Catherine de' Medici
1519 – 1589 · 70 years · Paris · Europe
Florentine wife of Henry II and mother of three French kings, the power behind the throne during the Wars of Religion and St Bartholomew's Day massacre.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: Attributed to François Clouet · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 14 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 44 years older
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 28 years younger
- Martin Luther — church reformer, 36 years older
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 45 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 45 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 11 years younger
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 13 years younger
- Vasily III — grand prince who completed the unification of the Russian lands, 40 years older
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 33 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 33 years younger
- Feodor I — last Rurikid tsar, under whom the Moscow Patriarchate was founded, 38 years younger
Middle East
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 5 years younger
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 25 years older
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 14 years older
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 52 years younger
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 7 years younger
- Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 27 years younger
Africa
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 30 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 37 years younger
- Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi — Adal imam and general, 13 years older
- Askia Muhammad I — Emperor of Songhai, 76 years older
Asia
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 23 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyasu — first Tokugawa shogun, 24 years younger
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 18 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 18 years younger
- Oda Nobunaga — Japanese warlord, 15 years younger
- Yi Sun-sin — Korean admiral, 26 years younger
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 35 years older
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 34 years older
- Atahualpa — last Inca emperor, 17 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 20 years younger
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 48 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1519–1522 Magellan's circumnavigation — aged 0, Americas
- 1520–1566 Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent — aged 1, Middle East
- 1521 Fall of Tenochtitlan — aged 2, Americas
- 1526 First Battle of Panipat — aged 7, Asia
- 1526 Battle of Mohács — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1529–1543 Ahmad Gragn invades Ethiopia — aged 10, Africa
- 1532 Capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca — aged 13, Americas
- 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome — aged 15, Europe
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — aged 23, Americas
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — aged 24, Europe
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — aged 26, Americas
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — aged 28, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 37, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 37, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 50, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 52, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 53, Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — aged 63, Europe
- 1582 Yermak's conquest of Sibir — aged 63, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — aged 69, Europe