Alexander II of Russia

Alexander became Emperor of Russia on 2 March 1855, inheriting an empire bruised by the Crimean War and bound by serfdom. Six years later he issued the Edict of Emancipation, abolishing the institution that had defined Russian life for centuries, and followed with reforms to courts, censorship, military structure, and local government. An 1866 assassination attempt bent him sharply conservative; reforms stalled or reversed. Abroad he played careful: sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 fearing British seizure, joined the League of the Three Emperors in 1873, crushed a Polish uprising by erasing Poland's constitution, and waged the Russo-Turkish War that freed Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania from Ottoman rule. Anarchists and revolutionaries hunted him for years. On 13 March 1881, the day after he'd approved new parliamentary reforms, a bomb on a St. Petersburg street finished what seven prior attempts could not.