Legend says Alexander I did not die in 1825 but faked his death and lived nearly 40 more years in Siberia as the hermit Feodor Kuzmich.
Historians treat it as legend, though Leo Tolstoy wrote a story about it.
More amazing facts
- 1817 In 1817 Russia had forts both in California and in Hawaii: Fort Ross north of San Francisco and Fort Elizabeth on Kauai.
- 1824 Beethoven never heard the ovation at the premiere of his Ninth Symphony.
- 1825 1825: the first public steam railway opened in England, and in St Petersburg the Decembrists marched onto Senate Square.
- 1825 · 1827 The oldest surviving photograph is only a year or two younger than the Decembrist revolt.
- 1830 · 1863 America's national Thanksgiving was won by the author of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'. Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for 17 years, and in 1863 her letter persuaded Lincoln.
- 1831 The artist of The Great Wave went by at least thirty names in his lifetime, more than any other major Japanese artist of his day. 'Hokusai' is just the best known.