FACTBOX: Nicholas II: the last Tsar

(Reuters) - Remains found last year belong to Tsar Nicholas II's only son and his daughter who were murdered 90 years ago by the Bolsheviks, Russian prosecutors confirmed on Wednesday.

Here are some details about what happened.

* Nicholas II, the last Russian Emperor, was the eldest son of Alexander III and was born on May 6, 1868. He ascended the throne after the death of his father on October 20, 1894, and was crowned on May 14, 1896.

-- The ceremony in Moscow was overshadowed by a catastrophe on Khodynskoe Field, where more than 1,500 people were trampled to death during the traditional distribution of gifts at his coronation.

A DOOMED REIGN:

* This set the tone for a doomed reign, marked by a disastrous war against Japan in 1904-5, and mass slaughter in World War One for which he was held responsible after he took direct control of the armed forces.

* In 1905, his Imperial Guard opened fire on peaceful strikers carrying his portrait. Several thousand people were killed or wounded on what became known as "Bloody Sunday" and left him with the nickname "Bloody Nicholas".

* Nicholas sealed his downfall by firmly resisting long-overdue political, economic and social change, fearing that reform had been to blame for the assassination of his grandfather Alexander II.

WAR AND DESTRUCTION:

* In World War One, Russia entered on the allied side in August 1914. Dissatisfied with the army's conduct of the war, Nicholas took personal command in September 1915. Russia lost territory and suffered massive casualties. Nicholas's popularity dwindled.

* By late 1916 royalists within the Duma warned the Tsar that revolution was imminent; Nicholas still refused to sanction further constitutional reform. During the so-called "February Revolution" in 1917, which he misinterpreted as a minor uprising, his routine suppression orders to the Petrograd garrison sparked its mutiny. In March 1917, Nicholas II abdicated.

* After the abdication, the royal family at first remained in Czarskoe Selo then, by decision of the interim government, were transported to Siberia. In April 1918, the Bolshevik government decided to move the Imperial family to Yekaterinburg in the Urals. Here, they were all shot on July 17, 1918.

* Nicholas was shot dead along with his wife Alexandra, four daughters, son and four servants in the basement of the house where they had been kept under house arrest for several months.

A SAINT:

* Russia's Orthodox Church canonized Nicholas II in 2000, deciding that he and his family had died as martyrs when they were executed by an atheist Bolshevik firing squad.

Sources Reuters/www.firstworldwar.com