Empress Dowager Cixi
.PNG?width=160 "John Yu Shuinling · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1835 – 1908 · 73 years · Beijing · Asia
Effectively ruled Qing China for nearly half a century, from 1861 until her death, as regent for young emperors.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: John Yu Shuinling · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 16 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 17 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 26 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 32 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 18 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 39 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 7 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 1 year older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 5 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 14 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 35 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 43 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 46 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 7 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 26 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 12 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 63 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 9 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 9 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 22 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 57 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 66 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 5 years younger
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 7 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 34 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 58 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 2 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 17 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 26 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 31 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 12 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 21 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 26 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 54 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, born the same year
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 12 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 36 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 63 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 3 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 20 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 12 years younger
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 26 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 0, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 0, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 3, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 4, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 4, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 4, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 4, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 10, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 11, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 11, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 12, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 13, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 13, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 16, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 18, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 24, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 26, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 26, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 28, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 29, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 32, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 32, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 33, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 34, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 34, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 34, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 35, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 36, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 36, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 41, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 44, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 48, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 50, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 51, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 54, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 58, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 70, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 73, Middle East