Here's a time line of Lenin's life:

• 1870 - Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov is born on April 22 in Simbirsk, Russia. The town is later renamed Ulyanovsk in his honor, and he changes his own surname to Lenin in 1901. He is the third of six children in a close-knit, well-educated family. He displays an early passion for learning and graduates first in his class from high school.
• 1887 - Accused of conspiring with a terrorist group to assassinate Emperor Alexander III, Lenin's beloved older brother Aleksandr was executed. Lenin, who is only 17 at the time, becomes the head of the family, as his father was already dead. This episode marks a turning point in Lenin's life, as it turns him towards revolutionary action.
• 1887 - Shortly after his brother's death, Lenin enrolls in the imperial Kazan University to study law. However, he is expelled after three months for participating in a student assembly. He spends the next year on his grandfather's estate with his exiled older sister, where he meets older revolutionaries and studies political literature, including Marx's Das Kapital.
• 1891 - After studying in Samara, Lenin passes his examinations with a first in all subjects and receives his law degree. He begins practicing law in Samara, working primarily with peasants and artisans. This experience sparks his loathing for the legal system's class bias. He continues to practice law after moving to St. Petersburg, but his work serves as a cover for his growing involvement with revolutionary Marxist circles.
• 1895 - Lenin and other Marxists unite various groups in the Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, meant to support workers and educate them in Marxism. In December 1895, Lenin and the other leaders of the Union are arrested. Lenin is later exiled to Siberia, where he marries his fiancée, Nadezhda Krupskaya.
• 1900 - After his release from exile in Siberia, Lenin moves to Munich in January 1900 and is later joined by his wife. He and several other editors launch the newspaper Iskra ("The Spark"), hoping to unify the Russian Marxist groups scattered around Europe into one Social-Democratic party. Lenin then returns to St. Petersburg to continue to work with the revolutionary movement.
• 1905 - Frustrated with Russia's political structure and war with Japan, citizens call for reform. However, an unintentional massacre on January 9, 1905 sets the Russian Revolution of 1905 in motion. The czar responds with limited reforms, but Lenin argues that the workers must lead Russia in a true Socialist revolution to truly transform the nation.
• 1912 - After arguing for years over the methods with which to bring about a Socialist revolution, the Russian Marxist party splits into two groups at a party conference in Prague. Lenin's Bolsheviks believe the workers, as the true proletariat, must lead the revolution, while the Mensheviks believe the bourgeoisie should be in control.
• 1917 - In 1917, Russia deposes the czar, and leaders of the bourgeois liberal parties set up a Provisional Government. On November 7 Lenin leads the Bolsheviks in deposing the Provisional Government in what is later called the October Revolution. Lenin is made Chairman of the new Soviet state, but counterrevolutionaries plunge Russia into civil war.
• 1918 - Soon after civil war breaks out between Lenin's Soviet government (known as Reds) and anti-Soviet forces (known as Whites), an assassin fires two bullets at Lenin as he leaves a speech. He quickly recovers from the attempted assassination. Commanded by Lenin's colleague Leon Trotsky, the Worker's and Peasants' Red Army (representing Soviet forces) finally defeats the anti-Soviet White Army within Russia in 1920. However, the war continues in neighboring regions until 1922.
• 1922 - The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) is formally established on December 30 after years of civil war within Russia and its neighboring regions, now part of the USSR. Lenin has achieved his dream, but the party is beginning to stray from his Socialist vision.
• 1923 - Despite suffering from semi-paralysis, Lenin dictates a series of articles and his political "Testament" to his secretary, finishing on January 4. The "Testament" describes his fear that the party will destabilize under the leadership of Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, who is rapidly consolidating power as general secretary.
• 1924 - After suffering a series of strokes and illnesses, some stemming from the attempted assassination of 1918, Lenin dies on January 21. Despite his attempts to reverse Stalin's consolidation of power, the Soviet state continues to move farther away from Lenin's dream of Socialism after his death.