The History of St. Petersburg

1703
Founding of St. Petersburg by tsar Peter the Great.
 
1710
Peter builds the city’s first palace, in the north-east of the Summer Garden.
1725
Peter dies at age 52.
1738
Russia’s first school of ballet is established in St. Petersburg.
1748
Construction begins on Smolny Cathedral in which Rastrelli tried to combine Russian onion-domes with Baroque design.
1754
Empress Elizabeth commissions Rastrelli to design the Winter Palace, and over the next forty years, Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine the Great create the palaces and parks in the St. Petersburg suburb of Tsarskoe Selo (Pushkin).
1762-1796
German-born Catherine the Great ascends the throne. She makes the Winter Palace her residence, where the royal family remain until 1917.
1782
A statue of Peter the Great called the Bronze Horseman is unveiled at the Neva-end of St. Isaac’s Square.
1825
A secret society of nobles and officers, who come to be known as the Decembrists, rally against tsar Nicholas I. Their uprising is crushed.
1837
On January 27, Russia’s most famous poet Alexander Pushkin has a fatal duel with officer Georges d’Anthes, who was apparently having an affair with his wife.
1859
The Mariinsky Theatre is built.
 
1858
The city’s most ornate cathedral, St. Isaac’s, is completed after forty years of construction work.
1866
Dostoevsky finishes Crime and Punishment, set in the streets surrounding Sennaya pl. (Haymarket Square).
1881
A bomb kills Emperor Alexander II. The Church on the Spilled Blood is erected on the spot of the assassination.
1905
Bloody Sunday. On January 9, tens-of-thousands of Petersburgers march to the Winter Palace to present Tsar Nicholas II with a petition calling for reforms. Imperial troops fire on the demonstration, killing several hundred.
1914
WWI begins in August, and St. Petersburg is renamed Petrograd to sound less German.
1916
Prince Felix Yusupov murders Rasputin -a Siberian peasant who had Tsarina Alexandra under his spell because of his hypnotic ability to treat her son’s haemophilia .
 
1917
In a popular uprising on the night of October 24, the Bolsheviks take control of key points in around the city. The night comes to be known as the Great October Socialist Revolution.
Lenin establishes the Cheka, later to be known as the KGB, now called the FSB.
1918 -1922
Tsar Nicholas II and his family are murdered in Yekatarinburg.
1921
Sailors at the Kronshtadt naval base become the last bastion of organised resistance to the communist regime. On March 21, 50,000 Red Army troops cross the ice from Petrograd and massacre almost the entire fleet.
1924
Lenin dies, and Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.
1934
Leningrad’s Communist Party Chief Sergey Kirov is murdered at Smolny in December. His death marks the beginning of Stalin’s worst party purges.
1940
The Leningrad metro is opened.
1941 - 1945
During the 872-day blockade until January 27, 1944, St. Petersburg is isolated from the rest of Russia. More than a million residents die of starvation.
1960
The population of Leningrad finally grows to exceed pre-WWII levels.
1977
Leningrad is flooded. It is the city’s 235th flood.
1989
Leningrad’s historical centre is put on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage.
1991
Following a popular referendum in September, Leningrad is returned to its original name St. Petersburg.
2000
In March, native Petersburger and former KGB-man Vladimir Putin is elected president of the Russian Federation.
2003
On May 27, St. Petersburg turns 300. The night of Piter’s birthday sees more people flood the banks Neva than the city had seen since the anniversary of the October Revolution. In October, Valentina Matviyenko is elected as Governor of St. Petersburg. She becomes the first female Russian Governor.

2006
Russia’s economy continues to grow in strength, based largely on the wealth of Russia’s natural gas and oil reserves. Russia’s stable economic position enables it to pay back all it’s foreign debts.  In December, Matviyeno's position as Governor is re-approved by President Putin and the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly.

2007
Putin throws his support behind his ally, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as his preferred candidate in the March 2008 Election for the Presidency.

2008
The Constitutional Court is scheduled to move from Moscow back to St. Petersburg. They will move to the former Senate buildings on the Decembrist Square. This will increase St. Petersburg status within Russia as the move wil make St. Petersburg the country's second judicial capital. The move will commence May 2008.