17 July 1918: The Romanov family—the deposed Emperor Nicholas II; his wife, Alexandra; their five children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, & Alexei; & their loyal retinue—was brutally murdered by the Bolsheviks; isolated for months & constantly watched in Ipatiev House (the "House of Special Purpose"), Yekaterinburg, the slaughter of the Romanovs was approved by Lenin on 3 July.
Lest we forget.
Commentary: At the time, the Reds admitted to killing only the emperor, denying until 1926 that the rest of the imperial family had died; the bodies were not discovered 'til 1979 & that discovery was not admitted 'til 1989. The Romanovs & their servants, eleven souls in all, have been canonized as martyrs by several of the various Russian Orthodox churches. Consecrated in 2003, the ornate Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land was build on the site of Ipatiev House & a smaller church was built on Gamina Yama, the site of the Romanovs' hidden burial.
Bonus!
17 July 1918: The Cunard ocean liner R.M.S. Carpathia, the ship famed for braving the icebergs to rescue seven hundred-plus survivors from the R.M.S. Titanic in April 1912, was torpedoed off the Irish coast by the German u-boat S.M. U-55 & sank; five men died.
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