Li Shizhen
1518 – 1593 · 75 years · Qizhou · Asia
Spent nearly 30 years compiling the Bencao Gangmu, a vast materia medica describing almost 1,900 medicinal substances.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 15 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 43 years older
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 29 years younger
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 46 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 46 years younger
- Martin Luther — church reformer, 35 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 12 years younger
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 14 years younger
- Vasily III — grand prince who completed the unification of the Russian lands, 39 years older
- False Dmitry I — pretender who claimed to be Tsarevich Dmitry, 63 years younger
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 34 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 34 years younger
Middle East
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 6 years younger
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 24 years older
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 13 years older
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 53 years younger
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 8 years younger
- Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 28 years younger
Africa
- Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba — Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, 65 years younger
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 31 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 38 years younger
- Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi — Adal imam and general, 12 years older
- Askia Muhammad I — Emperor of Songhai, 75 years older
Asia
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 24 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyasu — first Tokugawa shogun, 25 years younger
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 19 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 19 years younger
- Oda Nobunaga — Japanese warlord, 16 years younger
- Yi Sun-sin — Korean admiral, 27 years younger
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 34 years older
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 33 years older
- Atahualpa — last Inca emperor, 16 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 21 years younger
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 49 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1519–1522 Magellan's circumnavigation — aged 1, Americas
- 1520–1566 Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent — aged 2, Middle East
- 1521 Fall of Tenochtitlan — aged 3, Americas
- 1526 First Battle of Panipat — aged 8, Asia
- 1526 Battle of Mohács — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1529–1543 Ahmad Gragn invades Ethiopia — aged 11, Africa
- 1532 Capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca — aged 14, Americas
- 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome — aged 16, Europe
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — aged 24, Americas
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — aged 25, Europe
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — aged 27, Americas
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 38, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 38, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 51, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 53, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 54, Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — aged 64, Europe
- 1582 Yermak's conquest of Sibir — aged 64, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — aged 70, Europe
- 1591 Battle of Tondibi and fall of Songhai — aged 73, Africa
- 1592–1598 Imjin War — aged 74, Asia