Boris Yeltsin

Presidential Press and Information Office · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

first President of Russia

1931 – 2007 · 76 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia

Reign: 1991 – 1999 (Rus and Russia)

Elected president of the Russian republic in 1991, he led resistance to the August coup. He launched market reforms, adopted the 1993 Constitution and started the war in Chechnya; he resigned early on 31 December 1999.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: Presidential Press and Information Office · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 50 years older
Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 57 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 52 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 42 years older
Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 5 years older
Alan Turing — mathematician, father of computer science, 19 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 3 years younger
Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 53 years older
Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, born the same year
Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 25 years older
Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 25 years older
Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 37 years older

Middle East

Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 33 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 13 years older
Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 20 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 33 years older
Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 29 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 13 years older
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 39 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 6 years older
Chinua Achebe — novelist, 1 year older
Miriam Makeba — singer, 1 year younger
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 25 years older

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 38 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 62 years older
Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 21 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 30 years older
Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 14 years older
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 30 years older

Americas

Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 1 year older
Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 42 years older
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 2 years older
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 75 years older
Jimmy Carter — 39th US president, the Camp David Accords, 7 years older
Fidel Castro — leader of Cuba, 5 years older

Oceania

Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 12 years older
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 5 years younger
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 33 years older
Don Bradman — cricketer, 23 years older
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 31 years older
Albert Namatjira — painter, 29 years older

The world in their lifetime

1931 China floods — aged 0, Asia
1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1930–1933 — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 1, Middle East
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 2, Europe
1934–1935 Long March — aged 3, Asia
1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 4, Africa
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 5, Europe
1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 5, Oceania
1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 5, Europe
1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 7, Europe
1938 Munich Agreement — aged 7, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 8, Whole world
1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 10, Europe
1941 German invasion of the USSR — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — aged 10, Oceania
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 14, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 14, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 16, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 17, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 18, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 22, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 22, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 30, Eastern Europe & Russia
1969 Moon landing — aged 38, Americas
c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 39, Americas
1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 44, Asia
1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 49, Whole world
1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 52, Americas
1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 54, Eastern Europe & Russia
1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — aged 58, Europe
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — aged 58, Europe
1989 Revolutions of 1989 — aged 58, Eastern Europe & Russia
1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — aged 60, Eastern Europe & Russia
2001 September 11 attacks — aged 70, Americas
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — aged 73, Asia