Marie Curie

physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate

1867 – 1934 · 67 years · Paris · Europe

Pioneer of radioactivity who discovered polonium and radium; the first woman Nobel laureate and the only person to win in two sciences.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century

Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 7 years younger
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 12 years younger
Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 14 years younger
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 22 years younger
Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 48 years older
Vincent van Gogh — painter, 14 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 11 years younger
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 3 years younger
Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 39 years older
Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 33 years older
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 27 years older
Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 46 years older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 14 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 6 years older
Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 25 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 31 years younger
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 51 years younger
Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 23 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 51 years younger
Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 23 years older
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 25 years younger
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 8 years younger
Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 27 years older
Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 16 years older

Asia

Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 2 years younger
Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 26 years younger
Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 6 years older
Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 1 year older
Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 12 years younger
Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 30 years older

Americas

Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 11 years older
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 20 years older
Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 22 years younger
Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 4 years older
Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 11 years older
Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 20 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 4 years younger
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 31 years younger
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 52 years younger
Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 20 years older
Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 6 years older
Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 15 years younger

The world in their lifetime

1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 0, Americas
1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 1, Asia
1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 2, Africa
1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 2, Americas
1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 3, Europe
1871 Unification of Germany — aged 4, Europe
1871 Paris Commune — aged 4, Europe
1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 7, Europe
1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 9, Americas
1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 9, Asia
1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 9, Middle East
1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 11, Europe
1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 12, Americas
1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 12, Africa
1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 16, Asia
1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 17, Europe
1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 18, Asia
1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 18, Africa
1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 18, Africa
1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 19, Europe
1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 19, Africa
1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 22, Europe
1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 26, Oceania
1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 38, Europe
1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 41, Middle East
1914–1918 World War I — aged 47, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 47, Americas
1915 Armenian genocide — aged 48, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 49, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 50, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 50, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 51, Whole world
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 52, Europe
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 61, Europe
1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 62, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 62, Eastern Europe & Russia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 66, Europe