Peter I became tsar in 1682; a year later the Ottomans were stopped at the gates of Vienna.
The Europe he would go to learn from had only just held off the Turks.
The events
- 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.
- Battle of Vienna1683 · Vienna. An army led by Polish king John III Sobieski lifted the Ottoman siege of Vienna, routing Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa. The defeat began the Ottoman Empire's retreat from Central Europe.
More amazing facts
- 1613 · 1627 The last aurochs, the wild ancestor of cattle, died in a Polish forest in 1627 — 14 years after Michael Romanov was elected tsar.
- 1661 · 1662 The last confirmed sighting of a dodo was in 1662 — just as Louis XIV was beginning to rebuild Versailles.
- 1687 · 1703 In the year St Petersburg was founded (1703), Newton became President of the Royal Society.
- 1689 The authoritative text of the first Russia–China treaty, Nerchinsk (1689), was in Latin: Jesuit interpreters handled the talks.
- 1709 The brutal winter of 1709, the 'Great Frost', struck all of Europe and wore down Charles XII's Swedish army before Poltava.
- 1741 · 1768 Steller's sea cow was discovered in 1741 and wiped out in just 27 years: the last was apparently killed in 1768, the year Cook set off on his first voyage.