Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When did Alexander II die?
Alexander II (; 29 April 1818 – 13 March 1881) was the Emperor of Russia from 2 March 1855 until his assassination on 13 March 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Finland.
On July 18, 1918, the day after the shooting at Yekaterinburg of the last Tsar, Nicholas II and family, members of the extended Russian royal family, the Romanovs, including a nun, and their servants, met a brutal death here being thrown down a mineshaft near Alapayevsk by Bolsheviks. All except Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich (who was the first one to die; he was shot before they could throw him in) survived the fall, hand-grenades were thrown down after them killing Grand Duke Sergey's secretary, Fyodor Remez. Other victims died a slow death including the Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia and Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna (born Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine), a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Grand Duchess Elizabeth was the sister of Empress Alexandra; when her husband, the Tsar's uncle, was murdered in 1905, she gave all her wealth to the poor and became a nun, but she was shown no mercy. Killed with her was a nun who had accompanied her - Varvara Yakovleva.
Catherine the Great was succeeded by her son Paul I. In the first days of his reign, the new Tsar (reported by the British Ambassador to be "not in his senses") augmented the number of troops stationed at the Winter Palace, positioning sentry boxes every few metres around the building. Eventually, paranoid for his security and disliking anything connected with his mother, he spurned the Winter Palace completely and built Saint Michael's Castle as his Saint Petersburg residence, on the site of his birthplace. The Tsar announced that he wished to die on the spot he was born. He was murdered there three weeks after taking up residence in 1801. Paul I was succeeded by his 24-year-old son, Alexander I, who ruled Russia during the chaotic period of the Napoleonic Wars. Following Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the contents of the Winter Palace were further enhanced when Alexander I purchased the art collection of the former French Empress, Joséphine. This collection, some of it plundered loot given to her by her ex-husband Napoleon, contained amongst its many old masters Rembrandt's "The Descent from the Cross" and four sculptures by Antonio Canova.
In 1478, his father Bagrat VI died and Alexander became king of Georgia, initially ruling its two major regions, Imereti in the west and Kartli in the east. Alexander was expelled from the kingdom by a rival prince Constantine II. Alexander retired to the mountainous western provinces of Racha and Lechkhumi. Alexander recovered Imereti after Constantine’s defeat at the hands of Qvarqvare II Jaqeli, a powerful atabeg of Samtskhe, in 1483, but lost the capital Kutaisi to Constantine again a year later. In 1488, Alexander took advantage of the Ak Koyunlu Turkoman invasion of Kartli, and seized control of Imereti. In 1491, Constantine had to recognise his rival as independent sovereign, and to confine himself to the government of Kartli.
Catherine the Great died in 1796, and Paul became Emperor. He decided to enlarge Pavlovsk into a palace suitable for a royal residence, adding two new wings on either side of the main building, and a church attached to the south wing. Between 1797 and 1799, he lavished money and the finest materials on Brenna's interiors. The reign of Emperor Paul did not last long. He alienated the nobles, and became increasingly fearful of conspiracies. His fears were justified; the Emperor Paul was murdered by members of his court in 1801, and his son Alexander became Emperor. Pavlovsk Palace became the residence of the Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828), the mother of both Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.
In 1881, the revolutionaries were finally successful and Alexander II was assassinated as his carriage drove through the streets of Saint Petersburg. The Winter Palace was never truly inhabited again. The new Tsar Alexander III was informed by his security advisers that it was impossible to make the Winter Palace secure. The Imperial Family then moved to the seclusion of the Palace of Gatchina, some from Saint Petersburg. By comparison with the Winter Palace, the 600 room, moated Gatchina Palace, set within forests, was a cosy family home. When in Saint Petersburg, the Imperial Family resided at the Anichkov Palace, while the Winter Palace was used for official functions. Large economies were made in food and wine. The Tsar was highly interested in the running costs of the Palace, insisting that table linen was not to be changed daily, and that candles and soap were not replaced until completely spent. Even the number of eggs used in an omelette was reduced. While the Tsar economised on household expenses, he added to the Imperial art collection of both the palace and the Hermitage. Officially, the Hermitage Museum had an annual buying allowance of 5,000 rubles, but when this proved insufficient the Tsar would himself purchase items for the museum.
The Russians wanted to ensure that despite losing the war, they still left the Congress of Paris with some strength left in their empire and with some of their wartime possessions left under their rule. When Alexander II took the crown of Russia in 1855, he inherited a potential crisis that threatened to collapse the Russian Empire. Problems all throughout the Empire stretching from parts of Finland to Poland, as well as Crimea and many tribal conflicts stretched the Russian economy to the brink of collapse. Russia knew that within a few months, a total defeat in the Crimean War was imminent, which would mean the complete humiliation of Russia on a global scale. Peace talks were pursued by Alexander II with Britain and France in Paris in 1856 as not just a means of attempting to keep some imperial possession but also a means of stopping the deaths of thousands of its barely-trained army reserves as well as an economic crisis. A main aim of the Russians was ending war with the appearance of some strength left in the Russian bear, which had once terrified the Western allies. It contrived "to turn defeat into victory... through... peacetime [internal] reforms and diplomatic initiatives." Like the Ottoman Empire, the Russians desired to turn their attention inward to fix many internal problems, such as the economy and growing unrest in the society that Russia had not done enough in the war effort to crush the weak Turks.
On 5 March 1953, at 21:50 EET, Joseph Stalin, the second leader of the Soviet Union, died at the Kuntsevo Dacha aged 74 after suffering a stroke. After four days of national mourning, Stalin was given a state funeral and then buried in Lenin's Mausoleum on 9 March. Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria were in charge of organizing the funeral.
Catherine Chislova died in 1889, and Grand Duke Nicholas survived his lover by only two years. When he died in the Crimea in 1891, Alexandra Petrovna did not attend the funeral. She also refused to pay homage to her dead husband when the funeral catafalque, taking his body for burial in the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg, came by train via Kiev on its route from the south.
He also insisted, despite his leading position in the federal faction of the Romanian aristocracy and as Governor of Bukovina, that all citizens had the right to freely exercise their own religion and culture, and to have their mother tongue recognized, but always under the auspices of the Habsburg monarchy and the leadership of the Emperor. After the Kingdom of Romania was founded in 1881, Alexander proved to be a resolute opponent of the growing number of proponents for a connection of the Bucovina with Romania. In his opening speech as governor given in German language in the Bukovina Parliament on July 22, 1884, he called on all parliamentarians, to proceed unanimously in upholding provincial autonomy within the concept of an Austrian state. He also campaigned for the legal recognition of the German, Romanian and Ruthenian languages, stressing that the German language was the common bond of all the peoples in the monarchy. These have evolved historically and factually as the only official language, and is therefore to be ruled by them. He was considered an early pioneer of the idea of a United Europe of Nations.
The Kingdom of Saxony was abolished in 1918 when King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony abdicated. The succession law until the abolition of the monarchy was semi-Salic primogeniture and required the successor to be born of an equal marriage, approved in advance by the head of the house. Accordingly, the last undisputed male member of the family was Prince Albert of Saxony, who assumed the headship of the royal house and the title "Margrave of Meissen" upon the death of his brother the Margrave Maria Emanuel in July 2012. This was challenged, however, by his nephew Prince Alexander of Saxe-Gessaphe who also claimed the headship based on a 1997 agreement, and who is said to have reached an agreement with Albert just prior to the funeral of Maria Emanuel which recognised Alexander as the dynasty's heir. With the death of Albert in October 2012 the dispute continued with Prince Rüdiger of Saxony, the only agnatic great grandson of the last King of Saxony, claiming the headship.
