Peter the Great — Jacob Abbott

Peter I the Great or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov (9 June 1672 â€" 8 February 1725) ruled Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his weak and sickly half-brother, Ivan V.

He carried out a policy of modernization and expansion that transformed the Tsardom of Russia into a 3-billion acre Russian Empire, a major European power.