Seventeen-year-old Ivan IV is crowned, not as Grand Duke of Moscow (his father’s title), but as Tsar of all the Russias in 1547, thus underlining his claim to the succession of both Byzantium and the Golden Horde.

He is the first Russian ruler to be crowned tsar and to hold that official title (although the exact date that he assumes de facto control from the aristocracy is in dispute).

He marries Anastasia Romanov later in the year.

In this year also, thirteenth-century Russian prince and military leader Alexander Nevsky, canonized locally in Vladimir in 1380, is canonized generally by the Russian Orthodox church.