Muhammad Ali of Egypt
1769 – 1849 · 80 years · Cairo · Africa
Albanian officer who became pasha of Egypt, modernising its army, economy and schools and founding a dynasty that ruled until 1952.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Portrait: Auguste Couder · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 20 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 1 year younger
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, born the same year
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 40 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 49 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 50 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 30 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 52 years younger
- Catherine the Great — Empress of Russia, 40 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 59 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 65 years younger
- Nicholas I — emperor who crushed the Decembrist revolt, 27 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 16 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 54 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 8 years older
- Mustafa IV — sultan who overthrew the reformer Selim III, 10 years younger
- Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab — Islamic religious reformer, 66 years older
- Abdul Hamid I — sultan of the Küçük Kaynarca peace and the loss of Crimea, 44 years older
Africa
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 18 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 44 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 9 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 17 years younger
- Usman dan Fodio — founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, 15 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 59 years younger
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 9 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 4 years younger
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 58 years older
- Tipu Sultan — ruler of Mysore, 18 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 68 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 24 years younger
Americas
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 14 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 40 years younger
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 37 years older
- Benjamin Franklin — American scientist and statesman, 63 years older
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, 2 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 9 years younger
Oceania
- James Cook — British navigator, 41 years older
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 11 years older
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 3 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 31 years older
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 5 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 43 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1769 Watt's steam engine — aged 0, Europe
- 1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1776 US Declaration of Independence — aged 7, Americas
- 1783–1784 Laki eruption — aged 14, Europe
- 1783 Russian annexation of Crimea (1783) — aged 14, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1783 First manned balloon flight — aged 14, Europe
- 1787 US Constitution — aged 18, Americas
- 1788 First Fleet arrives in Australia — aged 19, Oceania
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — aged 20, Europe
- 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — aged 20, Europe
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — aged 22, Americas
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 27, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 29, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 34, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 35, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 35, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 35, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 36, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 36, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 41, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 43, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 45, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 46, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 46, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 47, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 48, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 48, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 50, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 53, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 59, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 62, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 64, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 66, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 66, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 69, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 70, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 70, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 70, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 70, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 76, Europe