Peter the Great

Peter the Great (9 June 1672 - 8 February 1725) ruled jointly with his half-brother Ivan V until 1696, then as Tsar of All Russia from 7 May 1682 and, from 2 November 1721, as Emperor of Russia, until his death. He led a cultural revolution that replaced traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with modern, scientific, Westernized institutions grounded in the radical Enlightenment, introducing the Julian calendar in December 1699 and reforming Russian orthography through a new civil script. In 1703 he founded the city of Saint Petersburg on the Neva River, moving Russia's capital there in 1712 as a symbol of Western influence, established the Russian Navy and fought the Great Northern War against Sweden to secure control of the Baltic Sea, and created the Governing Senate in 1711, the Collegium system in 1717 and the Table of Ranks in 1722, founding the Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University in 1724, the year before his death.