In 1914, he led Russia into World War I, but the war went badly for Russia and caused great hardship. It led to the fall of the monarchy in the 1917 Russian Revolution. He abdicated (quit being Tsar) in March of that year. He and his family were held as prisoners under house arrest. On July 17, 1918, Nicholas, his wife and their children were killed by a firing squad, on the orders of the new Bolshevik government. In 1981, the Tsar and his family were made Saints by the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1990, the bones of the Tsar and his family were found in the woods and given a proper burial in St Petersburg in 1998.