Oleg; 880 he makes Kiev his capital 

1220-42

First Mongol-Tatar attack in Caucasus; 1223 first Mongol invasion, Russians and Polovtsy defeated; 1235-40 conquest of Caucasus by Tatar-Mongols; capture of Kiev; 1240 Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod, defeats Swedes on Neva; 1242 Nevsky defeats Teutonic Knights on the ice of Lake Peipus; Tatar HQ established on lower Volga. Tatar domination for next 250 years, holding 9 principalities in their power. Between 1261 and 1533, Moscow gradually took control of principalities

1301-10

First territorial acquisitions of Muscovy; 1310 Moscow becomes the See of the Orthodox Church

Ivan III, the Great; 1463-89 many cities incorporated into Muscovy; 1485-1516 building of new Kremlin; 1496-97 war with Sweden; 1502 destruction of Golden Horde by Crimean Tatars

Ivan IV, the Terrible, first Russian sovereign to be crowned czar (in 1547 in Uspensky Cathedral in Kremlin); marriage to girl with Romanov connections; 1547 Fire of Moscow; 1555-57 war with Sweden; 1558-83 Livonian War; 1571 Crimean Tatars burn Moscow; 1581 beginning of conquest of Siberia; 1582 truce with Poland; 1583 truce with Sweden

Boris Godunov elected Czar by the Zemsky Sobor; Time of Troubles; 1604-13 civil wars

Fyodor Godunov 1605, Czar for a few weeks before army goes over to Dimitriy; Fyodor murdered by pretender's agents; 1605-6 False Dimitriy I; 1606-10 Vasiliy Shuisky; first peasant war in Russian history; uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov; 1607-10 False Dimitriy II; Polish invasion; 1610 occupation of Moscow; 1611 Novgorod occupied by the Swedes; 1611-12 national uprising led by Minin and Pozharsky; Poles burn Moscow before retreating

1613-45

The Romanovs

Mikhail elected by the Zemsky Sobor; 1618 peace with Sweden, Moscow loses Baltic outlet; truce with Poland; 1632-34 war with Poland again

Aleksey; 1653 last Zemsky Sobor summoned to vote on the incorporation of the Ukraine; 1654 beginning of the Schism—Old Believers; 1654—57 Russo-Polish War; truce ofAndrusovo cedes Smolensk, Kiev and Ukraine to Moscow; 1656—58 war with Sweden; 1670-71 Stenka Razin's revolt

Peter the Great; in the first outward-looking reign in Russian history Peter opened a window on Western ideas; techniques flooded into Russia; 1686 "permanent" peace with Poland; reform of the calendar; 1700 beginning of Great Northern War against Sweden;   1701-3 foundation of St. Petersburg (later Petrograd and now Leningrad); 1710 conquest of Livonia, Estonia and Vyborg; war with Turkey; 1711 loss of Azov; 1713-14 conquest of Finland; acquisition of Livonia, Estonia, Ingria and Karelia; 1721 Peter adopts title of Emperor; war with Persia; 1722 acquisition of western and southern shores of Caspian

Succession of rulers—Catherine I (1725-27) Peter's widow, utterly incapable; Peter II (1727-30) became Czar at 11, died of smallpox;    Anna (1730-40) daughter of Ivan V, niece of Peter the Great;   1735-39 war with Turkey; Ivan VI (1740—41), various contesting regents; war with Sweden; Elizaveta (1741-61), daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I; Peter III (1761-62); alliance with Frederick II

1914-18

1914 Outbreak of the First World War, which Lenin sees as a chance for revolution; 1915 Rasputin in effect ruling Russia; 1916 Rasputin murdered; 1917 February Revolution; abdication of Czar Nicholas II; formation of Provisional Government; Lenin urges "Fraternization at the Front," "No support for Provisional Government" and "All power to the Soviets;" growth of Bolshevik influence in the Soviets and in the countryside; October Revolution (Nov. 6-7); Lenin, leading Bolshevik faction, overthrows the Provisional Government in Petrograd in a bloodless coup; issues decree nationalizing all private, ecclesiastical and czarist land without compensation; in elections to the Constituent Assembly the Bolsheviks poll only one quarter of the votes while the Socialist Revolutionaries take 370 of the 707 seats

