Ernest Rutherford
1871 – 1937 · 66 years · Nelson, New Zealand · Oceania
A New Zealander who discovered the atomic nucleus and first split the atom; 1908 Nobel laureate in chemistry and mentor to a generation of physicists.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 4 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 3 years younger
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 8 years younger
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 10 years younger
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 18 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 52 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 7 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 1 year older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 43 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 37 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 31 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 50 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 10 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 10 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 29 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 27 years younger
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 47 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 27 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 47 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 21 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 27 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 54 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 4 years younger
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 31 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 2 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 22 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 10 years older
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 5 years older
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 18 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 8 years younger
Americas
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 15 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 24 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 18 years younger
- Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 8 years older
- Franklin D. Roosevelt — 32nd President of the United States, 11 years younger
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 15 years older
Oceania
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 27 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 48 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 24 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 10 years older
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 11 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 33 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 0, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 0, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 3, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 5, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 5, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 5, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 7, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 8, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 8, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 12, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 13, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 14, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 14, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 14, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 15, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 15, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 17, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 18, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 18, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 20, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 22, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 22, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 23, Asia
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 34, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 37, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 43, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 43, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 44, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 45, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 46, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 46, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 47, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 48, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 57, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 58, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 58, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 62, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 65, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 65, Europe