Elizabeth II
1926 – 2022 · 96 years · London · Europe
Reign: since 1952 (England and Britain)
She reigned for 70 years, longer than any other British monarch. During her reign the empire became the Commonwealth of Nations, and 15 British prime ministers served her, from Churchill to Liz Truss.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Original: Joel Rouse/ Ministry of Defence Derivative: nagualdesign · OGL 3 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 45 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 52 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 47 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 37 years older
- Alan Turing — mathematician, father of computer science, 14 years older
- George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 31 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 8 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 48 years older
- Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 5 years younger
- Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 5 years younger
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 20 years older
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 20 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 45 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 28 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 8 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 15 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 28 years older
- Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 24 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 8 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 34 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 1 year older
- Chinua Achebe — novelist, 4 years younger
- Miriam Makeba — singer, 6 years younger
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 20 years older
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 33 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 57 years older
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 16 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 25 years older
- Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 9 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 25 years older
Americas
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 4 years younger
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 37 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 3 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 70 years older
- Jimmy Carter — 39th US president, the Camp David Accords, 2 years older
- Fidel Castro — leader of Cuba, born the same year
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 55 years older
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 7 years older
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 10 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 28 years older
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 18 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 26 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 2, Europe
- 1928–1932 First Five-Year Plan: Soviet industrialisation — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 3, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — aged 4, Americas
- 1931 China floods — aged 5, Asia
- 1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1930–1933 — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 6, Middle East
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 7, Europe
- 1934–1935 Long March — aged 8, Asia
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 9, Africa
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 10, Europe
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 10, Oceania
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 13, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 15, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 19, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 21, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 22, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 23, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 27, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 27, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 43, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 44, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 49, Asia
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 54, Whole world
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 57, Americas
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — aged 63, Europe
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — aged 63, Europe
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — aged 63, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — aged 65, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 2001 September 11 attacks — aged 75, Americas
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — aged 78, Asia
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — aged 85, Asia