Miriam Makeba
1932 – 2008 · 76 years · Johannesburg · Africa
South African singer known as 'Mama Africa' who brought African music to the world and opposed apartheid.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Paul Weinberg · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 51 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 58 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 53 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 43 years older
- Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 6 years older
- Alan Turing — mathematician, father of computer science, 20 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 2 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 54 years older
- Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 1 year older
- Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 1 year older
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 26 years older
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 26 years older
Middle East
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 34 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 14 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 21 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 34 years older
- Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 30 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 14 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 40 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 7 years older
- Chinua Achebe — novelist, 2 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 26 years older
- Wangarĩ Maathai — environmentalist, Nobel laureate, 8 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 39 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 63 years older
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 22 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 31 years older
- Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 15 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 31 years older
Americas
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 2 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 43 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 3 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 76 years older
- Jimmy Carter — 39th US president, the Camp David Accords, 8 years older
- Fidel Castro — leader of Cuba, 6 years older
Oceania
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 13 years older
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 4 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 34 years older
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 24 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 32 years older
- Albert Namatjira — painter, 30 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1932–1933 Soviet famine of 1930–1933 — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — aged 0, Middle East
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 1, Europe
- 1934–1935 Long March — aged 2, Asia
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 3, Africa
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 4, Europe
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 4, Oceania
- 1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 4, Europe
- 1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 6, Europe
- 1938 Munich Agreement — aged 6, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 7, Whole world
- 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 9, Europe
- 1941 German invasion of the USSR — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — aged 9, Oceania
- 1941–1942 Battle of Moscow — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 13, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 13, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 15, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 16, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 17, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 21, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 21, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 25, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 37, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 38, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 43, Asia
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 48, Whole world
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 51, Americas
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 53, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — aged 57, Europe
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — aged 57, Europe
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 2001 September 11 attacks — aged 69, Americas
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — aged 72, Asia