Portrait of Peter the Great on his Death-Bed

Peter I the Great (Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov) (1672-1725) ruled Russia and later the Russian Empire from 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his weak and sickly half-brother, Ivan V. Peter the Great carried out a policy of Westernization and expansion that transformed the Tsardom of Russia into the 3-billion acre Russian Empire, a major European power.