Herbert Hoover
1874 – 1964 · 90 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1929 – 1933 (US presidents)
A mining engineer who led food relief for Belgium in World War I and for famine-stricken Soviet Russia (the ARA, 1921–1923). Seven months into his term the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Underwood & Underwood · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, born the same year
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 7 years younger
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 5 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 7 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 15 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 55 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 4 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 4 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 46 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 40 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 60 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 34 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 7 years younger
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 24 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 13 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 44 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 32 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 24 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 44 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 18 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 30 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 51 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 1 year younger
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 32 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 5 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 19 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 15 years younger
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 16 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 13 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 27 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 15 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 18 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 27 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 55 years younger
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 56 years younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 10 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 3 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 24 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 45 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 62 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 8 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 26 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 0, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 2, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 2, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 2, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 5, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 9, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 11, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 12, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 15, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 19, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 31, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 34, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 40, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 40, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 41, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 42, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 43, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 43, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 44, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 45, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 54, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 55, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 59, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 62, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 62, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 65, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 67, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 67, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 68, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 71, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 71, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 73, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 74, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 75, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 79, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 79, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 83, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 87, Eastern Europe & Russia