Cnut the Great
c. 995 – 1035 · 40 years · Winchester · Europe
Reign: 1016 – 1035 (England and Britain)
Danish prince who conquered England in 1016. He united England, Denmark and Norway under his rule, governing firmly but peacefully with the support of the English nobility and church.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 8 years younger
- Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 29 years older
- Conrad II — first Salian emperor, who added the Kingdom of Burgundy to the empire, 5 years older
- Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 23 years older
- Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, 22 years older
- Henry I — king who married Anne of Kiev, daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, 13 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 35 years older
- Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 17 years older
- Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, 15 years older
- Iziaslav I — prince of Kiev twice driven from his capital, 29 years younger
Middle East
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, 15 years older
- Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 55 years older
Asia
- Murasaki Shikibu — novelist, author of The Tale of Genji, 22 years older
- Al-Biruni — polymath, 22 years older
- Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, 29 years older
Americas
- Leif Erikson — Norse explorer, 25 years older
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 5, Africa
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 5, Europe
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — aged 11, Africa
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — aged 15, Asia
- 1021 Norse in North America — aged 26, Americas
- 1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — aged 30, Middle East