Harriet Tubman
c. 1822 – 1913 · 91 years · Auburn, New York · Americas
Escaped slavery and returned south many times to guide dozens of people to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Horatio Seymour Squyer · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 3 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 4 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 13 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 45 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 52 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 31 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 6 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 12 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 1 year older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 18 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 48 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 56 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 59 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 20 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 39 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 1 year younger
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 37 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 76 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 22 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 9 years older
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 53 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 70 years younger
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 18 years younger
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 6 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 47 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 71 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 15 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 30 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 39 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 44 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 25 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 34 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 13 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 67 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 13 years younger
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 25 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 49 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 76 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 16 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 7 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 25 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 10 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 0, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 6, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 9, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 11, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 13, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 13, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 16, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 17, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 17, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 17, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 17, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 23, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 24, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 24, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 25, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 26, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 26, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 29, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 31, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 37, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 39, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 39, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 41, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 42, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 45, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 46, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 47, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 54, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 57, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 61, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 63, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 64, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 67, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 71, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 83, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 86, Middle East