Leif Erikson
c. 970 – 1020 · 50 years · Vinland (Newfoundland) · Americas
Icelandic Norseman who reached North America around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before Columbus.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Portrait: Mulad · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 4 years older
- Hugh Capet — founder of the Capetian dynasty, 30 years older
- Cnut the Great — Danish king who ruled a North Sea empire, 25 years younger
- Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 33 years younger
- Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 2 years younger
- Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, 3 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 10 years older
- Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 8 years younger
- Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, 10 years younger
Middle East
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, 10 years younger
- Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 30 years older
Asia
- Murasaki Shikibu — novelist, author of The Tale of Genji, 3 years younger
- Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, 4 years older
- Al-Biruni — polymath, 3 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 972 Al-Azhar Mosque opens — aged 2, Africa
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 30, Africa
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 30, Europe
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — aged 36, Africa
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — aged 40, Asia