Timeline of Saint Petersburg

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Saint Petersburg, Russia.

17th–18th centuries

1611 – Nyenschantz built by Swedes.
1703
* City founded by Tsar Peter the Great
* Cabin of Peter the Great built.
* Artillery museum formed.
1709 – Petrischule founded.
1710 – Saint Sampson's Church built.
1711 – Menshikov Palace opens.
1712
* City becomes capital of Russian Empire.
* Winter Palace built.
1714
* Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences founded.
* Summer Palace of Peter the Great built.
1716 – Catholic Church of St. Catherine founded.
1718 – Saint Petersburg Police established.
1719 – Summer Garden laid out.
1720
* Hermitage Bridge opens.
* New Holland Island created.
1721 – Ligovsky Canal constructed.
1724
* Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences founded.
* Saint Petersburg Mint founded.
1725
* Peterhof Palace built.
* Death of Peter the Great.
1727 – Kunstkamera built.
1728 – State capital moves to Moscow from St. Petersburg.
1731 – Cadet Corps founded.
1732 – State capital moves back to St. Petersburg from Moscow, after only 4 years, and will remain there for nearly two centuries.
1733 – Peter and Paul Cathedral built.
1736 – Fire.
1738 – Imperial Ballet School established.
1740
* Peter and Paul Fortress built.
* Mariinsky Ballet founded.
1744
* Lomonosov Porcelain Factory founded.
* Twelve Collegia built.
1748 – Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery opens.
1754
* Stroganov Palace built.
* Anichkov Palace built.
* Transfiguration Cathedral built.
1756 – Alexandrinsky Theatre founded.
1757
* Academy of the Three Noblest Arts founded.
* Vorontsov Palace built.
1759 – Page Corps founded.
1762 – Winter Palace built.
1764
* Hermitage Museum established.
* Institute for Noble Maidens founded.
1770
* Foundling Hospital established.
* Moika Palace built.
1771 – Chicherin House built.
1773
* Mining School established.
* Volkovo Cemetery established.
1774 – Roller coaster pavilion built at Oranienbaum.
1777
* The Karl Knipper Theatre is founded.
* The Neva caused flooding.
1779 – Free Russian Theatre opens.
1780
* Saint Andrew's Cathedral consecrated.
* Chesme Church built.
1782 – Bronze Horseman monument unveiled.
1783
* Russian Imperial Opera Orchestra formed.
* Kamenny Theatre opens.
1785
* City Duma established.
* Hermitage Theatre opens.
* Great Gostiny Dvor built.
* Marble Palace built.

19th century

1801
* Friendly Society of Aficionados of Elegance formed.
* Saint Michael's Castle built.
* Tsarina's Meadow renamed Field of Mars.
1802 – Saint Petersburg Philharmonia formed.
1804 – Petersburg Pedagogical Institute established.
1805 – Russian Naval Museum established.
1806 – Police Bridge rebuilt.
1807 – Constantine Palace built.
1808 – Smolny Institute building constructed.
1810
* Military Engineering school established.
* Stock Exchange built.
1811 – Kazan Cathedral built.
1812 – Syn otechestva begins publication.
1813 – Red Bridge built.
1814
* Imperial Public Library opens.
* Narva Triumphal Arch erected.
1818
* Otechestvennye Zapiski begins publication.
* Blue Bridge built.
* Asiatic Museum founded.
1819 – Saint Petersburg University formed.
1822 – Yelagin Palace built.
1823 – Admiralty building rebuilt.
1824 - The Neva caused flooding.
1825
* December – Interregnum.
* Decembrist revolt.
* Northern Bee begins publication.
* Mikhailovsky Palace built.
1826 – Kamenny Island Theatre building constructed.
1829 – General Staff Building constructed.
1832 – Zoological Museum established.
1833
* Obvodny Canal opens.
* Mikhaylovsky Theatre founded.
1834 – Alexander Column unveiled.
1835
* Imperial School of Jurisprudence founded.
* Trinity Cathedral built.
1836
* Sovremennik begins publication.
* Premiere of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar.
1838 – Moscow Triumphal Gate erected.
1839
* Observatory opens.
* Bolshoi Zal built.
1842 – Alexander Park established.
1844 – Mariinsky Palace built.
1848 – Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace expanded.
1850 – Blagoveshchensky Bridge built.
1851
* Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway begins operating.
* Nicholaevsky rail terminal opens.
1858 – Saint Isaac's Cathedral built.
1860 – Mariinsky Theatre opens.
1861 – Nicholas Palace built.
1862
* Saint Petersburg Conservatory founded.
* New Michael Palace built.
* November: Premiere of Verdi's opera La forza del destino.
1863 – Pavel Military School established.
1866
* Vestnik Evropy begins publication.
* Dostoyevsky's fictional Crime and Punishment published.
1867 – Khlebnikov founded.
1869 - Population: 667,926.
1870 – Riihimäki – Saint Petersburg Railway constructed.
1874 – Premiere of Musorgsky's opera Boris Godunov.
1876 – School of Technical Drawing founded.
1877 – Ciniselli Circus opens.
1878 – Bestuzhev Courses and Stieglitz Museum established.
1879
* Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography established.
* Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company headquartered in city.
1881 - Population: 861,303.
1882 – Imperial Music Choir formed.
1888 - Ship canal completed.
1890
* Saint Petersburg Prison for Solitary Confinement built.
* Population: 954,400.
1893 - Premiere of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6.
1894 – Ves Peterburg directory begins publication.
1895 – Conversion of Mikhailovsky Palace into Russian Museum.
1897 - Population: 1,267,023.
1900
* Russian cruiser Aurora launched.
* Suvorov Museum founded.

