James Cook
1728 – 1779 · 51 years · Botany Bay · Oceania
Made three Pacific voyages, charting New Zealand and Australia's east coast and reaching Hawaii, where he was killed.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Portrait: Nathaniel Dance-Holland · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Voltaire — French Enlightenment writer, 34 years older
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 21 years younger
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Austrian composer, 28 years younger
- Johann Sebastian Bach — German composer and organist, 43 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 41 years younger
- Frederick the Great — King of Prussia, 16 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Catherine the Great — Empress of Russia, 1 year younger
- Mikhail Lomonosov — Russian polymath, 17 years older
- Leonhard Euler — Swiss mathematician, 21 years older
- Alexander Suvorov — Russian generalissimo, 2 years younger
- Elizabeth — empress who founded Moscow University, 19 years older
- Peter III — emperor who freed the nobility from compulsory service, born the same year
Middle East
- Nader Shah — Shah of Iran and conqueror, 40 years older
- Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab — Islamic religious reformer, 25 years older
- Abdul Hamid I — sultan of the Küçük Kaynarca peace and the loss of Crimea, 3 years older
- Mustafa III — sultan who lost the war to Catherine II, 11 years older
- Osman III — sultan who spent 50 years in the 'cage', 29 years older
- Mahmud I — sultan who regained Belgrade by the 1739 peace, 32 years older
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 41 years younger
- Usman dan Fodio — founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, 26 years younger
Asia
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 17 years older
- Tipu Sultan — ruler of Mysore, 23 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshimune — reforming shogun who allowed Western books, 44 years older
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 32 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieharu — shogun of the Tanuma era and the Tenmei famine, 9 years younger
- Cao Xueqin — Chinese novelist, 13 years older
Americas
- Benjamin Franklin — American scientist and statesman, 22 years older
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 4 years younger
- Túpac Amaru II — leader of an Andean uprising, 10 years younger
- Thomas Jefferson — third President of the United States, 15 years younger
- Toussaint Louverture — leader of the Haitian Revolution, 15 years younger
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, 39 years younger
Oceania
- Tupaia — Tahitian navigator and priest, 3 years older
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 30 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 10 years younger
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 36 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani founds the Afghan state — aged 19, Middle East
- 1755 Lisbon earthquake — aged 27, Europe
- 1756–1763 Seven Years' War — aged 28, Europe
- 1757 Battle of Plassey — aged 29, Asia
- c. 1760 Start of the Industrial Revolution — aged 32, Europe
- 1762 Accession of Catherine the Great — aged 34, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1764 Founding of the Hermitage — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1768–1771 Cook's first voyage — aged 40, Oceania
- c. 1768 Extinction of Steller's sea cow — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1769 Watt's steam engine — aged 41, Europe
- 1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — aged 44, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1776 US Declaration of Independence — aged 48, Americas