Mikhail Skobelev
1843 – 1882 · 39 years · Saint Petersburg · Eastern Europe & Russia
Called the 'White General' for his white uniform and white horse, he made his name in the Central Asian campaigns and in the 1877–78 war that freed Bulgaria, at Plevna and Sheinovo. He died suddenly in a Moscow hotel at 38.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 34 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 25 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 24 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 10 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 24 years younger
- Victor Hugo — novelist and poet, 41 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 15 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 9 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 3 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 22 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 27 years younger
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 25 years older
Middle East
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 1 year older
- Sergei Witte — finance minister, first chairman of the Council of Ministers, 6 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 18 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 20 years older
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 1 year younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 13 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 1 year younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 30 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 15 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 3 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 8 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 57 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 26 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 6 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 9 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 18 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 23 years younger
- Empress Dowager Cixi — Empress Dowager of China, 8 years older
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 4 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 13 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 34 years older
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 21 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 8 years older
- John D. Rockefeller — industrialist, founder of Standard Oil, 4 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 28 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 28 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 5 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 4 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 31 years older
- Ned Kelly — bushranger and Australian folk hero, 11 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 2, Europe
- 1846 First surgery under ether — aged 3, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 3, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 4, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 5, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 5, Europe
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — aged 7, Asia
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 8, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 10, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1856–1860 Second Opium War — aged 13, Asia
- 1858 Treaty of Aigun — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 16, Europe
- 1859 Imam Shamil surrenders at Gunib — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 18, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 18, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 20, Americas
- 1863 Battle of Gettysburg — aged 20, Americas
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 21, Americas
- 1865 Assassination of Abraham Lincoln — aged 22, Americas
- 1866 Austro-Prussian War — aged 23, Europe
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 24, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 25, Asia
- 1868 Russia conquers Samarkand from Bukhara — aged 25, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 26, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 26, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 27, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 28, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 28, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 31, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 33, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 33, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 33, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 34, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 — aged 34, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 36, Americas