Free Press, 480 pp., $35 Edvard Radzinsky’s “Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar” was one of three books President George W. Bush took with him to Texas on summer vacation this year.

Tsar Alexander II of Russia stood at the crossroads of history—after all, his reign paved the way to the fall of the Romanov empire. And when you look at his scandalous life, it’s no wonder ...

For Tsar Alexander II, Sunday 1 March 1881 began as Sundays often did. He visited his mistress, “toppled her on to a table and took her”, then set out in his bulletproof carriage, followed by six ...

On March 13, 1881, revolutionaries assassinated Russian Tsar Alexander II. The terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) hoped to spark a revolution by assassinating the monarch. Instead, ...

September 6, 1855 LD 2558. “THE CZAR AT SEVASTOPOL It’s vexing—they know that I don’t like the tricolor flag, yet they have put it everywhere!” The Russians lost Sebastopol to the Allied Army on ...

A painting depicts the coronation of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, which took place on September 7, 1856 at the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin.

In 1867, the US bought Alaska from Tsar Alexander II for a tidy sum of $7.2 million. Trump probably wouldn’t be able to get that kind of bargain for Greenland.