Emperor Taishō
1879 – 1926 · 47 years · Tokyo · Asia
Reign: 1912 – 1926 (Japan: shoguns & emperors)
Meiji's son, reigned 1912–1926. Weakened by a childhood illness, he took little part in affairs; under him Japan fought in the First World War on the Entente side and parties and parliament grew stronger, and from 1921 his son Hirohito served as regent.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Ministry of the Imperial Household · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 12 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 5 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, born the same year
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 2 years younger
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 10 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 60 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 1 year older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 9 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 51 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 45 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 39 years older
- Ivan Pavlov — physiologist, Nobel laureate, 30 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 2 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 18 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 37 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 19 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 35 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 19 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 35 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 13 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 4 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 39 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 28 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 51 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 10 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 14 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 18 years older
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 13 years older
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 10 years younger
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 11 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 32 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 23 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 10 years younger
- Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 16 years older
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 23 years older
- Franklin D. Roosevelt — 32nd President of the United States, 3 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 8 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 19 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 32 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 18 years older
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 3 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 41 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 0, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 0, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 4, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 5, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 6, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 6, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 6, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 7, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 7, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 9, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 10, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 10, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 12, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 14, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 14, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 15, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 15, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 16, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 17, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 18, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 22, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 24, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 25, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 26, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — aged 26, Middle East
- 1906 San Francisco earthquake — aged 27, Americas
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 29, Middle East
- 1908 Tunguska event — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — aged 29, Middle East
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — aged 31, Americas
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 35, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 35, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 36, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 37, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 38, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 38, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 39, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 40, Europe