Martin Luther King Jr.

Associated Press · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

minister and civil rights leader

1929 – 1968 · 39 years · Atlanta · Americas

Leader of the US civil rights movement and advocate of nonviolence; gave the 'I Have a Dream' speech; Nobel Peace laureate.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: Associated Press · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 48 years older
Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 55 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 50 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 40 years older
Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 3 years older
Alan Turing — mathematician, father of computer science, 17 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 5 years younger
Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 51 years older
Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 35 years older
Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 23 years older
Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 23 years older
Anna Akhmatova — poet, 40 years older

Middle East

Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 31 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 11 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 31 years older
Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 18 years older
Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 27 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 11 years older
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 37 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 4 years older
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 23 years older
Kwame Nkrumah — first President of Ghana, 20 years older
Julius Nyerere — first president of Tanzania, 7 years older

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 36 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 60 years older
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 39 years older
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 28 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 28 years older
Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 19 years older

Americas

Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 40 years older
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 1 year younger
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 73 years older
Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 45 years older
Dwight D. Eisenhower — 34th US president, commander of the Normandy landings, 39 years older
Jorge Luis Borges — writer, 30 years older

Oceania

Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 31 years older
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 10 years older
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 7 years younger
Don Bradman — cricketer, 21 years older
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 29 years older
Albert Namatjira — painter, 27 years older

The world in their lifetime

1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 0, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — aged 1, Americas
1931 China floods — aged 2, Asia
1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1930–1933 — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 3, Middle East
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 4, Europe
1934–1935 Long March — aged 5, Asia
1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 6, Africa
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 7, Europe
1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 7, Oceania
1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 7, Europe
1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 9, Europe
1938 Munich Agreement — aged 9, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 10, Whole world
1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 12, Europe
1941 German invasion of the USSR — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — aged 12, Oceania
1941–1942 Battle of Moscow — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 13, Eastern Europe & Russia
1942 The Battle of Midway — aged 13, Oceania
1943 Battle of Kursk — aged 14, Eastern Europe & Russia
1944 D-Day: Normandy landings — aged 15, Europe
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 16, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Founding of the United Nations — aged 16, Whole world
1945 ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer — aged 16, Americas
1945 Indonesia proclaims independence — aged 16, Asia
1945 Yalta Conference — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945–1946 Nuremberg trials — aged 16, Europe
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 18, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 19, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 20, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 24, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 24, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 28, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 32, Eastern Europe & Russia