Joseph Stalin
1878 – 1953 · 75 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia
Reign: 1924 – 1953 (Rus and Russia)
Led the Soviet Union from the late 1920s until 1953, through industrialization, mass repression and the Second World War.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Ivan Shagin · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 4 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 1 year younger
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 3 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 11 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 11 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 59 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 8 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 50 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 44 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 56 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 38 years older
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, 11 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 3 years younger
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 20 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 17 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 36 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 40 years younger
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 20 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 40 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 14 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 34 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 47 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 3 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 28 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 9 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 15 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 11 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 17 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 12 years younger
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 23 years younger
Americas
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 22 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 11 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 31 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 51 years younger
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 52 years younger
- Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 15 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 7 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 20 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 41 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 58 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 4 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 31 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 0, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 1, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 1, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 5, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 6, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 7, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 7, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 7, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 8, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 8, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 10, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 11, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 15, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 27, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 30, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 36, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 36, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 37, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 38, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 40, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 41, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 50, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 51, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 51, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 55, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 58, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 58, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 61, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 63, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 63, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 64, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 67, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 67, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 69, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 70, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 71, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 75, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 75, Asia