Albert Leopold "Friedrich Christian" Sylvester Anno Macarius, Prince of Saxony, Duke of Saxony, Margrave of Meissen (31 December 1893 – 9 August 1968) was the second son of Frederick Augustus III, the last reigning king of Saxony before the abolition of the monarchy in 1918. Upon his father's death in 1932, he became the head of the Royal House of Saxony. He was Captain à la suite in the Royal Bulgarian Infantry, and Grand Master of the Order of the Rue Crown, and also a Knight in the Order of the Black Eagle and Knight Grand Cross in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. As head of the House of Wettin after 1932, he styled himself as "Friedrich Christian, Margrave of Meissen".
In 370 BC, the Macedonian king Amyntas III died, having restored the fortunes of his kingdom after the Illyrian disasters from earlier in his reign. His marriage to Eurydice, daughter of the Illyrian prince Sirras produced three sons and a daughter. His eldest son was Alexander II. In 369 BC, Bardylis prevented Alexander II from eliminating the Dardanians from Macedonia. After the battle, Bardylis was said to have briefly held Philip II, the youngest brother of Alexander II, as a hostage. In 368 BC, Alexander II was succeeded by his brother Perdiccas III.
The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) and all those who chose to accompany them into imprisonment—notably Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp and Ivan Kharitonov, according to the conclusion of the investigator , were shot and bayoneted to death in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. According to the official state version in the USSR, former Tsar Nicholas Romanov, along with members of his family and retinue, was executed by firing squad, by order of the Ural Regional Soviet, due to the threat of the city being occupied by Whites (Czechoslovak Legion). By the assumption of a number of researchers, this was done according to instructions by Lenin, Yakov Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky. Their bodies were then taken to the Koptyaki forest where they were stripped and mutilated. In 1919, White Army investigation (of Sokolov) failed to find the gravesite, concluding that the imperial family's remains had been cremated at the mineshaft called Ganina Yama, since evidence of fire was found.. In 1979 and 2007, the remains of the bodies were found in two unmarked graves in a field called Porosenkov Log.
On Thursday, 26 August 2010, a Russian court ordered prosecutors to reopen an investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, although the Bolsheviks believed to have shot them in 1918 had died long before. The Russian Prosecutor General's main investigative unit said it had formally closed a criminal investigation into the killing of Nicholas because too much time had elapsed since the crime and because those responsible had died. However, Moscow's Basmanny Court ordered the re-opening of the case, saying that a Supreme Court ruling blaming the state for the killings made the deaths of the actual gunmen irrelevant, according to a lawyer for the Tsar's relatives and local news agencies.
Former Prime Minister István Tisza was murdered in Budapest during the Aster Revolution of October 1918. On 31 October 1918, the success of this revolution brought the leftist liberal Count Mihály Károlyi to power as prime minister. Károlyi was a devotee of the Entente powers from the beginning of the war. On 13 November 1918, Charles IV ("IV. Károly") surrendered his powers as King of Hungary, however, he did not abdicate, a technicality that made a return to the throne possible.
Following the repeated violations of the Polish constitution by the Russians (especially after the Alexander I's death, when the reactionary Nicholas I assumed power), the 1830 November Uprising broke out. It started with the assault on Belvedere - the residence of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, the commander-in-chief of Polish army and "de facto" viceroy of the Congress Poland, as well as at the Arsenal. The 1830 uprising led to the Polish-Russian war (1831), the greatest battle of which took place on 25 February 1831 in Grochów—a village in the modern northern part of the district, Praga Południe. Because the Polish commanders were stalled, the war ended in defeat, and curtailment of the Kingdom's autonomy. The Emperor established a military administration in Warsaw. An estate of pretty manors on the north of New Town was eradicated and on this place the Citadel was built, where was a fortress and prison. The Sejm was suspended, the Polish army dissolved, and the University closed.
At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rival claimants to the throne existed: Ivan VI (1740–1764), in close confinement at Schlüsselburg, in Lake Ladoga, from the age of six months; and Yelizaveta Alekseyevna Tarakanova (1753–1775). Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed "coup" against Catherine: Catherine, like Empress Elizabeth before her, had given strict instructions that he was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. Ivan was thought to be insane because of his years of solitary confinement, so he might have made a poor emperor, even as a figurehead.
