Lu Xun
1881 – 1936 · 55 years · Shanghai · Asia
Founder of modern Chinese literature, author of 'A Madman's Diary' and 'The True Story of Ah Q'.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 7 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 2 years older
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, born the same year
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 14 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 8 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 62 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 3 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 11 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 53 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 47 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 41 years older
- Ivan Pavlov — physiologist, Nobel laureate, 32 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, born the same year
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 20 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 17 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 39 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 37 years younger
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 17 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 37 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 11 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 37 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 44 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 6 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 41 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 12 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 12 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 20 years older
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 8 years younger
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 9 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 2 years older
Americas
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 25 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 34 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 8 years younger
- Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 18 years older
- Franklin D. Roosevelt — 32nd President of the United States, 1 year younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 3 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 10 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 17 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 38 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 1 year younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 34 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 20 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 2, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 3, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 4, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 4, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 4, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 5, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 5, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 7, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 8, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 8, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 10, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 12, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 12, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 13, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 13, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 14, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 14, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 15, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 16, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 20, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 22, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 23, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 24, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — aged 24, Middle East
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 27, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 33, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 33, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 34, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 35, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 37, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 38, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 47, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 48, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 48, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 52, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 55, Europe