of Warsaw (1831): The Russian army captured Warsaw, ending the Nov Uprising.
1832 Feb 26, The Polish constitution was abolished by Czar Nicholas I.
1833 May 2, Czar Nicholas banned the public sale of serfs.
1835 Trinity Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia, was consecrated.
1836 The Gendarmerie of the Internal Guard was spun off as the Special Corps of Gendarmes.
1837 In St. Petersburg Alexander Pushkin, was killed in a duel with his wife's suitor, D'Anthes, a French nobleman.
1840 Aug 15, English Lt. Shakespear began a 500-mile trek with 416 freed Russian slaves to Russian Fort Alexandrovsk on
Caspian Sea.
1840 Nov 3, Lt. Shakespear reached St. Petersburg, Russia, where Czar Nicholas thanked him for freeing Russian slaves
from Khan of Kiva.
1841 Alexander II married Maria of Hessen-Darmstadt (Maria Alexandrovna). The marriage produced seven children.
1849 Jun 17, Russian troops invaded Hungary.
 Aug 9, Russian forces defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Temesovar.
 Aug 11, Lajos Kossuth, pres of Hungary, abdicated in favor of Gen. Gorgey as Russia intervened in Hungarian rev.
 Aug 13, Hungary’s Gen. Gorgey surrendered to the Russian forces. Russia gave Hungary back to Austria.
1852 Dec Ottoman sultan confirmed the supremacy of France and the Catholic Church over Christians in the Holy Land.
1853 July 3 Russia invaded the Ottoman provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia.
 Sep 20, The Allies defeated the Russians at the battle of Alma on the Crimean Peninsula.
 Oct 4 Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia.

12
1854 March 28 Crimean War: Britain and France declared war on Russia.
 Aug Crimean War: In order to prevent the Austrian Empire entering the war, Russia evacuated Wallachia and Moldavia.
 Oct 25, Charge of the Light Brigade
 Nov 5, The British and French defeated the Russians at Inkerman, Crimea.
 In northern Russia Solovki monks fought off a British naval siege.
1855 Feb 18 Nicholas died. His son, Alexander II, became tsar.
 Sep 10, Sevastopol, under siege for nearly a year, capitulated to the Allies.
 Nov 26, Allies captured of the Malakoff fortress in Sevastopol.
1856 Feb 29, Hostilities in Russo-Turkish war ceased.
 March 30 Crimean War: The Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the war.
 Black Sea was demilitarized. Russia lost territory it had been granted at the mouth of the Danube, abandoned claims to
protect Turkish Christians, and lost its influence over the Danubian Principalities.

Apr 29, A peace treaty between England and Russia was signed.
 In Alaska the Russian occupants of the Batzulnetas outpost were massacred by natives.
1857 The last military settlements were disbanded.
1857 Sep 23, The Russian warship Leffort disappeared in the Finland Gulf in a storm; 826 died.
1858 May 28 The Treaty of Aigun was signed, pushing the Russo-Chinese border east to the Amur river.
1858 Jul 2, Czar Alexander II freed the serfs working on imperial lands.
1859 Imam Shamil (1797-1871), Caucasian (Chechen) warrior, surrendered and became an honorary captive of Alex II.
1859 Muslim North Caucasus region of Chechnya was incorporated into the Russian empire.
1860 Russian pioneers founded Vladivostok.
1860 Oct 18 The Convention of Peking transferred the Ussuri krai from China to Russia.
1861 Feb 27, In Warsaw, Russian troops fired on a crowd protesting Russian rule over Poland. Five marchers were killed.
1861 March 3 Emancipation reform of 1861: Alexander issued a manifesto emancipating the serfs.
1863 Jan 22 Jan Uprising: An anti-Russian uprising began in Poland.
1864 Jan 1 Zemstva were established for the local self-government of Russian citizens.
1864 Mar 2, Russian Czar Alexander II upheld reforms in Poland that gave landholders ownership of their lands.
 May 1 The Russian army began an incursion into the Khanate of Kokand.
 May 21 Caucasian War: Alexander declared the war over.
 Aug 5 Jan Uprising: Romuald Traugutt, the dictator of the rebellion, was hanged.
 Nov 20 Judicial reform of Alexander II.
1867 The conquered territories of Central Asia became a separate Guberniya, the Russian Turkestan.
 March 30 Alaska purchase: Russia agreed to the sale of Alaska to US of America.
1865 Mar 1, Anna Paulowna Romanova (70), great monarch of Russia, died.
 1865 June 17 The Russian army captured Tashkent.
1866 Apr 16, Karakozov attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia.
 Dec 4, Wassily Kandinsky (d.1944), Russian artist, was born. He is credited with the invention of abstract art.
1867 Feb 15, Fyodor Dostoevsky married his stenographer Anna Snitkina in St. Petersburg.
1867 Mar 29, US purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars. [see Mar 30]
1867 Oct 18, US took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.
1868 May 18, Nicholas II, the last Russian czar, was born.
1868 The Khanate of Kokand became a Russian vassal state.
1869 Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834-1907), Russian chemist, formulated the periodic table of elements .
1870 Municipal dumas were established.
1871 Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev developed the periodic table listing the elements in 1871.
1872 Jan 12, Russian Grand Duke Alexis began a gala buffalo hunting expedition with Sheridan and Custer.
1873 The Narodnik rebellion began.

The Emirate of Bukhara became a Russian protectorate.
 May 18 Khiva was captured by Russian troops.
 Aug 12 A peace treaty was signed that established the Khanate of Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian protectorate.
1874–81 Growing anti-government terrorist movement and government reaction.
1876 March The Khanate of Kokand was incorporated into the Russian Empire.
 April 20 April Uprising: Bulgarian nationalists attacked the Ottoman police headquarters in Oborishte.
 May Alexander signed the Ems Ukaz, banning the use of the Ukrainian language in print.
 July 8 A secret treaty for division of Balkans between Russia and Austria-Hungary, depending on outcome of local
revolutionary movements.
13

Dec 6 Kazan demonstration: A political demonstration in front of Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg marked the
appearance of the revolutionary group Land and Liberty.
1877 Feb The Trial of the 193 occurred, punishing the participants of the Narodnik rebellion.
 Mar 4, The Russian Imperial Ballet staged the first performance of Tchaikovsky’s incomplete ballet "Zwanenmeer"
(Swan Lake) in Moscow.
 April 24 Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878): Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
 Nov 17, Russians launched a surprise night attack that overran Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia.
 Dec 14, Serbia joined Russia in war on Turkey.
1877-1878 The Russo-Turkish War.
1878 March 3 Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878): The Treaty of San Stephano was signed, concluding the war
 July 13 Congress of Berlin: Treaty of Berlin, imposed on Russia by West, divided Bulgaria into Eastern Rumelia and
Principality of Bulgaria.
1879 Aug Land and Liberty split into the moderate Black Repartition and the radical terrorist group People's Will.
1880 Feb 17, Tsar Alexander II of Russia survived an assassination attempt.
 Apr 26, Mikhail Fokine (d.1942), choreographer, founder of modern dance, was born in Russia.
 Jul 6, Russia’s Tsar Alexander II, less than a month after Tsarina Maria's death on June 8, formed a morganatic marriage
with his mistress Princess Catherine Dolgoruki, with whom he already had three children. A fourth child would be born
to them before his death.
 Aug 6 Special Corps of Gendarmes and Third Section were disbanded; their functions transferred to new Department of
State Police.
1881 March 10 Alexander was assassinatedl. His son, Alexander III, becomes tsar.
 Apr 27, Pogroms against Russian Jews started in Elisabethgrad.
 Sep 21 Persia officially recognized Russia's annexation of Khwarazm in the Treaty of Akhal.
1882 May 15, May Laws: Czar Alexander III banned Jews from living in rural Romania.
1882 In Russia the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society was founded to support Russian pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
1883 Mar 13, Sergei Degaev (26) shot and killed Lt. Col. Georgii Sudeikin, security chief of Czar Alexander III.
1883 First Russian Marxist group formed.
1884 Alexander III commissioned jeweler Carl Gustavovich Faberge (1846-1920) to make an Easter egg for the Empress.
1885 Mar 30, In Afghanistan, Russian troops inflicted a crushing defeat on Afghan forces Ak Teppe
1885 Nov 17, The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invaded Bulgaria.
1887 May 8, Alexander Ulyanov, brother of Lenin, was hanged for assassination of tsar.
1890 Anton Chekhov visited the Russian penal colony at Sakhalin. The experience crystallized his political awareness.
1890 June 12 An imperial decree subordinated the zemstva to the authority of the appointed regional governors.
1891 Apr 23, Jews were expelled from Moscow.
1891-1892 A severe famine led to the death of many peasants.
1892 Dec 18, Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" ["Nutcracker Ballet"] publicly premiered in St. Petersburg
1893 The Kresty Prison in St. Petersburg was built to hold political prisoners.
1893The Russalka, a 19th century ironclad, Russian vessel sank in the Baltic Sea with 177 sailors aboard.
1893 Many Russian pilgrims for ceremony of the Holy Fire Shrine in Jerusalem died in a snowstorm north of Jerusalem.
1894 Oct 20 (OS), Alexander III (b.1845), Russian tsar (b.1881-94), died in Livadia, Crimea.
1895 Feb 8, Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," premiered in Petersburg.
1895 Apr 23, Russia, France, and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China.
1896 May 26, Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia, was crowned.
 Oct 7, Nicholas and Alexandra of Russia made a state visit to France and with Pres.
 Nov 26, Russia disclosed a plan to seize Constantinople if Britain intervenes in Crete.
1897 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were 1st printed.
1897 The Singer sewing machine company built a huge factory in Russia.
1898 Harbin, China, was built by Russian workers who extended the trans-Siberian railway across Heilongjiang province.
1898 March 1 The Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) held its first Party Congress.
1900 Russia invaded and occupied the Sixty-Four Villages East of the Heilongjiang River.
 Feb 6 Russification of Finland: Nicholas issued a
 Nov 9, Russia completed its occupation of Manchuria.
1901 The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was founded.
 June 30 Russification of Finland: The Military Service Act incorporated the Finnish and Russian armies.
 Nov 25, Japanese Prince Ito arrived in Russia to seek concessions in Korea.

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1902 Russification of Finland: Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov, the Governor-General of Finland, was given the power to allow
olivia and opponents of Russification from the Finnish government.
1902 Feb 1, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay protested Russian privileges in China as a violation of the "open door policy."
1902 Mar 20, France and Russia acknowledged Anglo-Japanese alliance
1902 Anton Chekhov published his collected works.
1902 Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? was published
1903 Mar 12, The Czar of Russia issued a decree providing for nominal freedom of religion throughout his territory.
 March 20 Russification of Finland: The office of the Governor-General was given dictatorial powers.
 April 6 Kishinev pogrom: A three-day pogrom began which would leave forty-seven Jews dead.
 Nov 17 At second congress of RSDLP, the party split into two factions: the Bolsheviks, and Mensheviks.
 Rasputin, came to St. Petersburg as an ascetic holy man and claimed to be inspired by visions of the Virgin Mary.
 Kishinev pogrom in Odessa, set Vladimir Jabotinsky afire with the Jewish cause and placed him on a Zionist path.
1904 Jan 6, A Japanese railway in Korea refused to transport Russian troops.
 Feb 4, Russia offered Korea to Japan and defended its right to occupy Manchuria.
 Feb 6, Japan's foreign minister severed all ties with Russia, citing delaying tactics in negotiations over Manchuria.
 Feb 8, Russo-Japanese War began. In a surprise attack at Port Arthur.
 Feb 10, Russia and Japan declared war on each other.
 Mar 7, The Japanese bombed the Russian town of Vladivostok.
 Mar 15, Three hundred Russians were killed as the Japanese shelled Port Arthur in Korea.
 Mar 24, Vice Adm. Tojo sank seven Russian ships as the Japanese strengthened their blockade of Port Arthur.
 Jul 21, After 13 years, the 4,607-mile Trans-Siberian railway was completed. [see Jul 31]
 Aug 6, The Japanese army in Korea surrounded a Russian army retreating to Manchuria.
 Aug 24, battle at Liaoyang, China, some 200,000 Japanese faced 150,000 Russians.
 Sep 19, Gen. Nogi assaulted Port Arthur: 16,000 Japanese casualties.
 Oct 1, Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-born American virtuoso pianist, was born in Kiev, Ukraine.
 Oct 16, Russian Baltic fleet departed to lift the Japanese blockade at Port Arthur, Manchuria.
 Oct 22, Russian Baltic fleet mistakenly fired on British fishing ships near Dogger Bank killing 2 fishermen.
 Nov 28, Capture by the Japanese of 203 Meter Hill overlooking Port Arthur
 Dec 5, Japanese destroyed Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.
 Dec 16, Japanese warships quit Port Arthur in order to cut off the Russian Baltic fleet’s advance.
1905 Jan 2, After a six-month siege, Russians surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese.
 Jan 3 Russian Revolution of 1905: A strike began at the Putilov Works in St. Petersburg.
 Jan 9 Bloody Sunday (1905): Imperial Guard fired on the crowd, killing around 200 and wounding 800.
 Jan 27, Russian General Kuropatkin took the offensive in Manchuria.
 Feb 17, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was assassinated by a terrorist bomb at the Kremlin.
 Feb 21, The Mukden campaign of the Russo-Japanese War, began.
 Feb 24, Russian Minister of Agriculture, Alexi Yermolov offered the Czar a new constitution.
 Feb 27, Japanese pushed Russians back in Manchuria, and cross the Sha River.
 Mar 3, The Russian Czar agreed to create an elected assembly.
 Mar 5, Russians began to retreat from Mukden in Manchuria.
 Mar 8, The peasant revolt in Russia was reported to be spreading to Georgia.
 May 27, The Russian-Japanese naval Battle of Tsushima began.
 May 28 Russian Revolution of 1905: The first soviet was formed in the midst of a textile strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
 Jun 8, US Pres. Theodore Roosevelt offered to act as a mediator in the Russo-Japanese War.
 Jun 10, Japan and Russia agreed to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.
 June 14 Russian Revolution of 1905: A mutiny occurred aboard the battleship Potemkin.
 Jun 27, The battleship Potemkin succumbed to a mutiny on the Black Sea.
 Jun 29, Russian troops intervened as riots erupt in ports all over the country, leaving many ships looted.
 Jul 8, The mutinous crew of the battleship Potemkin surrendered to Rumanian authorities.
 Sep 5, The Russian-Japanese War ended by Treaty of Portsmouth. Japan achieved virtually all of its original war aims.
 Oct 17 Russian Revolution of 1905: Nicholas signed Oct Manifesto, expanding civil liberties and establishing and
empowering the first State Duma of the Russian Empire.
 Oct 20, A Great General Strike in Russia began and lasted 11 days.
 Oct 20, Russian tsar allowed Polish people to speak Polish.
 Nov 10, Sailors revolted in Kronstadt, Russia.
 Nov 22, British, Italian, Russian, French and Austrian-Hungarian fleet attacked the Grecian Isle of Lesbos.
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 Dec 1, Twenty officers and 230 guards were arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia for the revolt at the Winter Palace.
1906 Feb 20, Russian troops seized large portions of Mongolia.
 Mar 20, Army officers in Russia mutinied at Sevastopol.
 March Russian legislative election, 1906: First free elections to the Duma gave majorities to liberal and socialist parties.
 Apr 10, A report from Russia said 7 soldiers were killed during a rebellion at the garrison in Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia). On
April 17 it was reported that 315 soldiers were killed in a fight between mutineers and loyal troops.
 April 23 The Fundamental Laws were issued, reaffirming the autocratic supremacy of the tsar.
 The First Duma was called.
 May 10, Russia's Duma (Parliament) met for the 1st time.
 July 21 The First Duma was dissolved.
 July 23 The Constitutional Democratic party (Kadets) issued the Vyborg Manifesto, calling on the Russian people to
evade taxes and the draft. All signatories to the Manifesto lost their right to hold office in the Duma.
 Nov 9 A decree by Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin signaled the start of the Stolypin reform, intended to replace the
obshchina with a more progressive, capitalist form of agriculture.
1907 Feb 9 secret police units of the MVD Department of State Police were unified under the authority of the new Okhrana.
 Feb 18, 600,000 tons of grain was sent to Russia to relieve the famine there.
 Feb 20 Second Duma began. The Kadets dropped seats, benefiting the RSDLP and the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
 Mar 1, There were only 15,000 Jews left in Odessa, Russia.
 Mar 5, The 2nd Russian Duma, which included 7 Lithuanians, began work. The Duma stayed in session until June 15.
 Mar 22, Russians troops completed the evacuation of Manchuria in the face of advancing Japanese forces.
 June 3 The Second Duma was dissolved.
 Nicholas changed the electoral law and gave greater electoral value to the votes of nobility and landowners.
 Jun 16, The Russian czar dissolved the Duma in St. Petersburg.
 Jun 26, Russia’s nobility demanded drastic measures to be taken against revolutionaries.
 Aug 31, England, Russia and France formed their Triple Entente.
 Nov 1 The Third Duma began.
 Nov 26, The Russian Duma lent support to Czar in St. Petersburg, who claimed that he had renounced autocracy.
 Stalin (1879-1953) organized an armed robbery on 2 coaches.
 Britain and Russia carved Iran into spheres of influence.
1908 Feb 14, Russia and Britain threatened action in Macedonia if peace was not reached soon.
 Apr 5, Japanese Army reached the Yalu River as the Russians retreated.
 Jun 8, King Edward VII of England visited Czar Nicholas II of Russia in an effort to improve relations.
 Sep 9, Russia grabbed part of Poland.
1909 Mar 26, Russian troops invaded Persia.
1910 Jan 21, A British-Russian military intervention took place in Persia.
1910 The State Duma in St. Petersburg was abolished.
1911 Mar 20, Russian Premier Stolypin resigned in St. Petersburg.
 Sep 14, Stolypin assassination attempt at Kiev opera house.
 Mendel Beilis was tried on charges of killing a Russian child to extract its blood for baking Passover matzos.
 Russia exported 13.7 million tons of grain while some 30 million of its peasants suffered from famine.
1912 April 4 Lena goldfields massacre: The Russian army fired on a crowd of striking miners, killing 150.
 May 5, The Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda began publishing.
 June 9 The Third Duma ended.
 Nov 15 The Fourth Duma was called. Bolshevik/Menshevik split final.
 Nov 24, Austria denounced Serbian gains in the Balkans.
1913 Nov 26, Russian kingdom forbade Polish congregation of speakers.
1914 Jan 16, Maxim Gorky was authorized to return to Russia after an eight year exile for political dissidence.
 Mar 17, Russia increased the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.
 June 28 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand:
 July 23 World War I: Austria-Hungary issued the July Ultimatum to Serbia,
 Jul 25, Russia declared that it would act to protect Serbian sovereignty.
 July 28 World War I: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
 July 30 World War I: Russia mobilized its army to defend Serbia.
 Jul 31, German Kaiser Wilhelm II threatened war and ordered Russia to demobilize.
 Aug 1, Germany declared war on Russia at the onset of World War I.
 Aug 2, Russian troops invade Eastern Prussia.
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 Aug 6, Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany.
 Aug 20, German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I.
 Aug 20, Russia won an early victory over Germany at Gumbinnen.
 Aug 27, 2nd day of battle at Tannenberg: Germany bombed Usdau.
 Aug 29, 4th day of Tannenberg: Russian Narev-army panics, Gen Martos caught.
 Aug 31, Germany defeated Russia at the battle at Tannenberg. Some 30,000 Russians died.
 Sep 1, Russia renamed St. Petersburg to Petrograd.
 Sep 5 First Battle of the Marne began during World War I
 Oct 29 Turkish fleet including 2 German cruisers stormed Black Sea and bombarded Odessa, Sevastopol, Theodosia.
 Nov 2, Russia declared war with Turkey. [see Oct 29]
 Nov 25, Hindenburg called off Lodz offensive 40 miles from Warsaw.
1915 Jan 31, Germans used poison gas on the Russians at Bolimov.
 Feb 7, Field marshal Paul von Hindenburg moved on Russians at Masurian Lakes.
 Feb 21, The 20th Russian Army corps surrendered.
