George H. W. Bush
.jpg?width=160 "David Valdez · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1924 – 2018 · 94 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1989 – 1993 (US presidents)
A former CIA director and Reagan's vice president. Under him the Cold War ended and Germany reunified, and a US-led coalition drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait (1991).
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: David Valdez · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 43 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 50 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 45 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 35 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 57 years older
- Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 2 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 10 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 46 years older
- Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 7 years younger
- Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 7 years younger
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 18 years older
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 18 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 43 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 26 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 6 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 13 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 26 years older
- Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 22 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 6 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 32 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 1 year younger
- Chinua Achebe — novelist, 6 years younger
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 18 years older
- Miriam Makeba — singer, 8 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 31 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 55 years older
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 14 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 23 years older
- Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 7 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 23 years older
Americas
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 6 years younger
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 35 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 5 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 68 years older
- Jimmy Carter — 39th US president, the Camp David Accords, born the same year
- Fidel Castro — leader of Cuba, 2 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 53 years older
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 5 years older
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 12 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 26 years older
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 16 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 24 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 4, Europe
- 1928–1932 First Five-Year Plan: Soviet industrialisation — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 5, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — aged 6, Americas
- 1931 China floods — aged 7, Asia
- 1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1930–1933 — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 8, Middle East
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 9, Europe
- 1934–1935 Long March — aged 10, Asia
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 11, Africa
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 12, Europe
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 12, Oceania
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 15, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 17, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 21, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 23, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 24, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 25, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 29, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 29, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 45, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 46, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 51, Asia
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 56, Whole world
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 59, Americas
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — aged 65, Europe
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — aged 65, Europe
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — aged 65, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — aged 67, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 2001 September 11 attacks — aged 77, Americas
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — aged 80, Asia
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — aged 87, Asia