Kwame Nkrumah

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USSR Post · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

first President of Ghana

1909 – 1972 · 63 years · Accra · Africa

Led Ghana to independence in 1957, the first in sub-Saharan Africa, and championed Pan-Africanism.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: USSR Post · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 28 years older
Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 35 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 30 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 20 years older
Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 42 years older
Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 17 years younger

Eastern Europe & Russia

Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 31 years older
Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 25 years younger
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 39 years older
Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 3 years older
Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 3 years older
Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 15 years older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 28 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 11 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 9 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 48 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 11 years older
Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 2 years younger

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 9 years younger
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 17 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 16 years younger
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 3 years older
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 34 years older
Julius Nyerere — first president of Tanzania, 13 years younger

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 16 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 40 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 8 years older
Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 1 year younger
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 8 years older
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 19 years older

Americas

Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 20 years older
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 21 years younger
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 20 years younger
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 53 years older
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 62 years older
Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 25 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 38 years older
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 11 years older
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 10 years younger
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 27 years younger
Don Bradman — cricketer, 1 year older
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 9 years older

The world in their lifetime

1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — aged 1, Americas
1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — aged 2, Asia
1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — aged 2, Oceania
1912–1913 Balkan Wars — aged 3, Europe
1912 The death of Scott's polar party — aged 3, Oceania
1913 Ford's moving assembly line — aged 4, Americas
1914–1918 World War I — aged 5, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 5, Americas
1914 Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon — aged 5, Americas
1915 Armenian genocide — aged 6, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 7, Middle East
1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — aged 7, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917 February Revolution — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 9, Whole world
1918 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — aged 9, Europe
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 10, Europe
1920 League of Nations founded — aged 11, Whole world
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 19, Europe
1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 20, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 20, Eastern Europe & Russia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 24, Europe
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 27, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 30, Whole world
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 32, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 32, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 36, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 38, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 39, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 40, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 44, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 44, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 48, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 52, Eastern Europe & Russia
1969 Moon landing — aged 60, Americas
c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 61, Americas