 May 2 Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive: The German army launched an offensive across the length of the Eastern Front.
 Jun 22, Austro-German forces occupied Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreated.
 Aug 4 Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive: Germany conquered Warsaw.
 Aug 23, Czar Nicolaas II took control of the Russian Army.
 Sep 19 Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive: German forces captured Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
 Oct 19, Russia and Italy declared war on Bulgaria.
 Ingush and Chechen regiments led "the Brusilov breakthrough" on the Russian-German front.
1916 Jan 11, Russian General Yudenich launched a WWI winter offensive and advances west.
 Jan 18, The Russians forced the Turkish 3rd Army back to Erzurum.
 Feb 16, Russian troops conquered Erzurum, Armenia.
 Feb 26, Russian troops conquered Kermansjah, Persia.
 Mar 18, On the Eastern Front, the Russians countered the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch.
 June 25 Basmachi Revolt: Nicholas issued a decree ordering the conscription of Central Asians.
 Jun 26, Russian General Aleksei Brusilov renewed his offensive against the Germans.
 Aug 7, Persia formed an alliance with Britain and Russia.
 Aug 11, The Russia army took Stanislau, Poland, from the Germans.
 Nov 5 By the Act of Nov 5th, the German government established the nominally independent Kingdom of Poland.
 Nov 7, Grand duke Nikolai Nikolayevich warned the czar of an uprising.
 Dec 16 Rasputin was murdered by a group of nobles in the house of Prince Felix Yussupov.
1917 Jan Strikes and unrest in Petrograd.
 Feb 22 Feb Revolution: The workers at the Putilov Plant in Petrograd went on strike.
 Feb 23 Feb Revolution: Demonstrations were held, demanding end of Russian autocracy and end of Russian
participation in World War I.
 Feb 25 Feb Revolution: A battalion of soldiers was sent to Petrograd to end the uprising.
 Feb 28, Russian Duma set up a Provisional Committee; workers set up Soviets.
 Gregorian/Julian
March 11th/ 26th Feb 50 demonstrators killed in Znamenskaya Square Tsar Nicholas II prorogues the State Duma and
orders commander of Petrograd military district to suppress disorders with force.
 Duma ignored his order and decreed the establishment of a Provisional Government with Georgy L'vov as Prime
Minister.
 12th March /27th Feb Troops mutinies refuse to fire on demonstrators, deserters. Prisons, courts, and police attacked
and looted by crowds.
 Okhrana buildings set on fire. Garrison joins revolutionaries.
 Menshevik leaders were freed from Peter and Paul Fortress and founded Petrograd Soviet.
 Formation of Provisional Committee of the Duma by liberals from Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets).
 14th March/ 1st March Order No.1 of the Petrograd Soviet.
 15th March/ 2nd March Nicholas II abdicates. Provisional Government formed under Prime Minister Prince Lvov.
 Mar 17, Czar Michael abdicated after one day in favor of a provisional government under Prince Lvov
 March 17 A legislative council, the Tsentralna Rada, was founded in Ukraine.
 21st/8th March Nicholas put under arrest.
 Mar 22, The U.S. became the first to recognize the Kerensky Government in Russia.
 March 30 Provisional Government established autonomous province of Estonia and scheduled elections to Estonian
17
legislative body, Maapäev.
 Mar, Revolutionary soldiers dug up Rasputin’s grave and soaked his body in gasoline and set it ablaze.
April 3, Lenin left Switzerland for Petrograd.
 16th April/ 3rd April Return of Lenin to Russia. He publishes his April Theses.
 Apr 20, In the Pravda newspaper Lenin named Russia "Free land of world."
May 3rd May–4th/ 20th April–21st "April Days": mass demonstrations by workers, soldiers, and others in the streets of
Petrograd and Moscow
 18th May/ 5th May First Coalition Government forms when socialists, representatives of the Soviet leadership, agree to
enter the cabinet of the Provisional Government. Kerensky, the only socialist already in the government, made minister
of war and navy.
 May 10 The Rumcherod, the Soviet government of southwestern Ukraine and Bessarabia, was established.
June 16th June/ 3rd June The 1st Congress of Soviets convened in Russia.
 Jun 17, Duma met in secret session in Petrograd and voted for an immediate Russian offensive.
 23rd June /10th June Planned Bolshevik demonstration in Petrograd banned by the Soviet.
 Jun 24, Russian Black Sea fleet mutinied at Sebastopol.
 29th June/ 16th June Kerensky orders offensive against Austro-Hungarian forces. Initial success only.
 Jun 29, The Ukraine proclaimed independence from Russia.
July 1st July/ 18th June Official Soviet demonstration in Petrograd for unity is unexpectedly dominated by Bolshevik
slogans: "Down with the Ten Capitalist Ministers", "All Power to the Soviets".
 15th July/ 2nd July Russian offensive ends. Trotsky joins Bolsheviks.
 16th July–17th/ 3rd July–4th "July Days"; demonstrations in Petrograd, encouraged by Bolsheviks, demanding "All
Power to the Soviets"
 19th July/ 6th July German and Austro-Hungarian counter-attack.
 Arrest of Bolshevik leaders ordered.
 20th July /7th July Alexander Kerensky became the premier of Russia.
 July 14 The Maapäev took office.
 July 21 Alexander Kerensky succeeded L'vov as Prime Minister.
Aug 4, Pravda called for the killing of all capitalists, priests and officers.
 4th Aug/ 22nd July Trotsky and Lunacharskii arrested.
Sep 8th Sep /26th Aug Second coalition government ends.
 8th Sep–12th /26th Aug–30th "Kornilov mutiny". Begins when the commander-in-chief of Russian army, General Lavr
Kornilov, demands (or is believed by Kerensky to demand) that government give him all civil and military authority and
moves troops against Petrograd.
 /Aug 27 Kornilov Affair: General Lavr Kornilov ordered an army corps to Petrograd to destroy the soviets.
 /Aug 29 Kornilov Affair: The Provisional Government armed tens of thousands of Red Guards to defend Petrograd.
 13th Sep/ 31st Aug Majority of deputies of Petrograd Soviet approve resolution for an all-socialist government
excluding the bourgeoisie.
 /Aug 31 Kornilov Affair: Kornilov was arrested.
 14th Sep/ 1st Sep Russia declared a republic.
 17th Sep/ 4th Sep Trotsky and others freed.
 Sep 17, The German Army recaptured the Russian [Latvian] Port of Riga from Russian forces.
 18th Sep/ 5th Sep Bolshevik resolution on the government wins majority vote in Moscow Soviet.
Oct 2 / 19 Sep Moscow Soviet elects executive committee and new presidium,
 8th Oct/ 25th Sep Third coalition govt formed. Petrograd Soviet elects Bolshevik Presidium and Trotsky chairman.
 Oct 21, Petrograd's garrison accepted a Revolutionary Military Committee.
 Oct 23, Lenin spoke against Kamenev, Kollontai, Stalin and Trotsky.
 23rd Oct/ 10th Oct Bolshevik Central Committee meeting approves armed uprising.
 24th Oct/ 11th Oct Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, until 13 Oct.
Nov 2nd / 20th Oct First meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.
 7th November/ 25th Oct; Oct Revolution: Soldiers captured the Winter Palace,
 Second Congress of Soviets convened. Menshevik and moderate SR reps walked out to protest Oct Revolution.
25 Oct 1917 – 25 Oct 1922 Russian Civil War
 Congress established and elected Sovnarkom, and Lenin its first chairman.
 Proclamation of Soviet Russia (unofficial name). 7 Nov 1917 - legal foundation of modern Russian Federation.
 8th Nov/ 26th Oct Second Congress of Soviets issued Decree on Peace, promising an end to Russian participation in
World War I, and the Decree on Land, approving the expropriation of land from the nobility.
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 Nov 8, The People's Commissars "gave" authority to Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.
 Nov 10, New Soviet government suspended freedom of the press.
 Nov 15, Kerensky fled and the Bolsheviks took command in Moscow.
 Nov 17, Lenin defended the "temporary" removal of freedom of the press.
 Nov 21, Maxim Gorki called Lenin a blind fanatic and unthinking adventurer.
 Nov 26, Bolsheviks offered armistice between Russian and the Central Powers.
Dec 5 A local nationalist group, the Alash Orda, established an autonomous government in Kazakhstan.
 December 6 The Finnish parliament issued a declaration of independence.
 Dec 6, Former Czar Nicholas II and family were made prisoners by the Bolsheviks in Tobolsk.
 Dec 7 The Cheka was established.
 Dec 9, New Finnish Republic demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops.
 Dec 12 A Muslim republic, the Idel-Ural State, was established in central Russia.
 Dec 18, The Soviet regiment under Stalin and Lenin declared Finland Independent.
 Dec 24, The Kaiser warned Russia that he would use "iron fist" and "shining sword" if peace was spurned.
 Dec 25 Ukrainian Bolsheviks established the Soviet Ukrainian Republic in Kharkiv.
 Dec 27 Russian Civil War: The counterrevolutionary Volunteer Army was established.
 Bolsheviks tried banning money in favor of barter after the revolution, but chaos resulted.
 After the Bolshevik revolution Lenin named Stalin commissar of nationalities.
 Feliks Dzherzhinsky established the Cheka. It was transformed to the KGB in 1954.
 Chechens formed their 1st independent state, the Confederation of North Caucasian Peoples.
 Don Cossacks declared their own independent republic during the unrest that led to the Bolshevik Revolution.
1918 Jan 2, Bolsheviks talked about resuming war unless the Germans quit Russian soil.
 Jan 12 The Tsentralna Rada declared the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
 Jan 14 The Rumcherod declared itself the supreme power in Bessarabia.
 Jan 15 A decree of the Sovnarkom established the Red Army.
 Jan 16 The Romanian army occupied Kishinev and evicted the Rumcherod.
 Jan 24 The Moldavian Democratic Republic declared its independence from Russia.
 Jan 28 The Transcaucasian parliament held its first meeting.
 Jan 28, Leon Trotsky became leader of the Russian Communists.
 After Jan 31 (O.S.), the Bolsheviks adopted the Gregorian calendar. The next day Feb 14. All dates hereafter are
given in the New Style.
 Feb 5, The Soviets proclaimed the separation of church and state.
 Feb 16, The Council of Lithuania declared the independence of the State of Lithuania.
 Feb 18 The Red Army conquered Kiev.
 Feb 22, Germany claimed the Baltic states, Finland and Ukraine from Russia.
 Feb 23 Mass conscription to the Red Army began in Moscow and Petrograd.
 Feb 24, Estonia's Independence Day. Estonia proclaimed independence from Russia.
 Feb 24 The Red Army retreated from Estonia in the face of the German armed forces.
 Transcaucasian parliament announced the independent Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR).
March 3 Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending its participation in World War I,
 Mar 5, Soviets moved capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow. St. Petersburg shrunk to 35% of its previous size.
 March 6 Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War: Two hundred British marines arrived at Murmansk.
 Mar 9, Russian Bolshevik Party became the Communist Party.
 Mar 14, An all-Russian Congress of Soviets ratified a peace treaty with the Central Powers.
 Mar 20, The Bolsheviks asked for American aid to rebuild their army.
 March 25 The Belarusian National Republic was established by its German occupiers.
April The Idel-Ural State was occupied and dissolved by the Red Army.
 April 30 The Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) was established on the territory of the defunct
Russian Turkestan.
May 26 Russian Civil War: The Czech Legion began its revolt against the Bolshevik government.
 May 28 Armenia and Azerbaijan declared their mutual independence.
 June 8 Russian Civil War: An anti-Bolshevik government, the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly,
was established in Samara under the protection of the Czech Legion
 June 28 A decree by the Central Executive Committee made war communism, under which all industry and food
distribution was nationalized, the economic policy of the Soviet state.
 June 29 Russian Civil War: The Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia was established in Vladivostok.
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July The Idel-Ural State was restored by the Czech Legion.
 July 10 The Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (first official name) was adopted by the
Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The legislative power was transferred from the Sovnarkom to the Central
Executive Committee, which also received the power to pass constitutional amendments.
 July 18 Nicholas II and the rest of the royal family are executed on direct orders from Lenin.
Aug 2, A British force landed in Archangel, Russia, to support White Russian opposition to the Bolsheviks.
 Aug 15, Russia severed diplomatic ties with US.
 Aug 16, US troops overthrew Archangel (Russia).
 Aug 30, Lenin, the new leader of Soviet Russia, was shot & wounded after a speech.
 Aug, Lenin gave a command to suppress a peasant revolt in Penza.
Sep 1, US troops landed in Vladivostok, Siberia, and stayed until 1920. [see Sep 2]
 Sep 3 Red Terror: Izvestia called on the Russian people to "crush the hydra of counterrevolution with massive terror."
 Sep 11, US troops landed in Russia to fight the Bolsheviks.
 Sep 19, American troops of Expeditionary Force received their baptism of fire near the town of Seltso.
 Sep 23 Russian Civil War: A meeting in Ufa established a unified anti-Bolshevik government, the Ufa Directorate.
Oct 18, Russian 10th Army drove out White armies of Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad).
Nov 11 World War I: An armistice treaty was signed, ending the war.
 Nov 17 Two Latvian political parties founded a provisional legislature, the Tautas Padome.
 Nov 18 A military coup overthrew the Ufa Directorate and established its war minister, Aleksandr Kolchak, as dictator.
 Nov 19 The Maapäev returned to power in Estonia.
 Nov 22 Estonian War of Independence: The Russian Red Army invaded Estonia.
 Nov 24 Béla Kun, a friend of Lenin, founded the Hungarian Communist Party.
 Nov 29 Estonian War of Independence: The Red Army captured the Estonian town of Narva.
Dec The Idel-Ural State was again occupied and dissolved by the Red Army.

Dec 8 The Communist Party of Lithuania established a revolutionary government in Vilnius.
 "Special departments," later known as the FSB, were established to spy on the military as the Communist Party
absorbed officers who had served under the just-deposed czar.
 South Ossetians made a bid to break away from Georgia and thousands fled in the ensuing violence.
1919 Jan 1, Local Bolsheviks established the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).
 Jan 3 Latvian War of Independence: The Red Army invaded Latvia.
 Jan 5 The Red Army occupied Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, in support of the local Communist government.
 The Red Army captured Minsk and pronounced it the capital of the Byelorussian SSR.
 Jan 15, Peasants in Central Russia rose against the Bolsheviks.
 Jan 16 The Orgburo was established to oversee the membership and organization of the Communist Party.
 Feb 8, Lithuanian and German military forces forced the Bolsheviks from Kedainiai.
 Feb 14 Polish-Soviet War: The Polish army attacked Soviet forces occupying the town of Biaroza.
 Feb 27 Lithuania was absorbed into the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
 Feb, The Polish–Soviet War began and continued to March 1921.
 Mar 2, The 1st congress of Communist Int’l. opened at the Kremlin.
 March 4 The First Congress of the Comintern began in Moscow.
 Mar 19, A typhoid epidemic raged in Petrograd, Russia, killing 200 daily.
 March 21 Hungarian Social Democrats merged with the Communist Party, released Kun from prison and appointed him
Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Kun dismissed the president and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
 Mar 23, Moscow's Politburo-Central Committee formed.
 March 25 The Eighth Party Congress reinstituted the Politburo as the central governing body of the Communist Party.
 April 16 The Romanian army invaded Hungary.
 Apr 20, Polish Army captured Vilno (Vilnius), Lithuania from Soviet Army.
 April 21 Polish-Soviet War: The Polish army consolidated its control of Vilnius.
 May 30 An anti-Communist Hungarian government headed by Gyula Károlyi was established in Szeged.
 Jun 6, Finland declared war on Bolsheviks.
 June 16 Hungarian occupiers established the Slovak Soviet Republic.
 July 7 The Czechoslovak army reoccupied its territory and dissolved the Slovak Soviet Republic.
 Aug 1 Threatened by the approach of the Romanian army, Kun fled to Austria.
 Aug 14 The Romanian army left the Hungarian capital, Budapest. Admiral Miklós Horthy stepped into the power
vacuum with the army of the Károlyi government.
 Aug 25 Polish-Soviet War: After its total occupation by Polish forces, the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR was dissolved.
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 Nov 14, Red Army captured Omsk, Siberia.
 Dec 21, Hoover deported anarchist, feminist Emma Goldman to Russia for agitating against forced conscription in US.
 Lenin created the Comintern to supervise the int'l. revolutionary movement.
 Bolsheviks began repressions and millions of Cossacks died.
1920 Jan 16, Allies lifted the blockade on trade with Russia.
 Feb 2 Estonian War of Independence: Treaty of Tartu, renouncing all claims on Estonian territory.
 An insurgency in the Khanate of Khiva forced the abdication of the Khan.
 Feb 7 Russian Civil War: Kolchak was executed by a Bolshevik military tribunal.
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Mar 7, The Bolsheviks opened major offensive on the Polish front.
 March 26 Russian Civil War: Volunteer Army evacuated to the Crimea to join the army of Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel.
 Apr 5, Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok.
 April 25 The Russian Eleventh Army invaded the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
 April 26 The Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was established on the territory of the defunct Khanate of Khiva.
 Apr 28, Azerbaijan joined the USSR. The Red Army invaded Azerbaijan and turned the country into a Soviet Republic.
 June 12 The Soviet Union recognized Lithuanian independence.
 July 8 Polish-Soviet War: The Galician Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was established in Ternopil.
 Aug 11 Latvian War of Independence: Treaty of Riga was signed. Soviet renounced all claims on Latvian territory.
 Aug 13 Battle of Warsaw: The battle began with a Russian attack across the Vistula.
 Aug 26 The Bolsheviks defeated the government of the Alash Orda and established the Kyrgyz ASSR† (1).
 Aug 31 Battle of Warsaw: The total defeat of Russian Fourth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Armies marked end of the battle.
 Sep 2 The Red Army attacked Bukhara, the capital of the Emirate of Bukhara.
 Sep 21 Polish-Soviet War: The Polish army occupied Galicia and ended the rule of the Galician SSR.
 Oct 8 The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was established.
 Nov 14 Russian Civil War: Wrangel fled Russia.
 Nov 29 The Eleventh Army entered Armenia.
 Nov, Chechens joined with other Caucasian peoples to form the Republic of the Mountain Peoples.
 Dec 1 The Armenian Prime Minister ceded control of the country to the invading Communists.
 During the Russian Civil War, Mongolia was invaded by a White Russian force of 5,000 men.
 During Polish-Soviet war thousands of captured Red Army men were placed in the camp of Тuchola, Poland.
 New Economic Policy (NEP) of Lenin was elaborated by Nikolai Bukharin.
1921 Feb 16 Red Army invasion of Georgia: The Eleventh Army crossed into Georgia.
 Feb 22 Gosplan, the economic planning committee of the Soviet Union, was created by a decree of the Sovnarkom.
 Feb 25 Red Army invasion of Georgia: Eleventh Army captured Tbilisi and announced formation of the Georgian SSR.
 Feb 28 Kronstadt rebellion: Crews of Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol, harbored at Kronstadt, published a list of demands.
 Mar 1, Sailors revolted in Kronstadt, Russia.
 Mar 7, Red Army under Trotsky attacked the sailors of Kronstadt.
 Mar 16, Britain signed a bilateral trade agreement with Russia.
 March 17 Kronstadt rebellion: After over a week of fighting, government troops pacified Kronstadt.
 Mar 21, Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) was promulgated by decree.
 March 18 Polish-Soviet War: Poland and Soviet Russia signed the Peace of Riga, ending the war.
 Apr 9, Russo-Polish conflict ended with the signing of the Riga Treaty.
 Apr 15, Georgi Timofeyevich Beregovoi, USSR cosmonaut (Soyuz 3), was born.
 July The Red Army captured Ulan Bator, the Mongolian capital.
 July 13 Russian famine of 1921: The writer Maxim Gorky brought world attention to the looming famine.
 Sep 21, Pope Benedictus XV donated 1 million lire to feed Russians.
 Oct 4, League of Nations refused to assist starving Russians.
 Oct 18, Russian Soviets granted Crimean independence.
 Aleksandr Rodchenko, artist, created his whimsical "Project for a Perpetual Motion Machine." He also painted his
“Triptych” in this year.
 Afghanistan signed a Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union.
 Red Army forced the Chechen government into exile and took nominal control. Armed resistance continued.
 In Mongolia Damdiny Sukhbaatar, supported by the Bolshevik administration in Moscow, organized a force that, with
the help of Red Army troops, defeated the White Russians and drove off the Chinese.
 A Soviet famine began with a drought that caused massive crop failures, including total crop failure on about 20% of
Soviet farmland. a Soviet estimate put the death toll at 5.1 million.
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1922 Feb 23 Russian famine of 1921: A decree authorized the seizure of church valuables for famine relief.
 March 12 The Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani SSRs were merged into the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative
Socialist Republic (SFSR).
 Apr 3, Stalin was appointed General Secretary of Communist Party.
 Apr 16, A German-Russia treaty was signed in Italy. It recognized the Soviet Union.
 May 26, Lenin suffered a stroke.
 May 16 Tikhon, the Patriarch of Moscow, was put under house arrest.
 Aug 4 Basmachi Revolt: Enver Pasha was killed in Turkestan.
 Oct 25 Vladivostok fell to the Red Army and the Provisional Priamur Government was extinguished
 Nov 27, Allied delegates barred Soviets from Near East peace conference.
 Dec 29 The Treaty on the Creation of the USSR united its signatories, the Russian and Transcaucasian SFSRs and the
Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs, under the power of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Declaration and
Treaty of Creation of the USSR were adopted (approved) by RSFSR.
 Dec 30 The Declaration and Treaty of Creation of the USSR were ratified (confirmed) and signed by USSR. Loss of
independence of Russia.
 Dec 30, Vladimir I. Lenin proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 Red Oct Heat and Power Plant opened in St. Petersburg, Russia.
 In the Rapallo Treaty Germany recognized Lenin's regime.
 Soviet government divided the North Caucasus along ethnic lines, separating the Chechen Autonomous Oblast from the
Republic of the Mountain Peoples and abolishing the republic itself in 1924.
 Lenin deported 70 of the best minds in Russia along with their families. In 2006 Lesley Chamberlain authored “The
Philosophy Steamer: Lenin and the Exile of the Intelligentsia.”
 South Ossetia became an autonomous region within the Soviet Republic of Georgia.
1923 Feb 9, Soviet Aeroflot airlines formed.
 Mar 4, Lenin's last article in Pravda (about Red bureaucracy) was published.
 Mar 15, Lenin was felled by his 3rd stroke.
 May 3 A council of the pro-government Living Church declared Tikhon an apostate and abolished the Patriarchate.
 Oct 15 Declaration of 46 was written. The Declaration echoed earlier concerns expressed by Leon Trotsky, the
Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, that the Communist Party was insufficiently democratic.
1924 Jan 21 Lenin died.
 Jan 24, St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad.
 Jan 27, Lenin's body was laid in a marble tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin.
 Jan 31 The 1924 Soviet Constitution came into effect.
 Feb 1, Soviet Union was formally recognized by Britain.
 Feb 7, Mussolini government exchanged diplomats with USSR.
 Feb 18 The Thirteenth Party Congress, led by Stalin, Comintern chairman Grigory Zinoviev and Politburo chairman
Lev Kamenev, denounced Trotsky and his faction, the Left Opposition.
 Nov 25 The Mongolian People's Republic was established.
 Nov 27 The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was incorporated into the Uzbek SSR.
 Dec 15, Soviets warned the U.S. against repeated entry of ships into the territorial waters of the USSR.
1925 Jan 6 Trotsky was forced to resign his military offices.
 Jan 16, Leon Trotsky was dismissed as CEO of Russian Revolution Military Council. Stalin took power over Trotsky.
 Feb 19 The lands of the Karakalpaks became the Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast, an oblast of the Kyrgyz ASSR (1).
 Mar 7, The Soviet Red Army occupied Outer Mongolia.
 Mar 30, Stalin supported rights of non-Serbian Yugoslavians.
 April 7 Tikhon died. Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy became the Patriarchal locum tenens according to his will.
 April 19 The Kyrgyz ASSR (1) was renamed the Kazakh ASSR.
 May 13 The Uzbek SSR joined the Soviet Union.
 Jul 10, The official news agency of the Soviet Union, TASS, was established.
 Dec 10 Peter of Krutitsy was arrested. Sergius of Nizhny Novgorod, took the title of Deputy Patriarchal locum tenens.
 Dec 18, Soviet leaders Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev broke with Stalin.
 Dec 23 Fourteenth Party Congress endorsed leadership of Stalin and Bukharin, defeating New Opposition faction of
Kamenev and Zinoviev.
 Eisenstein made his classic silent film "Potemkin."
1926 Feb 11 The Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast was reorganized into the Kyrgyz ASSR (2).
 Mar 26, U.S. oil companies bought 190,000 tons of kerosene from Russia for $3.2 million.
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 Sep 27, Lithuania and the Soviet Union agreed to a 5-year treaty.
 Oct 19, Russian Politburo threw out Leon Trotsky and his followers.
 Oct 23 Trotsky was expelled from the Politburo.
 Nov 19, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from Politburo in the USSR.
 Dec 5, Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin," debuted.
1927 Feb 25 Article 58 of the RFSR Penal Code revised the penalties for counterrevolutionary activity.
 July 29 Sergius affirmed the loyalty of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Soviet government.
 Nov 12 Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Communist Party.
 Dec 2 The Fifteenth Party Congress expelled the remainder of the United Opposition from the Party.
 Dec 14, China and Soviet Union broke relations.
 Dec 27, Stalin's faction won All-Union Congress in USSR. Trotsky was expelled.
 Stalin purged much of the Tatar intelligentsia in the Crimea.
 Sergius, a Greek Orthodox bishop, signed an agreement accepting the Soviet Union as a “civil motherland.”
 The monastery of Saint Serafim Sarofsky in the village of Deveyevo, Russia, was liquidated.
 Prince John Kropotkin, son of Russian Prince Alexei Kropotkin, was beaten to death on a Paris street. Soviet agents
were suspected.
1928 Jan 10, The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.
 March 7 Shakhty Trial: Police arrested a group of engineers in town of Shakhty and accused them of conspiring to
sabotage Soviet economy.
 Mar 22, Peasants in the Soviet Union protested food shortages there.
 Oct 1 First Five Year Plan: Stalin announced the beginning of state industrialisation of the Soviet economy.
 Stalin began his plans for the resettlement of Jews to Birobidzhan, an area of land the size of Belgium on the
Russian-Chinese border.
 Stalin reversed his view on rapid industrialization and Bukharin's power diminished.
 In USSR a show trial of the North Caucasus Shakhty engineers paved the way for Stalin’s consolidation of power in
1929.
 Bertram and Ella Goldberg Wolfe, activists in the Comintern, went to Moscow as guests of the Communist Party.
1929 Jan 18, Stalin banned Trotsky from the Politburo.
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Jan 31, Leon Trotsky was expelled from Russia to Turkey.
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Sep 21, Fighting between China and the Soviet Union broke out along the Manchurian border.
 Nov 17 Bukharin was expelled from the Politburo.
 Collectivisation in the USSR: A Central Committee resolution began the collectivisation of Soviet agriculture.
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Nov 18, Stalin sent troops to Manchuria.
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Dec 22, Soviet troops left Manchuria after a truce was reached with the Chinese over the Eastern Railway dispute.
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Stalin began the liquidation of the kulaks, i.e. independent farmers.
 1929-1932 For some revisionists Stalin’s brutal 5-year plan had its roots in a worker "cultural revolution" against the
NEP.
 1929-1953 Some 18 million people were sent to the Gulag, the vast Soviet prison system that included labor and
concentration camps.
1930 April 15 The Gulag was officially established.
 Apr 30, The Soviet Union proposed military alliance with France and Great Britain.
 Soviet Union began deporting land holders, known as kulaks, along with their families as part of the rural
collectivization process.
 1930s The labor camp in Norilsk, Siberia, was built. It was later developed as a huge nickel complex.
1931 Mar 17, Stalin threw Krupskaja Lenin out of the Central Committee.
 Stalin ordered that Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral be blown up. It was rebuilt after the fall of the USSR and
dedicated in 2000.
 March 20 The Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast became the Karakalpak ASSR.
 May 2, Walter Duranty of the NY Times won a Pulitzer Prize for his series on the Soviet Union that contained uncritical
praise of Joseph Stalin.
 Aug 7 Collectivisation in the USSR: The Central Executive Committee and the Sovnarkom issued the Decree about the
Protection of Socialist Property, under which any theft of public property was punishable by death.
 Sep 11 Holodomor: Stalin sent a letter to a Politburo ally, Lazar Kaganovich, demanding subjection of Ukrainian SSR.
 Nov 9, Nadya Aliluieva (30), wife of Joseph Stalin, died.
 Nov 28, France & USSR signed not-attack treaty.
 Dec 27 A decree by Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom established a passport system in the Soviet Union.
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 Dec 31 First Five-Year Plan: It was announced that the plan had been fulfilled.
1933 Jan 22 Holodomor: Police were instructed to prevent Ukrainian peasants from leaving their homes in search of food.
 Mar 29, The front page of the New York Evening Post said "Famine Grips Russia — Millions Dying."
 Nov 16, US and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations.
 Nov 17, US recognized USSR and opened trade.
 Dec 27, Josef Stalin called tensions with Japan a grave danger.
 Stalin launched the Moscow Metro. It took 75,000 workers 3 years to complete the first 7-mile line.
1934 Feb 8 Elections to Central Committee at 17th Party Congress revealed Sergey Kirov, chief of Leningrad Party, to be
most popular member.
 May, Stalin’s regime officially set up the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan.
 July 10 The Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) was established under the NKVD as a successor to the OGPU.
 Sep 18, League of Nations admitted the Soviet Union.
 Dec 1 Kirov was murdered by Leonid Nikolaev, possibly at the behest of Stalin.
 There were 1,966 delegates to the 17th Soviet Party Congress. By the 1999 Congress 1,108 delegates were arrested and
many shot as traitors.
 Soviet Union’s secret police organization-the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs-was better known as the
NKVD.
 1934-1938 Alexander Troyanovsky served as the first Soviet ambassador to the US.
1935 Jan 31, The Soviet premier told Japan to get out of Manchuria.
 Mar 22, Russia sold the Chinese Eastern Railway to Japan.
 Mar 30, Britain and Russia agreed on treaties intended to curb the power of the Reich.
 Apr 28, The Moscow 81-km underground opened.
 Aug 31 Stakhanov reported to have mined over one hundred tons of coal in single shift, sowing seeds of Stakhanovite
movement.
1936 Mar 19, The U.S.S.R. signed a pact of assistance with Mongolia against Japan.
 May 2, "Peter and the Wolf," a symphonic tale for children by Sergei Prokofiev, had its world premiere in Moscow.
 Aug 19 Moscow Trials: Trial of the Sixteen, in which Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev were primary defendants, began.
 Aug 25 Moscow Trials: The defendants in the Trial of the Sixteen were executed.
 Dec 5 The Stalin Constitution came into effect. The Central Executive Committee was renamed the Supreme Soviet of
the Soviet Union.
 USSR began using Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea to test deadly germs.
1937 Jan 19, In the Soviet Union, the People's Commissars Council was formed under Molotov.
 Jan 21 Renaming of Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic to Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.
 Jan 23 Moscow Trials: The Second Trial began.
 Jan 30 Moscow Trials: The Second Trial ended. Of seventeen defendants, all but four were sentenced to death.
 Apr 18, Leon Trotsky called for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
 May 22 Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization: Mikhail Tukhachevsky, a Marshal was arrested.
 Jun 12, The Soviet Union executed eight army leaders as a purge under Josef Stalin continued.
 Jul 31, The Russian Politburo enabled Operative Order 00447. This led to the execution of some 193,000 people.
 Aug 5, Stalin signed NKVD order no 00447 that mandated all prison camps across the Soviet Union to be emptied.
 Aug 11 Polish operation of NKVD: Chief signed Order № 00485, classifying all potential Polish nationalists as enemies
of the state.
 Aug 15 Great Purge: NKVD Order № 00486 made relatives of accused traitors subject to imprisonment in labor camps.
 Oct 10 Peter of Krutitsy was executed in solitary confinement.
 Oct-Nov, A 3-man panel, the "Osobaya Troika," signed death sentences that were sent to thousands of gulags across
Russia and led to the massacre of 9,000 victims in the Karelia Forest at Medvezhyegorsk.
 Stalin deported some 180,000 Soviet Koreans from their homes and farms and sent them by cattle car to Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan.
 USSR census of this year reported a decline in the population to 162 million and Stalin had the officials responsible for
the count shot.
1938 A new decree required the teaching of Russian in all non-Russian schools.
 March 2 Trial of the Twenty One: The third Moscow Trial, at which Bukharin was the primary defendant, began.
 March 15 Trial of the Twenty One: The defendants were executed.
 July 29 Battle of Lake Khasan: The armed forces of Japanese Manchukuo attacked the Soviet military at Lake Khasan.
 Aug 31 Battle of Lake Khasan: The battle ended in a Japanese defeat.
 Nov 26, Poland renewed a non-aggression pact with the USSR to protect against a German invasion.
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 Dec 8, L.P. Beria followed Nikolai Jezjov as head of Russian secret police.
1939 Feb 2, Hungary broke relations with the Soviet Union.
 Mar 22, Germany marched into Klaipeda (Memel), Lithuania.
 Apr 16, Stalin requested a British, French and Russian anti-Nazi pact.
 May 19, Churchill signed British-Russian anti-Nazi pact.
 Aug 19, Vyacheslav Molotov outlined the Soviet requirements to the German Ambassador, Friedrich von Schulenburg.
 Aug 20, Russian offensive under Gen. Zhukov against Jap invasion in Mongolia.
 Aug 20, Soviet and German trade agreements were signed.
 Aug 23 The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed,
 Sep 17 Soviet invasion of Poland (1939): The Red Army invaded Poland.
 Sep 27, Germany occupied Warsaw.
 Sep 29, Germany and the Soviet Union reached an agreement on the division of Poland. [see Sep 28]
 Oct 5, The Soviets signed a mutual defense pact with Latvia that allowed 30,000 troops to be stationed there.
 Oct 5, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov invited the Finnish Foreign Minister, Elias Erkko, to come to Moscow for
political discussions.
 Oct 10, Lithuania signed a treaty that allowed a Soviet garrison of 20,000 troops.
 Oct 12-Nov 8, Finnish special envoy, Juho Paasikivi, began negotiations in Moscow.
 Oct 22 Elections were held to the Supreme Soviets of the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union.
 Oct 30, USSR and Germany agreed on partitioning Poland. Hitler deported Jews.
 Nov 10-Mar 13,1940, Finland began to wage a defensive war against the Soviet Union for 104 days.
 Nov 26, Soviets charged Finland with an artillery attack on border.
 Nov 28, USSR scraped its non-aggression pact with Finland.
 Nov 29, Soviet planes bombed an airfield at Helsinki, Finland.
 Nov 30 Winter War: The Soviet army attacked Finland.
 Dec 1 Winter War: Soviet Union established the Finnish Democratic Republic in the border town of Terijoki.
 Dec 14, The Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations.
 Dec 25, Finnish troops entered Soviet territory.
1940 Jan 12, Soviet bombers raided cities in Finland.
 Feb 12, The U.S.S.R. signed a trade treaty with Germany to aid against the British blockade.
 Mar 2, Soviet armies conquered Tuppura Island, Finland.
 March 5 Katyn massacre: The Politburo signed an order to execute 27,500 imprisoned Polish nationalists.
 March 12 Winter War: Moscow Peace Treaty signed, ending the war at great cost to Finland and anticipating the
evacuation of Finnish Karelia.
 March 31 The Karelian ASSR merged with the Finnish Democratic Republic into the Karelo-Finnish SSR.
 June 15 The Red Army occupied Lithuania.
 June 17 The Red Army occupied Estonia and Latvia.
 June 28 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia: Bessarabia and northern Bukovina were occupied by the Soviet Union.
 July 21 Lithuania became the Lithuanian SSR; Latvia became the Latvian SSR.
 Aug 3 The Lithuanian SSR was accepted into the Soviet Union.
 Aug 5 The Latvian SSR was annexed by the Soviet Union.
 Aug 6 Estonia became the Estonian SSR and was incorporated into the Soviet Union.
 Aug 20, Trotsky stabbed in the back of the head in Mexico City. Trotsky died the next day.
 Aug 25, The ‘parliaments’ of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania declared themselves ‘provisional Supreme Soviets’ and
adopted new constitutions.
 Dec 18, Hitler dictated Directive No. 21 to crush Russia in a quick campaign.
 Moscow imposed the Cyrillic alphabet over the Roman alphabet.
1941 Jan 10, The Soviets and the Germans agreed on the East European borders and the exchange of industrial equipment.
 Jan 21, US lifted the ban on arms to the Soviet Union.
 Mar 13, Hitler issued an edict calling for an invasion of the U.S.S.R.
 Apr 3, Churchill warned Stalin of German invasion.
 Apr 13, A Russian-Japan no-attack treaty went into effect.
 April 13 Soviet-Japanese Border Wars: A Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed.
 May 6, Dictator Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav M. Molotov.
Jun 13, Thousands of Jewish community leaders in Bessarabia (Moldova) deported to Siberia as part of general purge.
 Jun 14, Russian secret police gathered up some 40,000 men, women and children and exiled them to Siberia in cattle
cars.
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Jun 14, Over 10,000 people (10,861 according to some sources) were deported as whole families from Estonia.
June 22 Operation Barbarossa: Three million Axis soldiers invaded the Soviet Union.
Jun 22, Estonians started armed resistance against Soviet occupation.
Jun 22, Finland invaded Karelia.
June 24 Lithuanian 1941 independence: The LAF government took power in Lithuania.
Jun 24, President Franklin Roosevelt pledged all possible support to the Soviet Union.
Jun 24, Germans advanced into Russia and took Vilnius, Brest-Litovsk and Kaunas.
June 25 Continuation War: The Soviet Union launched a major air offensive against Finnish targets.
Jun 25, Finland declared war on the Soviet Union.
Jun 25-26, Russians counter attacked at Rovno, Poland.
Jun 26, Finland entered WW II against Russia.
June 28 Operation Barbarossa: The Germans captured Minsk.
Jun 29, Nazi divisions in a surprise assault made sweeping advances toward Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev.
Jul 5, German troops reached the Dnieper River in the Soviet Union.
Jul 12, Moscow was bombed by the German Luftwaffe for the first time.
Jul 13, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a mutual aid pact, providing the means for Britain to send war materiel to the
Soviet Union.
 July 27 Operation Barbarossa: The German and Romanian armies entered Kishinev.
Aug 2, German 11th Army surrounded 20 Russian divisions at Uman.
 Aug 5, The German army completed taking 410,000 Russian prisoners in Uman and Smolensk pockets in the Soviet
Union.
 Aug 10, Great Britain and the Soviet Union promised aid to Turkey if it was attacked by the Axis.
 Aug 11, Soviet bombers raided Berlin but caused little damage.
 Aug 13, Red army evacuated Smolensk.
 Aug 21 Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran: Three Soviet armies invaded Iran from the north.
 Aug 21-Sep 26, The Soviet Union's greatest defeat in WWII occurred during the encirclement of the Ukrainian city of
Kiev.
 Aug 22, Nazi troops reached Leningrad.
 Aug 25, British and Soviet forces entered Iran, opening up a route to supply the Soviet Union.
 Aug 25, German troops conquered Novgorod, Leningrad.
 Aug 29, The German Einsatzkommando in Russia killed 1,469 Jewish children.
Sep 8 Siege of Leningrad: The German army cut the last land tie to Leningrad.
 Sep 17 Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran: The Soviet and British armed forces met in Tehran.
 Sep 19 Operation Barbarossa: Kiev fell to the Germans.
 Sep 21, The German Army cut off the Crimean Peninsula from the rest of the Soviet Union.
 Sep 23, Germans staged an air raid on the Russian naval base at Kronstadt. The battleship Marat sank.
 Sep, Shostakovich, a local fire warden, composed his Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad," during the German siege of
his native city.
