Hannah Arendt

political philosopher

1906 – 1975 · 69 years · New York · Americas

Studied the nature of power and freedom; The Origins of Totalitarianism traced what Nazism and Stalinism shared, and her report on the Eichmann trial coined "the banality of evil". She fled Germany in 1933.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 25 years older
Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 32 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 27 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 17 years older
Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 39 years older
Jean-Paul Sartre — French philosopher and writer, 1 year older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 28 years older
Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 28 years younger
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 36 years older
Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, born the same year
Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, born the same year
Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 12 years older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 25 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 8 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 12 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 45 years older
Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 64 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 8 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 12 years younger
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 14 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 19 years younger
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, born the same year
Kwame Nkrumah — first President of Ghana, 3 years younger
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 31 years older

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 13 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 37 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 5 years older
Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 4 years younger
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 5 years older
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 16 years older

Americas

Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 17 years older
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 24 years younger
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 23 years younger
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 50 years older
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 59 years older
Jorge Luis Borges — writer, 7 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 35 years older
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 8 years older
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 13 years younger
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 30 years younger
Don Bradman — cricketer, 2 years younger
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 6 years older

The world in their lifetime

1906 San Francisco earthquake — aged 0, Americas
1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 2, Middle East
1908 Tunguska event — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
1908 Young Turk Revolution — aged 2, Middle East
1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — aged 4, Americas
1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — aged 5, Asia
1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — aged 5, Oceania
1912–1913 Balkan Wars — aged 6, Europe
1912 The death of Scott's polar party — aged 6, Oceania
1914–1918 World War I — aged 8, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 8, Americas
1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 9, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 10, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 12, Whole world
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 13, Europe
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 22, Europe
1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 23, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 27, Europe
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 30, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 30, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 33, Whole world
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 35, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 39, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 41, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 42, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 43, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 47, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 47, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 51, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — aged 60, Asia
1969 Moon landing — aged 63, Americas
c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 64, Americas
1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 69, Asia