Edward VII
.jpg?width=160 "W. & D. Downey · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1841 – 1910 · 69 years · London · Europe
Reign: 1901 – 1910 (England and Britain)
Queen Victoria's eldest son, who waited almost 60 years for the throne. He gave his name to the Edwardian era; related to many of Europe's monarchs, he helped bring about the rapprochement with France known as the Entente Cordiale of 1904.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: W. & D. Downey · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 22 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 26 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 23 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 32 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 12 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 33 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 13 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 7 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 1 year older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 20 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 29 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 37 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 40 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 1 year younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 20 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 18 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 57 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 3 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 3 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 28 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 51 years younger
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 1 year older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 13 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 10 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 28 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 52 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 4 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 11 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 20 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 25 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 6 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 15 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 32 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 48 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 6 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 6 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 30 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 57 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 3 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 6 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 26 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 20 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 4, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 5, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 5, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 6, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 7, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 7, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 10, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 12, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 18, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 20, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 20, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 20, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 22, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 23, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 26, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 27, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 28, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 28, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 28, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 29, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 30, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 30, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 33, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 35, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 35, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 35, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 37, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 38, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 38, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 42, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 43, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 44, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 45, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 48, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 52, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 64, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 67, Middle East