Oct 2, Operation Typhoon, a German all-out drive against Moscow, began in earnest.
 Oct 6, German troops renewed their offensive against Moscow.
 Oct 10, Soviet troops halted the German advance on Moscow.
 Oct 12, Russian government moved from Moscow to Volga as Nazis closed in on Moscow.
 Oct 15, Odessa, evacuated by Russian troops.
 Oct 16, Germany advanced within 60 miles of Moscow.
 Oct 20, German troops reached the approaches to Moscow.
 Oct 25, German troops captured Kharkov and launched a new drive toward Moscow.
Nov 2, German troops occupied Rostov.
 Nov 6, USA lent Soviet Union $1 million.
 Nov 12, Germany's drive to take Moscow halted.
 Nov 15, The German final attack on Moscow began. They advanced to within 25 miles of the center of Moscow.
 Nov 20 Siege of Leningrad: The first food was carried into Leningrad across the Road of Life on the frozen Lake
Ladoga.
 Nov 23, German troops conquered Klin, NW of Moscow.
 Nov 27, USSR began a counter offensive, causing Germans to retreat.
 Nov 28, German troops vacated Rostov.
Dec 4, Operation Taifun (Typhoon), was halted because of freezing temperatures and lack of serviceable aircraft.
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 Dec 5, Russian offensive in Moscow drove out the Nazi army.
 Dec 8, Russians took Krijukovo back from Germany.
 The amber room in St. Petersburg was dismantled by German officers and shipped to Konigsberg for safekeeping.
1942 Jan 7 Battle of Moscow: The Soviet counteroffensive ended between sixty and one-hundred fifty miles from Moscow.
 Apr 8, The Soviets opened a rail link to the besieged city of Leningrad.
 Apr 20, The battle for Moscow ended.
 May 12, The Soviet Army launched its first major offensive of the war and took Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine from the
German army.
 May 29, German Army completed its encirclement of the Kharkov region of the Soviet Union.
 Jun 1, America began sending Lend-Lease materials to the Soviet Union.
 Jun 11, US and the Soviet Union signed a lend-lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort in World War II.
 Jun 28, German launched “Operation Blue,” an offensive to seize Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of
Stalingrad.
 Jul 1, German troops captured Sevastopol.
 Jul 24, Rostov was captured by German troops.
 Jul, Hitler made decision to split the armies engaged in the offensive and to occupy Stalingrad.
Aug 6, The Soviet city of Voronezh fell to the German army.
 Aug 12, British premier Churchill arrived in Moscow to meet Stalin.
 Aug 19, Gen. Paulus ordered the German 6th Army to conquer Stalingrad.
 Aug 21 Battle of Stalingrad: The German Luftwaffe began a bombing raid against Stalingrad.
 Aug 22, Mikhailmichel Fokine (b.1880), Russian ballet dancer, choreographer, died.
 Aug 23, German forces began an assault on the major Soviet industrial city of Stalingrad.
 Aug 26, A Russian counter offensive began in Moscow.
Sep 2, German troops entered Stalingrad.
 Sep 4, Soviet planes bombed Budapest in the war's first air raid on the Hungarian capital.
 Sep 7, The Red Army pushed back the German line northwest of Stalingrad.
 Sep 17, Churchill met with Stalin in Moscow as the German Army rammed into Stalingrad.
 Sep 23, The Russian counter offensive at Stalingrad began.
 Sep 27, Heavy German assault in Stalingrad.
 Sep 28, Luftwaffe bombed Stalingrad.
Oct 1, German Army ground to a complete halt within the city of Stalingrad.
 Oct 5, 5,000 Jews of Dubno, Russia, were massacred.
 Oct 7, A single salvo Katyusha rocket destroyed a Nazi battalion in Stalingrad.
 Nov 19 Operation Uranus: The Soviet army began a pincer movement against the German forces besieging Stalingrad.
 Nov 22 Operation Uranus: The German Sixth Army was surrounded.
 Nov 23, Gen. Von Paulus asked Hitler's permission to surrender at Stalingrad. The German 4th and 6th Army were
surrounded at Stalingrad.
 Dec 12, German launched Operation Winter Tempest, the relief of the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad.
 Dec 20, Soviet forces halted a German army trying to relieved the besieged city of Stalingrad.
 Dec 22, The Soviets drove German troops back 15 miles at the Don River.
1943 Jan 10, Russian offensive began against German 6th and 4th Armies near Stalingrad.
 Jan 11, The Soviet Red Army encircled Stalingrad.
 Jan 12 Operation Spark (1943): The Soviet army launched a military offensive to break the Siege of Leningrad.
 Jan 18 Operation Spark (1943): The meeting of the Leningrad and Volkhov Front units opened a land corridor to
Leningrad.
 Jan 24, Hitler ordered Nazi troops at Stalingrad to fight to death.
 Jan 25, The last German airfield in Stalingrad was captured by the Red Army.
 Jan 30, Field marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrendered himself and his staff to Red Army troops in Stalingrad.
 Jan 31, Battle of Stalingrad ended as soldiers of Sixth Army under Gen Friedrich von Paulus surrendered.
Feb 2 Battle of Stalingrad: The German Sixth Army surrendered.
 Feb 3, Finland began talks with the Soviet Union.
 Feb 8, Red Army recaptured Kursk.
 Feb 9, The Russians took back Kursk 15 months after it fell to the Nazis.
 Feb 14, Soviets recaptured Rostov.
 Feb 16, The Red army conquered Kharkov.
Mar 14, The Germans reoccupied Kharkov in the Soviet Union.
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 Mar 18, Red Army evacuated Belgorod.
 Apr 13, Nazi's discovered a mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn.
 May 15 The Comintern was dissolved.
Jul 5, The battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, began as German tanks attacked the Soviet salient.
 Jul 6, In the 2nd day of battle at Kursk some 25,000 Germans were killed.
 Jul 7, In the 3rd day of battle at Kursk the Germans occupied Dubrova. Erich Hartmann shot 7 Russian aircraft at Kursk.
 Jul 8, The 4th day of battle at Kursk: Gen Model used his last tank reserve.
 Jul 12, Russians beat Nazis in a tank battle at Prochorowka. Some 12,000 died.
 Jul 13, Greatest tank battle in history ended with Russia's defeat of Germany at Kursk.
 Jul 23, Battle of Kursk, USSR, ended in Nazi defeat. 6,000 tanks took part.
Aug 22, Soviet troops freed Kharkov.
 Aug 25, Red Army under Gen Vatutin recaptured Achtyrka.
 Sep 8 Stalin allowed a church council, which unanimously elected Sergius to the Patriarchate of Moscow.
 Sep 25, Red Army retook Smolensk from the Germans who were retreating to the Dnieper River in the Soviet Union.
 Oct 19, Delegates from the USSR met with representatives from the Allied nations of Great Britain, the U.S., and China,
in an attempt to hammer out a greater consensus on war aims, and to improve the rapidly cooling relations between the
Soviet Union and its allies.
 Oct 30, The Molotov-Eden-Cordell Hull accord over operations at UN.
 Nov 6 The Russians recaptured Kiev.
 Nov 28, Tehran, conference begins.
 Dec 1, Tehran conference concluded and agreed to Operation Overlord (D-Day).
 Dec 12, The exiled Czech government signed a treaty with the USSR for postwar cooperation.
 Dec 20, "International" was no longer USSR National Anthem.
1944 Jan 6 The Red Army crossed into Poland.
 Jan 17, Russia rejected a Polish proposal to negotiate a boundary dispute.
 Jan 27 Siege of Leningrad: The last German forces were expelled from the city.
 Feb 23, Stalin ordered the mass deportation Caucasian Muslim nations.
 Mar 18, The Russians reached the Rumanian border in the Balkans.
 Mar 21, Finland rejected a Soviet armistice.
 Apr 2, Soviet forces entered Romania, one of Germany's allied countries.
 Apr 10, Soviet forces liberated Odessa from Nazis.
May 5, A Russian offensive took place against Sebastopol Krim.
 May 6, The Red Army besieged and captured Sevastopol in the Crimea.
 May 9, Russians recaptured Crimea by taking Sevastopol. [see May 6]
 May 15 Sergius died.
 May 18, The expulsion of more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea by Soviet Union began.
 Jun 29, Russian assault battalion opened fire on German forces on the outskirts of Bobruisk, Belarus.
Jul 3, During World War II, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.
 Jul 16, Soviet troops occupy Vilna, Lithuania, in their drive towards Germany.
 July 21 The Communist Lublin Government of Poland was established.
 Jul 23, Soviet troops took Lublin, Poland, as the German army retreated.
 Jul 24, Soviet forces liberated the Majdanek concentration camp.
 Jul 31, The Soviet army took Kovno [Kaunas], the capital of Lithuania.
Aug 1 Warsaw Uprising: The Polish Home Army began an attack on German forces in Warsaw.
 Aug 21, The US, Britain, the Soviet Union and China opened the Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington, D.C.
 Aug 22 Warsaw Uprising: Stalin denied the Allies use of his landing strips to supply aid to the insurgents.
 Aug 23 Michael I of Romania led a coup against the military dictatorship of Ion Antonescu.
 Aug 30, Ploesti, the center of the Rumanian oil industry, fell to Soviet troops.
 Aug 31 Soviet occupation of Romania: The Red Army captured Bucharest.
 Sep 12 Romania signed an armistice with the Allies, placing itself under the command of an Allied Commission led by
Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky.
 Sep 19 Continuation War: The Moscow Armistice was signed, ending the war at roughly the prewar borders.
 Sep 21 Soviet and Czechoslovak partisan armed forces entered German-occupied Czechoslovakia.
 Oct 2 Warsaw Uprising: The leader of the Uprising signed a surrender agreement.
 Oct 18, Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia during World War II.
 Oct 23, Soviet army invaded Hungary.
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 Nov 14 The Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia was established in Prague.
 Dec 26, Advancing Soviet troops surrounded Budapest.
 Dec 31 Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland (RTRP) was established.
 The Russian film "Ivan the Terrible" was directed by Sergei Eisenstein with music by Prokofiev.
 Stalin deported some 250,000 Tatars from Crimea to Uzbekistan.
1945 Jan 12, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe.
 Jan 13, The Red Army opened an offensive in South Poland, crashing 25 miles through the German lines.
 Jan 17 The Soviet Union captured Warsaw.
 Jan 17, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappeared in Hungary
while in Soviet custody.
 Jan 18 The Soviet Union captured Budapest.
 Jan 19, The Red Army captured Lodz, Krakow, and Tarnow.
 Jan 24, A German attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest was finally halted by the Soviets.
 Jan 26, Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. [see Jan 27]
 Jan 27, The Soviet army arrived at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland,
 Jan 28, The Red Army captured Klaipeda, the last German-held Lithuanian city.
Feb 2 Alexius I was elected Patriarch of Moscow.
 Feb 4-12, Yalta conference.
 Feb 6, Russian Red Army crossed the river Oder.
 Feb 14, The siege of Budapest ended as the Soviets took the city.
March 6 Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Rădescu was forced to resign his office to Petru Groza of the Ploughmen's Front.
 Mar 12, USSR returned Transylvania to Romania.
 Mar 30, The Soviet Union invaded Austria during World War II.
April 4 The government of the Third Czechoslovakian Republic was established in Košice.
 Apr 9, The Red Army was repulsed at the Seelow Heights on the outskirts of Berlin.
 Apr 10, In their second attempt to take the Seelow Heights, near Berlin,
 Apr 11, Red Army finally took the Seelow Heights north of Berlin.
 Apr 13, Vienna fell to Soviet troops.
 Apr 15, The deadly battle for Berlin began.
 April 20 Battle of Berlin: The Soviet army began shelling Berlin.
 April 21 The RTRP ceded control of Poland's internal security apparatus to the Soviet government for forty years.
 Apr 21, Russian army arrived at outskirts of Berlin.
 Apr 22, Soviet troops liberated the concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen.
 Apr 25, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up at Torgau.
 Apr 30, Red Army opened an attack on German Reichstag building in Berlin.
 Apr 30, The Russian Army freed the Ravensbrueck concentration camp.
May 2 Battle of Berlin: The defenders of Berlin surrendered to the Soviet Union.
 May 9 The Soviet army captured Prague.
 May 9, Soviet citizens celebrated their WW II victory in Europe at Red Square.
 Jun 4, US, Russia, England & France agreed to split occupied Germany.
 June 18 Trial of the Sixteen: Leaders of the Polish Secret State were tried in the Soviet Union for collaboration.
 June 21 Trial of the Sixteen: The defendants were sentenced.
 June 28 The coalition Provisional Government of National Unity (TRJN) was established in Poland.
 July 5 US recognized the TRJN.
Aug 2 The Potsdam Agreement moved Poland's borders to the west and established the shape of occupied Germany.
 Aug 8, The Soviet Union declared war against Japan.
 Aug 16 Invasion of Manchuria: Soviet armed forces landed on Sakhalin.
 Aug 16, The communist dominated Polish government signed a treaty with the USSR to formally cede eastern
territories, including Galicia.
 Aug 18 Invasion of Manchuria: Soviet amphibious forces landed in Korea.
 Aug 20 Invasion of Manchuria: The Soviet Union captured Changchun, the capital of Manchukuo.
 Aug 22, Soviet troops landed at Port Arthur and Dairen on the Kwangtung Peninsula in China.
 Aug 25 Invasion of Manchuria: The Soviet Union captured Sakhalin's capital.
 Sep 8, Korea was partitioned by the Soviet Union and the United States.
 Nov 30, Russian forces took Danzig, and invaded Austria.
 Nov The Soviet Union established the Azerbaijan People's Government in Iranian Azerbaijan.
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1946 Jan 22 The Soviet-backed Kurdish Republic of Mahabad declared its independence from Iran.
 Feb 9, Stalin announced the new five-year plan for the U.S.S.R., calling for production boosts of 50 percent.
 Feb 22, George Kennan (1904-2005) sent his “Long Telegram,”
 March 2 Iran crisis: British troops withdrew from Iran. The Soviet Union violated its prior agreement and remained.
 March 10 The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was united with the Russian Orthodox Church.
 March 20 László Rajk of the Hungarian Communist Party became Minister of the Interior.
 May 9 Iran crisis: The Soviet Union withdrew from Iran.
 May 26 Czech parliamentary election, Communist Party won a plurality of votes, enabling their takeover.
 Oct 28, German rocket engineers began work in the USSR.
 Nov 19 Romanian general election, Rigged elections gave a vast majority of seats in the Romanian legislature.
 Dec 11 Iran regained control over the territory of the Azerbaijan People's Government.
 Dec 15 Iran conquered Mahabad.
1947 Jan 19 Polish legislative election, 1947: Rigged elections gave the Communist bloc 80 percent of the vote.
 Feb 17, The Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.
 Mar 10, The Big Four met in Moscow to discuss Germany.
 May 31, Communists grabbed power in Hungary.
 Jun 16, Pravda denounced the Marshall Plan.
 Jul 3, Soviet Union didn't partake in the Marshall Plan.
 Jul 16, Raoul Wallenberg reportedly died at the Lubyanka prison in Moscow of an alleged heart attack.
 Jul, Kennan article "The Sources of Soviet Conflict" in the quarterly Foreign Affairs, which he signed "X,".
 Aug 31 The Hungarian Communist Party won a plurality of seats in elections to the Hungarian legislature.
 Oct 5 The Cominform was established in order to coordinate Communist parties under Soviet control.
 Nov 26, France expelled 19 Soviet citizens, charging intervention in internal affairs.
 Nov 27 A speech to the Central Committee of the KSČ by Chairman Klement Gottwald denounced "reactionary forces"
and triggered the purge of non-Communists from the Czechoslovakian security forces.
 Dec 30 King Michael I of Romania was forced to abdicate.
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Russia Sgt. Mikhail Kalashnikov (b.1919) created the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova) automatic rifle.
1948 Jan 23, The Soviets refused UN entry into North Korea to administer elections.
 Feb 20 Non-Communist ministers resigned from the Czechoslovakian parliament in order to force an election.
 Feb 21 KSČ established the Workers' Militia, banned non-Communists from television broadcasts, and occupied the
non-Communist ministries.
 Feb 25 Czechoslovakian president Beneš accepted resignations of non-Communist ministers and replaced them
according to demands of KSČ.
 Mar 31, Soviets, in Germany, began controlling the Western trains headed toward Berlin.
 April 13 A new Romanian constitution declared that country a People's Republic.
 Jun 7, Communists completed their takeover of Czechoslovakia with the resignation of President Eduard Benes.
 Jun 19, USSR blocked access road to West Berlin.
 June 24 Berlin Blockade: The Soviet Union blocked rail and road access to West Berlin.
 June 25 Berlin Blockade: The commander of American occupation zone ordered an airlift of supplies into West Berlin.
 June 28 Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform.
 July 2, Meeting in Paris among foreign ministers, Molotov called Marshall Plan "imperialist" plot for enslavement of
Europe.
 Jul 8, The 500th anniversary of the Russian orthodox church was celebrated in Moscow.
 Aug 20, Expulsion of Soviet Consul General in NY, Lomakin.
 Sep 9 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established.
 Sep 19, Moscow announced it would withdraw all soldiers from Korea by the end of the year.
 Oct 16, Moscow Jews held a demonstration honoring Israeli ambassador Golda Meir.
 Nov 30, Communists completed the division of Berlin, installing the government in the Soviet sector.
 In the Leningrad Affair a group of high officials was purged following the death of Andrei Zdhanov.
 Russian engineers from Ozersk dumped radioactive waste into Techa River contaminating 100,000 people in farming
villages downstream.
1949 Feb 14, US charged the U.S.S.R. with interning up to 14 million in labor camps.
 Mar 4, Molotov was replaced by Vishinsky and Minister of Defense Bulganin replaced by Vassilievsky.
 Mar 25, Soviet occupiers of Lithuania began Operation "Priboj," a 2nd major deportation program (Mar 25-28).
 Mar, Some 20,000 Estonian civilians were rounded up and deported to Siberia under orders from Joseph Stalin.
 May 11 Berlin Blockade: The Soviets lifted the blockade.
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May 12, The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin blockade. [see Sep 30, 1949]
May 27, Russians stopped train traffic to and from West Berlin.
Aug 18 A new Communist constitution came into force in Hungary.
Aug 29 Joe 1: The Soviet atomic bomb project culminated in a successful test detonation.
Sep 3, A US Air Force B-29 detected a radioactive cloud over the Pacific, which indicated that the Soviets had detonated
an atomic device.
 Sep 23, Truman announced that the Soviet Union was exploding atomic bombs thus breaking the US atomic monopoly.
 Sep 27, The USSR repudiated its 1945 treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia.
 Sep 30, Berlin airlift ended its operation after 277,264 flights.
 Oct 2, USSR recognized the People's Republic of China.
 Dec 16, Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung was received at the Kremlin in Moscow.
 Dec 31, Stalin’s 70th birthday was the occasion for a world-wide Communist celebration.
 George Orwell wrote his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four."
1950 Jan 30 Korean War: Regarding invasion of South, Stalin wrote to North Korea: "Tell him [Kim] that I am ready to help
him in this matter."
 Feb 15, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung signed a mutual defense treaty in Moscow.
 Mar 1, USSR issued golden rubles.
 Mar 8, Marshall Voroshilov of the USSR announced the Soviet Union had developed an atomic bomb. [see Aug 29,
1949]
 Mar 16, Acheson called for a seven-point cooperation plan with the Russians.
 June 25 Korean War: The North Korean army launched a 135,000 man surprise assault across the 38th parallel.
 Oct 2, Mao Tse Tung sent a telegram to Stalin. China intervened in Korea.
 Nov 1 Korean War: Soviet-piloted MiG-15s first crossed the Yalu River and attacked American planes.
 Joel Barr (d.1998 at 82), an electronics engineer, defected to Czechoslovakia and later settled in the Soviet Union.
 NSC-68 document by Paul Nitze (1907-2004) called for containment of the Soviet Union and the building up of
American nuclear forces.
1951 Feb 16, Stalin contended that the U.N. was becoming the weapon of aggressive war.
 Jun 23, Soviet U.N. delegate Jacob Malik proposed cease-fire discussions in the Korean War.
