This day in Russian history and the History of the world.

May 6

May 6, 1868: The birth date of Nicholas II (Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov), the Tsar of Russia.

This was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Duke of Finland, and titular King of Poland.

Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917.

His reign saw Imperial Russia go from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to an economic and military disaster.

Critics nicknamed him Nicholas the Bloody because of the Khodynka Tragedy, Bloody Sunday, and the anti-Semitic pogroms that occurred during his reign.

As head of state, he approved the Russian mobilization of August 1914 which marked the first fatal step into World War I and thus into the demise of the Romanov dynasty less than four years later. Nicholas II abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 during which he and his family were imprisoned and later killed by Bolsheviks on the night of 16/17 July 1918.

This led to the canonization of Nicholas II, his wife the Empress and their children as martyrs by various groups tied to the Russian Orthodox Church within Russia and, prominently, by the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia.

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