Jacques Derrida
1930 – 2004 · 74 years · Paris · Europe
Philosophy: Postmodern philosophy
The creator of deconstruction, a way of reading that exposes hidden oppositions and contradictions in a text. Born in Algeria; Of Grammatology (1967) made him one of the most debated thinkers of the 20th century.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Pablosecca · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 49 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 56 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 51 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 41 years older
- Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 4 years older
- Jean-Paul Sartre — French philosopher and writer, 25 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 4 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 52 years older
- Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 1 year younger
- Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 1 year younger
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 24 years older
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 24 years older
Middle East
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 32 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 12 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 19 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 32 years older
- Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 28 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 12 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 38 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 5 years older
- Chinua Achebe — novelist, born the same year
- Miriam Makeba — singer, 2 years younger
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 24 years older
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 37 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 61 years older
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 20 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 29 years older
- Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 13 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 29 years older
Americas
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, born the same year
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 41 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 1 year older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 74 years older
- Ronald Reagan — 40th US president, "Reaganomics" and the end of the Cold War, 19 years older
- Jimmy Carter — 39th US president, the Camp David Accords, 6 years older
Oceania
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 11 years older
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 6 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 32 years older
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 22 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 30 years older
- Albert Namatjira — painter, 28 years older
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — aged 0, Americas
- 1931 China floods — aged 1, Asia
- 1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1932–1933 — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 2, Middle East
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 3, Europe
- 1934–1935 Long March — aged 4, Asia
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 5, Africa
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 6, Europe
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 6, Oceania
- 1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 6, Europe
- 1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 8, Europe
- 1938 Munich Agreement — aged 8, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 9, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 11, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 15, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 17, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 18, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 19, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 23, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 23, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — aged 36, Asia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 39, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 40, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 45, Asia
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 50, Whole world
- 1981 AIDS first described — aged 51, Whole world
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 53, Americas
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — aged 59, Europe
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — aged 59, Europe
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 2001 September 11 attacks — aged 71, Americas
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — aged 74, Asia