Dmitri Mendeleev
1834 – 1907 · 73 years · Saint Petersburg · Eastern Europe & Russia
Formulated the periodic law of chemical elements (1869) and predicted the properties of elements not yet discovered.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 15 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 16 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 25 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 33 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 19 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 40 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 6 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 6 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 13 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 36 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 44 years younger
- Ivan Pavlov — physiologist, Nobel laureate, 15 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 47 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 8 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 27 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 11 years older
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 10 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 4 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 10 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 21 years older
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 65 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 58 years younger
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 6 years younger
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 6 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 35 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 59 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 3 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 18 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 27 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 32 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 13 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 22 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 25 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 55 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 1 year younger
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 13 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 37 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 4 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 19 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 13 years younger
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 27 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 22 years older
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 1, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 1, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 4, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 5, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 5, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 5, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 5, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 11, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 12, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 12, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 13, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 14, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 14, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 17, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 19, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 25, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 27, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 27, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 29, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 30, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 33, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 34, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 35, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 35, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 36, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 37, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 37, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 40, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 42, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 45, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 49, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 51, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 52, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 55, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 59, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 71, Europe