The execution of the Russian ex-Tsarist Romanov family, July 17, 1918
The execution of the Russian ex-Tsarist Romanov family, July 17, 1918. Today 105 years ago, in the early hours of July 17, 1918, Russian ex-Tsar Nicholas, his wife and five children were executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries in the Ipatiev House basement in Yekaterinburg. On March 15, 1917, upon the outbreak of the Russian February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne, ending 304 years of the House of Romanov's reign over Russia. On March 20, 1917, the new Russian Provisional Government decided to hold the Romanov family under house arrest at the Alexander Palace near St. Petersburg. The Romanov family, consisting of Tsar Nicholas, his wife the Empress Alexandra, their four daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and their son Alexei, was eventually moved to Tobolsk in Western Siberia in August 1917. In April 1918 they were moved again to the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, where they were essentially imprisoned and kept under strict conditions by Bolshev...