John Stuart Mill
1806 – 1873 · 67 years · London · Europe
Philosophy: Utilitarianism, Positivism
Developed Bentham's utilitarianism and wrote On Liberty (1859): power may be used against an individual only to prevent harm to others. One of the first MPs to call for votes for women.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: London Stereoscopic Company · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 3 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 12 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 13 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 57 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 36 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 47 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 15 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 22 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 28 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 34 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 7 years older
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 12 years younger
Middle East
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 17 years younger
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 21 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 36 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 55 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 24 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 38 years younger
Africa
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 7 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 37 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 38 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 19 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 20 years older
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 28 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 46 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 31 years younger
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 33 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 46 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 55 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 13 years older
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 3 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 41 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 23 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 50 years younger
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, born the same year
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 16 years younger
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 48 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 6 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 9 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 32 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 41 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 34 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 4, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 8, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 9, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 9, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 10, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 11, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 11, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 13, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 16, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 22, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 25, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 27, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 29, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 29, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 32, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 33, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 33, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 33, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 33, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 39, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 40, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 40, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 41, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 42, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 42, Europe
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — aged 44, Asia
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 45, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 47, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 53, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 55, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 55, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 57, Americas
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — aged 58, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 58, Americas
- 1865 Assassination of Abraham Lincoln — aged 59, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 61, Americas