Anton Chekhov
1860 – 1904 · 44 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia
Master of the short story and author of The Seagull, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard; a physician by training.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 41 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 7 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 7 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 14 years younger
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 19 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 42 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 32 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 26 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 10 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 20 years older
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 18 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 39 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 21 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 18 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 1 year younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 16 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 30 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 16 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 47 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 32 years younger
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 20 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 9 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 32 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 9 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 33 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 23 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 8 years older
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 1 year younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 6 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 13 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 4 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 29 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 25 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 13 years older
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 4 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 11 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 22 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 13 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 1 year younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 45 years older
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 22 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 1, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 1, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 3, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 4, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 7, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 8, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 9, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 9, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 10, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 11, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 11, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 14, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 16, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 16, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 16, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 18, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 19, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 19, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 23, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 24, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 25, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 25, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 25, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 26, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 26, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 28, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 29, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 29, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 31, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 33, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 33, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 34, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 34, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 35, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 36, Asia