Florence Nightingale
1820 – 1910 · 90 years · London · Europe
Famed for nursing the wounded in the Crimean War; founder of modern nursing and a pioneer of medical statistics.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Henry Hering (1814-1893) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 1 year older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 2 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 11 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 47 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 33 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 54 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 8 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 14 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 1 year younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 20 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 50 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 58 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 61 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 22 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 41 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 3 years younger
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 35 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 78 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 24 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 7 years older
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 51 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 72 years younger
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 8 years younger
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 20 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 49 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 73 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 17 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 32 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 41 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 46 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 27 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 36 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 11 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 69 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 37 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 15 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 51 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 78 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 5 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 18 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 27 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 8 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 2, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 8, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 11, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 13, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 15, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 15, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 18, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 19, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 19, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 19, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 19, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 25, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 26, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 26, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 27, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 28, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 28, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 31, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 33, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 39, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 41, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 41, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 41, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 43, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 44, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 47, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 48, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 49, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 49, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 56, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 59, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 63, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 65, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 66, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 69, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 73, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 85, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 88, Middle East