This is the first biography in English of Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich (1853-1881), who was hanged as the explosives technician of the "People''s Will" (Narodnaya volya) party of terrorists who publicly sentenced to death and then assassinated Russian Tsar Aleksandr II (1818-1881, ruled 1855-1881) with a thrown grenade on March 1, 1881 (March 13 on Western calendar). While in prison awaiting execution, Kibalchich conceived and drew the design of the first rocket-powered human-piloted flying device, thus qualifying himself in history as a "terrorist rocket pioneer." The author, Lee B. Croft, attempts to reevaluate Kibalchich as a historical figure, distinguishing his work from the lionizing Soviet treatments. The Soviet government exalted Kibalchich as a radical and a revolutionary, preserving his birthplace in Korop, Ukraine, as a museum and naming streets, squares, and even a crater on the backside of the moon after him.