Nicholas I
1796 – 1855 · 59 years · Saint Petersburg · Eastern Europe & Russia
Reign: 1825 – 1855 (Rus and Russia)
He began his reign by crushing the Decembrist revolt. He strengthened autocracy and bureaucracy; his reign produced the Digest of Laws and the first railway, and he died amid the losing Crimean War.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Franz Krüger · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 13 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 22 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 47 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 23 years younger
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 26 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 27 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 3 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 25 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 32 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 38 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 44 years younger
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 22 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 11 years older
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 27 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 46 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 34 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 35 years older
- Mustafa IV — sultan who overthrew the reformer Selim III, 17 years older
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 27 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 17 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 9 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 48 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 18 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 10 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 36 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 23 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 41 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 3 years older
- Tokugawa Iesada — shogun under whom Japan opened its ports to the West, 28 years younger
- Empress Dowager Cixi — Empress Dowager of China, 39 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 13 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 13 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 18 years older
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, 29 years older
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 10 years younger
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 26 years younger
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 38 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 16 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 19 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 24 years older
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 58 years older
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 32 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 0, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 2, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 7, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 8, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 8, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 8, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 9, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 9, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 14, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 18, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 19, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 19, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 20, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 21, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 21, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 23, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 26, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 32, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 35, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 37, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 39, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 39, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 42, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 43, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 43, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 43, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 43, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 49, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 50, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 50, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 51, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 52, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 52, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 55, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 57, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia