Mansa Musa

ruler of the Mali Empire

c. 1280 – 1337 · 57 years · Timbuktu · Africa

Malian ruler often called the richest person in history; his gold-laden pilgrimage to Mecca crashed prices in Cairo.

Portrait: Cresques Abraham · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Dante Alighieri — poet, author of the Divine Comedy, 15 years older
Philip IV the Fair — king who destroyed the Knights Templar, 12 years older
Edward I Longshanks — conqueror of Wales, called the Hammer of the Scots, 41 years older
Edward III — king who began the Hundred Years' War and won at Crécy, 32 years younger
Charles IV — emperor who made Prague an imperial capital and issued the Golden Bull, 36 years younger
Rudolf I — first Habsburg king, who won Austria for his house, 62 years older

Ivan Kalita — prince who began the gathering of Russian lands around Moscow, 8 years younger
Sergius of Radonezh — saint and abbot, 34 years younger
Yury of Moscow — first Moscow prince to become grand prince of Vladimir, 1 year younger
Daniel of Moscow — first prince of Moscow, founder of the Moscow line of the Rurikids, 19 years older
Simeon the Proud — grand prince "of all Rus" who died of the plague, 36 years younger
Ivan II the Fair — grand prince of Moscow, father of Dmitry Donskoy, 46 years younger

Marco Polo — Venetian traveller, 26 years older
Kublai Khan — Great Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty, 65 years older
Emperor Go-Daigo — emperor who overthrew the Kamakura shogunate, 8 years younger
Ashikaga Takauji — founder of the Muromachi shogunate who turned on Go-Daigo, 25 years younger
Gajah Mada — prime minister of Majapahit, 10 years younger

c. 1280 Polynesians settle New Zealand — aged 0, Oceania
1281 Kamikaze, the divine wind — aged 1, Asia
1293 Founding of Majapahit — aged 13, Asia
c. 1300 Onset of the Little Ice Age — aged 20, Europe
1309–1377 Avignon Papacy — aged 29, Europe
1315–1317 Great Famine — aged 35, Europe
1324 Hajj of Mansa Musa — aged 44, Africa
c. 1325 Founding of Tenochtitlan — aged 45, Americas
c. 1327 The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu — aged 47, Africa
1337–1453 Hundred Years' War — aged 57, Europe
c. 1337 Sergius of Radonezh founds his monastery — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia