Oprichnina
Ivan the Terrible's private domain of executions and seizures
In 1565 Ivan the Terrible set aside part of the country as the oprichnina under his personal rule, with its own guard. The oprichniki carried out mass executions and confiscations, culminating in the sack of Novgorod in 1570. It was abolished in 1572.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Did you know
Ivan the Terrible's Oprichnina (1565–1572) and France's St Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572) were bloody purges of the same decade.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — 22 years earlier
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — 6 years later
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — 7 years later
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — 17 years later
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — 23 years later
Asia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — 9 years earlier
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — 9 years earlier
Americas
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — 23 years earlier
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — 20 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Ivan the Terrible (aged 35)
- Elizabeth I (aged 32)
- Akbar the Great (aged 23)
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (aged 22)
- Miguel de Cervantes (aged 18)
- William Shakespeare (aged 1)
- Galileo Galilei (aged 1)
- Bartolomé de las Casas (aged 81)
- Suleiman the Magnificent (aged 71)
- Selim II (aged 41)