June 9, 1672 - Peter the Great

His inclusion here reflects the brutality with which he imposed transformation on Russia — forced modernization backed by autocratic violence, mass conscription, and the suppression of dissent, including the torture and execution of those who resisted, among them his own son. The scale of his ambition reshaped an empire, but the human cost of his methods was enormous. "Peter I ... better known as Peter the Great ... led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernized, and based on the radical Enlightenment ... after his victory in the Great Northern War, Russia annexed a significant portion of the eastern Baltic coastline and was officially raised from a tsardom to an empire."

From Wikipedia

Peter I (Russian: Пётр I Алексеевич, romanized: Pyotr I Alekseyevich, IPA: [ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ]; better known as Peter the Great; 9 June [O.S. 30 May] 1672 – 8 February [O.S. 28 January] 1725) was the Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V until 1696. Peter, as an autocrat, organized a well-ordered police state.

Much of Peter's reign was consumed by lengthy wars against the Ottoman and Swedish empires. His Azov campaigns were followed by the foundation of the Russian Navy; after his victory in the Great Northern War, Russia annexed a significant portion of the eastern Baltic coastline and was officially raised from a tsardom to an empire. Peter led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernized, and based on the radical Enlightenment.

In December 1699, he introduced the Julian calendar, and in 1703, he introduced the first Russian newspaper, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, and ordered the civil script, a reform of Russian orthography largely designed by himself. On the shores of the Neva River, he founded Saint Petersburg, a city famously dubbed by Francesco Algarotti as the "window to the West".

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