Kaspar Hauser
c. 1812 – 1833 · 21 years · Nuremberg · Europe
In 1828 he turned up in a Nuremberg street as a teenager who could barely speak, saying he had grown up in a dark cell. Five years later he died of a stab wound; the theory that he was a stolen heir of Baden was ruled out by DNA in 2024.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 3 years older
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 63 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 42 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 6 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 7 years younger
- Francis II — last Holy Roman Emperor, who dissolved the empire in 1806, 44 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 13 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 9 years younger
- Nicholas I — emperor who crushed the Decembrist revolt, 16 years older
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 6 years younger
- Alexander I — emperor who defeated Napoleon, 35 years older
- Pyotr Chaadayev — Russian philosopher, 18 years older
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 27 years older
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 11 years younger
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 43 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 1 year younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 25 years older
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 34 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 26 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 52 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 39 years older
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died soon after the Black Ships arrived, 19 years older
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 3 years older
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 29 years older
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, 45 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 34 years older
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 6 years older
- Edgar Allan Poe — writer and poet, 3 years older
Oceania
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, born the same year
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 3 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 40 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1812 Battle of Borodino — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1812–1815 War of 1812 — aged 0, Americas
- 1813 Battle of Leipzig — aged 1, Europe
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 2, Europe
- 1814 Napoleon abdicates — aged 2, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 3, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 3, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 4, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 5, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 5, Americas
- 1817–1864 Start of the Caucasian War — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 7, Asia
- 1821–1829 Greek War of Independence — aged 9, Europe
- 1821 Mexican independence — aged 9, Americas
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 10, Americas
- 1823 Monroe Doctrine — aged 11, Americas
- 1824 Battle of Ayacucho — aged 12, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 16, Middle East
- 1830 July Revolution — aged 18, Europe
- 1830 Belgian Revolution — aged 18, Europe
- 1830 France invades Algiers — aged 18, Africa
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 19, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 21, Europe