The Russian Empire

  The Russian Empire is quite notorious for its size and was one of if not the strongest nation in the world for a century. Ivan the IV changed the Duchy of Muscovy into what is now Russia. Under Ivan's leadership Russia expanded southward near the Caucasus and the Black Sea. Russia was not really seen as a great power until Catherine the Great took over, seeing as "Great" is in her name, you can imagine she did great things for Russia and she did. She expanded Russia deeper into Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. You could say Russia loved land, as they finished the exploration of Siberia some time after the Napoleonic wars. Russia during this time was a leading global power and was feared by Europe. This eventually lead to the Crimean War. This war was The British, French, and Ottoman empires against Russia, the most intimidating part about this war was that Russia still pushed back the invaders and the invaders saw little success. Until the British Empire was officially involved in the war and soon Russia was slowly pushed back from the Crimean area. Russia lost this war and it didn't put the empire in a crumbling state, but those 3 empires only halted its expansion. Russia began to expand more into Asia and bordered modern day Iran and Afghanistan. The year was 1914 and tensions arose between the European powers and everyone was at each others throats.
 Then on July 28th 1914, The Great War had begun and Russia had the 4th strongest economy at this time, but was having problems internally. Russia was being pushed back by the Germans and everyone thought Russia would be able to handle the new empire. Russia fell into civil war and signed peace with the Central Powers. The Communist party eventually won the civil war and was now in a new era. A Soviet era.