José Rizal
1861 – 1896 · 35 years · Manila · Asia
Filipino writer and physician, author of Noli Me Tángere; executed by Spanish authorities and honoured as a national hero.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 42 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 8 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 6 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 43 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 13 years younger
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 52 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 33 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 27 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 21 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 9 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 40 years older
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 17 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 20 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 19 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, born the same year
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 17 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 31 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 17 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 48 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 33 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 21 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 10 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 14 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 8 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 24 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 9 years older
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, born the same year
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 5 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 18 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 14 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 5 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 26 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 14 years older
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 5 years older
- Theodore Roosevelt — 26th US president, the Panama Canal and trust-busting, 3 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 10 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 46 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 23 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 14 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, born the same year
- Ned Kelly — bushranger and Australian folk hero, 7 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 0, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 0, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 2, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 3, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 6, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 7, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 8, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 8, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 9, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 10, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 10, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 13, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 15, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 15, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 15, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 17, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 18, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 18, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 22, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 23, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 24, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 24, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 24, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 25, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 25, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 27, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 28, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 28, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 30, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 32, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 32, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 33, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 33, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 34, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 34, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 35, Asia