Charles IV
1316 – 1378 · 62 years · Prague · Europe
Reign: 1347 – 1378 (Holy Roman Empire & Austria)
King of Bohemia of the Luxembourg dynasty. He founded Prague University (1348), the New Town and the Charles Bridge, built Karlštejn Castle, and with the Golden Bull of 1356 fixed the election of the emperor by seven electors for four centuries.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 14th century
Portrait: Circle of Theodoric of Prague · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Edward III — king who began the Hundred Years' War and won at Crécy, 4 years older
- Richard II — boy king who faced down the Peasants' Revolt and was deposed by his cousin, 51 years younger
- Sigismund — emperor of the Council of Constance that ended the Schism and burned Hus, 52 years younger
- Petrarch — humanist poet, 12 years older
- John II the Good — king captured by the English at Poitiers, 3 years younger
- Charles V the Wise — king who regained most of what was lost in the Hundred Years’ War, 22 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Sergius of Radonezh — saint and abbot, 2 years older
- Dmitry Donskoy — Grand Prince of Moscow, 34 years younger
- Ivan Kalita — prince who began the gathering of Russian lands around Moscow, 28 years older
- Andrei Rublev — icon painter, 44 years younger
- Simeon the Proud — grand prince "of all Rus" who died of the plague, born the same year
- Ivan II the Fair — grand prince of Moscow, father of Dmitry Donskoy, 10 years younger
Middle East
- Murad I — sultan who took Adrianople and fell at Kosovo, 10 years younger
- Orhan — bey who took Bursa and led the Ottomans into Europe, 35 years older
- Bayezid I the Thunderbolt — sultan defeated and captured by Timur at Ankara, 44 years younger
- Hafez — Persian poet, 9 years younger
Africa
- Ibn Battuta — traveller, 12 years older
- Ibn Khaldun — historian and thinker, 16 years younger
- Mansa Musa — ruler of the Mali Empire, 36 years older
Asia
- Timur — emir and conqueror, 20 years younger
- Ashikaga Takauji — founder of the Muromachi shogunate who turned on Go-Daigo, 11 years older
- Emperor Go-Daigo — emperor who overthrew the Kamakura shogunate, 28 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshimitsu — shogun who reunited the two imperial courts and built Kinkaku-ji, 42 years younger
- Gajah Mada — prime minister of Majapahit, 26 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshiakira — second Ashikaga shogun, who held Kyoto against the Southern Court, 14 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1324 Hajj of Mansa Musa — aged 8, Africa
- c. 1325 Founding of Tenochtitlan — aged 9, Americas
- c. 1327 The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu — aged 11, Africa
- 1337–1453 Hundred Years' War — aged 21, Europe
- c. 1337 Sergius of Radonezh founds his monastery — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1347–1351 Black Death — aged 31, Europe
- 1368 Founding of the Ming dynasty — aged 52, Asia
- 1370 Timur makes Samarkand his capital — aged 54, Asia
- 1377 Jikji, printed with movable metal type — aged 61, Asia