Ivan the Terrible struck his heir on the head in November 1581, and his dynasty ended with his surviving son in 1598

Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich was born on 28 March 1554, the son of Ivan IV and his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna. Ivan IV's testament of about 1572 named him heir. He married three times, and his first two wives were sent to convents. In November 1581, at Aleksandrova Sloboda, his father struck him on the head during a quarrel. He was wounded on 14 November, by some accounts on 9 November, and died on 19 November. The papal envoy Antonio Possevino wrote that the tsar beat his pregnant daughter-in-law with his staff, causing a miscarriage, and struck his son when he protested. The Englishman Jerome Horsey wrote that they argued over post horses. The Third Pskov Chronicle says the son was punished for speaking about relieving Pskov. The Russian Biographical Dictionary of 1897 says the exact circumstances are unknown. The tsarevich was buried in the Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin. On 6 January 1583 Ivan IV paid for an annual memorial at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and sent large gifts to monasteries in Russia, on Athos, in Jerusalem and on Sinai. The heir was now Fyodor, married to Irina, sister of Boris Godunov. Fyodor reigned from 1584, with Boris as the real ruler, and died on 7 January 1598 without an heir. Rurikid rule in Moscow ended. In 1609 an impostor called Osinovik claimed to be the dead tsarevich's son. A 1963 examination of the remains found mercury about 32 times the permitted level^†.