Clash of Empires: the British, French and Indian War, 1754-1763

The exhibition highlights the 250 anniversary of the French – Indian War (1755 – 1763), which changed the course of American history.

The war began due to British and French claims to the territories of the Ohio River Valley where at that time 3 000 to 4 000 American Indians were living.

On 28 May, 1754 the first short was fired at the place of the contemporary Pittsburg. Voltaire remarked: "such was the complication of political interests that a cannon shot fired in America could give the signal that set Europe in a blaze."

Military actions of the Great Britain, France, allied forces of American Indians in North America, and conflict of Prussia’s politics with that of Austria, France and Russia initiated the Seven-year War (1756—1763) between Austria, France, Russia, Spain, Saxony, Sweden on one side and Prussia, the Great Britain (in union with Hannover) and Portugal on the other. According to the Paris peace treaty of 1763 the Great Britain gained Canada, East Louisiana, the larger part of French possessions in India. The main result of the Seven-year War was the victory of the Greta Britain over France in the fight for colonial and trade leadership.

Clash of Empires: the British, French and Indian War, 1754-1763 is the first major museum exhibition ever staged on this dramatic period in world history. The exhibition comprises about 300 artifacts – items of civil and military life, crafts, weapons, documents mirroring everyday life of European, colonial and American Indian participants.

The Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography provided 10 items of the mid of the 18th century on everyday life of North – East Iroquois.