Chester A. Arthur
1829 – 1886 · 57 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1881 – 1885 (US presidents)
Became president after James Garfield's assassination in 1881. He signed the Pendleton Act (1883), replacing the spoils system with merit-based hiring of officials.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Abraham Bogardus / Adam Cuerden · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 10 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 11 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 20 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 24 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 38 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 45 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 1 year older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 8 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 5 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 11 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 41 years younger
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 11 years older
Middle East
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 13 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 6 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 32 years younger
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 44 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 1 year younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 15 years younger
Africa
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 16 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 15 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 60 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 1 year older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 11 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 43 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 40 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 8 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 23 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 32 years younger
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 69 years older
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 37 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 18 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 20 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 27 years younger
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 7 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 6 years younger
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 23 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 42 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 14 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 9 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 17 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 18 years younger
- Ned Kelly — bushranger and Australian folk hero, 25 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 2, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 4, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 6, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 6, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 9, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 10, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 10, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 10, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 10, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 16, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 17, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 17, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 18, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 19, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 19, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 22, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 24, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 30, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 32, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 32, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 32, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 34, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 35, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 38, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 38, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 39, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 40, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 40, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 41, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 42, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 42, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 45, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 47, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 47, Asia
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 50, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 54, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 56, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 57, Europe