Conrad II

first Salian emperor, who added the Kingdom of Burgundy to the empire

c. 990 – 1039 · 49 years · Speyer · Europe

Reign: 1024 – 1039 (Holy Roman Empire & Austria)

Founder of the Salian dynasty. In 1033 he joined the Kingdom of Burgundy to the empire, began Speyer Cathedral as the Salian burial church, and in 1037 issued an edict making the fiefs of lesser vassals hereditary.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 11th century

Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Cnut the Great — Danish king who ruled a North Sea empire, 5 years younger
Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 13 years younger
Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 24 years older
William the Conqueror — Duke of Normandy, King of England, 38 years younger
Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 18 years older
Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, 17 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 30 years older
Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 12 years older
Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, 10 years older
Iziaslav I — prince of Kiev twice driven from his capital, 34 years younger

Middle East

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, 10 years older
Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 50 years older

Asia

Murasaki Shikibu — novelist, author of The Tale of Genji, 17 years older
Al-Biruni — polymath, 17 years older
Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, 24 years older

Americas

Leif Erikson — Norse explorer, 20 years older

The world in their lifetime

c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 10, Africa
c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 10, Europe
1006 Supernova SN 1006 — aged 16, Africa
c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — aged 20, Asia
1021 Norse in North America — aged 31, Americas
1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — aged 35, Middle East
c. 1037 Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia