Video: 'Tsar's Family Death | National Geographic'

(Wednesday, July 17, 1918, around 2:00 a.m. local time; during World War I) — Russia’s Czar Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1894 until his forced abdication in 1917, his wife and five children were executed early this morning by forces of the Bolshevik secret police under Yakov Yurovsky.

A doctor and three servants who had voluntarily chosen to remain with the family were also executed.

Following the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son and he and his family were imprisoned. They were turned over to Soviet authorities in April 1918 after the October Revolution.