Chinua Achebe

◍ Open on the globe

Stuart C. Shapiro · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

novelist

1930 – 2013 · 83 years · Enugu · Africa

Nigerian novelist whose Things Fall Apart (1958) is among the most widely read works of African literature.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: Stuart C. Shapiro · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 49 years older
Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 56 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 51 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 41 years older
Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 4 years older
Alan Turing — mathematician, father of computer science, 18 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 4 years younger
Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 52 years older
Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 1 year younger
Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 1 year younger
Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 24 years older
Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 24 years older

Middle East

Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 32 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 12 years older
Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 19 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 32 years older
Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 28 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 12 years older
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 38 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 5 years older
Miriam Makeba — singer, 2 years younger
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 24 years older
Wangarĩ Maathai — environmentalist, Nobel laureate, 10 years younger

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 37 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 61 years older
Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 20 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 29 years older
Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 13 years older
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 29 years older

Americas

Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, born the same year
Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 41 years older
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 1 year older
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 74 years older
Jimmy Carter — 39th US president, the Camp David Accords, 6 years older
Fidel Castro — leader of Cuba, 4 years older

Oceania

Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 11 years older
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 6 years younger
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 32 years older
Don Bradman — cricketer, 22 years older
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 30 years older
Albert Namatjira — painter, 28 years older

The world in their lifetime

c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — aged 0, Americas
1931 China floods — aged 1, Asia
1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1930–1933 — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 2, Middle East
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 3, Europe
1934–1935 Long March — aged 4, Asia
1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 5, Africa
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 6, Europe
1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 6, Oceania
1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 6, Europe
1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 8, Europe
1938 Munich Agreement — aged 8, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 9, Whole world
1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 11, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 15, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 17, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 18, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 19, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 23, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 23, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
1969 Moon landing — aged 39, Americas
c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 40, Americas
1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 45, Asia
1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 50, Whole world
1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 53, Americas
1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — aged 59, Europe
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — aged 59, Europe
1989 Revolutions of 1989 — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia
1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia
2001 September 11 attacks — aged 71, Americas
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — aged 74, Asia
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — aged 81, Asia