Friedrich Nietzsche
1844 – 1900 · 56 years · Basel · Europe
Proclaimed the "death of God" and called for a revaluation of all values, introducing the Übermensch, the will to power and eternal recurrence. A professor at Basel at 24, he spent his last 11 years mentally incapacitated.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Friedrich Hermann Hartmann · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 25 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 26 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 35 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 9 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 23 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 30 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 16 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 10 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 4 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 23 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 26 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 34 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 37 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 2 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 17 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 21 years older
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, born the same year
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 14 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, born the same year
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 31 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 16 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 4 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 7 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 58 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 25 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 7 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 8 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 17 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 22 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 35 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 3 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 12 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 35 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 45 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 9 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 3 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 27 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 6 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 3 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 29 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 17 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 32 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 1, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 2, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 2, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 3, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 4, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 4, Europe
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — aged 6, Asia
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 7, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 9, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 15, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 17, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 17, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 19, Americas
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — aged 20, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 20, Americas
- 1865 Assassination of Abraham Lincoln — aged 21, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 23, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 24, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 25, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 25, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 25, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 26, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 27, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 27, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 30, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 32, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 32, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 32, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 34, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 35, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 35, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 39, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 41, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 42, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 45, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 49, Oceania