1918-24

1918-20 Bolsheviks introduce press censorship, nationalize heavy industry, outlaw strikes, nationalize banks, build up police force (the Cheka ) and Red Army, and organize requisition of grain for army and for urban population; engage in civil war with White armies of the Right; emergency measures known as War Communism including seizure of peasants' produce lead to peasant risings, strikes and demonstrations; 1921 Kronstadt rebellion (March); famine; 10th Party Congress introduces New Economic Policy giving peasants freedom in cultivating their land and marketing its produce, while State retains control of industry, foreign trade, banking and transport; Congress also votes to prohibit formation of groups or factions within the Party and to limit criticism; 1922 one-fifth of Party membership purged by this year; Stalin becomes General Secretary; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) established; 1924 Lenin dies; Petrograd renamed Leningrad in his honor

1924-38

Stalin asserts his supremacy over the next few years; 1927 Trotsky, co-founder with Lenin of modern Russia, expelled from the Party;
1928-29 first Five-Year Plan and start of collectivization; suppression of kulaks (wealthier peasants); 1929 Trotsky deported; 1930 industrialization takes precedence over collectivization; disorganization of agriculture leads to famine; 1932 Five-Year Plan declared completed, nine months ahead of schedule; 1933 Russia establishes diplomatic relations with the U.S.A.; second Five-Year Plan; 1934 murder of Leningrad Party chief Sergei Kirov marks beginning of the "Great Terror;" 1935-38 years of purges and the Treason Trials; destruction of the Old Bolsheviks and Red Army High Command; 1935 rationing system replaces incentives policy, wages graded according to work done; 1936 New Constitution; 1938 Third Five-Year Plan (delayed by German invasion)

1953-64

Nikita Khrushchev becomes First Secretary of Soviet Communist Party and dominates collective leadership of the U.S.S.R., first with Malenkov, then with Bulganin; 1956 Feb., 20th Party Congress hears Khrushchev's "secret speech" denouncing Stalin;
Nov., Hungarian revolt put down by Soviet tanks and troops after Hungary announces intention to leave Warsaw Pact; 1955-57 Khrushchev smashes "anti-Party group" of politicians who disagree with his policies; 1958 Mar., Khrushchev takes over Premiership from Bulganin; 1960 May, shooting down of U2 airplane;
1961 Khrushchev meets Kennedy; Major Gagarin in first manned space flight; 1962 Cuban missile crisis; 1962-63 rift with China becomes public; 1963 partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; 1964 Khrushchev's resignation demanded by his colleagues who accuse him of economic failure, agricultural adventurism, unco-ordinated and inconsistent policies, foreign policy blunders and encouraging personality cult of his own

1964-82

Brezhnev and After

Leonid Brezhnev succeeds Khrushchev as Party Secretary, Alexei Kosygin is Premier; 1968 "Prague Spring" in Czechoslovakia suppressed by Soviet invasion; 1970 Solzhenitsyn awarded Nobel Prize for Literature, deported to Switzerland 1974; 1975 Helsinki Agreement; 1979 Afghanistan invaded by Soviet Union; 1980 Moscow Olympic Games; Nikolai Tikhonov replaces Kosygin; rise of Solidarity trade union movement in Poland and its suppression on Soviet orders; 1982 Oct., Brezhnev dies

68-year-old Yury Andropov (former KGB chief) succeeds Brezhnev, but is plagued by ill health throughout 1983 and dies in Feb. 1984;
Konstantin Chernenko, a 72-year-old protege of Brezhnev, becomes Party Secretary amid rumors of power struggles; March 1985 Chernenko dies; 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev is elected General Secretary by Central Committee; long-serving Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko is replaced by 57-year-old Edvard Shevardnadze

Gorbachev campaigns energetically to move U.S.S.R. economy forward and appears to favor new style of leadership which includes informal contact with people at home and abroad; meets Ronald Reagan at Geneva Summit, November 1985; Chernobyl nuclear reactor explodes, April 1986; Gorbachev meets Reagan at Reykjavik Summit; Gorbachev proclaims a "new attitude to human rights" and announces other measures aimed at "democratization" of Soviet society, February 1987; INF Treaty signed in Washington, December 1987; Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan begins May 1988; Reagan pays reciprocal visit to Moscow, May 1988;
Gorbachev visits New York and speaks at United Nations, December 1988; Armenia suffers massive earthquake December, 1988;
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan completed February, 1989;  first "multi-party" elections in U.S.S.R., March 1989; Gorbachev visits Cuba and Western Europe, April 1989, and China, May 1989.