Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917) was the last of the Romanov emperors, murdered along with his family during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Insisting on maintaining as far as possible the autocratic rule begun by his ancestors, Nicholas failed to address the grievances of his subjects, and with him fell the Russian Empire.
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Timeline
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18 May 1868Tsar Nicholas II is born in Saint Petersburg.
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22 Jan 1905Bloody Sunday in 1905, when peaceful demonstrators against the tsar's authoritarian rule were fired upon and massacred in St. Petersburg.
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14 May 1905The Russian Baltic Naval Fleet is destroyed at the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.
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15 Jun 1905Martial law is declared in Odessa, the day the battleship Potemkin, taken over by mutineers, arrives in port.
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17 Oct 1905Tsar Nicholas II proposes reforms in his October Manifesto. Accepted by some liberals, it divides participants in the Russian Revolution of 1905.
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Dec 1905A strike in Moscow turns into an armed uprising against Tsar Nicholas II. The uprising is brutally quashed by the army.
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30 Dec 1916Grigori Rasputin is assassinated by a group of pro-Tsarists.
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2 Mar 1917Tsar Nicholas II is obliged to abdicate.
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17 Jul 1918Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and their five children are shot by Bolshevik revolutionaries.
