Ivan the Terrible
1530 – 1584 · 54 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia
Reign: 1533 – 1584 (Rus and Russia)
First ruler crowned Tsar of All Russia. Conquered Kazan and Astrakhan, unleashed the Oprichnina terror and waged the long Livonian War.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 3 years younger
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 17 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 55 years older
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 34 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 34 years younger
- Martin Luther — church reformer, 47 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 2 years younger
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 22 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 22 years younger
- Feodor I — last Rurikid tsar, under whom the Moscow Patriarchate was founded, 27 years younger
Middle East
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 6 years older
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 36 years older
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 25 years older
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 41 years younger
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 4 years older
- Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 16 years younger
Africa
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 19 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 26 years younger
- Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi — Adal imam and general, 24 years older
Asia
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 12 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyasu — first Tokugawa shogun, 13 years younger
- Oda Nobunaga — Japanese warlord, 4 years younger
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 7 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 7 years younger
- Yi Sun-sin — Korean admiral, 15 years younger
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 46 years older
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 45 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 9 years younger
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 37 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1532 Capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca — aged 2, Americas
- 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome — aged 4, Europe
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — aged 12, Americas
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — aged 13, Europe
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — aged 15, Americas
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 25, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 26, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 26, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 41, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 42, Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — aged 52, Europe
- 1582 Yermak's conquest of Sibir — aged 52, Eastern Europe & Russia