Harry S. Truman
.jpg?width=160 "National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential… · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1884 – 1972 · 88 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1945 – 1953 (US presidents)
He succeeded Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945 and ordered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He proclaimed the Truman Doctrine, backed the Marshall Plan and NATO, and entered the Korean War.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential… · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 3 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 10 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 5 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 5 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 17 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 65 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 6 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 14 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 50 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 56 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 50 years older
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, 5 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 3 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 14 years younger
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 34 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 23 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 42 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 14 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 34 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 8 years younger
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 41 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 40 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 9 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 22 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 9 years younger
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 15 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 6 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 5 years younger
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 17 years younger
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 17 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 5 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 28 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 37 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 46 years younger
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 45 years younger
- Dwight D. Eisenhower — 34th US president, commander of the Normandy landings, 6 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 13 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 14 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 35 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 52 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 2 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 16 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 0, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 1, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 1, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 1, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 2, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 2, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 4, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 5, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 9, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 21, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 24, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 30, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 30, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 31, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 32, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 34, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 35, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 44, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 45, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 49, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 52, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 52, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 55, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 57, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 58, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 61, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 63, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 64, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 65, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 69, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 69, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 73, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 77, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 85, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 86, Americas