Haile Selassie
1892 – 1975 · 83 years · Addis Ababa · Africa
Ethiopia's last emperor (1930–1974); led resistance to Italian occupation and helped found the Organisation of African Unity.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 11 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 18 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 13 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 3 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 25 years older
- George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 3 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 14 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 42 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 22 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 64 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 58 years older
- Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 2 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 11 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 6 years younger
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 26 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 31 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 50 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 6 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 26 years younger
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 33 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 48 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 17 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 14 years younger
- Kwame Nkrumah — first President of Ghana, 17 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 1 year younger
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 23 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 2 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 9 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 3 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 9 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 3 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 36 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 38 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 45 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 37 years younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 8 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 21 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 6 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 27 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 44 years younger
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 16 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 10 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 1, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 1, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 2, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 2, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 3, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 4, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 5, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 13, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 16, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 22, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 22, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 23, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 24, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 25, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 25, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 26, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 27, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 36, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 37, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 41, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 44, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 44, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 47, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 49, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 49, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 50, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 53, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 53, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 55, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 56, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 57, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 61, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 61, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 65, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 69, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 77, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 78, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 83, Asia