Pushkin's great-grandfather came to Russia as a boy, a 'gift' for Peter I. African-born Abram Gannibal became the tsar's godson, a military engineer and a general — and his great-grandson Russia's greatest poet.

1704

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The event

• Accession of Peter the Great1682 · Moscow. In 1682 ten-year-old Peter was proclaimed tsar; after the Streltsy uprising he shared the throne with his half-brother Ivan V under the regency of Sophia. Peter ruled alone from 1696 and launched sweeping reforms.

18th century

More amazing facts

• 1699 · 1700 Russia's shortest year lasted four months.
• 1700 · 1800 In the 18th century Britons’ sugar intake more than quadrupled, from about 4 lb a year per person in 1700 to about 18 lb in 1800.
• 1701 No one sits on the Ashanti kingdom's sacred throne.
• 1703 · 1739 · 1833 Peter the Great never spoke of cutting a 'window to Europe'. The phrase is Pushkin's, from The Bronze Horseman (1833), and as he noted himself, the image came from the Italian writer Francesco Algarotti.
• 1705 · 1742 · 1758 Edmond Halley predicted that a comet would return in 1758 but did not live to see it. He died in 1742; the comet came back on schedule and was named after him.
• 1707 The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who ruled almost all of India, wanted his burial paid for with money earned sewing caps and copying the Quran.

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