15. Nicholas II was the last ruler of a 300-year-old dynasty
The Romanov Dynasty as rulers of the Russian Empire came to an end with the deposing of Tsar Nicholas II. Nicholas’s reign as the Tsar was marked throughout its more than two decades with economic collapse, crop failures, military defeats, anti-Semitic pogroms, the execution of dissidents, and the denial of reforms. During his reign, he was known among the people of his empire as Nicholas the Bloody, Vile Nicholas, and other less than flattering names. World War I and the heavy casualties suffered by the Russian Army, officered by members of the nobility but its ranks filled with conscripted peasants, led to the February Revolution. Nicholas abdicated his throne in favor of his son Alexei, expecting to go into exile. Instead, he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks in July 1918. Part of the rationale for executing the Tsar was his being related to both the British King and the German Kaiser, as well as several other crowned heads of Europe. Although some have since defended his personal character, the consensus of history is that Nicholas was an inept ruler, and he was widely hated among his people.