Georgy Zhukov
1896 – 1974 · 78 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia
Led the defence of Leningrad and Moscow, directed the capture of Berlin and on 8 May 1945 accepted Germany's surrender for the USSR. Four times Hero of the Soviet Union, he fell from favour twice after the war.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 15 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 22 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 17 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 7 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 29 years older
- Bertrand Russell — British philosopher, logician and public intellectual, 24 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 18 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 38 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 26 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 68 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 62 years older
- Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 2 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 15 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 2 years younger
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 22 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 35 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 54 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 2 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 22 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 4 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 29 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 52 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 21 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 10 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 3 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 27 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 6 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 5 years younger
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 5 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 7 years older
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 7 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 40 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 34 years younger
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 33 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 49 years older
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 12 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 25 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 2 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 23 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 40 years younger
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 12 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 4 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 0, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 1, Africa
- 1898 Battle of Omdurman — aged 2, Africa
- 1899–1902 Second Boer War — aged 3, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 5, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 7, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 8, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 9, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 12, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 18, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 18, Americas
- 1914 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand — aged 18, Europe
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 19, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 20, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 22, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 23, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 32, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash — aged 33, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 37, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 40, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 43, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 45, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 46, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 49, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 49, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 51, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 52, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 53, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 57, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 57, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 65, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — aged 70, Asia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 73, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 74, Americas