Crimean War Begins

October 16, 1853

A squabble between Catholic and Orthodox monks over the keys to the Church of the Nativity escalated, via the ambitions of Napoleon III and the paranoia of Tsar Nicholas I, into a war between Russia and an alliance of Britain, France, the Ottomans, and eventually Sardinia. It would be the bloodiest European war between 1815 and 1914.