 Jun 23, British diplomats and Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the USSR.
 Jun 26, The Soviet Union proposed a cease-fire in the Korean War.
 Jun 29, US invited the Soviet Union to the Korean peace talks on a ship in Wonson Harbor.
 Sep 24, The Soviet Union conducted its 2nd nuclear test.
 Oct 6, Stalin proclaimed Russia has an atom bomb.
 The nuclear weapons research facility near Nizhzny Novgorod was established by Yuli Khariton (1904-1996).
 1951-1956 There were 9 US reconnaissance aircraft lost and believed shot down by Soviet forces in and near the
Russian Far East during this period with 77 crew members lost.
1952 Mar 25, The U.S., Britain, and France rejected the Soviet proposal for an armed, reunified, neutral Germany.
 Jun 16, Soviet Fighters shot down a Swedish Catalina reconnaissance flight.
 Aug 12, In the USSR 13 former members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) were executed following mock
trials.
 Aug 20, Russia's Stalin met China's Chou Enlai.
 Nov 20 Prague Trials: A series of show trials purged the Czech Communist Party of Jews and insufficiently orthodox
Stalinists.
 A trail was held for 15 leading Jewish writers, intellectuals and scientists, who were associated with the Anti-Fascist
Committee.
1953 Jan 13 Pravda accused prominent doctors - particularly Jews - of participating in a vast conspiracy to poison top Soviet
leaders.
 Feb 12, The Soviets broke off diplomatic relations with Israel after the bombing of Soviet legation.
 Feb 28, Stalin met with Beria, Bulganin, Khrushchev & Malenkov.
 March 5 Stalin died.
 March 6 Malenkov succeeded Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party.
 Mar 9, Josef Stalin was buried in Moscow.
 March 14 Khrushchev became First Secretary.
 April 3 Presidium of Central Committee officially acquitted those arrested in connection with so-called "doctors' plot".
 April 8 First Indochina War: Viet Minh and Pathet Lao forces invaded Laos and attacked French bases there.
 June 16 Uprising of 1953 in East Germany: In response to a 10 percent increase in work quotas, between 60 and 80
31
construction workers went on strike in East Berlin. Their numbers quickly swelled and a general strike and protests were
called for the next day.
 June 17 Uprising of 1953 in East Germany: 100,000 protestors gathered at dawn, demanding the reinstatement of old
work quotas and, later, the resignation of the East German government. At noon German police trapped many of the
demonstrators in an open square; Soviet tanks fired on the crowd, killing hundreds and ending the protest.
 June 26 Beria was arrested at a special meeting of the Presidium.
 Jul 20, USSR and Israel recovered diplomatic relations.
 Korean War: An armistice was signed, ending the conflict.
 Aug 8, In Russia Georgi Malenkov reported the possession of hydrogen bomb.
 Sep 7 Khrushchev was confirmed as head of the Central Committee.
 Sep 12, Khrushchev became the 1st Secretary of USSR Communist Party.
 USSR Lt. Gen’l. Pavel Sudoplatov, spy, was arrested after the death of Stalin and sent to the Gulag.
1954 March 13 Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh forces loosed a massive artillery barrage against the surrounded French
airbase at Dien Bien Phu.
 Apr 21, Gyorgy Malenkov became premier of USSR.
 May 7 Battle of Dien Bien Phu: The battle ended in a French defeat.
 May 7, US, Great-Britain and France rejected Russian membership in NATO.
 May 16 Kengir Uprising: Prisoners at a Gulag adjacent to Kazakh village of Kengir occupied the camp's service yard.
 June 25 Kengir Uprising: The prison camp at Kengir was invaded and subdued by Soviet troops and tanks.
 Jun 27, The 1st atomic power station opened near Moscow at Obninsk, Russia.
 July 21 Geneva Conference (1954): The signing of Geneva Accords promised a complete French withdrawal,
partitioned Vietnam into a Communist North and a monarchist South, and scheduled unifying elections for July 1956.
 Sep 6, A US plane was shot down above Siberia.
 Nov 26, Jonas Zemaitis (b.1909), a founder of the Lithuanian independence movement and presidium head, was shot to
death in Moscow.
 Uzbekistan the Soviet Union established a biological weapons test site on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea.
 Cheka was reorganized as the KGB.
1955 Feb 8, Malenkov resigned as USSR premier. Bulganin replaced him.
 Mar 25, E. Germany was granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR.
 May 14, Representatives from eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed the Warsaw Pact in
Poland.
 May 26, Khrushchev arrived in Belgrade.
 June 2 Khrushchev and Tito issued Belgrade declaration, "different forms of Socialist development are solely concern
of individual countries."
 Jun 24, Soviet MIG’s down a lightly armed US Navy patrol plane over Bering Strait. Molotov expressed his country’s
regrets the next day.
 Jun 29, The Soviet Union sent tanks to Pozan, Poland, to put down anti-Communist demonstrations.
 July Ho Chi Minh visited Moscow and agreed to accept Soviet aid.
 Jul 21, During Geneva summit, Eisenhower presented his "open skies" proposal under which US and Soviet Union
would trade information on each other's military facilities and allow aerial reconnaissance.
 Aug 25, Last Soviet forces left Austria.
 Oct 26, Austria, under request by Russia, promulgated a constitutional law of perpetual neutrality.
 Zhukov (d.1974) was named defense minister.
 USSR lifted a ban on abortion that had been imposed by Stalin in 1936.
 1955-1958 Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin served as Premier.
1956 Jan 25, Khrushchev said that he believed that Eisenhower was sincere in his efforts to abolish war.
 Feb 25 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev read "Secret Speech," denouncing Stalin.
 Mar 23, Soviet students protested the campaign to desanctify Stalin.
 April 17 The Cominform was officially dissolved.
 Jun 4, A speech by Khrushchev blasting Stalin was made public.
 June 28 Poznań 1956 protests: Poles upset with the slow pace of destalinization turned to protests, and then to violent
riots.
 Oct 19 The liberal Władysław Gomułka was elected leader of the Polish Communist party.
 Oct 23 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A small pro-Gomułka demonstration in Budapest expanded into a 100,000 head
protest. The protestors marched on Parliament; when they were fired on by the Hungarian Security Police, they turned
violent and began to arm themselves.
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Oct 24, Soviet troops invaded Hungary and Imre Nagy became PM of Hungary.
Oct 31 Hungarian Revolution: Hungary under Nagy withdrew from the Warsaw Pact.
Nov 2, Hungary appealed for UN assistance against Soviet invasion. The Soviets chose Janos Kadar to form a
counter-government.
 Nov 4 Hungarian Revolution: A Soviet invasion, 2,500 Hungarians were killed in the ensuing battle.
 Nov 8, UN demanded USSR leave Hungary.
 Nov 8 Hungarian Revolution: Pro-Soviet János Kádár announced the formation of a new "Revolutionary
Worker-Peasant Government," with himself as Prime Minister and leader of the Communist Party.
 Nov 17, Khrushchev told Western diplomats "We will bury you."
 Dec 2 Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and his followers in the 26th of July Movement landed in Cuba.
 Dec 10 Angolan War of Independence: Angolan independence movements united to form Marxist Popular Movement
for Liberation of Angola.
 Khrushchev unveiled the city of Dubna and its Joint Institute for Nuclear Studies as the locus of basic research into
atomic physics.
 Andropov organized the repression of the Hungarian Revolution.
 1956-58 The Soviet Union provided intermediate-range ballistic missile to China for study.
1957 Mar 12, German DR accepted 22 Russian armed divisions.
 May 4, It was reported that NATO warned Soviet Union that it would meet any attack with all available meads including
nuclear weapons.
 June 18 Led by the Stalinist Anti-Party Group, the Presidium voted to depose Khrushchev as First Secretary.
 Presidium reversed its vote under pressure from Khrushchev and defense minister and deferred decision to later meeting
of Central Committee.
 June 29 A Central Committee vote affirmed Khrushchev as First Secretary
 Jul 14, Soviet steamer "Eshghbad" sank in Caspian Sea and 270 drowned.
 Jul 26, USSR launched the 1st intercontinental multistage ballistic missile.
 Jul 28, The 6th World Youth Festival opened in Moscow with the motto “For Peace and Friendship.”
 Aug 26, The Soviet Union announced it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile.
 Oct 4, The Space Age and "space race" began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (traveler),
 Oct 26, Marshal Georgi Zhukov,relieved of his duties as Minister of Defense.
 Nov 3, Soviet Union launched into orbit Sputnik Two,
 Nov 15, Khrushchev asserted Soviet superiority in missiles, challenging the U.S. to a rocket-range shooting match.
 Dmitri Shostakovich composed his 11th Symphony: "The Year 1905," a reflection on the brutality leading to the 1905
revolution.
 Khrushchev allowed the Chechens back to the Caucasus and the Checheno-Ingush republic was set up.
1958 Jan 6, Moscow announced a reduction in its armed forces by 300,000.
 Jan 21, The Soviet Union called for a ban on nuclear arms in Baghdad Pact countries.
 March 27 Khrushchev replaced Bulganin as Premier of the Soviet Union.
 Mar 31, Moscow declared a halt on all atomic tests and asked other nations to follow.
 Apr 14, Sputnik 2 (with dog Laika) burned up in the atmosphere.
 May 1, Russia’s new steel mill at Cherepovets produced its 1st ingot.
 May 15, Sputnik III, the first space laboratory, was launched in the Soviet Union.
 Jun 16, Imre Nagy former Hungarian premier hanged.
 Jul, Soviet fighter planes shot down an RB-50G US reconnaissance plane over the east coast of the USSR.
 Aug 27, USSR launched Sputnik 3 with 2 dogs aboard.
 Oct 23, Boris Pasternak won the Nobel Prize in literature. However, Soviet authorities pressured Pasternak into
relinquishing the award.
 Oct 23, USSR lent money to UAR to build Aswan High Dam.
 Oct 29, Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel prize for literature. Pasternak's novel "Dr. Zhivago" was on the best seller list
in the west.
 Dec 14, US, Britain and France rejected Soviet demands they withdraw troops from West Berlin and liquidate Allied
occupation in West Berlin.
1959 Jan 1 Cuban Revolution: Cuban president Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic.
 Feb 24, Khrushchev rejected the Western plan for the Big Four meeting on Germany.
 May 10, Soviet forces arrived in Afghanistan.
 May 25, Khrushchev visited Angola.
 Jun 4, The Soviet Union’s Bolshoi Ballet company arrived in San Francisco following performances in New York and
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Los Angeles.
Jul 24, During a visit to Soviet Union, VP Nixon got into a "kitchen debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a
US exhibition.
 Sep 14, The Soviet space probe Luna 2 became the first man-made object to reach the moon as it crashed onto the lunar
surface.
 Sep 15, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev arrived in US to begin a 13-day visit.
 Sep 19, Khrushchev reacted angrily during a visit to LA upon being told that, for security reasons, he wouldn't be
allowed to visit Disneyland.
 Sep 22, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited San Francisco and dropped in at the ILWU union hall near
Fisherman’s Wharf.
 Sep 25, President Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Khrushchev began Camp David talks.
 Oct 31, The USSR and Egypt signed contracts for building the Aswan Dam.
1960 Feb 26, Soviet premier Khrushchev voiced support for Indonesia.
 Apr 2, Cuba bought oil from USSR.
 April 16 Sino-Soviet Split: A Chinese Communist Party newspaper accused the Soviet leadership of "revisionism."
 May 7, Leonid Brezhnev replaced Marshal Kliment Voroshilov as president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
 May 7, Fidel Castro announced Cuba’s resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
 May 9, US sent a U-2 over USSR.
 May 16, Big Four summit in Paris collapsed in wake of the U-2 incident.
 Jul 1, USSR shot down a US RB-47 reconnaissance plane.
 Jul 8, Soviet Union charged Francis Gary Powers, with espionage.
 Jul 9, Khrushchev threatened to use rockets to protect Cuba from the US.
 July 16 Sino-Soviet Split: Moscow recalled thousands of Soviet advisers from China and ended econ and military aid.
 Jul 17, Francis Gary Powers pleaded guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court after his U-2 spy plane was shot down
over the Soviet Union.
 Aug 13, The Soviet Union withdrew advisors, aid and other support from China.
 Aug 17, Gary Powers pleaded guilty at his Moscow trial for spying over the Soviet Union in a U-2 plane.
 Aug 19, A tribunal in Moscow convicted American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage.
 Oct 12, Khrushchev disrupted a UN General Assembly session by pounding his desk with a shoe when a speaker
criticized his country.
 Dec 20 Vietnam War: National Front for Liberation of Vietnam was formed.
1961 Feb 5, The Soviets launched Sputnik V, the heaviest satellite at 7.1 tons.
 Apr 12, Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, experienced the weightlessness of space for 108 minutes.
 April 20 Bay of Pigs Invasion: Castro announced that all the invaders had been defeated.
 Apr 30, Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba received the Lenin Peace Prize.
 Jun 3, JFK and Khrushchev met in Vienna.
 Jun 4, A Soviet K-19 nuclear submarine with 139 crew members experienced a nuclear accident. 22 later died from
radiation poisoning.
 Aug 7, Soviet premier Khrushchev predicted that the USSR economy would surpass that of the US.
 Aug 13 Construction began on the Berlin Wall.
 Oct 30, The Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb, the "Tsar Bomba," with a force estimated at about 50 megatons.
 Oct 30, Soviet Party Congress unanimously approved a resolution ordering removal of Josef Stalin's body from Lenin's
tomb.
 Nov 11, Molotov, Malenkov & Kaganovich were kicked out of Russia's communist party.
 Nov 11, Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd.
 Dec 2 In a nationally broadcast speech, Castro declared he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt
Communism.
 Dec 10 Sino-Albanian split: The Soviet Union severed diplomatic ties with Albania.
1962 Jan 23, British spy Kim Philby defected to USSR.
 Feb 10, Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolph Ivanovich Abel,
 June 2 Novocherkassk massacre: Soviet workers gathered in town square of Novocherkassk to protest an increase in
food prices and work quotas. The government fired on the rioters, killing nearly a hundred.
 June 25 Mozambican War of Independence: The Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) was founded.
 Aug 5, Russia set off a 40-megaton atomic bomb as part of a new test series.
 Aug 11, The Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev on a 94-hour flight.
 Aug 25, USSR performed a nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya, Eastern Kazakh, Semipalitinsk.
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Oct 14, The American CIA U-2 mission detected Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.
Oct 16 Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy was shown U-2 surveillance images of SS-4 launch sites in Cuba.
Oct 18, JFK met Russian minister of Foreign affairs Andrei Gromyko.
Oct 22 Cuban Missile Crisis: Kennedy announced that any nuclear missile attack from Cuba would be regarded as an
attack by the Soviet Union, and that the island would be placed under "quarantine" to prevent further weapons
shipments.
 Oct 25, Adlai E. Stevenson presented evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba to the UN Security Council.
 Oct 26 Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union offered to withdraw missiles in return for U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba
or support any invasion.
 Oct 27, Khrushchev offered to remove Soviet missile bases in Cuba if the U.S. removed its missile bases in Turkey.
 Oct 28 Cuban Missile Crisis: Khrushchev announced that he had ordered the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba.
 Nov 2, Pres. Kennedy reported that Soviet missile bases in Cuba were being dismantled.
 Nov 19, Fidel Castro accepted the removal of Soviet weapons.
 Nov 20, USSR agreed to remove bombers from Cuba and US lifted its blockade.
 Alexander Solzhenitsyn (43) published "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch." It first appeared in the Soviet
magazine Novy Mir.
1963 Jan 16, Nikita Khrushchev claimed the USSR had a 100-megaton nuclear bomb.
 Jan 17, Soviet leader Khrushchev visited the Berlin Wall. [see Feb 17]
 Feb 19, The Soviet Union informed President Kennedy it would withdraw "several thousand" of an estimated 17,000
Soviet troops in Cuba.
 Feb 20, Moscow offered to allow on-site inspection of nuclear testing.
 Feb 22, Moscow warned the U.S. that an attack on Cuba would mean war.
 Feb 27, The U.S.S.R. said that 10,000 troops would remain in Cuba.
 Apr 27, Cuban premier Fidel Castro arrived in Moscow.
 Jun 28, Khrushchev visited East-Berlin.
 Jul 25, US, Soviet Union and Britain initialed a treaty in Moscow prohibiting testing of nuclear weapons in atmosphere,
in space or underwater.
 Aug 5, US, Britain and Soviets signed Limited Test Ban Treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere,
space and underwater. Pub
 Aug 30, The hot line, a rapid communications link between Washington, D.C., and Moscow went into operation
 Oct 7, Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union.
1964 Jan 28, The Soviets downed a U.S. jet over East Germany killing three.
 Feb 9, The U.S. embassy in Moscow was stoned by Chinese and Vietnamese students.
 Feb, Yuri Nosenko (1927-2008), Soviet KGB officer, defected under CIA guidance in Geneva.
 May 14, Khrushchev joined Nasser in setting off charges, diverting Nile River from site of Aswan High Dam project.
 May 19, The State Department announced U.S. embassy in Moscow had been bugged.
 Oct 14 Khrushchev deposed at a Central Committee meeting. Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin assumed power as First
Secretary and Premier.
1965 Jan 1 The Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) held its first congress.
 Mar 3, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
 Mar 18, The first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov
 Dec 5, activists in central Moscow demand trial of two Soviet writers charged, Andrei Sinyavsky (d.1997) and Yuliy
Daniel, be open.
 Dec 9, Nikolai V. Podgorny replaced Anastas I. Mikoyan as president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
1966 Jan 10, The Tashkent Agreement, was signed in the Soviet city of Tashkent, and officially ended a 17-day war between
Pakistan and India.
 Jan 31, The Soviets launched Luna 9, the first spacecraft to land softly on the moon.
 Feb 3, The Soviet probe Luna 9 became the first manmade object to make a soft landing on the moon.
 Mar 1, Moscow reported that a space probe had crashed on Venus. Venera 3 became the 1st man-made object to impact
on a planet (Venus).
 Mar 29, Brezhnev became First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
 Oct 22, The Soviet Union launched Luna 12 for orbit around the moon.
1967 Jan 27, US signed Outer Space Treaty with Russia. More than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the orbiting of
nuclear weapons.
 Feb 7 Sino-Soviet split: Chinese government announced that it could no longer guarantee safety of Soviet diplomats
outside embassy building.
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Feb 26, USSR performed an underground nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
Mar 6, Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Josef Stalin, appeared at the US Embassy in India and announced her
intention to defect to West.
 Mar 31, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Consular Treaty, the first bi-lateral pact with the Soviet Union since the
Bolshevik Revolution.
 Apr 23, Soyuz 1 was launched, and Vladimir Komarov became the first in-flight casualty.
 June 10 The Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Israel. see Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict
 Jun 12, Venera 4, a space probe of the Soviet Union, was launched. It transmitted information on the atmosphere of
Venus.
 Jun 23, President Johnson and Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin held the first of two meetings in Glassboro State College
in New Jersey.
 Sep 23, Soviets signed a pact to send more aid to Hanoi.
 Oct 18, A Russian unmanned spacecraft made the first landing on the surface of Venus.
 Yuri Andropov became the Chief of the Soviet KGB.
1968 Jan5 Prague Spring: Liberal Dubček was appointed to succeed Antonín Novotný as First Secretary of Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia.
 Mar 8, Russian submarine armed with nuclear missiles, sank in 16,000 feet of water northwest of Oahu.
 April 5 Prague Spring: Czech Communist Party published their Action Programme.
 Jul 1, The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India refused to sign.
 Jul 15, Commercial air travel began between US & USSR.
 Aug 3, The Bratislava statement conceded Czechoslovakia’s right to pursue its own path.
 Aug 20 Prague Spring: Between 200,000 and 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops crossed the Czechoslovakian border.
 Aug 21 Prague Spring: Leading KSČ liberals - including Dubček - were arrested, flown to Moscow and forced to repeal
the reforms
 Aug 21, After 5 years Russia once again jammed Voice of America radio.
