Boris Yeltsin couldn't take a decent picture

In June of 1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian Soviet State.  The U.S.S.R. collapsed later that same year in December, but Yeltsin continued to serve as Russia's first popularly-elected president until the end of the decade/century.  Yeltsin surprised everyone on December 31, 1999, by announcing his resignation, and installing Vladimir Putin as acting President of Russia.  Many have falsely believed that Yeltsin resigned because of his failing health and his alcoholism.  However, after careful research, it has become increasingly clear that Yeltsin was actually sacked by other Russian leaders because he was incredibly un-photogenic.

Rasputin

In the early years of the twentieth century, Russia was under the leadership of Emperor Nicholas II, the Last Tzar.  His wife Alexandra had born five children including the young Crown Prince Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia.  Around 1904, Rasputin turned up in St. Petersburg, and he came to the attention of the Empress Alexandra, when it was made known to her that he claimed to be a holy man and healer.  Alexandra invited Rasputin to the palace, and on several occasions, she wrote that he healed young Alexei from bleeding, thus saving his life.

Rasputin was creepy.  Not only was he supposedly healing the young Crown Prince, he was also preaching his doctrine that in order to be saved, one must sin as much as possible.  To that end, he managed to sleep with hundreds of women in the St. Petersburg area.  He also influenced decisions on who was hired and fired in the Russian government, mostly because of his influence with Alexandra who would do anything to keep her son healthy.    But there were individuals in the Tsar's government who decided that if the royal family would not remove Rasputin from the court, they would.

On December 16, 1916, two minor nobles, Felix Yusupov and Dmitry Pavlovich, lured Rasputin to the basement of an apartment for a supposed party.  Over an hour period, Rasputin ate 2-3 pastries and several glasses of wine, all laced with cyanide.  He did not die.  Frustrated and a little spooked, Yusupov shot Rasuptin twice with a revolver.  When Yusupov leaned over Rasputin to see if he were dead, Rasputin grabbed him around the neck, and attempted to strangle him while saying, "You bad boy."  The other conspirators entered and shot Rasputin a couple more times.  Then they stabbed him, beat him, and castrated him, only to realize he was still alive and struggling to get up.

Rasputin ran from the room chased by the followers.  Outside, they shot him again, this time in the head.  But when he still wouldn't die, they grabbed him, tied him up, and threw him into the icy Neva River.  Four days later his body was recovered from the river and an autopsy was ordered to determine the source of his mystical powers.  The autopsy revealed that the official cause of death was...

...drowning.

Russian Winter

In June of 1812, Napoleon marched 420,000 men into Russia.  He thought he could quickly defeat the Russians, thus forcing the British to surrender to his dominance of Europe.  Soon his forces in the Russian invasion numbered nearly 700,000 men.  


Early in October he reached Moscow, having fought several battles and looted several Russian towns.  But when he neared Moscow, he found it burning; the forces of Tsar Aleksander I had retreated from the city and lit it on fire to rob Napoleon of his prize.  Napoleon had no choice but to return to Western Europe.  But the Russian winter was beginning.  


















By December when Napoleon's army made its way out of Russia, his forces had been decimated.  Only around 22,000 troops, or 3% of those who entered, made it out of Russia alive.  Napoleon went on to lose to the British at Waterloo, and was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba, and then to the island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean where he died a few years later.  
As Vizzini said in the Princes Bride, "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia!"

Lessons from Russian History

One lesson from Russian history that should never be forgotten is that fathers should not kill their sons.


Ivan IV and Peter I both made this mistake, but history has been kinder to Peter, who accomplished many reforms in four decades, than to Ivan, who was a paranoid, raving lunatic, suffering from mercury poisoning.