Russian Revolution (1917)

The 1917 Russian Revolution—actually two revolutions, the February democratic uprising and the October Bolshevik coup—created the world's first communist state, a regime that spanned 11 time zones and influenced communist movements on every continent for 70 years. The Soviet Union, born from this revolution, deployed 50,000 nuclear warheads at its peak, defining the Cold War and reshaping global order until its collapse in 1991.