Dwight D. Eisenhower
1890 – 1969 · 79 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1953 – 1961 (US presidents)
Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in World War II. As president he ended the Korean War (1953), built the Interstate Highway System, created NASA and warned against the "military–industrial complex".
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: White House · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 9 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 16 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 11 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 1 year older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 23 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 71 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 12 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 20 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 44 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 62 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 56 years older
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, 1 year older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 9 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 8 years younger
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 28 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 29 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 48 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 8 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 28 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 2 years younger
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 35 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 46 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 15 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 16 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 3 years younger
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 21 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, born the same year
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 1 year older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 11 years younger
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 11 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 1 year older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 34 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 43 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 39 years younger
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 40 years younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 6 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 19 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 8 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 29 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 46 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 8 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 10 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 1, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 3, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 3, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 4, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 4, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 5, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 6, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 7, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 11, Europe
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 15, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 18, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 24, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 24, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 25, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 26, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 28, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 29, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 38, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 39, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 43, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 46, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 46, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 49, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 51, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 51, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 52, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 55, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 57, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 58, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 59, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 63, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 63, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 67, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 71, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 79, Americas