John Quincy Adams
1767 – 1848 · 81 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1825 – 1829 (US presidents)
Son of John Adams and the first US minister to Russia. He won the presidency after the 1824 election was decided by the House; he then served 17 years in Congress, fighting slavery and defending the Amistad captives.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Portrait: jklamo Cleaned and enhanced by Julielangford · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 18 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 3 years younger
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 2 years younger
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 42 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 51 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 52 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 32 years younger
- Catherine the Great — Empress of Russia, 38 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 54 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 61 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 67 years younger
- Nicholas I — emperor who crushed the Decembrist revolt, 29 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 18 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 56 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 6 years older
- Mustafa IV — sultan who overthrew the reformer Selim III, 12 years younger
- Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab — Islamic religious reformer, 64 years older
- Abdul Hamid I — sultan of the Küçük Kaynarca peace and the loss of Crimea, 42 years older
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 2 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 20 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 46 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 11 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 19 years younger
- Usman dan Fodio — founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, 13 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 7 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 6 years younger
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 56 years older
- Tipu Sultan — ruler of Mysore, 16 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 70 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 26 years younger
Americas
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 16 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 42 years younger
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 35 years older
- Benjamin Franklin — American scientist and statesman, 61 years older
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, born the same year
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 11 years younger
Oceania
- James Cook — British navigator, 39 years older
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 9 years older
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 5 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 29 years older
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 3 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 45 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1768–1771 Cook's first voyage — aged 1, Oceania
- c. 1768 Extinction of Steller's sea cow — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1769 Watt's steam engine — aged 2, Europe
- 1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1776 US Declaration of Independence — aged 9, Americas
- 1783–1784 Laki eruption — aged 16, Europe
- 1783 Russian annexation of Crimea (1783) — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1783 First manned balloon flight — aged 16, Europe
- 1787 US Constitution — aged 20, Americas
- 1788 First Fleet arrives in Australia — aged 21, Oceania
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — aged 22, Europe
- 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — aged 22, Europe
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — aged 24, Americas
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 29, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 31, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 36, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 37, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 37, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 37, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 38, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 38, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 43, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 47, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 48, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 48, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 49, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 50, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 50, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 52, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 55, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 61, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 64, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 66, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 68, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 68, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 71, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 72, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 72, Europe
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 78, Europe