Moscow ceased to be Russia's capital when in 1703 Tsar Peter the Great constructed St. Petersburg on the Baltic coast as the new capital. When Napoleon invaded in 1812, the Moscovites evacuated and burned the city on September 14 as Napoleon's forces were approaching. Napoleon's army, plagued by hunger, cold, and poor supply lines, retreated. Eventually, Russian armies entered Paris, along with other allies, to put an end to Napoleon’s rule. Throughout the rest of the 19th Century, Russia enjoyed steady expansion, while lagging behind socially and technologically the rest of Europe.

In January 1905, the office of the City Governor, or Mayor, was officially introduced in Moscow, and Aleksandr Adrianov became Moscow's first official mayor. Following the success of the Russian revolution in 1917 Lenin, fearing possible foreign invasion, moved the capital from St. Petersburg back to Moscow on March 5 1918.

As a vital junction of USSR railroads and supply lines, Moscow, along with Leningrad and Kiev, was designated one of the three strategic targets of a German offensive in 1941. In November 1941, the German Army Group Center was stopped at the outskirts of the city and then driven off during Battle of Moscow.

Moscow was the scene of a last ditch attempted coup by communist hardliners in 1991, who took then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev into custody. The coup was put down by Russian leader Boris Yeltsin with the help of loyal army troops and a popular uprising. The Soviet Union collapsed soon after. Currently Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation, a country attempting to define a new role in the post Cold War world.