What would become the Russian Empire began as territory acquired by Scandinavian settlers, the Rus, in the ninth century. In 1682, a new tsar took over the throne of the nation that had by then become known as Russia. Peter I, remembered as Peter the Great, transformed the country, and in 1721, he adopted the title of emperor of the Russian Empire. A series of powerful rulers, including Catherine the Great, built on the foundations that Peter had created to expand the territory controlled by the Russian Empire until it became one of the largest empires the world had ever seen. At its zenith, the Russian Empire had the most powerful army in the world and directly controlled over one-sixth of the total landmass of the Earth.

However, despite its apparent power, this empire was afflicted by internal dissent that grew exponentially throughout the late 19th century. Assassination attempts on the tsar in that period became almost commonplace as people sought radical change. In 1917, the empire was destroyed, not due to an invasion from outside but because a weak leader was unable to stop its own internal contradictions from tearing it apart. With the fall of the monarchy came the Soviet Union and eventually the Russian Federation that we know today.