Tsarist Russia: Did you mean...?

In which John Green teaches you how Russia evolved from a loose amalgamation of medieval principalities known as the Kievan Rus into the thriving democracy we know today. As you can imagine, there were a few bumps along the road. It turns...

The Continental System was a major blockade of British trade imposed by French Emperor Napoleon I from 21 November 1806 to 11 April 1814. It was designed to cripple the British economy, thereby forcing Britain out of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815...

The First World War (1914-18) saw fighting on an unprecedented scale but also involved civilians as never before. For the first time, people hundreds of miles from the fighting front were vulnerable to air attacks. The war at sea dramatically...

Let's retrace on maps the first origins of Russia, from the creation of Novgorod during the IXth century, until the end of the Time of Troubles and the beginning of the Romanov dynasty.

In today’s video we are covering our first Saint worshipped both by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, revered for having first introduced Christianity amongst the Rus. These were a pagan people of Nordic descent, who ruled over...

The Moroccan Crises were two international incidents, the first in 1905-6 and the second in 1911, when Imperial Germany, eager to expand its empire, threatened France's presence in Morocco. France's position was supported by Britain and Russia...

The Grand Embassy was the name given to the long Western European tour that Tsar Peter I of Russia (aka Peter the Great, r. 1682-1725) undertook during 1697-1698. Peter was joined by hundreds of people, including noblemen, his friends, volunteers...

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was a Corsican-born French general and politician who reigned as Emperor of the French with the regnal name Napoleon I from 1804 to 1814 and then again briefly in 1815. He established the largest continental...

The Golden Horde was the European appanage of the Mongol Empire (1206-1368 CE). Begun in earnest by Batu Khan in 1227 CE, the territory that would eventually become the Golden Horde came to encompass parts of Central Asia, much of Russia...

The War of the Second Coalition (1798-1802), part of the broader French Revolutionary Wars, was the second attempt by an alliance of major European powers to defeat Revolutionary France. The Second Coalition, which included Russia, Austria...