Felix Dzerzhinsky
1877 – 1926 · 49 years · Dzerzhinovo estate (Vilna Governorate) · Eastern Europe & Russia
A Polish nobleman turned revolutionary, he set up the Cheka at Lenin's behest in December 1917 and led it through the Red Terror. Nicknamed 'Iron Felix', he also ran the railways and industry and campaigned against child homelessness.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 10 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 3 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 2 years younger
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 4 years younger
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 12 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 58 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 1 year younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 7 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 49 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 43 years older
- Georgy Zhukov — Marshal of the Soviet Union, 19 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 37 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 4 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 16 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 35 years older
- Sergei Witte — finance minister, first chairman of the Council of Ministers, 28 years older
- Vladimir Mayakovsky — Futurist poet, 16 years younger
- Richard Sorge — Soviet intelligence officer, 18 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 33 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 15 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 2 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 37 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 26 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 49 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 8 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 16 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 16 years older
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 11 years older
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 2 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 12 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 30 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 21 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 12 years younger
- John D. Rockefeller — industrialist, founder of Standard Oil, 38 years older
- Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 14 years older
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 21 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 6 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 21 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 30 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 16 years older
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 5 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 39 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 — aged 0, Europe
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 1, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 2, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 2, Africa
- 1879 Baku oil boom and Branobel — aged 2, Middle East
- 1881 Battle of Geok Tepe — aged 4, Asia
- 1882 Britain occupies Egypt — aged 5, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 6, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 7, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 8, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 8, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 8, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 9, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 9, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 11, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 12, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 12, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 14, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 16, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 16, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 17, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 17, Asia
- 1894–1906 Dreyfus affair — aged 17, Europe
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 18, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 19, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 20, Africa
- 1898 Battle of Omdurman — aged 21, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 28, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 31, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 37, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 37, Americas
- 1914 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand — aged 37, Europe
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 38, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 39, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 41, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 42, Europe