Charles I or Karl I (Karl Franz Joseph Ludwig Hubert Georg Otto Maria; 17 August 18871 April 1922) was the last Emperor of Austria, the last King of Hungary (as Charles IV, ), the last King of Bohemia (as Charles III), and the last monarch belonging to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. After his uncle Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in 1914, Charles became heir presumptive of Emperor Franz Josef. Charles I reigned from 1916 until 1918, when he "renounced participation" in state affairs, but did not abdicate. He spent the remaining years of his life attempting to restore the monarchy until his death in 1922. Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004, he is known to the Catholic Church as Blessed Karl of Austria.
In 1772, her son and heir, Paul, turned eighteen. Paul and his adviser, Panin, believed he was the rightful tsar of Russia, as the only son of Peter III. His adviser had also taught him that the rule of women endangered good leadership, which was why he was so interested in gaining the throne. Distracting him, Catherine took trouble to find Paul a wife among the minor princesses of the Holy Roman Empire. She chose Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstad, who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna"), a daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. The bride's older sister, Frederika Louisa, was already married to the Crown Prince of Prussia. Around this time, Catherine allowed Paul to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. Wilhelmina died in childbirth on 15 April 1776, three years after the wedding. It soon became even clearer to Catherine that Paul wanted power, including his separate court. There was talk of having both Paul and his mother co-rule Russia, but Catherine narrowly avoided it. A fierce rivalry began between them, as Catherine knew she could never truly trust him and Paul wanted his mother's power.
Count István Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged (archaically English: Stephen Tisza; 22 April 1861 – 31 October 1918) was a Hungarian politician, prime minister, political scientist and member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The prominent event in his life was Austria-Hungary's entry into the First World War when he was prime minister for the second time. He was later assassinated during the Aster Revolution on 31 October 1918 - the same day that Hungary terminated its political union with Austria. Tisza supported the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary and was representative of the then "liberal-conservative consent".
While in Fustat his health declined. With the help of Anbā Shamūl, the bishop of Awsim, Alexander determined to escape and return to Alexandria by ship. On reaching Tarnūt, with the governor's soldiers in pursuit, Alexander died. When they found the dead patriarch the soldiers seized Anbā Shamūl and took him back to Fustat, where he was found complicit in Alexander's escape and fined 1000 dinars. With the assistance of the Copts, who raised 300 dinars for him, he was able to raise the money and be released.
In 370 BC, the worthy Amyntas died full of years, having restored the fortunes of his kingdom after the Illyrian disasters. His marriage to Eurydice of the Illyrian Sirras produced three sons and a daughter. His eldest son was Alexander II. In 369 BC, Bardyllis prevented Alexander II from eliminating the Dardanians from Macedonia. After the battle, Bardyllis was said to have briefly held Philip II, the youngest brother of Alexander II, as a hostage. In 365 BC, Alexander II was succeeded by his brother Perdiccas III.
At the height of his power, Alexander died in 247 under circumstances which led his contemporaries to believe that he had been poisoned by Antigonus Gonatas.
Alexander's widow Nicaea assumed control of his possessions, but after the death of her protector Ptolemy Philadelphus in 246 her position was weakened. When Antigonus carried a naval victory over his enemies and an Aetolian raid into Boeotia threatened Chalcis, Attica and Corinth, she accepted to marry Antigonus' son and heir Demetrius II Aetolicus. During the marriage celebrations in the winter of 245/44 Antigonus took in the garrison of the Acrocorinth and regained control of his former possessions.
Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which were still part of the Norwegian domain of Suðreyjar. He repeatedly attempted negotiations and purchase, but without success. Alexander set out to conquer these islands but died on the way in 1249. This dispute over the Western Isles, also known as the Hebrides, was not resolved until 1266 when Magnus VI of Norway ceded them to Scotland along with the Isle of Man.