Bertrand Russell
1872 – 1970 · 98 years · Cambridge · Europe
A founder of analytic philosophy who tried to derive mathematics from logic (Principia Mathematica, with Whitehead) and clarify philosophical problems through the analysis of language. Nobel Prize in Literature (1950); anti-nuclear campaigner.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Photographer not identified → Conquistador · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 2 years younger
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 9 years younger
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 7 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 5 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 17 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 53 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 6 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 2 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 44 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 38 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 62 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 32 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 9 years younger
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 26 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 11 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 46 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 30 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 26 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 46 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 20 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 28 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 53 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 3 years younger
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 34 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 21 years younger
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 3 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 18 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 17 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 11 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 29 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 17 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 16 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 25 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 58 years younger
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 57 years younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 12 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 1 year older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 26 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 47 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 64 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 10 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 28 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 2, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 4, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 7, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 11, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 13, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 14, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 17, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 21, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 33, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 36, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 42, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 42, Americas
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 43, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 44, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 46, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 47, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 56, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 57, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 61, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 64, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 64, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 67, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 69, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 69, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 70, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 73, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 73, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 75, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 76, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 77, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 81, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 81, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 85, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 89, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — aged 94, Asia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 97, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 98, Americas