Twenty years ago virtually no one - in or outside of Russia - had heard the name Vladimir Putin.
But that all changed on August 9, 1999, when the then Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, named his security chief as his new prime minister.
The ailing leader also insisted he wanted Putin to follow him as president when he made the decision to step down.
Putin has now been in office, either as prime minister or president, ever since.
Over the course of the next two decades he has become one of the most voltile leaders on the planet - and Russia one of the most feared nations.
He has overseen wars close to his own borders, interferred in the last YUS election which saw Donald Trump become president, and launched bombing campaigns in the Middle East against the advice of the rest of the world.
His regime has leader has been marred with increasingly chilling murders of special agents - and these only the ones that have come to the public's attention.
Tens of thousands have died during his brutal leadership, with Russian rebels also accused of shooting a passenger plane out of the sky as it flew over the Ukraine.
Spies have been murdered in the most gruesome ways and innocent Brits have been caught up in the bloodshed.
British mum Dawn Sturgess died a slow and painful death after she accidentally came into contact with a nerve agent supposedly designed to kill a former Russian spy and his daughter.
So how did Vladimir Putin rise to such power - and how is is holding onto it?
August 9, 1999
During an economic crisis, Boris Yeltsin names his security chief Vladimir Putin as his fifth acting prime minister in less than a year.
He says he wants Putin to succeed him as president.
In the following weeks, apartment bombings across Russia kill more than 300 people, which Putin blames on Chechen terrorists.
The killings - and his tough response - see his popularity soar.
Putin orders the aerial bombing of parts of Chechnya and an assault to recapture the breakaway southern province.
Although many critics have since questioned whether the terrorists were really to blame for the apartment bombings.
December 31, 1999
An ailing Yeltsin resigns his presidency, naming Putin as his successor.
March 26, 2000
Putin wins his first presidential election.
August 12, 2000
The Kursk nuclear-powered submarine sinks to the bottom of the Barents Sea killing all 118 crew after an explosion onboard.
This is the first time Putin's public image has taken a beating after it takes him four days to comment on the tragedy.
2002
Chechen militants take more than 800 people hostage at a Moscow theatre.
Special forces end the siege but use a poison gas in the process, which kills many of the hostages.
2003
Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is arrested and charged with fraud.
He is later found guilty and jailed in a case his supporters said was punishment for his meddling in politics.
He is only released in 2013 after Putin pardons him.
March 2004
Oil prices are now booming in Russia and living standards are better than they have been for many years.
Putin wins a second term as president with more than 70 per cent of the vote.
September 2004
Islamist fighters seize more than 1,000 people from a school in Beslan, southern Russia, triggering a three-day siege that ends in gunfire.
A total of 334 hostages are killed.
Over half of them are children. Some parents say the authorities botched the handling of the siege and blame Putin.
December 2004
Putin scraps direct elections for regional governors making them, in effect, Kremlin appointees.
Putin says the move is needed to keep Russia together.
2005
The president describes the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
October 2006
Fearless investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was a fierce critic of the human rights abuses in Russia.
For seven years she reported on the second Chechen war and suffered horrific abuse and even torture.
She was arrested by the military in Chechnya and was forced to take part in her own mock execution.
Anna was also poisined on a flight from Moscow as she was on her way to try to help resolve the Beslan hostage crisis.
But on October 7, 2006 - Putin's birthday - she was murdered in the elevator of her block of flats.
November 2006
On November 1, Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, had met with two former Russian agents, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy.
Litvinenko was a Russian defector and former officer of the Russian FSB secret service.
He fell seriously ill the same day and was admitted to hospital, where tests showed he was suffering from radiation poisoning.
Litvinenko died in agony on November 23 but before his death he issued a powerful statement - and warning - to Putin.
He said: "You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world, Mr Putin, will reverberate in your ears for the rest of your life."
A British inquiry years later concludesd he was killed by Russian spies.
2007
Putin gives a speech in Munich in which he lashes out at the United States, accusing Washington of the "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations."
May 2008
Constitutional limits on him serving more than two consecutive presidential terms see Putin become prime minister after his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, becomes president.
August 2008
Russia fights and wins a short war with Georgia which loses control over two breakaway regions that are garrisoned with Russian troops.
2012
Putin returns to the presidency, winning re-election with more than 60 per cent of the vote after a decision to extend presidential terms to six from four years.
Large anti-Putin protests take place before and after the vote with critics alleging voter fraud.
February 7 to 23, 2014
Russia hosts the winter Olympic games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
February 27, 2014
Russian troops start annexing Ukraine's Crimea region after Ukrainian protesters oust the country's Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovich.
Russia incorporates Crimea the following month after a referendum condemned by the West.
The United States and EU go on to impose sanctions on Moscow.
April 2014
A pro-Russian separatist uprising breaks out in eastern Ukraine which results in a conflict.
This is still ongoing, which hands the separatists control of a vast swath of territory.
More than 13,000 people have been killed and Western countries have accused Russia of backing the uprising.
Russia has denied any involvement.
July, 2014
On July 17 the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down while it was flying over eastern Ukraine.
All 283 passengers and crew, who were travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, were killed.
An investigation, led by the Dutch Safety Board, concluded the airliner had been gunned down by a Buk missile, which was launched from pro-Russian territory.
Russia has denied any involvement.
September 30, 2015
Russia launches air strikes in Syria in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades.
It turns the tide of the conflict in President Bashar al-Assad's favour.
November 2016
Donald Trump is elected president of the United States after promising to improve battered ties with Moscow.
U.S. authorities determine Russia tried to interfere in the election in his favour however, casting a pall over U.S-Russia ties despite Russian denials.
March 4, 2018
A former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter are poisoned in England with a nerve agent.
They survive but Dawn Sturgess, who lives nearby, dies four months later after her partner brings home the poison found in a discarded perfume bottle.
Police identified the substance as Novichok and Britain has blamed Russia for the poisonings.
Moscow has denied any involvement.
March 19, 2018
Putin wins a landslide re-election victory and the mandate to stay in office until 2024.
June/July 2018
Russia hosts the men's soccer FIFA World Cup.
2019
Protests break out in Moscow over a municipal election which the anti-Kremlin opposition says is unfair.
Putin has yet to comment on the demonstrations.