Amerigo Vespucci
1454 – 1512 · 58 years · Seville · Americas
A Florentine in Spanish and Portuguese service who sailed along South America and was among the first to see it as a new continent rather than Asia. In 1507 the cartographer Waldseemüller named the New World America after him.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 15th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Leonardo da Vinci — painter, scientist and inventor, 2 years older
- Nicolaus Copernicus — astronomer, 19 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 21 years younger
- Martin Luther — church reformer, 29 years younger
- Johannes Gutenberg — inventor of the printing press, 54 years older
- Maximilian I — "the Last Knight", who raised the Habsburgs through shrewd marriages, 5 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan III — Grand Prince of Moscow, 14 years older
- Vasily III — grand prince who completed the unification of the Russian lands, 25 years younger
- Sophia Palaiologina — Grand Princess of Moscow, 1 year younger
Middle East
- Mehmed II — Ottoman sultan, 22 years older
- Selim I the Grim — sultan who took Cairo and Mecca, 16 years younger
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 40 years younger
- Bayezid II — sultan who took in the Jews expelled from Spain, 7 years older
Africa
- Askia Muhammad I — Emperor of Songhai, 11 years older
Asia
- Guru Nanak — founder of Sikhism, 15 years younger
- Vasco da Gama — navigator, 15 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshimasa — shogun of the Ōnin War and the Silver Pavilion, 18 years older
- Babur — founder of the Mughal Empire, 29 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshitane — shogun who held office twice and was driven out twice, 12 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshizumi — puppet shogun of the Hosokawa clan, 27 years younger
Americas
- Christopher Columbus — navigator, 3 years older
- Moctezuma II — Aztec emperor, 12 years younger
- Ferdinand Magellan — navigator, 26 years younger
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 30 years younger
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 31 years younger
- Pachacuti — Sapa Inca, 36 years older
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1469 Afanasy Nikitin's journey to India — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1478 Annexation of Novgorod by Moscow — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1480 Great Stand on the Ugra River — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1488 Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope — aged 34, Africa
- 1492 Columbus reaches the Americas — aged 38, Americas
- 1492 Fall of Granada — aged 38, Europe
- 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas — aged 40, Europe
- 1498 Vasco da Gama reaches India — aged 44, Asia
- 1501 Founding of Safavid Iran — aged 47, Middle East
- 1508–1512 Sistine Chapel ceiling — aged 54, Europe
- 1511 Portuguese capture of Malacca — aged 57, Asia