Nâzım Hikmet
.jpg?width=160 "Hans-Joachim Koch · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons")
1902 – 1963 · 61 years · Istanbul · Middle East
Turkish poet and playwright who renewed Turkish verse; spent years in prison and his last years in Moscow.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Hans-Joachim Koch · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 28 years older
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 21 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 23 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 13 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 35 years older
- George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 7 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 24 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 32 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 32 years older
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, 13 years older
- Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 8 years older
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 4 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 21 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 4 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 16 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 41 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 60 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 4 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 16 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 10 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 23 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 58 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 27 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 4 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 9 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 33 years older
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 13 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 12 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 1 year older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 1 year older
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 13 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 46 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 27 years younger
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 28 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 55 years older
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 18 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 31 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 4 years older
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 17 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 34 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 2 years older
- Albert Namatjira — painter, born the same year
The world in their lifetime
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 1, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 2, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 3, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — aged 3, Middle East
- 1906 San Francisco earthquake — aged 4, Americas
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 6, Middle East
- 1908 Tunguska event — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — aged 6, Middle East
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — aged 8, Americas
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — aged 9, Asia
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — aged 9, Oceania
- 1912–1913 Balkan Wars — aged 10, Europe
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 12, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 12, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 13, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 14, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 16, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 17, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 26, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 27, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 31, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 34, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 34, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 37, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 39, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 43, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 43, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 45, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 46, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 47, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 51, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 51, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia