Trivia

President of Russian SFSR/Russia from 10 July 1991 to 31 December 1999.

Was hospitalized 16 times during his presidency.

Received a World Record personal majority (determined by the winning margin in number of votes) as the people's deputy candidate for Moscow in the Soviet parliamentary elections on 26 March 1989: he received 5,118,745 votes out of 5,722,937, when his closest rival received 392,633. Yeltsin won by a margin of 4,726,112 votes.

Had his look-alike puppets in satirical puppet shows Puppets (1994), Spitting Image (1984) and Les Guignols de l'info (1988).

First freely-elected leader of Russia.

He lost his thumb and index finger while playing with a stolen grenade as a young child.

Received his education in Engineering.

Stood atop a tank to show resistance to the Communist coup in August 1991.

Stunned the nation when he announced his resignation on New Year's Eve 1999, without advance notice.

Underwent quintuple heart bypass surgery in November 1996.

When he was 3, his father was imprisoned under Joseph Stalin's purges. His alleged crime was owning property before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. He was sentenced to hard labor in a gulag for three years.

First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Committee of CPSU (2 November 1976 to 18 April 1985).

Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russian SFSR (29 May 1990 to 10 July 1991).

Secretary of the Central Committee of CPSU (1 July 1985 to 18 February 1986).

First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of CPSU (23 December 1985 to 11 November 1987).

CPSU official.

Became full member of CPSU in 1961.

In one interview during the last years of his life, he admitted that he was --well aware that the final day of the 20th century/2nd millennium was 12/31/2000 and not 12/31/1999 (due to factors like year "zero" never existing). But since much of people in the world (and in Russia alone) were ignoring that fact, he decided to go with the worldwide misconception, and resign a whole year earlier.