John II the Good
1319 – 1364 · 45 years · Paris · Europe
Reign: 1350 – 1364 (Franks and France)
Captured by the Black Prince at Poitiers in 1356; the franc was first minted to pay his ransom. When the son left as a hostage escaped, the king returned to captivity himself and died in London.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 14th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Edward III — king who began the Hundred Years' War and won at Crécy, 7 years older
- Charles IV — emperor who made Prague an imperial capital and issued the Golden Bull, 3 years older
- Petrarch — humanist poet, 15 years older
- Philip VI — first Valois king, defeated at Crécy, 26 years older
- Louis the Bavarian — emperor excommunicated by the pope and crowned in Rome without him, 37 years older
- Charles V the Wise — king who regained most of what was lost in the Hundred Years’ War, 19 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Sergius of Radonezh — saint and abbot, 5 years older
- Ivan Kalita — prince who began the gathering of Russian lands around Moscow, 31 years older
- Dmitry Donskoy — Grand Prince of Moscow, 31 years younger
- Simeon the Proud — grand prince "of all Rus" who died of the plague, 3 years older
- Ivan II the Fair — grand prince of Moscow, father of Dmitry Donskoy, 7 years younger
Middle East
Africa
- Ibn Battuta — traveller, 15 years older
- Ibn Khaldun — historian and thinker, 13 years younger
- Mansa Musa — ruler of the Mali Empire, 39 years older
Asia
- Timur — emir and conqueror, 17 years younger
- Ashikaga Takauji — founder of the Muromachi shogunate who turned on Go-Daigo, 14 years older
- Emperor Go-Daigo — emperor who overthrew the Kamakura shogunate, 31 years older
- Gajah Mada — prime minister of Majapahit, 29 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshiakira — second Ashikaga shogun, who held Kyoto against the Southern Court, 11 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1324 Hajj of Mansa Musa — aged 5, Africa
- c. 1325 Founding of Tenochtitlan — aged 6, Americas
- c. 1327 The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu — aged 8, Africa
- 1337–1453 Hundred Years' War — aged 18, Europe
- c. 1337 Sergius of Radonezh founds his monastery — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1347–1351 Black Death — aged 28, Europe