C. V. Raman
1888 – 1970 · 82 years · Kolkata · Asia
Discovered the Raman effect in light scattering; the first Asian Nobel laureate in physics (1930).
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Nobel Foundation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 7 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 14 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 9 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 1 year younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 21 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 69 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 10 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 18 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 46 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 60 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 54 years older
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, 1 year younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 7 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 10 years younger
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 30 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 27 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 46 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 10 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 30 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 4 years younger
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 37 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 44 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 13 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 18 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 5 years younger
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 19 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 2 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 1 year younger
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 13 years younger
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 13 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 1 year younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 32 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 41 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 42 years younger
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 41 years younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 4 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 17 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 10 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 31 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 48 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 6 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 12 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 0, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 1, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 1, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 3, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 5, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 5, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 6, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 6, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 7, Europe
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 17, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 20, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 26, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 26, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 27, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 28, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 30, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 31, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 40, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 41, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 41, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 45, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 48, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 48, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 51, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 53, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 53, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 54, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 57, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 59, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 60, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 61, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 65, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 65, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 69, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 73, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 81, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 82, Americas