Ferdinand I of Austria
1793 – 1875 · 82 years · Vienna · Europe
Reign: 1835 – 1848 (Holy Roman Empire & Austria)
Epileptic son of Francis II, nicknamed "the Good". Metternich and a state council actually governed; after the revolution of 1848 he abdicated in favour of his nephew Franz Joseph and lived out his life in Prague Castle.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Eduard Edlinger · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 16 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 25 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 26 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 44 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 23 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 24 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 28 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 35 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 41 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 6 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 47 years younger
- Nicholas I — emperor who crushed the Decembrist revolt, 3 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 8 years older
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 30 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 49 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 68 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 37 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 51 years younger
Africa
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 20 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 24 years older
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 6 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 51 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 7 years older
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 15 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 33 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 20 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 44 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 59 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 68 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, born the same year
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 16 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 10 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 54 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 63 years younger
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 13 years younger
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 15 years older
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 35 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 19 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 22 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 45 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 21 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 54 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 3, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 5, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 10, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 11, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 11, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 11, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 12, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 12, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 17, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 21, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 22, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 22, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 23, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 24, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 24, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 26, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 29, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 35, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 38, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 40, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 42, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 42, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 45, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 46, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 46, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 46, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 46, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 52, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 53, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 53, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 54, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 55, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 55, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 58, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 60, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 60, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 66, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 68, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 68, Eastern Europe & Russia