Charles Dickens
1812 – 1870 · 58 years · London · Europe
Author of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Jeremiah Gurney · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 3 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 6 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 7 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 63 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 41 years younger
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 42 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 9 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 16 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 22 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 28 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 13 years older
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 6 years younger
Middle East
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 11 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 30 years younger
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 27 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 18 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 32 years younger
Africa
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 1 year younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 43 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 32 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 25 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 26 years older
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 34 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 52 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 25 years younger
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 39 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 40 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 19 years older
- Empress Dowager Cixi — Empress Dowager of China, 23 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 3 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 35 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 29 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 44 years younger
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 6 years older
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 10 years younger
Oceania
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, born the same year
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 3 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 26 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 35 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 40 years older
- Ned Kelly — bushranger and Australian folk hero, 42 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 2, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 3, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 3, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 4, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 5, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 5, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 7, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 10, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 16, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 19, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 21, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 23, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 23, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 26, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 27, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 27, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 27, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 27, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 33, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 34, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 34, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 35, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 36, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 36, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 39, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 41, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 41, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 47, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 49, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 49, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 49, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 51, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 52, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 55, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 56, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 57, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 57, Americas