Michel Foucault
1926 – 1984 · 58 years · Paris · Europe
Philosophy: Postmodern philosophy
Studied how knowledge and power shape ideas of madness, illness, crime and sexuality. His best-known books are History of Madness and Discipline and Punish.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 45 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 52 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 47 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 37 years older
- Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, born the same year
- Jean-Paul Sartre — French philosopher and writer, 21 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 8 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 48 years older
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 20 years older
- Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 5 years younger
- Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 5 years younger
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 20 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 45 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 28 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 8 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 15 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 28 years older
- Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 24 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 8 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 34 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 1 year older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 20 years older
- Julius Nyerere — first president of Tanzania, 4 years older
- Chinua Achebe — novelist, 4 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 33 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 57 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 25 years older
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 16 years older
- Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 9 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 25 years older
Americas
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 4 years younger
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 37 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 3 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 70 years older
- Jorge Luis Borges — writer, 27 years older
- Ronald Reagan — 40th US president, "Reaganomics" and the end of the Cold War, 15 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 55 years older
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 7 years older
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 10 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 28 years older
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 18 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 26 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 2, Europe
- 1928–1932 First Five-Year Plan: Soviet industrialisation — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 3, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — aged 4, Americas
- 1931 China floods — aged 5, Asia
- 1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1932–1933 — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 6, Middle East
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 7, Europe
- 1934–1935 Long March — aged 8, Asia
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 9, Africa
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 10, Europe
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 10, Oceania
- 1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 10, Europe
- 1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 12, Europe
- 1938 Munich Agreement — aged 12, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 13, Whole world
- 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 13, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 15, Europe
- 1941 German invasion of the USSR — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — aged 15, Oceania
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 19, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 21, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 22, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 23, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 27, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 27, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — aged 40, Asia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 43, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 44, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 49, Asia
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 54, Whole world
- 1981 AIDS first described — aged 55, Whole world
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 57, Americas