Kazan falls to Ivan the Terrible: October 2nd, 1552. (Months Past).

THE GRAND Principality of Moscow gained its independence from the Mongol Golden Horde in the fifteenth century under Ivan III, the Great, who vastly extended Muscovite territory. His grandson Ivan IV, already known in his own time as the Terrible (meaning `awesome')and described by a contemporary as `cruel, bloody and merciless', succeeded as grand prince at the age of three. He survived the hazards of his minority under competing boyars, or nobles, and in 1547, when he was sixteen, at his own insistence he was crowned not only grand prince, but Tsar, `emperor', of all Russia. He…