 Aug 25, Seven dissidents came out in the Red Square to protest against the invasion of the soviet troops in
Czechoslovakia
 Sep 11, The Soviet troops started leaving Prague for the countryside.
 Sep 13, Albania officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Albania had condemned the Aug Soviet-led invasion of
Czechoslovakia.
1969 March 2 Sino-Soviet border conflict: A Soviet patrol came into armed conflict with Chinese forces on Zhenbao Island.
 Mar 2, Chinese and Russian soldiers clashed on Damansky Island and approximately 70 died.
 Mar 15, A violent Chinese-Russian border dispute left 100s dead.
 Jun 11, Soviet and Chinese troops clashed on Sinkiang border.
 Oct 21 Somali military and police occupied the capital of Mogadishu.
 Nov 4, Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was expelled from Soviet Writers Union.
1970 Oct 8, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
 Nov 4, Andre Sakharov, Russian nuclear physicist, formed a Human Rights Committee.
 Sep 4, Natalia Makarova (b.1940), Russian ballet dancer, requested asylum while on tour in Britain.
1971 Feb 14, Moscow publicized a new five-year plan geared to expanding consumer production.
 Mar 23, USSR performed underground nuclear test.
 pr 23, The Soviet Union launched Soyuz 10; the cosmonauts became the first in Salyut 1 space station.
 Sep 3, Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin, between US, Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France. ended a long
time source of tension.
 Sep 25, Over 100 Russian officials were expelled from Britain for spying.
1972 Apr 10, Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention (BWC).
 Apr, Iraq and the USSR signed a Treaty of Friendship.
 May 26, Nixon and Brezhnev signed in Moscow the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
 Jun 5, Tito (1892-1980) visited USSR and received Order of Lenin.
 Jul 8, US signed an agreement to sell grain to USSR for $750 million.
 Jul 18, Sadat demanded that the USSR withdraw all military advisors from Egypt.
1973 Jan 27 Vietnam War: Paris Peace Accords
 May 18, Brezhnev visited West Germany.
 Jun 19, Nixon met with Brezhnev at the White House.
 Dec 21, Geneva Conference to negotiate a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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 Dec 28, Alexander Solzhenitsyn published "Gulag Archipelago" in Paris. It was an expose of the Soviet prison system.
1974 Aug, The CIA in Project Azorian recovered part of a Soviet submarine that had sunk in the Pacific on March 8, 1968.
 Sep 12 Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a council of military officers, the Derg.
 Nov 23-24, Ford attended a summit in Vladivostok, with Brezhnev.
 Alexander Solzhenitsyn published "The Gulag Archipelago." [see Dec 28, 1973]
1975 Jan 3, President Gerald Ford signed the Jackson-Vanik amendment into law,
 Jan 31 Angolan War of Independence: A transitional unity government, of NLF, MPLA, and UNITA, took office under
Alvor Agreement.
 March 11 Vietnam War: A large-scale North Vietnamese offensive began with the conquest of Buon Ma Thuot.
 March 27 The Pathet Lao began a military offensive against the Laotian government.
 April 30 Fall of Saigon
 June 25 Mozambican War of Independence: FRELIMO government received independence from Portugal.
 Oct 9, Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
 Nov 11 Angolan Civil War: Portugal accepted a declaration of independence from the MPLA.
 Dec 2 The king of Laos abdicated, leaving leadership to Pathet Lao.
1976 Sep 6, A Soviet pilot landed his MIG-25 in Tokyo and asked for political asylum in the United States.
1977 July 23 Ogaden War: Somali National Army invaded the Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia.
 September 7 Ogaden War: The Soviet Union ended its arms shipments to the Somali government.
 Nov 13 Ogaden War: Barre cancelled the Somali-Soviet treaty of friendship.
1978 April 28 Saur Revolution: Military units loyal to PDPA assaulted the Afghan Presidential palace, killing President
Mohammed Daoud Khan.
 May 1 Saur Revolution: The PDPA installed its leader, Nur Muhammad Taraki, as President of Afghanistan.
 July A rebellion against the new Afghan government began with an uprising in Nuristan.
 Dec 5 A treaty was signed which permitted deployment of the Soviet military at the Afghan government's request.
 Dec 25 Cambodian-Vietnamese War: Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia.
1979 Jan 7 Cambodian-Vietnamese War: Vietnamese army captured Phnom Penh, ending the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
 Jan 10 Cambodian-Vietnamese War: People's Republic of Kampuchea was established.
 Jan 15, The Soviet Union vetoed a United Nations resolution and called for the withdrawal of all Vietnamese troops
from Cambodia.
 Jun 18, President Carter and Soviet Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna.
 July 19 The armed forces of the Marxist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) entered Managua.
 Sep 14 Taraki was murdered by supporters of Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin.
 Dec 24 Soviet war in Afghanistan: Fearing the collapse of the Amin regime, the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan.
 Dec 27 Operation Storm-333: Soviet troops occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul,
1980 Jan 14, UN voted 104-18 to deplore the Soviet Afghan acts.
 Jan 20, President Carter announced the US boycott of Olympics in Moscow.
 Jan 22, Sakharov and his wife Jelena Bonner were banished from Moscow to Gorky.
 Feb 22, In a stunning upset, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y., 4-3.
 Sep 17 The trade union Solidarity was founded in Poland.
 Oct 10 Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) was founded from an assortment of leftist and Communist
Salvadoran organizations
 Dec 14, NATO warned the Soviets to stay out of the internal affairs of Poland.
1981 May 13, John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca.
 Nov 30, US and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.
 Dec 13 Jaruzelski, First Secretary of Communist Party, declared martial law in Poland.
1982 Jan 25 Suslov died after a severe stroke.
 Nov 10 Brezhnev died of a heart attack.
 Nov 12 Yuri Andropov was elected General Secretary of the CPSU.
1983 Mar 8, Pres Reagan called the USSR an "Evil Empire."
 Aug 25, The US and USSR signed a $10 billion grain pact.
 Sep 1, KAL flight 007 was downed by a Soviet jet fighter
 Sep 26, Soviet Union's early warning system wrongly signaled launch of a US missile. Lt. Col. Petrov, decided the
alarm was false.
 Oct 19 Grenadian military overthrew the government of Maurice Bishop and installed the pro-Soviet Stalinist Bernard
Coard to lead the nation.
 Oct 25 Invasion of Grenada: US and her Caribbean allies toppled the Coard government.
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1984 Feb 9 Andropov died after long kidney disease and was succeeded as General Secretary by Konstantin Chernenko.
 Feb 13, Chernenko was chosen to be general secretary.
 Aug 11, Reagan sparked controversy when he joked during a voice test for a paid political radio address: "My fellow
Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing
in five minutes."
1985 March 10 Chernenko died of Emphysema.
 March 11 The Politburo unanimously supported Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party.
 Mar 11, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Lithuania.
 Mar 12, The US and the USSR began arms control talks in Geneva.
 Apr 23, Gorbachev announced economic reforms known as perestroika (reconstruction and opening).
 May 20, FBI arrested John A. Walker. US Navy Chief Petty Officer spy.
 Nov 19, Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time as they began their summit in Geneva.
 Gorbachev told Communist leaders in Eastern Europe that Moscow would not interfere in their domestic affairs.
 1985-1994 Aldrich H. Ames, a CIA counterintelligence official, passed information over this time to the Soviet Union
that included the names of US agents. The deaths of at least 9 agents were blamed on his disclosures.
1986 Feb 19, The Soviet Union launched the first component of its Mir space station. Mir meant peace.
 Apr 26, Chernobyl atomic power plant exploded.
 Sep 29, The Soviet Union released Nicholas Daniloff, an American journalist confined in Moscow on spying charges.
 Oct 3, Soviet nuclear submarine K-219 suffered an explosion and fire in a missile tube northeast of Bermuda; the vessel
sank three days later.
 Oct 11, Reagan and Gorbachev opened two days of talks concerning arms control and human rights in Reykjavik,
Iceland.
 Oct 12, Reykjavik, Iceland, ended in stalemate, with Reagan and Gorbachev unable to agree on arms control
 Dec 12, Russian Tupolev-134 crashed in East Berlin and 70 of 82 people were killed.
 Dec 19, Andrei Sakharov from internal exile, and pardoned his wife, Yelena Bonner.
 Soviets built a half-mile concrete span, the Friendship Bridge, connecting Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
1987 Feb 26, USSR resumed nuclear testing at Semipalitinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan.
 Apr 14, Sec State George P. Shultz met with Gorbachev, who proposed the elimination of short-range nuclear missiles
 Apr 20,US deported Karl Linnas to the Soviet Union, where he had been convicted in absentia of Nazi war crimes and
faced a death sentence.
 May 28, Mathias Rust, a 19-year-old West German pilot, landed a private plane in Moscow's Red Square after evading
Soviet air defenses.
 May 30, Soviet Defense Minister Sokolov and chief of Soviet air defenses were fired,
 Jun 12, Reagan, at Brandenburg Gate: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
 Jul 12, For the first time in 20 years, a delegation of Soviet diplomats arrived in Israel for what was described as a
"technical mission" to.
 Sep 2, West German pilot Mathias Rust, went on trial who was convicted and given a four-year sentence, was released
Aug. 3, 1988.
 Sep 13, Shevardnadze arrived in Washington for talks aimed at a possible superpower summit
 Sep 18, Reagan announced that he and Gorbachev would meet later in year to sign a treaty banning medium and
shorter-range nuclear missiles.
 Nov 11, Yeltsin, was dismissed as Moscow Communist Party chief for criticizing the slow pace of reform.
 Nov 24, US and tSoviet Union agreed to scrap shorter- and medium-range missiles
 Dec 8, Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty agreed to destroy their arsenals of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
1988 Feb 18, Soviet Communist Party leaders dropped former Moscow party chief Yeltsin from the ruling Politburo.
 April 14 Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet government signed Geneva Accords, which included a timetable for
withdrawing their armed forces.
 Apr 22, Sec Shultz, visiting Soviet Union, met with Gorbachev
 April 27 A strike at the V.I. Lenin Steel Mill in Nowa Huta touched off months of striking across Poland.
 April 13 Singing Revolution: The Popular Front of Estonia was founded.
 May 12, Shultz and Shevardnadze, meeting in Geneva, resolved nearly all remaining questions on an
intermediate-range missile treaty.
 May 18, A cheering crowd in the Soviet town of Termez greeted the first Soviet soldiers as they withdrew from
Afghanistan.
 May 29, President Reagan began his first visit to the Soviet Union as he arrived in Moscow for a superpower summit
with Gorbachev.
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Jun 1, Reagan and Gorbachev concluded their Moscow summit
June 3 Singing Revolution: The liberalization movement Sąjūdis was founded in Lithuania.
Jul 1, A four-day national conference of Communist Party members ended in Moscow, with Gorbachev winning
approval for sweeping changes.
 Sep 23, Shevardnadze concluded two days of talks in Washington with Secretary of State George P. Shultz
 Sep 30, Gorbachev retired President Andrei A. Gromyko from the Politburo and fired other old-guard leaders in a
Kremlin shake-up.
 Oct 1, In a continuing shake-up of Soviet leadership, Gorbachev was confirmed as president, succeeding Andrei A.
Gromyko.
 Oct 9 Singing Revolution: The Popular Front of Latvia was founded.
 Dec 1, Gorbachev won nearly unanimous approval for a more dynamic political structure from Supreme Soviet, which
voted itself out of existence in favor of a new Congress of People's Deputies.
 Dec 2, The 5 gunmen, who hijacked Soviet Aeroflot jet, surrendered in Israel.
 Dec 6, Gorbachev arrived for his second U.S. visit to address the United Nations and meet with President Reagan and
President-elect Bush.
 Dec 10, Gorbachev visited the republic of Armenia, the scene of a devastating earthquake that had killed an estimated
25,000 people.
1989 Feb 15 Soviet war in Afghanistan: The last Soviet troops left the country.
 Mar 27, Yeltsin and other anti-establishment candidates claimed victory in parliamentary elections for the new
Congress of People's Deputies.
 Apr 2, Gorbachev began a visit to Cuba
 April 4 The Polish Round Table Agreement legalized independent trade unions and reinstated the Senate.
 Apr 6, Soviet leader Gorbachev met with British PM Margaret Thatcher in London,
 May 15, Gorbachev arrived in Beijing for first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years, overshadowed by pro-democracy
demonstrations.
 June 4 Free elections were held to the Polish parliament, resulting in a landslide Solidarity victory.
 Aug 23 Singing Revolution: Two million people joined hands to form Baltic Way across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
to demonstrate.
 Sep 20, Gorbachev pulled off a major shake-up of the Soviet Communist Party, dropping three Politburo members.
 Oct 23 The Hungarian parliament declared their country a republic.
 Oct 25, Soviet leader Gorbachev began a three-day visit to Finland.
 Nov 9 The East German government loosened restrictions on travel into the West, effecting the end of the Berlin Wall.
 Nov 11 El Salvador Civil War: The FMLN launched an offensive which would capture part of San Salvador.
 Nov 17 Velvet Revolution: An anti-Communist protest in Czechoslovakia was ended violently by the police.
 Nov 28 Velvet Revolution: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced the end of its monopoly on political
power.
 Dec 1, Gorbachev met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
 Dec 3, In Malta Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev announce the official end to the Cold War.
 Dec 7 Singing Revolution: The Lithuanian parliament ended the political monopoly of the Communist Party of
Lithuania.
 Dec 16 Romanian Revolution of 1989: A protest in Timişoara in response to eviction of dissident Hungarian Reformed
pastor, László Tőkés.
 Dec 25 Romanian Revolution of 1989: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu was captured in the countryside and
executed.
1990 Jan 11, Gorbachev visited Lithuania
 Jan 15, Gorbachev and Soviet Presidium declared a state of emergency in parts of Azerbaijan and Armenia
 Jan 16, The Soviet Union sent more than 11,000 reinforcements to the Caucasus to halt a civil war between Armenians
and Azerbaijanis.
 Jan 20, The Soviets attacked Baku, leaving dozens dead and wounded.
 Jan 31, McDonald's Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.
 Feb 4, Cheering protesters thronged Moscow streets to demand that the Communists surrender their stranglehold on
power.
 Feb 5, Gorbachev told the Communist Party it had to earn the right to rule, instead of treating it as an unchallenged right.
 Feb 7, Communist Party agreed to let other political parties compete for control of the country, thereby giving up its
monopoly on power.
 Feb 23 Singing Revolution: Elections in Lithuania gave Sąjūdis an absolute majority in the legislature.
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March 11 Singing Revolution: The Lithuanian government declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
Mar 14, Soviet Congress elected Gorbachev president of the Soviet Congress, a day after creating the post.
March 18 Singing Revolution: Elections to the Latvian Supreme Soviet gave the majority of seats to a pro-independence
coalition,
 Apr 1, More Soviet military vehicles rolled through Vilnius,
 April 8 The Hungarian Socialist Party received only 8% of the seats in elections to parliament.
 Apr 18, Soviet Union shut off a pipeline that supplied Lithuania with crude oil; a day later, the Soviets severely reduced
the flow of natural gas.
 May 1, Gorbachev and other Kremlin leaders were jeered by thousands of people during the annual May Day parade in
Red Square.
 May 14, In separate decrees, Gorbachev declared Estonia and Latvia had no legal basis for moving toward
independence.
 May 17, Gorbachev met in Moscow with Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene,
 May 29, Yeltsin was elected president of Russian republic
 June 9 Velvet Revolution: Elections in Czechoslovakia reduced the Communist Party to a minority.
 Jun 12, Gorbachev eased his objection to a reunified Germany holding membership in NATO.
 Jun 12, Yeltsin led a vote at the Congress of Peoples Deputies on a "declaration of Sovereignty for Russia."
 Jun 20, The Communist Initiative created its neoconservative Russian Communist Party.
 Jul 2, The 28th Communist Party congress opened with an address by Gorbachev, who conceded mistakes while
defending perestroika.
 Jul 10, Gorbachev handily won re-election as leader of the Soviet Communist Party.
 Jul 11, Leaders of "Group of Seven" nations encouraging Gorbachev to enact reforms in return for Western aid.
 Jul 12, Yeltsin resigning his party membership.
 Jul 15, Gorbachev and visiting West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl held talks on the issue of a united Germany’s
membership in NATO.
 Jul 15, Tens of thousands of people marched in Moscow to protest Communist Party’s control of government, army and
KGB.
 Jul 27, White Russia declared independence.
 Sep 24, The Supreme Soviet voted to give preliminary approval to a plan for switching the Soviet Union to a
free-market economy.
 Sep 24, East Germany signed a treaty with the Soviet Union ending its membership in the Warsaw Pact.
 Oct 13, The 1st Russian Orthodox service in 70 yrs was held in St. Basil's Cathedral.
 Oct 16, Gorbachev submitted to the Soviet legislature a scaled-back plan to transform the Soviet economy to a
free-market system.
 Oct 19, The Supreme Soviet voted to approve President Gorbachev’s economic reform plan.
 Nov 9, Gorbachev signed non-aggression treaty with Germany
 Nov 19, Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) was signed in Paris.
 Nov 20, Soviet Union again rebuffed Pres Bush’s efforts to rally support for a UN resolution authorizing military force
against Iraq.
 Dec 10, A stand-in for Mikhail Gorbachev accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
 Dec 20, Shevardnadze shocked Soviet lawmakers by announcing his resignation, warning that "dictatorship is coming."
 Dec 25, Gorbachev won sweeping new powers from the Congress of People’s Deputies.
1991 Jan 11 Jan Events: Soviet troops violently seized important buildings in cities throughout Lithuania.
 Jan 13, Soviet troops besieged the Vilnius TV tower and crushed a woman under a tank, but failed to quash the drive for
independence. T
 Mar 3, Latvia and Estonia voted to become independent of the USSR.
 Mar 10, Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Moscow, demanding that President Gorbachev resign.
 Mar 28, Tens of thousands of supporters of Yeltsin marched in Moscow in defiance of Gorbachev’s ban on rallies.
 Apr 1, The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved.
 Apr 9, Georgia SSR declared independence from the USSR.
 Apr 16, Gorbachev began a visit to Japan.
 Apr 18, Gorbachev ended a summit in Japan without winning the major aid package he’d been hoping for.
 Apr 19, Gorbachev arrived in South Korea for talks with President Roh Tae-woo.
 Apr 23, Gorbachev signed the so-called '9+1' agreement on a new Union Treaty.
 May 10, Alexander Bessmertnykh became the first Soviet foreign minister to visit Israel
 May, Victory Day parade, celebrating the WW II Soviet victory, was suspended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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May 23 The Moldavian SSR became the Republic of Moldova.
Jun 5, Gorbachev delivered his delayed Nobel Peace lecture in Oslo, Norway,
June 12 Russian presidential election, 1991: Boris Yeltsin was elected to the presidency of the Russian SFSR.
Jun 20, Boris Yeltsin, the newly elected president of the Russian republic, was welcomed to the White House by
President Bush.
 Jul 31, President Bush and khail S. Gorbachev signed START I, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow.
 Aug 19 Soviet coup attempt of 1991: State Emergency Committee announced Yanayev was to replace Gorbachev as
President of Soviet Union.
 Aug 20, More than 100,000 people rallied outside the Russian Parliament building as protests against the Soviet coup
increased.
 Aug 20 Singing Revolution: The Estonian government declared its independence.
 Aug 21, The hard-line coup against Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation
President Yeltsin.
 Aug 21 Singing Revolution: The government of Latvia declared its independence.
 Aug 22, Gorbachev returned to Moscow following the collapse of the hard-liners' coup.
 Soviet coup attempt of 1991: The military refused State Emergency Committee orders to take the capital. leaders of the
coup were arrested.
 Aug 24, Gorbachev resigned as head of Communist Party, culminating a stunning Kremlin shakeup that followed the
failed coup by hard-liners.
 Aug 24, Ukraine declared independence from USSR.
 Aug 24 The Ukrainian parliament adopted the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine.
 Aug 25, White-Russia (Belarus) declared it's independence.
 Aug 26, Gorbachev promised national elections in a last-ditch effort to preserve his government,
 Aug 27, Moldova (Moldavia) declared independence from USSR.
 Aug 27 Moldova declared independence.
