Moshoeshoe I
c. 1786 – 1870 · 84 years · Thaba Bosiu · Africa
Gathered scattered clans into the Basotho nation on the fortress mountain of Thaba Bosiu and won a British protectorate that saved Lesotho from the Boers.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 23 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 32 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 33 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 37 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 16 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 17 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 35 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 42 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 13 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 48 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 54 years younger
- Catherine the Great — Empress of Russia, 57 years older
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 1 year older
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 37 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 56 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 44 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 58 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 25 years older
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 17 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 27 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 1 year younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 58 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 8 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 42 years younger
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 26 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 13 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 51 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 66 years younger
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 75 years older
- Tipu Sultan — ruler of Mysore, 35 years older
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 23 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 3 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 61 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 70 years younger
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 54 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 8 years older
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 28 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 26 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 29 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 14 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 52 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 48 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1787 US Constitution — aged 1, Americas
- 1788 First Fleet arrives in Australia — aged 2, Oceania
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — aged 3, Europe
- 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — aged 3, Europe
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — aged 5, Americas
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 10, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 12, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 17, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 18, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 18, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 18, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 19, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 19, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 24, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 28, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 29, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 29, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 30, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 31, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 31, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 33, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 36, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 42, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 45, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 47, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 49, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 49, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 52, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 53, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 53, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 53, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 53, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 59, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 60, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 60, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 61, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 62, Europe
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 67, Asia
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 75, Europe