Thursday 8th of February 1725 (-) — Ruler of the Tsardom of Russia Peter the Great dies of gangrene of the bladder
Tuesday 12th of November 1833 (+) — Composer Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin is born
Borodin was an illegitimate son of a Georgian noble, Luka Gedevanishvili, and 24-year-old Russian Evdokia Konstantinovna Antonov.
Friday 10th of February 1837 (-) — Romantic poet and writer Alexander Pushkin dies because of a shot through the spleen suffered in a duel
Two days before Pushkin challenged his wife Natalya's alleged lover and brother in-law Georges d'Anthès to a duel which left both men injured.
Friday 16th of November 1849 (x) — Writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky is sentenced to death for his allegedly antigovernment activities linked to the radical intellectual group the Petrashevsky Circle
Tuesday 12th of February 1861 (+) — Psychoanalyst and writer Lou Andreas-Salomé is born
Wednesday 9th of February 1881 (-) — Writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky dies of a pulmonary haemorrhage
Monday 28th of March 1881 (-) — Composer Modest Mussorgsky dies of a seizure
Sunday 12th of February 1882 (+) — Prima ballerina Anna Pavlova is born
Sunday 27th of February 1887 (-) — Composer Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin dies of poor health
Saturday 5th of December 1891 (+) — Constructivist and productivist artist Alexander Rodchenko is born
Monday 6th of November 1893 (-) — Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky dies of cholera
While Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier from the local river, some have theorized that his death was a suicide.
Saturday 15th of August 1896 (+) — Inventor Léon Theremin is born
Saturday 22nd of April 1899 (+) — Writer Vladimir Nabokov is born
Sunday 21st of February 1904 (+) — Soviet statesman Alexei Kosygin is born
Saturday 2nd of February 1907 (-) — Chemist Dmitri Mendeleev dies of influenza
Monday 5th of January 1914 (+) — Artist Nicolas de Staël is born
Friday 26th of May 1922 (x) — Political theorist and communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin suffers the first of three strokes, which left him unable to speak for weeks, and severely hampered motion in his right side
Friday 24th of May 1940 (+) — Poet Joseph Brodsky is born