20th century

1900s–1940s

1905
* January – Bloody Sunday.
* October – Saint Petersburg Soviet formed.
* Population: 1,429,000.
1907 – Electric trams begin operating.
1909 – Na Liteinom Theatre founded.
1910 – March: Soyuz Molodyozhi art exhibit held.
1913 – Population: 2,318,645.
1914 – City renamed "Petrograd."
1916
* Grigori Rasputin assassinated.
* Palace Bridge built.
1917
* February Revolution begins.
* March – Petrograd Soviet formed.
* July Days.
* August – Golos Truda begins publication.
* October Revolution.
1918
* State capital moves to Moscow from Petrograd.
* Osobaya Drammaticheskaya Truppa organized.
* Ioffe Institute established.
1920 – Theatrical re-enactment of Storming of the Winter Palace.
1921 – Art Culture Museum opens.
1922 – Leningrad Young People's Theatre opens.
1923 – Russian Museum of Ethnography opens.
1924 – City renamed Leningrad.
1928 – Circus museum opens.
1929 – Young Theatre founded.
1931 – Komarov Botanical Institute and Leningrad Radio Orchestra established.
1932
* Shosseynaya Airport begins operating.
* Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists and St Petersburg Union of Composers founded.
* Bolshoy Dom built.
* Avrora Cinema active.
1934
* Sergey Kirov assassinated.
* Leningrad Secondary Art School established.
* Premiere of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
1936
* Arctic and Antarctic Museum opens.
* Memorial Lenin Komsomol Theatre established.
1938 – Museum of History and Development of Leningrad established.
1941
* Siege of Leningrad begins.
* Road of Life begins operating.
1942 – Russian Museum of Military Medicine founded.
1944
* Siege of Leningrad ends.
* State Puppet Theatre of Fairy Tales established.
1946 – Moskovsky Victory Park opens.
1949 – Leningrad Affair.

1950s–1990s

1953
* Pavlovsky District becomes part of city.
* Pushkin Museum established.
1954 – Levashovo, Pargolovo, and Pesochny become part of city.
1955 – Saint Petersburg Metro begins operating.
1962 – Saint Petersburg TV Tower constructed.
1963 – Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-124 Neva river ditching.
1965 – Population: 3,329,000 city; 3,641,000 urban agglomeration.
1967 – Museum of Electrical Transport established.
1971
* Dostoevsky Museum opens.
* Rimsky-Korsakov Museum established.
1974 – Na Fontanke Youth Theatre founded.
1981 – Leningrad Rock Club opens.
1984
* Teatralnaya laboratoriya founded.
* Sister city relationship established with Los Angeles, United States.
1985 – Population: 4,867,000.
1987
* Na Neve Theatre opens.
* Zazerkalie (theatre) opens.
1988 – Xenia of Saint Petersburg canonized.
1989
* Komedianty Theatre founded.
* Akhmatova Museum opens.
1990 – Ostrov Theatre opens.
1991
* City renamed Saint Petersburg.
* Flag design adopted.
* Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak becomes mayor.
1993 – Tunnel nightclub opens.
1994
* Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg formed.
* St Petersburg Ballet Theatre founded.
1996 – Vladimir Anatolyevich Yakovlev becomes city governor.
1997 – Toy Museum established.
1998
* Politician Galina Starovoytova assassinated.
* Nabokov Museum opens.
2000 – City designated administrative center of Northwestern Federal District.

21st century

2000
* The 2000 IIHF Men's World Championships are held in Saint Petersburg.
2003
* Aleksandr Dmitriyevich Beglov becomes city governor, succeeded by Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko.
* Peter & Paul Jazz Festival begins.
* Museum of Optical Technologies opens.
* Saint Petersburg Children´s Hospice opens.
2004
* Big Obukhovsky Bridge opens.
* Sergey Kuryokhin Center for Modern Art established.
2005 – Gas incident.
2006 – 32nd G8 summit held.
2007 – Dissenters' March.
2008 – Side by Side (film festival) begins.
2009 – Gallery of Contemporary Sculpture and Plastic Arts opens.
2010
* Yota Space art festival begins.
* Erarta art museum established.
2011
* Georgy Sergeyevich Poltavchenko becomes city governor.
* Saint Petersburg Dam inaugurated.
* Saint Petersburg Ring Road opens.
* St. Petersburg International Legal Forum begins.
2013 – September: 2013 G-20 Saint Petersburg summit.
2017
* A bombing attack hits Saint Petersburg's metro.

Published in 18th–19th centuries

Published in 20th century

Duncan Fallowell, ''One Hot Summer in St Petersburg''

Published in 21st century

Julie A. Buckler. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. 2005
George E. Munro. The Most Intentional City: St. Petersburg in the Reign of Catherine the Great. Madison: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2008
Paul Keenan. St Petersburg and the Russian Court, 1703–1761. 2013
Charles Emerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War compares it to 20 major world cities on the eve of World War I; pp 110–132.
Catriona Kelly. St Petersburg: Shadows of the Past. 2014
Steven Maddox. Saving Stalin's Imperial City: Historic Preservation in Leningrad. 2014