Red Square is the main square of Moscow, lying beside the Kremlin. It took shape in the late fifteenth century, when Grand Prince Ivan III had buildings near the Kremlin wall cleared to reduce the risk of fires. Over the following centuries it became a marketplace, a place for public ceremonies and, later, a stage for state occasions. Saint Basil's Cathedral, completed in the 1560s under Ivan the Terrible, stands at its southern end. In the Soviet period it hosted military parades and housed Lenin's Mausoleum. The name comes from an old Russian word that meant beautiful before it came to mean red, and the square is inscribed with the Kremlin as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Before and after
- 1499Pietà (Michelangelo)
- from 15th century to 18th centuryAge of Discovery
- c. 1500sDavid
- c. 1500Modern period
- 15th centuryConstruction of Red Square
- from 15th century to 18th centuryEarly modern period
- from 1500 to 1785Khanate of Bukhara
- from 15th century to 16th centuryRise of Manueline
- 24 February 1500Birth of Charles V
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1605Publication of Don Quixote
- 1652Origins of Quakers
- from 1660 to 1725Rise of Classicism
- 1661Construction of Palace of Versailles
- from c. 1730s to 1780sRise of Rococo
- 1759Construction of British Museum
The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas.