During the later half of the nineteenth century numerous attempts were made to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Killing the Tsar, however, turned out to be no easy task.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.