This list could have been all tsars. These rulers were raised under conditions guaranteed to make anyone a sociopath. Most of them saw close relatives murdered by other close relatives. Though abused relentlessly as children, as adults they had both absolute power and a sword of Damocles over their heads. Ivan’s father died when Ivan was only three, and his mother was poisoned when he was eight. During his minority an unruly gang of noblemen governed the land, and starved, beat, and neglected the boy and his brother. He took the abuse out on small animals, which he would throw off the roofs of palaces. Hurling things about proved good practice for the tsar-in-training. At 16, Ivan marched into the throne room, grabbed the leader of the noblemen, and threw the man to Ivan’s trained hunting dogs.

Ivan’s reign was marked by violent paranoia. When Ivan suspected a nobleman wanted the throne, he dressed the man up as a king, put him on the throne, and gutted him. Ivan created a special police force, the members of which rode around with dogs’ heads hanging from their saddles and could murder anyone at any time, in public. Once, when Ivan heard a rumor that a town called Novgorod was rebellious, he killed every single person in the town, sewed the town’s archbishop up into a bearskin, and had his dogs hunt the bearman down.

It’s hard to write all that and then use the phrase, “conditions deteriorated,” but, somehow, conditions deteriorated. Ivan started having fits. In paintings he’s depicted as having a prominent nose and forehead. These are the way kind (and probably fearful) artists rendered calluses that Ivan had built up by banging his head on the stone floor in front of religions icons. Ivan would also have fits of rage. During one fit, he kicked his pregnant daughter-in-law in the stomach and caused her to miscarry. His son, an able and promising ruler, yelled at him. Ivan beat his son to death with his scepter, then went into paroxysms of remorse. It was that moment that changed history. Ivan was a member of the ancient Rurik line of nobility. With the only strong heir to the throne swept out of the way, Russia descended into chaos after Ivan’s death. At last, nobles cast around for any noble family that the nation could rally around. They came up with an heir called Michael Romanov.