Albert Schweitzer
1875 – 1965 · 90 years · Lambaréné · Africa
Alsatian theologian, organist and doctor who founded a hospital at Lambaréné, Gabon; Nobel Peace laureate (1952).
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Émile Schneider · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1 year older
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 6 years younger
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 4 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 8 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 14 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 56 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 3 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 5 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 47 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 41 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 59 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 35 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 6 years younger
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 23 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 14 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 43 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 33 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 23 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 43 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 17 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 31 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 50 years younger
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 31 years younger
- Kwame Nkrumah — first President of Ghana, 34 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 6 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 18 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 14 years younger
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 15 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 14 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 26 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 14 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 19 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 28 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 54 years younger
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 55 years younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 9 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 4 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 23 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 44 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 61 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 7 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 25 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 1, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 1, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 1, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 3, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 4, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 8, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 10, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 11, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 14, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 18, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 30, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 33, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 39, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 39, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 40, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 41, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 42, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 42, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 43, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 44, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 53, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 54, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 54, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 58, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 61, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 64, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 66, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 66, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 67, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 70, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 70, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 72, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 73, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 74, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 78, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 78, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 82, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 86, Eastern Europe & Russia