Alexander II Assassinated

March 13, 1881

On a Sunday drive along a St. Petersburg canal, a bomb thrown by a young revolutionary named Rysakov wounded the tsar's Cossacks. Alexander II stepped out to help them; a second bomber, Grinevitsky, killed both of them. The Tsar Liberator died on the floor of the Winter Palace. Reaction, pogroms, and a new, harder autocracy followed.