Arthur Schopenhauer
1788 – 1860 · 72 years · Frankfurt am Main · Europe
In The World as Will and Representation he argued that a blind, insatiable will underlies everything and life is suffering, relieved by art, compassion and renouncing desire. One of the first Western thinkers to draw on Indian philosophy.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Johann Schäfer · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 21 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 39 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 30 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 31 years younger
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 18 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 19 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 33 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 11 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 40 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 46 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 52 years younger
- Nicholas I — emperor who crushed the Decembrist revolt, 8 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 3 years older
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 35 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 54 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 42 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 27 years older
- Mustafa IV — sultan who overthrew the reformer Selim III, 9 years older
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 19 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 25 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 1 year older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 56 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 10 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 2 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 28 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 15 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 49 years younger
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 77 years older
- Tipu Sultan — ruler of Mysore, 37 years older
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 5 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 21 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 5 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 59 years younger
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 56 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 10 years older
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, 21 years older
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 30 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 24 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 27 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 16 years older
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 50 years older
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 24 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1788 First Fleet arrives in Australia — aged 0, Oceania
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — aged 1, Europe
- 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — aged 1, Europe
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — aged 3, Americas
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 8, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 10, Africa
- 1800 Volta's pile, the first battery — aged 12, Europe
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 15, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 16, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 16, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 16, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 17, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 17, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 22, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 26, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 27, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 27, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 28, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 29, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 29, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 31, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 34, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 40, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 43, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 45, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 47, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 47, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 50, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 51, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 51, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 51, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 51, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 57, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 58, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 58, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 59, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 60, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 60, Europe
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 65, Asia