Evliya Çelebi
c. 1611 – 1682 · 71 years · Istanbul · Middle East
Spent forty years travelling the Ottoman Empire and beyond, recording it all in his ten-volume Book of Travels.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 17th century
Portrait: Gmihail at Serbian Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 rs · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Rembrandt — Dutch painter, 5 years older
- Louis XIV — King of France, the Sun King, 27 years younger
- René Descartes — French philosopher and mathematician, 15 years older
- Isaac Newton — English physicist and mathematician, 32 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 47 years older
- Charles II — the 'Merry Monarch' of the Restoration, 19 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Peter the Great — first Emperor of Russia, 61 years younger
- Alexis the Most Quiet — tsar of the 1649 Law Code and the church schism, 18 years younger
- Michael I — first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, 15 years older
- Bohdan Khmelnytsky — Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, 16 years older
- Dmitry Pozharsky — prince and militia leader, 33 years older
- Feodor III — tsar who abolished the precedence system (mestnichestvo), 50 years younger
Middle East
- Murad IV — sultan who retook Baghdad and banned tobacco, 1 year younger
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 40 years older
- Kösem Sultan — Ottoman queen mother, 22 years older
- Mehmed IV the Hunter — sultan of the Köprülü era and the siege of Vienna, 31 years younger
- Suleiman II — sultan who retook Belgrade after 39 years in the 'cage', 31 years younger
- Ahmed II — sultan who lost the Battle of Slankamen, 32 years younger
Africa
- Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba — Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, 28 years older
- Fasilides — Emperor of Ethiopia, 8 years older
- Moulay Ismail — Sultan of Morocco, 34 years younger
- Osei Tutu I — founder of the Ashanti Empire, 49 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 55 years older
Asia
- Kangxi Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 43 years younger
- Aurangzeb — Mughal emperor, 7 years younger
- Shah Jahan — Mughal emperor, 19 years older
- Shivaji — founder of the Maratha state, 19 years younger
- Tokugawa Iemitsu — shogun who closed Japan to the Europeans, 7 years older
- Matsuo Bashō — Japanese poet, 33 years younger
Americas
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — Mexican poet and nun, 37 years younger
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 44 years older
Oceania
- Abel Tasman — Dutch navigator, 8 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1612 Minin and Pozharsky liberate Moscow — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1613 Election of Michael Romanov as Tsar — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War — aged 7, Europe
- 1624–1663 Nzinga becomes Queen of Ndongo — aged 13, Africa
- 1632–1653 Building of the Taj Mahal — aged 21, Asia
- 1644 Fall of the Ming, rise of the Qing — aged 33, Asia
- 1648 Peace of Westphalia — aged 37, Europe
- 1649 Execution of Charles I of England — aged 38, Europe
- 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement — aged 43, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1662 Last sighting of the dodo — aged 51, Africa
- 1676 Leeuwenhoek sees microbes — aged 65, Europe
- 1682 Accession of Peter the Great — aged 71, Eastern Europe & Russia