When Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met in Tehran and Yalta, they sought to resolve their differences and lay the groundwork for the new postwar order.

As the Red Army advanced across Eastern Europe, they discovered horrifying evidence of Nazi atrocities. When they got to Germany, they committed a few of their own.

The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most decisive moments in world history. At an appallingly high cost, the Red Army turned back the Nazi tide and began the long march toward victory.

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched a devastating surprise attack on the Soviet Union. The Soviet people faced the possibility of annihilation and overcame it.

By the late 1930's, the clouds of war were already approaching the Soviet Union. Stalin's foreign policy was dominated by the existential threat posed by the rise of Fascism in Europe.

After securing his position as the unquestioned leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin sought to will history forward and eliminate all threats to his regime with a series of brutal campaigns against alleged internal enemies.

No figure looms quite as large over the history of the USSR as Joseph Stalin. From humble origins on the periphery of the Russian Empire, he would rise to become one of the most influential world leaders of the 20th Century.

The October Revolution of 1917 transformed Russia into the world's first Communist state and set the stage for the defining events of the 20th Century.

Everything that has an end must have a beginning, and the beginning of the USSR sprang from the Russian Revolution of 1917.

In 1991, the Soviet Union, one of the world's two superpowers, officially dissolved. What was this country, why did it collapse, and why does it matter? Join us in this new series as we attempt to answer these questions, and more!