Abdulaziz
1830 – 1876 · 46 years · Istanbul · Middle East
Reign: 1861 – 1876 (Ottoman Empire)
In 1867 he visited Paris and London and built an ironclad navy, but foreign loans ruined the treasury and the state defaulted in 1875. Deposed in 1876, he was found dead days later.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Abdullah frères · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 21 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 12 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 11 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 23 years younger
- Victor Hugo — novelist and poet, 28 years older
- Richard Wagner — composer, 17 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 9 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 2 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 4 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 10 years younger
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 12 years older
- Alexander III the Peacemaker — the "Peacemaker" emperor of the counter-reforms, 15 years younger
Middle East
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 12 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 7 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 31 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 14 years younger
Africa
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 17 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 14 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 61 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 2 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 44 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 10 years younger
Asia
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 7 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 22 years younger
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 70 years older
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 31 years younger
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 57 years older
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 36 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 21 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 17 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 26 years younger
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 8 years older
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 24 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 5 years younger
Oceania
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 18 years older
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 15 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 8 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 17 years younger
- Ned Kelly — bushranger and Australian folk hero, 24 years younger
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 31 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 1, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 3, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 5, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 5, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 8, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 9, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 9, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 9, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 9, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 15, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 16, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 16, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 17, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 18, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 18, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 21, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 23, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 29, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 31, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 31, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 33, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 34, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 37, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 38, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 39, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 39, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 40, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 41, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 41, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 44, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 46, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 46, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 46, Middle East