 Aug 28, Gorbachev ordered a shake-up of the KGB and sacked his cabinet in the wake of the failed coup by hard-liners.
 Aug 30 The Kyrgyz SSR became the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.
 Aug 31 The Republic of Kyrgyzstan declared independence.
 Aug 31, Uzbekistan and Kirghizia declared their independence, raising to 10 the number of republics seeking to secede
from the Soviet Union.
 Sep 5, In Moscow, Soviet lawmakers approved the creation of an interim government to usher in a new confederation.
 Sep 6 Singing Revolution: The Soviet Union recognized the independence of the Baltic states.
 Militants belonging to the separatist stormed Supreme Soviet of Chechen-Ingush ASSR.
 Sep 11, Gorbachev announced the Kremlin would withdraw thousands of troops from Cuba,
 Sep 28, Gorbachev praised President Bush's pledge to drastically reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and promised to
"reciprocate."
 Oct 5, Gorbachev announced sweeping cuts in nuclear weapons in response to President Bush's arms reduction
initiative.
 Nov 2, Chechnya proclaimed independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
 Nov 6, Yeltsin outlawed Communist Party.
 Nov 7, Pro- and anti-Communist rallies took place in Moscow on the 74th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.
 Dec 8 The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine signed Belavezha Accords. Commonwealth of Independent States.
 Dec 13, Five Central Asian republics of Soviet Union agreed to join new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
 Dec 17, Boris Yeltsin and Gorbachev agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union by the new year.
 Dec 21, 11 of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
 Dec 23, Bush spoke with Yeltsin, after which an official said US would extend diplomatic recognition to Russian
republic.
 Dec 24, A day before resigning, Gorbachev briefed Yeltsin on nuclear weapons-firing procedures.
 Dec 25, Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation
 Dec 25 Renaming RSFSR to Russian Federation (Russia).
 Dec 26 The Soviet Union was officially self-dissolved. De jure Russian independence from self-dissolved USSR
 Dec 26, The Republic of Tatarstan declared entry into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
 Dec 28, Boris Yeltsin ordered state land privatized as he pushed ahead with his reforms.
 Dec, remains of Czar Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra, and their five children, were exhumed from a mine shaft
in Yekaterinburg.
1992 Jan 2, Russian shoppers experienced their first day of "sticker shock" after President Boris Yeltsin lifted price controls
41
to stimulate production.
 Jan 29, Yeltsin aid his republic's weapons would no longer be aimed at any U.S. targets.
 Jan 29, A multinational Middle East peace conference ended in Moscow with participants sounding upbeat.
 Feb 1, President George H.W. Bush and Yeltsin met at Camp David.
 Feb 7, President Yeltsin and French President Francois Mitterrand signed a cooperation treaty in Paris.
 Feb 23, In Moscow, thousands of pro-Communist demonstrators, some shouting, "Down with the Russian
government!," clashed with police.
 Mar 14, Soviet newspaper "Pravda" suspended publication.
 Apr 1, President Bush pledged US would help finance a $24 billion international aid fund for the former Soviet Union.
 Apr 15, Russia's deeply divided Congress of People's Deputies endorsed President Boris Yeltsin's economic reforms.
 Apr 26, Worshippers celebrated the first Russian Orthodox Easter in Moscow in 74 years.
 Jun 1, Russia was granted full membership to the IMF.
 Jun 21, Boris Yeltsin returned home from his North America tour.
 Jul 8, Boris Yeltsin met with Group of Seven leaders holding their economic summit in Munich,
 Jul, Russia brokered a cease fire between South Ossetia and Georgia.
 Oct 14, Russia's worst serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, was convicted of mutilating and killing 52 women and children.
 Dec 1, President Boris Yeltsin survived an impeachment attempt by hard-liners at the opening of the Russian Congress.
 Dec 14, Pres. Yeltsin dismissed prime minister Yegor Gaidar after 7 months.
 Dec 29, US and Russia announced agreement on a nuclear arms reduction treaty.
 Dec 30, President Bush heading to a Black Sea summit with Yeltsin, with a stopover in Somalia to visit U.S. troops
 The tax police force was established to fight tax crime.
 Russian intelligence archivist Vasili Mitrokhin defected to British intelligence. He brought along 6 trunkfuls of KGB
files.
 A bloody conflict took place between Ingushetia and North Ossetia that left hundreds dead and forced 30,000 Ingush to
flee their homes.
1993 Jan 3, The START II Treaty was signed between the US and Russia by President Bush and Boris Yeltsin.
 Feb, Communists of all stripes gathered and created the Communist Party of the Russian Federation,
 Mar 13, The Russian Congress adjourned after a session that seriously weakened President Boris Yeltsin's power.
 Mar 20, Boris Yeltsin declared emergency rule,
 Apr 4, President Clinton and Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their two-day summit in Vancouver, B.C. Clinton extended $1.6
billion in aid
 Apr 15, The Group of Seven nations unveiled a $28.4 billion aid package for Russia
 Apr 25, Voters in Russia participated in a referendum, giving President Yeltsin a sturdy vote of confidence.
 May 1, Violence erupted during a May Day protest in Moscow.
 Jul 24, The Russian government announced it would invalidate billions of pre-1993 rubles.
 1993 Sep 21 Russian constitutional crisis of 1993: Yeltsin announced the dissolution of the Russian legislature.
 The legislature, in turn, responded by impeaching Yeltsin and declaring Aleksandr Rutskoy the new President of the
Russian Federation.
 Sep 22, Yeltsin disbanded the Supreme Soviet.
 Oct 2, Hundreds of opponents of Boris Yeltsin battled police in Moscow and set up burning barricades
 Oct 3, Boris Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in Moscow,
 Oct 4, The Russian White House was shelled.
 Oct 4 Russian constitutional crisis of 1993: The army occupied the parliament building and arrested a number of its
leaders.
 Nov 8, Yeltsin approved a draft constitution that would strengthen executive power; it was ratified in a referendum the
following month.
 Dec 12 Russian constitutional crisis of 1993: new 5th Russian constitution was approved by referendum, vastly
increasing power of presidency.
 Dec 25 5th Constitution of Russia was published and entered into force.
1994 Jan 13, Clinton held talks in Moscow with Russian Boris Yeltsin.
 Feb 23, Russia's new parliament took a swipe at Boris Yeltsin by granting amnesty to leaders of the 1991 Soviet coup
 Mar, Sergei Stepashin was appointed as head of the new KGB. He later played a central role in sending troops into
Chechnya.
 Jul 10, IYeltsin joined leaders of the Group of Seven nations for political talks following their annual economic summit
in Naples, Italy.
 1994 Aug 2 First Chechen War: Leader of Russian-backed Provisional Council of Chechen announced his intention to
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overthrow Dudaev gov
Sep 3, China and Russia proclaimed an end to any lingering hostilities, pledging they would no longer target nuclear
missiles
 Nov 26, A major offensive by the Russian-backed opposition failed to wrest Grozny, the capital of Chechnya from its
government.
 Dec 11 First Chechen War: Russian troops invaded Chechnya.
 Dec 31, Russian ground forces launched a ferocious assault on the Chechen capital of Grozny.
 Gazprom, a natural gas monopoly, was privatized on terms highly favorable to company insiders.
1995 Jan 8, Russian forces in Chechnya pounded capital of Grozny with rocket and mortar fire
 Jan 10, Russia announced a 48-hour truce in breakaway Chechnya, but the cease-fire fell apart after a few hours.
 Jan 14, Russian troops in Chechnya captured Council of Ministers building, a key rebel position in the capital Grozny.
 Jan 19, Russian troops regained control of the presidential palace in Grozny.
 May 9, Clinton arrived in Moscow for a summit with Russian Boris Yeltsin.
 Jun 14, Shamil Basayev, Chechen commander, led a hostage raid on the a Russian hospital in Budyonnovsk
[Budennovsk].
 Jun 30, Yeltsin fired three top security ministers for the botched handling of Chechen rebels in southern Russia.
 Jul 30, Russia and Chechen rebels signed an agreement calling for a gradual withdrawal of Russian troops and the
disarmament of rebel fighters.
 Oct 14, An armed gunman seized a bus carrying South Korean tourists in Moscow’s Red Square.
 Nov, Boris Yeltsin laid sick after suffering his second heart attack in four months.
 Nov, A container of radioactive cesium was found buried in Izmailovo Park in Moscow following a tip by Shamil
Basayev, a Chechen rebel.
 Dec 14, Heavy fighting erupts in Gudermes, Chechnya, when rebels disrupted Kremlin-imposed elections.
 Dec 17, Communists and right-wing nationalists scored big wins in parliamentary elections on a platform of rolling
back democratic reforms.
 Dec 31, Russian ground forces launched a ferocious assault on Grozny.
1996 Jan 10, convoy of Chechen rebels and 160 hostages surrounded them in village of Pervomayskaya.
 Jan 10, Chechen rebels seized as many as 3,000 hostages in the Russian Republic of Dagestan.
 Jan 16, Chechens hijacked a ferry with 165 passengers and crew from the Turkish port of Trabzon bound for the Russian
city of Sochi.
 Feb 22, Russia and the head of the IMF reached a deal for a loan of more than ten billion dollars to back up free-market
reforms.
 Feb, Anatoly Chubais attended the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
 Mar 15, The Duma voted overwhelmingly for a Communist resolution calling the 1991 Soviet breakup illegal.
 Mar 31 Yeltsin announced halt to combat operations in Chechnya, limited troop withdrawals and willingness to hold
indirect talks.
 Apr 25, Top Chechen officials confirmed that their leader, Dzhokar Dudayev, was killed in a Russian air strike.
 Apr 26, Shanghai Five grouping was created with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border
Regions in Shanghai.
 Apr, Russia’s richest men gathered in Moscow and drafted a letter asking Yeltsin and Zyuganov to reach a compromise.
 May 27, Chechen leader and Yeltsin agreed to a peace accord and prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin signed
agreement with Yanderbiyev.
 May, Communist leader Zyuganov wanted Russia’s president to stop being czar and its mayors to stop being little czars.
"
 July 3 Russian presidential election, 1996: Yeltsin narrowly defeated his Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov.
 Jun 3, Yeltsin signed a decree recently calling for an end to the draft by the year 2000 and an all-volunteer professional
army.
 Jun 9, A rebel spokesman said that the two sides have agreed on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya by the
end of August.
 Jun 11, A bomb ripped through a Moscow subway and killed 12 people.
 Jun 13, Viktor Mosalov, mayor of Zhukovsky, was found shot to death.
 Jun 18, Boris Yeltsin named Gen’l. Alexander Lebed to head the Security Council.
 Jun 25, Yeltsin fired 7 top generals and ordered a pullout from Chechnya.
 Jul 3, Russians went to the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov.
 Aug 30 First Chechen War: The Khasav-Yurt Accord was signed, signaling the end of the war.
 Nov 5, Pres. Boris Yeltsin had successful heart bypass surgery. Five clogged arteries were circumvented.
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1997 Mar 11, Pres. Yeltsin reorganized the government and only kept Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and top economic
deputy Chubais.
 Mar 21, Clinton and Russian Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki, Finland, still deadlocked over NATO
expansion, but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.
 Apr 1, In Russia Yeltsin signed an agreement with Belarus for limited economic, military and political integration.
 Apr 1, A bomb in Moscow destroyed the statue of Nicholas II, the city’s only monument to the last czar of Russia.
 May 27, In Paris, Yeltsin joined 16 NATO leaders, including Clinton, to sign a historic agreement giving Moscow a
voice in NATO affairs.
 Sep 26, US and Russia signed a package of arms control agreements that extended parts of START II to 2007.
1998 Jan 1, The government knocked 3 zeroes off national currency. The old ruble notes will be exchangeable until 2002.
 Mar 23, Pres. Yeltsin fired prime minister Chernomyrdin and his entire cabinet.
 Apr 9, Some 1 million workers across Russia protested against government and called for the resignation of Yeltsin.
 Apr 19, In Japan Pres. Yeltsin held a summit with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hasimoto at the Kawana resort.
 Jun 1, In Russia the stock market tumbled 10% in panic selling.
 Jun 10, The Russian market fell for a 5th straight day
 Jul 1, The Russian market reached its lowest level in 25 months.
 Jul 13, The IMF announced a $17.1 billion rescue package for Russia.
 Jul 17, Nicholas II, Czar of Russia, was buried in St. Petersburg.
 Aug 17, Russia devalued its ruble and allowed the ruble's value to drop by up to 34 percent.
 Aug 23, Pres. Yeltsin dismissed the Russian government.
 Aug 25, Russian ruble fell 9% and the government introduced a plan to stretch out its debts.
 Aug 26, The Russian ruble fell another 5% as government attempts to support it failed.
 Sep 1, In Russia the Duma rejected the nomination by pres. Yeltsin for Viktor Chernomyrdin as premier.
 Sep 2, Pres. Clinton met with Pres. Yeltsin and held a news conference.
 Sep 16, The ruble fell to 14-16 to the dollar in street trading.
 Sep 21, The central bank began issuing 900 million new rubles valued at $55 million.
 Sep 28, Russia’s Justice Ministry announced that it would release 115,000 prisoners to ease over-crowding in its
cash-strapped jails.
 Oct 7, The anti-Yeltsin protests turned out only some 600,000 people.
 Nov 20, Galina Starovoitova, a member of the State Duma, was shot to death in St. Petersburg.
1999 Mar 26, UN Security Council defeated a Russian resolution demanding an immediate end to NATO attacks on
Yugoslavia.
 May 6, Russia joined NATO to back a framework for ending the conflict in Kosovo
 May 15, The Communist-led drive to impeach Pres. Yeltsin failed
 May 22, The new All Russia Party was formed in St. Petersburg
 Jun 3, Pres. Yeltsin commuted all the remaining death sentences
 Jun 12, NATO troops began entering Kosovo.
 Jun 18, In Chechnya the worst fighting in months broke out as Chechen fighters attacked Russian border posts in
Dagestan.
 Jun 19, The G7 nations pledged billions in aid to help Russia.
 Jun 20, Clinton met with Yeltsin in Germany and they agreed to rekindle efforts to reduce their nuclear arsenals.
 Jul 5, Russian troops attacked some 150 militants in Chechnya and a number of people were killed.
Aug 7, In Russia Islamic fighters based in Chechnya seized at least 2 village in Dagestan.
 Aug 7 Dagestan War: A Chechnya-based militia invaded Russian republic of Dagestan in support of local separatists.
 Aug 14, Russia bombed guerrilla bases in Dagestan and Chechnya as 4 Russian soldiers were killed and 13 wounded.
 Aug 16 The State Duma confirmed the appointment of Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister of Russia.
 Aug 23 Dagestan War: The militias began their retreat back into Chechnya.
 Aug 24, In Dagestan rebels forces pulled back and Russian forces took control of 5 villages that had been seized 3 weeks
earlier.
 Aug 26 Second Chechen War: The militia that had invaded Dagestan was bombed inside Chechnya.
Sep 4 Russian apartment bombings: A car bomb outside of an apartment building in Buynaksk killed sixty-four people.
 Sep 5, In Dagestan several thousand rebels began a 2nd siege from Chechnya.
 Sep 6, Dagestan Russian forces used artillery and air power against rebel guerrillas
 Sep 9, An explosion shattered a 9-story apartment building in Moscow and at least 14 people were killed.
 Sep 12, In Dagestan Russian troops seized control of the villages of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi.
 Sep 13, In Moscow a suspected bomb blast destroyed an apartment building and at least 28 people were killed.
44
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Sep 15, In southern Russia a truck exploded next to a 9-story apartment building in the Rostov region and at least 11
people were killed.
 Sep 18, Russian forces attacked rebel targets in Chechnya to prevent guerrilla raids in Dagestan.
 Sep 27, In Chechnya Russian jets dropped bombs for a 5th day and thousands of civilians fled to towns and villages in
the region.
 Sep 30, Russian troops began a ground offensive into Chechnya aimed at creating a buffer zone to block the infiltration
of Chechen guerrillas.
 Sep, "Operation Whirlwind" 11,000 bombing suspects were arrested, most because they had dark skin and might come
from the Caucasus.
 Sep, Tamerlan Khasaev and fellow Chechens under orders killed 6 Russian conscripts who had surrendered. The
killings were videotaped.
Oct 2 Second Chechen War: Russian ground troops invaded Chechnya.
 Oct 5, In Chechnya Russian troops seized the northern third of the country.
 Oct 6, The Chechen president called for a holy war against Russia.
 Oct 14, In Chechnya the Russians pressed an offensive below the Terek River as the Chechens rallied in Grozny.
 Oct 21, In Chechnya Russian rockets hit and market and 2 other sites in Grozny and as many as 140 people were killed.
 Oct 24, In Chechnya Russian artillery and jet bombers killed at least 27 people during a dawn attack at Serzhen-Yurt.
 Oct 27, In Chechnya Russian warplanes and artillery closed in on Grozny.
 Oct 29, In Chechnya Russian warplanes and artillery launched fierce strikes and 25 refugees were killed while trying to
flee the assaults.
 Nov 4, Russia allowed thousands of refugees to flee Chechnya and the crossing at the Sleptsovskaya border reached 500
people per hour.
 Nov 7, In Chechnya Russian soldiers dislodged rebels in Bamut.
 Nov 12, In Chechnya Russian forces took control of Gudermes and proposed to move the capital there from Grozny.
 Nov 21, In Chechnya some 5,000 rebels barricaded themselves in Grozny in preparation for a Russian offensive.
 Nov 25, In Chechnya Russian forces fired hundreds of rockets into Grozny in its fiercest assault in the 3-month
offensive.
Dec 4, In Chechnya Russian troops pillaged the Alkhan-Yurt village 10 miles southwest of Grozny and killed 17 civilians.
 Dec 8 The treaty of creation of the Union of Russia and Belarus was signed.
 Dec 8, In Chechnya Russian forces ousted rebels from Urus-Martan.
 Dec 10, In China Yeltsin of Russia and Pres. Jiang Zemin ended a 2-day summit and swapped pledges of support for
Chechnya and Taiwan.
 Dec 11, In Chechnya Russian forces halted attacks on Grozny to give an estimated 10-40,000 civilians a chance to leave.
 Dec 15, In Chechnya at least 115 Russian soldiers were killed by rocket propelled grenades fired by Chechen guerrillas
in Grozny.
 Dec 25, Russian forces launched an attack on Grozny led by 700 pro-Moscow Chechen volunteers.
 Dec 31 Boris Yeltsin abdicated as President of the Russian Federation. Prime minister Vladimir Putin becomes acting
president.
2000 Jan 3, In Beirut, Lebanon, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Russian Embassy.
 Jan 7, Russia announced a suspension of aerial bombardment in Grozny to allow civilians to escape.
 Jan 9, In Chechnya rebels attacked Russian positions in Argun, Shali and Gudermes as Russia continued bombing halt
for Orthodox Christmas.
 Jan 16, In Chechnya Russian warplanes bombarded the area around Grozny and federal forces reported 120 rebels
killed.
 Jan 17, Russian aircraft and artillery bombed Grozny with a record number of attacks.
 Jan 18, In Chechnya Russian troops began moving through the streets of Grozny in the most intense ground attack in 4
months.
 Jan 18, In Chechnya Russian Gen. Mikhail Malofeyev went missing in Grozny following an ambush
 Jan 23, In Chechnya rebels ambushed Russian troops in Staraya Sunzha village and 8 soldiers were killed.
Feb 4, Russians forces began bombing Katyr Yurt after Chechen rebels arrived from Grozny.
 Feb 13, Vladimir Putin signed a decree to re-establish the "special departments" (FSB) to seek out political disloyalty in
the military.
 Feb 14, In Chechnya Russian commanders ordered Grozny sealed and its population evacuated in order to clear bombs
and booby-traps
 Feb 17, Russia was accused by human rights groups and refugees of brutality toward Chechens in camps.
 Feb 18, In Chechnya rebels shot down a Russian helicopter and 15 men were killed.
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Feb 25, Journalist Andrei Babitsky turned up alive in Dagestan. He was held by Russians in a detention center in
Makhachkala.
 Feb 29, In Chechnya 84 Russian paratroopers were killed after rebels attacked a guard post near Ulus Kert.
