Emperor Go-Daigo
1288 – 1339 · 51 years · Kyoto · Asia
Reign: 1333 – 1336 (Japan: shoguns & emperors)
In 1333, backed by Ashikaga Takauji and Nitta Yoshisada, he overthrew the Kamakura shogunate and tried to rule in person (the Kenmu Restoration). Three years later Takauji drove him from Kyoto; Go-Daigo fled to Yoshino and founded the Southern Court, which rivalled the Northern Court until 1392.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 14th century
Portrait: Monkan-bō Kōshin · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Dante Alighieri — poet, author of the Divine Comedy, 23 years older
- Edward III — king who began the Hundred Years' War and won at Crécy, 24 years younger
- Philip IV the Fair — king who destroyed the Knights Templar, 20 years older
- Charles IV — emperor who made Prague an imperial capital and issued the Golden Bull, 28 years younger
- Edward I Longshanks — conqueror of Wales, called the Hammer of the Scots, 49 years older
- Louis the Bavarian — emperor excommunicated by the pope and crowned in Rome without him, 6 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan Kalita — prince who began the gathering of Russian lands around Moscow, born the same year
- Sergius of Radonezh — saint and abbot, 26 years younger
- Yury of Moscow — first Moscow prince to become grand prince of Vladimir, 7 years older
- Simeon the Proud — grand prince "of all Rus" who died of the plague, 28 years younger
- Daniel of Moscow — first prince of Moscow, founder of the Moscow line of the Rurikids, 27 years older
- Ivan II the Fair — grand prince of Moscow, father of Dmitry Donskoy, 38 years younger
Middle East
Africa
- Mansa Musa — ruler of the Mali Empire, 8 years older
- Ibn Battuta — traveller, 16 years younger
Asia
- Marco Polo — Venetian traveller, 34 years older
- Ashikaga Takauji — founder of the Muromachi shogunate who turned on Go-Daigo, 17 years younger
- Gajah Mada — prime minister of Majapahit, 2 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1293 Founding of Majapahit — aged 5, Asia
- c. 1300 Onset of the Little Ice Age — aged 12, Europe
- 1309–1377 Avignon Papacy — aged 21, Europe
- 1315–1317 Great Famine — aged 27, Europe
- 1324 Hajj of Mansa Musa — aged 36, Africa
- c. 1325 Founding of Tenochtitlan — aged 37, Americas
- c. 1327 The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu — aged 39, Africa
- 1337–1453 Hundred Years' War — aged 49, Europe
- c. 1337 Sergius of Radonezh founds his monastery — aged 49, Eastern Europe & Russia