Scatter Brained

04
 Just Plain Terrible:
How Bad Monarchs Earned Th
 eir Monikers
IVAN THE TERRIBLE (1530–1584)
Ivan  IV  was  Russia’s  fi rst and possibly its most terrible 
tsar—embroiling his empire in disastrous wars with Sweden 
and Poland—but it wasn’t questionable foreign policy that 
earned him his catchy nickname. Exceedingly paranoid after 
fi rst wife, Anastasia, was poisoned in 1553, Ivan began kill-
ing almost indiscriminately. In addition to bludgeoning his 
own son to death and drowning an entire village of 1,500 in 
an icy river, Ivan is best known for blinding the architects of 
St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow after its  completion: He was