 Mar 2, In Chechnya rebels ambushed Russian troops outside Grozny and killed at least 20 police commandos.
 Mar 6, In Chechnya some 30 rebels held positions at Komsomolskoye's mosque under Russian shelling.
 Mar 12, Russian agents captured Salman Raduyev, a Chechen warlord.
 March 26 Russian presidential election, 2000: Putin was elected president with 53 percent of the vote.
 Mar 26, In Chechnya Russian Col. Yuri Budanov and 3 soldiers seized Elza (Heda) Kungayeva (18) and strangled her to
death following a pummeling and sexual assault.
 Mar 29, In Chechnya rebels ambushed Russian troops and left 4 dead and 18 wounded. 27 men were missing.
 Apr 1, In Chechnya Russian soldiers found 33 of their missing comrades. 32 were dead and booby-trapped from the Mar
30 rebel attack.
 Apr 17, In England Russia’s Pres. Putin met with Tony Blair and promised to implement economic reforms and root out
corruption.
 Apr 22, In Chechnya guerrillas attacked a Russian convoy and killed 15 soldiers near Serzhen-Yurt.
 Apr 26, In Chechnya Russian troops were ambushed near Serzhen-Yurt. 17 rebels and 10 Russians were reported killed.
 May 3, In Chechnya Russian troops ambushed a rebel band and killed at least 18 men.
 May 7, Putin was inaugurated.
 May 12, Igor Domnikov (42), a reporter for Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, Murdered.
 May 12, In Chechnya Russian forces staged two ambush attacks on rebels and claimed 41 killed.
 May 13, Pres. Putin divided Russia’s 89 regions into 7 federal districts headed by a Kremlin representative.
 May, Pres. Putin declared direct rule over Chechnya from Moscow.
 Jun 3, Pres. Clinton met with Russia’s Pres. Putin in Moscow and began discussions on trade and arms control.
 Jun 5, Pres. Putin traveled to Italy and met with Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. Putin then met with Pope John Paul II.
 Jun 27, In Chechnya 2 days of fighting left 12 Russians dead and up to 60 rebels killed according to Russian officials.
 Jun 30, The lower house voted to give pres. Putin the right to fire any of the nation’s 89 governors for cause.
 Jul 2, In Chechnya rebels staged 5 suicide attacks against Russian forces.
 Jul 8, Pres. Putin made his first state of the nation address
 Jul 9, A bomb attack at a food market in Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia left 5 people dead.
 Jul 19, In North Korea Russia’s Pres. Putin met with Kim Jong Il.
 Jul 27, In Chechnya 74 bodies, mostly men, were removed from a mass grave near Tangi-Chu. As many as 80 more
remained.
 Aug 4, Russia reported that Chechen rebels had decapitated 2 Russian colonels, who had been seized earlier in the
Vedeno region.
 Aug 6, Russian officials reported that scores of rebels were killed in weekend artillery attacks outside Grozny,
Chechnya, following warnings of a possible rebel offensive. As many as 160 insurgents were reported killed.
 Aug 7, Chechen rebels claimed 11 Russian soldiers in a military convoy were killed by a remote controlled mine.
 Aug 8, In Russia a bomb exploded through an underground walkway in Moscow’s Pushkin Square and at least 13
people were killed. Another bomb was found and defused.
 Aug 12 Russian submarine Kursk explosion: An explosion disabled the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk.
 Aug 12, A Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk, became trapped on the floor of the Barents Sea during naval exercises.
 Aug 18, In Chechnya rebels killed 8 Russian soldiers in several attacks on checkpoints and roadblocks.
 Aug 24, Fighting from Chechnya spilled into Ingushetia and 100 rebels were reported killed by Russian forces.
 Nov 1, In Chechnya rebels killed 14 Russian soldiers in a series of raids.
 Nov 23, In Chechnya 4 Russian soldiers were killed and 18 wounded in a series of rebel attacks.
 Dec 3, In Chechnya rebels struck numerous check points and at least 13 Russian soldiers were killed.
 Dec 8, The Duma voted 381-51 to bring back the old Soviet anthem with new, yet to be written lyrics.
 Dec 13, Russia’s Pres. Putin traveled to Cuba for business and rest. T
 Dec 16, In Chechnya a series of rebel attacks killed 16 Russian soldiers.
 Dec 18, In Canada Pres. Putin of Russia met with Prime Minister Chretien and together supported existing nuclear arms
accords.
 Dec 26, Pres. Putin signed laws endorsing the tricolor flag in use since 1991, along with the czarist-era state emblem of
a double-headed eagle.
 Dec 29, In Chechnya 14 Russian soldiers were killed. Russian troops averaged a loss of 200 men per month.
2001 Jan 7, In Russia Pres. Putin pledged to pay all of its Soviet-era int’l. debts.
 Jan 24, In Chechnya 14 Russian soldiers were killed.
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Feb 5, A bomb went off in a Moscow subway station and at least 9 people were injured.
Feb 18, Robert Philip Hanssen (56), senior FBI agent, was arrested for spying.
Feb 21, In Chechnya some 50 bodies began to be uncovered across from a Russian military base at Zdorovye.
Mar 18, Chechen rebels killed at least 21 Russian troops.
Mar 21, US State Dept. ordered expulsion of 5 suspected Russian spies
Apr 10, Germany’s PM Schroeder ended 2 days of talks with Pres. Putin of Russia, but no agreement was reached on
Russian debt.
 Apr 26, In Chechnya rebel fighting killed at least 17 Russian soldiers and wounded 28.
 May 7, In Chechnya a 2-day fight around Argun left at least 15 Russian soldiers dead.
 Jun 16, Pres. Bush met with Pres. Putin of Russia in Slovenia.
 Jun 26, In Chechnya Russian troops claimed to have killed at least 30 rebels near the Georgian border.
 Jul 3-2001 Jul 4, A Russian roundup operation sent an estimated 26,000 Chechen refugees fleeing to Ingushetia.
 Jul 15, China’s Pres. Zemin arrived in Russia for a state visit.
 Aug 3, Kim Jong Il arrived in Moscow following 9-day train ride from North Korea.
 Sep 25, Pres. Putin issued a 72-hour ultimatum to Chechen rebels to show up for peace talks.
 Oct 3, In Chechnya rebels killed 9 federal troops in a number of clashes that included 4 dead from land mines. 4
militants were also killed.
 Oct 24, Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev called Putin envoy Viktor Kazantsev to meet in Moscow for talks.
 Nov 3, Sec. of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld met with Pres. Putin in Moscow for talks that included Russian intelligence
support.
 Nov 18, Russia dropped all conditions and opened talks with Chechnya.
 Nov 22, Talks on Russia-NATO relations began in Moscow.
 Dec 30, Russian troops mounted an offensive south of Grozny after 6 Russian soldiers were killed by rebels.
2002 Jan 3, Russian forces fought Chechen rebels for a 6th day in a conflict that left 40 dead.
 Jan 10, In Chechnya Russian troops lifted a weeklong blockade of Argun.
 Apr 1, The body of journalist Sergei Kalinovsky was found outside Smolensk.
 Apr 18, In Chechnya rebel explosives killed 21 police officers in Grozny.
 Apr 30, Russia’s military command said the Chechen commander Shamil Basayev had been killed.
 May 9, A terrorist bomb killed at least 41 people including 13 children in Kaspiisk, Dagestan.
 May 14, NATO agreed with Russia on an new framework that would include Russia on a handful of agreed-on issues.
 May 24, Bush and Putin signed the Treaty of Moscow, an agreement to reduce nuclear stockpiles by two-thirds over the
next 10 years.
 Jun 14, Russia formally withdrew from the START II
 Aug 23, Pres. Shevardnadze accused Russia of bombing inside Georgia’s border. One person was reported killed.
 Sep 27, Russian troops used artillery overnight to block suspected rebels from crossing into Chechnya
 Oct 23, In Moscow 40-50 Chechen separatist guerrillas seized a theater and threatened to shoot or blow up 700 hostages
+unless Russia pulled Oct 23 Moscow theater hostage crisis: Chechen rebels seized House of Culture theater in
Moscow, taking 700 hostage
 Oct 25, Russia pledged not to kill Chechen guerrillas holding some 600 hostages in a Moscow theater if they freed all
their captives.
 Oct 26 Moscow theater hostage crisis: The police pumped anesthetic into the building, then stormed it from every
entrance.
 Nov 3, Chechen rebels shot down a Russian military helicopter, killing nine servicemen,
 Nov 11, Russian troops ambushed Chechen rebels near Grozhny and 6 guerrillas were reported killed. [see Apr 29,
2004]
 Dec 2, In Beijing Putin and Jiang Zemin signed declaration calling for a "multi-polar" world and peaceful solutions in
Iraq and North Korea.
 Dec 25, In Chechnya 28 guerrillas laid down their weapons in Grozny.
 Dec 27, Chechen rebel suicide bombers rammed vehicles packed with a ton of explosives into the local government
headquarters in Grozny,
 Dec 30, In Chechnya rebels staged attacks on pro-Moscow forces and killed 4 people in Grozny.
2003 Feb 2, Chechen rebel attacks and mines killed 5 Russian servicemen and wounded 8.
 Feb 7, Chechen rebel attacks and land mines killed 10 soldiers and police over the last 24 hours.
 Feb 10, Moscow appointed a new prime minister of Chechnya.
 Apr 6, Police in Chechnya said they had discovered four graves filled with disfigured bodies, many of them with their
heads and arms cut off.
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Apr 7, In the northern Siberian republic of Yakutia a fire engulfed an old wooden school, killing 21 students and a
teacher.
 May 26, China's Pres. Hu Jintao arrived in Moscow for talks with Pres. Putin.
 May 30, A rebel ambush and other attacks killed five Russian soldiers and wounded 11 others in and around Chechnya.
 Jun 5, A bomber attacked a bus near a Russian military air base near Chechnya on Thursday, killing herself and at least
16 others.
 Jun 6, Russia's parliament approved an amnesty for Chechen rebels who agree to disarm.
 Jun 7, In Chechnya a fierce battle between rebels and Russian troops raged into its second day, six servicemen dead.
 Jun 24, Pres. Vladimir Putin flew to London
 Jul 5, In Russia 2 women suicide bombers blew themselves up at a giant rock festival in suburban Moscow, 14 killed.
 Jul 12, In southern Chechnya rebels ambushed a Russian military vehicle and staged hit-and-run attacks against federal
positions,
 Jul 17, In Russia's Dagestan region a shrapnel-filled bomb exploded near a police station, killing at least four people and
injuring 18 others.
 Aug 1, A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with explosives through gates of a Russian military hospital near
Chechnya,
 Aug 4, Pres. Putin visited Malaysia
 Aug 7, Chechen rebels using a shoulder-fired missile shot down a Russian military helicopter in the mountains, killing
three of the crew.
 Aug 7, Gunmen ambushed a Russian military convoy near border with Chechnya, killing six and wounding seven.
 Aug 10, Eight Russian soldiers and police died in rebel attacks in a day of violence throughout Chechnya.
 Aug 20, In Chechnya fighting left 8 Russian soldiers and 12 rebels dead.
 Sep 2, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah met Russia's Pres. Putin on the first visit to post-Soviet Russia by a Saudi
leader,
 Sep 27, President Bush and Russian Vladimir Putin urged Iran and North Korea to abandon suspected nuclear weapons
programs,
 Oct 25, Secret police arrested YUKOS oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man,
 Nov 23, Russian special forces killed 17 militants near the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt.
 Nov 29, A Chechen leader wanted in Russia on charges of terrorism and murder has been granted refugee status in
Britain.
 Dec 5, A shrapnel-filled bomb believed strapped to a suicide attacker ripped apart a commuter train near Chechnya,
 Dec 7, Russia held Duma elections.
 Dec 9, In Russia a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside the National Hotel across from Moscow's Red Square.
 Dec 15, At least 25 gunmen crossed from Chechnya into the Russian region of Dagestan, killing at least 3 border guards
and seizing hostages
 Dec 16, Chechen rebels, in Dagestan, released all their hostages and fled, avoiding capture.
 Dec 20, In Chechnya 10 Russian servicemen were killed in rebel attacks over 24 hours.
2004 Feb 5, Seven Russian servicemen were killed and at least 11 wounded over the last 24 hours in Chechnya.
 Feb 6, A bomb ripped through a Moscow subway car during rush hour morning, killing 41 people and wounding 134.
 Mar 1, US turned over seven Russian citizens who were being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay,
 Mar 2, In Chechnya rebel attacks and land mines killed five Russian soldiers.
 Mar 14 Russian presidential election, 2004: Putin won re-election to a second term, earning 71 percent of the vote.
 Mar 26, A Moscow court banned the religious activities of Jehovah's Witnesses from the Russian capital
 Apr 5, Rebel attacks across Chechnya killed six Russian soldiers.
 Apr 12, Chechnya rebels killed 10 Russian soldiers, including five whose convoy was shelled while driving through an
insurgent stronghold.
 Apr 22, Russian tax inspectors raided the Yukos head office.
 May 26, In Russia Pres. Putin gave his state-of–the-union address
 Jun 7, Russian Putin flew to Mexico for talks with his Pres. Fox,
 Jun 19, In Chechnya rebel attacks killed seven Russian soldiers and police officers over the last 24 hours.
 Jun 22, Russian troops poured into Nazran, Ingushetia, chasing Chechen rebels
 Aug 31, A woman strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station, killing at least 10.
 Sep 1 Beslan school hostage crisis: A group of Chechen terrorists took 1300 adults and children hostage at School
Number One in Beslan.
 Sep 3 Beslan school hostage crisis: At one in the afternoon, Russian police and soldiers stormed the school.
 Sep 13, Pres. Putin announced a series of measures that would enhance Kremlin power.
48
 Oct 13, Russia and China settled a dispute over their 2,700-mile border during a visit by Pres. Putin.
 Oct 29, Duma approved plan to replace direct popular election of regional leaders with nominated by president.
 Nov 4, Russian Putin signed a bill confirming his country's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
 Dec 13, The Chinese government said China and Russia will hold their first joint military exercise next year.
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2005 Jan 16, In Russia protests by retirees against the loss of welfare benefits swept Putin's home city for the second
straight day.
 Jan 17, Russian police stopped angry retirees from blocking traffic, the third day of protests in Putin's hometown against
welfare benefit cutoffs.
 Jan 22, Thousands of poor Russians demonstrated across Russia
 Jan 29, In Russia thousands of communists, liberals and radical youth activists joined forces to protest against the loss of
Soviet-era benefits.
 Mar, A Russian pro-Kremlin youth group called Nashi (our own) began demonstrations to counter detractors of Putin.
 Apr 27, Vladimir Putin became the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel,
 May 9, the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
 May 31, A Russian court declared oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of an array of charges
 Jun 30, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Russia
 Jun 29, A Russian court ordered the radical national Bolshevik Party, led by ultranationalist writer Eduard Limonov, to
disband.
 Jul 1, In Dagestan, Russia, a bomb in Makhachkala killed 10 Russian troops.
2006 Jan 1, Russia's natural gas monopoly halted sales to Ukraine
 Apr 8, Thousands of Russians came out onto the streets to protest at what they said was the widening gulf between rich
and poor.
 Apr 15, In southern Chechnya rebels killed two Russian soldiers and wounded five others in an ambush.
 Jun 17, In Chechnya Russian police killed rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev in a special police operation in his
hometown of Argun.
 Jul 10, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev (41) was killed in Ingushetia.
 Jul 14, In St. Petersburg, Russia, authorities detained more than 200 anti-globalization activists hoping to protest the
G-8 summit,
 Jul 16, President Bush and other Group of Eight world leaders meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia,
 Jul 28, In Russia Pres. Putin signed a law making slander of a public official a crime.
 Sep 23, Putin, Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Angela Merkel for a three-way informal summit in a chateau in
Compiegne.
 Nov 23, Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, died in London.
2007 Jan 11, Oil flowed again from Russia to Europe
 Jan 15, More than 500 armed militants in Chechnya and other parts of North Caucasus surrendered as part of an
amnesty.
 Jan 21, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Pres. Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi
 Jan 25, Russian Putin arrived in India,
 Feb 11, Putin, making the first visit by a Russian leader to Saudi Arabia,
 Mar 3, Russian police violently broke up an unauthorized opposition rally in St. Petersburg,
 Mar 13, Russian Putin and Pope Benedict XVI met for the highest-level Kremlin-Vatican talks
 Mar 26, Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Russia on his third visit as national leader,
 Apr 5, Ramzan Kadyrov was inaugurated as the new president of Chechnya
 Apr 21, Charles Simonyi, an American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to outer space, returned to
Earth
 Apr 23, Boris Yeltsin (b.1931), former Russian leader (1991-1999), died.
 Apr 27, Estonia removed a Soviet war memorial from downtown Tallinn under cover of darkness,
 Jun 28, Putin welcomed Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for talks
 Jun 28, Hundreds of ethnic Georgians confronted Russian peacekeeping forces in the breakaway region of South
Ossetia,
 Jul 1, Russia’s Pres. Putin arrived in Maine for talks with Pres. Bush.
 Jul 14, Russia suspended its participation in a key European arms control treaty that governs deployment of troops on
the continent.
 Aug 17, Russia’s Putin said that he had ordered the military to resume regular long-range flights of strategic bombers.
 Aug 23, A shootout in Chechnya's capital left two policemen and a rebel dead.
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Aug 23, In Dagestan, Russia, gunmen ambushed security forces, killing three people and wounding 17.
Oct 13, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, after meeting with human-rights activists in Moscow,
Oct 15, In Germany Pres. Putin held talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Oct 16, In Iran Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian counterpart
Oct 16, A revolt at a Russian prison for minors, swelled into a mass uprising
Oct 24, Alexander Pichushkin (33), a Russian former grocery clerk, was found guilty of murdering 48 people in
Moscow.
 Nov 4, Some 5,000 nationalists turned out for the Russian March, held for the third year on National Unity Day,
 Dec 2, Russians voted in a parliamentary election. Putin's United Russia party swept 70 percent of seats in parliament.
 Dec 19, Time magazine named Russian Putin its 2007 "Person of the Year."
2008 Feb 17, Kosovo declared itself a nation,
 March 2 Russian presidential election, 2008: Dmitry Medvedev won, earning 70.5 percent of the vote.
 Apr 6, In Russia Bush and Putin ended their last face-to-face meeting as heads of state
 May 7, Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as Russia's president,
 May 8, Vladimir Putin was named prime minister of Russia
 Jul 21, China and Russia signed an agreement that demarcated their 2,700 mile border ending a long running border
dispute.
 Aug 8-16 Russia defeated Georgia in the South Ossetian war and recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as
independent states
 Aug 8, Georgian troops launched a major military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia,
 Aug 9, Russia sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province of South Ossetia
 Aug 10, Georgian troops retreated from the breakaway province of South Ossetia
 Aug 11, Swarms of Russian jets launched new raids on Georgian territory
 Aug 13, Russian tanks rolled into the crossroads city of Gori
 Aug 14, Georgian and Russian troops faced off at a checkpoint outside the key city of Gori,
 Aug 16, Russian forces pulled back from the center of a town not far from Georgia's capital after Russia's president
signed a cease-fire deal.
 Sep 4, Russian troops killed 5 suspected Muslim rebels in Dagestan.
 Sep 13, Hundreds of Russian forces packed up and withdrew from positions in western Georgia.
 Nov 4, In Moscow ultranationalists and anti-immigrant activists tossed smoke grenades and scuffled with riot police
 Nov 19, Georgia and Russia held their first major, mediated talks since their August war.
 Nov 28, In Cuba Russia's president Medvedev met with Fidel Castro, discussing
2009 Jan 6, A natural gas crisis loomed over Europe, as a contract dispute between Russia and Ukraine shut off Russian gas
supplies
 Jan 20, Russian gas reached Europe via Ukraine for the first time in two weeks
 Jan 30, Russia moved to rebuild ties with Cold War ally Cuba,
 Mar 5, NATO foreign ministers agreed to resume high-level formal ties with Russia,
 April 08 Medvedev signs a historic deal with American President Barack Obama cutting nuclear weapons by a third