1762: Empress Catherine II's accession to the Throne

Catherine Alexeyevna, nee Princess Sophia-Augusta-Frederika of Anhalt Zerbst. On 28 June 1762, supported by the Guards, which were headed by the Orlov brothers and which were devoted to her, Catherine dethroned her husband, Emperor Peter III and seized the crown. In the following year she was crowned in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

Well-educated and endowed with natural talents, the Empress ruled Russia for 34 years, manifesting skill in both her internal and foreign policy and gaining great authority around the world. It was she who commissioned the building of the Small and Large Hermitages and the Hermitage Theatre, and it was she who purchased the art collections which formed the basis of today's Hermitage Museum.