James Buchanan
.jpg?width=160 "From Brady daguerreotype (Mathew Brady) (1822-1896) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1791 – 1868 · 77 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1857 – 1861 (US presidents)
The only US president who never married. He failed to stop the nation's breakup: by the end of his term seven Southern states had seceded and formed the Confederacy.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: From Brady daguerreotype (Mathew Brady) (1822-1896) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 18 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 27 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 28 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 42 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 21 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 22 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 30 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 37 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 8 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 43 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 49 years younger
- Nicholas I — emperor who crushed the Decembrist revolt, 5 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 6 years older
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 32 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 51 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 39 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 53 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 30 years older
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 22 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 22 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 4 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 53 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 5 years older
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 13 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 31 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 18 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 46 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 61 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 2 years younger
- Tokugawa Iesada — shogun under whom Japan opened its ports to the West, 33 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 18 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 8 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 56 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 65 years younger
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 15 years younger
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 13 years older
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 33 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 21 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 24 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 19 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 47 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 53 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — aged 0, Americas
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 5, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 7, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 12, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 13, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 13, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 13, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 14, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 14, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 19, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 23, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 24, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 24, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 25, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 26, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 26, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 28, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 31, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 37, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 40, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 42, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 44, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 44, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 47, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 48, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 48, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 48, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 48, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 54, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 55, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 55, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 56, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 57, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 57, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 60, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 62, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 62, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 68, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 70, Europe