This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Nicholas II of Russia


00:03:16 1 Family background
00:06:34 2 Tsarevich
00:09:51 3 Engagement, accession and marriage
00:13:43 4 Reign
00:13:52 4.1 Coronation
00:17:55 4.2 Initiatives in foreign affairs
00:18:52 4.3 Ecclesiastical affairs
00:19:40 4.4 Russo-Japanese War
00:22:47 4.5 Anti-Jewish pogroms of 1903–1906
00:23:48 4.6 Bloody Sunday (1905)
00:28:08 4.7 1905 Revolution
00:31:49 4.8 Relationship with the Duma
00:41:58 4.9 Tsarevich Alexei's illness and Rasputin
00:44:33 4.10 European affairs
00:46:48 4.11 Tercentenary
00:47:26 4.12 First World War
00:56:40 4.13 Collapse
01:01:25 4.13.1 Abdication (1917)
01:04:41 4.14 Imprisonment
01:08:10 4.15 Execution
01:11:32 5 Identification
01:13:22 6 Funeral
01:14:12 7 Sainthood
01:16:19 8 Assessment
01:19:54 9 Ancestry
01:20:03 10 Titles, styles, honours and arms
01:20:14 10.1 Titles and styles
01:21:29 10.2 Honours
01:22:12 10.2.1 National
01:22:39 10.2.2 Foreign
01:23:30 10.3 Arms
01:23:38 11 Children
01:23:47 12 Wealth
01:25:01 13 Documentaries and films
01:25:37 14 See also
01:25:53 15 Note



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SUMMARY
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Nicholas II or Nikolai II (Russian: Николай II Алекса́ндрович, tr. Nikolai II Aleksandrovich; 18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918), known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer in the Russian Orthodox Church, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 2 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody or Vile Nicholas by his political adversaries due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the execution of political opponents, and his perceived responsibility for the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Soviet historians portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects.Russia was defeated in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War which saw the annihilation of the reinforcing Russian Baltic Fleet after being sent on its round-the-world cruise at the naval Battle of Tsushima, off the coasts of Korea and Japan, the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea, and the Japanese annexation to the north of South Sakhalin Island. The Anglo-Russian Entente was designed to counter the German Empire's attempts to gain influence in the Middle East, but it also ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the United Kingdom. When all Russian diplomatic efforts to prevent the First World War (1914–1918) failed, Nicholas approved the Imperial Russian Army mobilization on 30 July 1914 which gave Imperial Germany formal grounds to declare war on Russia on 1 August 1914. An estimated 3.3 million Russians were killed in the First World War. The Imperial Russian Army's severe losses, the High Command's incompetent management of the war efforts, and lack of food and supplies on the home front were all leading causes of the fall of the House of Romanov.
Following the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son and heir, the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. He and his family were imprisoned and transferred to Tobolsk in late summer 1917. On 30 April 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra, and their daughter Maria were handed over to the local Ural Soviet council in Ekaterinburg (renamed Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era); the rest of the captives followed on 23 May. Nicholas and his family were executed by their Bolshevik guards on the night of 16/17 July 1918. The remains of the imperial family were later found, exhumed, identified and re-interred with elaborate State and Church ceremony in St. Petersburg on 17 July 1998 – 80 years later.
In 1981, Nicholas, his wife, and their children were recognized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outsid ...