Æthelred the Unready
c. 966 – 1016 · 50 years · Winchester · Europe
Reign: 978 – 1013 (England and Britain)
He tried to buy off Viking raids with huge payments of Danegeld and in 1002 ordered the massacre of Danes in England. In 1013 he fled from Sweyn Forkbeard to Normandy but later regained the throne.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Portrait: See description · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Hugh Capet — founder of the Capetian dynasty, 26 years older
- Cnut the Great — Danish king who ruled a North Sea empire, 29 years younger
- Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 37 years younger
- Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 6 years younger
- Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, 7 years younger
- Conrad II — first Salian emperor, who added the Kingdom of Burgundy to the empire, 24 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 6 years older
- Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 12 years younger
- Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, 14 years younger
- Yaropolk I — prince of Kiev who fell in a civil war with his brother Vladimir, 11 years older
Middle East
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, 14 years younger
- Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 26 years older
Asia
- Murasaki Shikibu — novelist, author of The Tale of Genji, 7 years younger
- Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, born the same year
- Al-Biruni — polymath, 7 years younger
Americas
- Leif Erikson — Norse explorer, 4 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 966 Baptism of Poland — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 969 Founding of Cairo — aged 3, Africa
- 972 Al-Azhar Mosque opens — aged 6, Africa
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — aged 22, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 34, Africa
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 34, Europe
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — aged 40, Africa
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — aged 44, Asia