Franz Joseph I
.jpg?width=160 "Carl Pietzner · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1830 – 1916 · 86 years · Vienna · Europe
Reign: 1848 – 1916 (Holy Roman Empire & Austria)
He took the throne at eighteen in 1848, lost the wars of 1859 and 1866 and by the Compromise of 1867 turned his empire into Austria-Hungary. He outlived the suicide of his son Rudolf and the murder of his wife Elisabeth ("Sisi"), and in 1914 declared war on Serbia.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Carl Pietzner · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 11 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 12 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 21 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 37 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 44 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 23 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 2 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 4 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 10 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 9 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 40 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 48 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 51 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 12 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 31 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 7 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 68 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 14 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 14 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 17 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 62 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 61 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 10 years younger
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 2 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 39 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 63 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 7 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 22 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 31 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 36 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 17 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 26 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 21 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 59 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 5 years younger
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 17 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 41 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 68 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 8 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 17 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 15 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 31 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 1, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 3, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 5, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 5, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 8, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 9, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 9, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 9, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 9, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 15, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 16, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 16, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 17, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 18, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 18, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 21, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 23, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 29, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 31, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 31, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 33, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 34, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 37, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 38, Asia
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 46, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 49, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 53, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 55, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 56, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 59, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 63, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 75, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 78, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 84, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 84, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 85, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 86, Middle East