Ludwig Wittgenstein
1889 – 1951 · 62 years · Cambridge · Europe
Saw philosophical problems as confusions of language: in the Tractatus, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"; in his later work, the meaning of a word is its use. Taught at Cambridge.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Moritz Nähr · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 15 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 10 years older
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 8 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, born the same year
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 22 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 70 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 11 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 19 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 61 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 55 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 45 years younger
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, born the same year
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 8 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 9 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 28 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 29 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 47 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 9 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 29 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 3 years younger
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 36 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 45 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 14 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 17 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 20 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 4 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, born the same year
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 1 year younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 28 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 12 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, born the same year
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 33 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 42 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 40 years younger
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 41 years younger
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 5 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 18 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 9 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 30 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 47 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 7 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 11 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 0, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 0, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 2, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 4, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 4, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 5, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 5, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 6, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 7, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 8, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 12, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 14, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 15, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 16, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 19, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 25, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 25, Americas
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 26, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 27, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 28, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 28, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 29, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 30, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 39, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 40, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 44, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 47, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 50, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 52, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 52, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 53, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 56, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 56, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 58, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 59, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 60, Whole world