Vladimir Lenin: Did you mean...?

Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine is a monument of 11th-century architecture, painting, and mosaic work. The cathedral was named after Hagia Sophia and, as the main temple of the state, played the role of its spiritual, political and...

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...

The game of chess has a particularly long and fascinating history of more than 1500 years. Over the centuries, there have also been hundreds of different chess variants, all of which incorporate the fundamental distinguishing feature of standard...

The Mongol invasions of Russia and Eastern Europe occurred first with a brief sortie in 1223 CE and then again in a much larger campaign between 1237 CE and 1242 CE. The Mongols, seemingly coming from nowhere and quickly gaining a reputation...

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of Nazi Germany, attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941 with the largest army ever assembled. The Axis offensive of June-December 1941 was code-named Operation Barbarossa ('Redbeard') after Frederick Barbarossa...

The Nazi-Soviet Pact, also called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after the respective foreign ministers of the USSR and Germany, was a non-aggression agreement signed in August 1939. The pact allowed the leader of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler (1889-1945...

The January Uprising of 1863 was a conflict between Tsarist Russia and Polish insurgents striving for independence. The uprising continued until October 1864, when it was suppressed by the Russian forces, effectively erasing the already limited...

The Battle of Moscow (Oct 41 to Jan 42) was Germany's first major land defeat in the Second World War (1939-45). Although Axis panzer divisions reached within 20 miles (32 km) of the Soviet capital, the USSR's Red Army, led by Marshal Georgi...

Pyotr Stolypin (1862-1911) was a Russian politician who served as prime minister to Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917). Stolypin ruthlessly quashed anti-Tsarist rebellions after the Russian Revolution of 1905 but was also responsible for...

The first page of the first issue of the Russian political newspaper Pravda (May, 1912). Edited by socialists, the newspaper became the official mouthpiece of the Russian Bolshevik/Communist Party.