In 1745, after being received into the Russian Orthodox Church, and changing her name to Catherine ... begun by Peter the Great. During her reign she extended the Russian empire southwards ...
The textbooks say the Byzantine Empire was ... The one exception in the empire’s thousand years was the Nika revolt of 532, when Justinian the Great, at the urging of Empress Theodora, sent ...
The Byzantines and the Venetians were masters of commerce, and that led to a devastating trade war between the two powers.