Ferdinand Magellan
1480 – 1521 · 41 years · Strait of Magellan · Americas
Led the first circumnavigation of the globe, finding the strait into the Pacific, but was killed in the Philippines.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 15th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Nicolaus Copernicus — astronomer, 7 years older
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 5 years older
- Leonardo da Vinci — painter, scientist and inventor, 28 years older
- Martin Luther — church reformer, 3 years younger
- Maximilian I — "the Last Knight", who raised the Habsburgs through shrewd marriages, 21 years older
- Henry VIII — king of six wives who broke with Rome and created the Church of England, 11 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vasily III — grand prince who completed the unification of the Russian lands, 1 year older
- Ivan III — Grand Prince of Moscow, 40 years older
- Sophia Palaiologina — Grand Princess of Moscow, 25 years older
Middle East
- Selim I the Grim — sultan who took Cairo and Mecca, 10 years older
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 14 years younger
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 25 years younger
- Bayezid II — sultan who took in the Jews expelled from Spain, 33 years older
Africa
- Askia Muhammad I — Emperor of Songhai, 37 years older
- Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi — Adal imam and general, 26 years younger
Asia
- Guru Nanak — founder of Sikhism, 11 years older
- Vasco da Gama — navigator, 11 years older
- Babur — founder of the Mughal Empire, 3 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshimasa — shogun of the Ōnin War and the Silver Pavilion, 44 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshitane — shogun who held office twice and was driven out twice, 14 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshizumi — puppet shogun of the Hosokawa clan, 1 year younger
Americas
- Christopher Columbus — navigator, 29 years older
- Moctezuma II — Aztec emperor, 14 years older
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 4 years younger
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 5 years younger
- Atahualpa — last Inca emperor, 22 years younger
- Huayna Capac — Sapa Inca, 16 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1480 Great Stand on the Ugra River — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1488 Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope — aged 8, Africa
- 1492 Columbus reaches the Americas — aged 12, Americas
- 1492 Fall of Granada — aged 12, Europe
- 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas — aged 14, Europe
- 1498 Vasco da Gama reaches India — aged 18, Asia
- 1501 Founding of Safavid Iran — aged 21, Middle East
- 1508–1512 Sistine Chapel ceiling — aged 28, Europe
- 1511 Portuguese capture of Malacca — aged 31, Asia
- 1517 Luther's Ninety-five Theses — aged 37, Europe
- 1519–1522 Magellan's circumnavigation — aged 39, Americas
- 1520–1566 Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent — aged 40, Middle East
- 1521 Fall of Tenochtitlan — aged 41, Americas