Émilie du Châtelet
1706 – 1749 · 43 years · Cirey · Europe
One of Europe's first women scientists. Translated and annotated Newton's Principia into French and wrote on fire and energy; Voltaire's companion.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Portrait: Maurice Quentin de La Tour · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Johann Sebastian Bach — German composer and organist, 21 years older
- Voltaire — French Enlightenment writer, 12 years older
- Isaac Newton — English physicist and mathematician, 63 years older
- Carl Linnaeus — Swedish naturalist, 1 year younger
- Louis XV — king under whom France lost Canada, 4 years younger
- Frederick the Great — King of Prussia, 6 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Mikhail Lomonosov — Russian polymath, 5 years younger
- Catherine the Great — Empress of Russia, 23 years younger
- Peter the Great — first Emperor of Russia, 34 years older
- Leonhard Euler — Swiss mathematician, 1 year younger
- Elizabeth — empress who founded Moscow University, 3 years younger
- Vitus Bering — Danish explorer in Russian service, 25 years older
Middle East
- Nader Shah — Shah of Iran and conqueror, 18 years older
- Ahmed III — sultan of the 'Tulip Era', 33 years older
- Mahmud I — sultan who regained Belgrade by the 1739 peace, 10 years older
- Osman III — sultan who spent 50 years in the 'cage', 7 years older
- Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab — Islamic religious reformer, 3 years older
- Mustafa III — sultan who lost the war to Catherine II, 11 years younger
Africa
- Moulay Ismail — Sultan of Morocco, 61 years older
- Osei Tutu I — founder of the Ashanti Empire, 46 years older
Asia
- Kangxi Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 52 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshimune — reforming shogun who allowed Western books, 22 years older
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 5 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieshige — ailing shogun whose speech only one courtier understood, 6 years younger
- Cao Xueqin — Chinese novelist, 9 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieharu — shogun of the Tanuma era and the Tenmei famine, 31 years younger
Americas
- Benjamin Franklin — American scientist and statesman, born the same year
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 26 years younger
- Túpac Amaru II — leader of an Andean uprising, 32 years younger
- Aleijadinho — Brazilian sculptor and architect, 24 years younger
- John Adams — 2nd US president, one of the Founding Fathers, 29 years younger
Oceania
- James Cook — British navigator, 22 years younger
- Tupaia — Tahitian navigator and priest, 19 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 32 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1709 Battle of Poltava — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1721 Proclamation of the Russian Empire — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani founds the Afghan state — aged 41, Middle East