Jorge Luis Borges
.jpg?width=160 "Grete Stern · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1899 – 1986 · 87 years · Buenos Aires · Americas
An Argentine master of labyrinthine stories about infinite libraries and mirrors; he directed the National Library after going blind.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Grete Stern · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 18 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 25 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 20 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 10 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 32 years older
- Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 27 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 21 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 35 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 29 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 71 years older
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 7 years younger
- Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 5 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 18 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 1 year older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 19 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 38 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 57 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 1 year older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 19 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 7 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 26 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 55 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 7 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 24 years older
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 6 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 30 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 2 years younger
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 11 years younger
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 9 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 2 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 10 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 31 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 43 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 30 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 52 years older
- Ronald Reagan — 40th US president, "Reaganomics" and the end of the Cold War, 12 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 28 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 1 year older
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 20 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 37 years younger
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 9 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 1 year younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 2, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 4, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 5, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 6, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — aged 6, Middle East
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 9, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 15, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 15, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 16, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 17, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 19, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 20, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 29, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 30, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 30, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 34, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 37, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 40, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 42, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 42, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 43, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 46, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 46, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 48, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 49, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 50, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 54, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 54, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 58, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 62, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 70, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 71, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 76, Asia
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 81, Whole world
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 84, Americas
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 86, Eastern Europe & Russia