Nikita Khrushchev
1894 – 1971 · 77 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia
Reign: 1953 – 1964 (Rus and Russia)
First Secretary of the Communist Party. His 1956 Secret Speech at the 20th Congress denounced Stalin and began the Thaw; his era saw Sputnik, Gagarin's flight and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was ousted in 1964.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: TASS / distributed by Associated Press · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 13 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 20 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 15 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 5 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 27 years older
- George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 1 year younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 16 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 40 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 24 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 66 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 60 years older
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, 5 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 13 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 4 years younger
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 24 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 33 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 52 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 4 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 24 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 2 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 31 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 50 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 19 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 12 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 1 year older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 25 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 4 years older
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 5 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 7 years younger
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 7 years younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 5 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 38 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 36 years younger
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 35 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 47 years older
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 10 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 23 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 4 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 25 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 42 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 6 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 12 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 0, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 0, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 1, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 2, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 3, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 7, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 9, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 10, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 11, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 14, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 20, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 20, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 21, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 22, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 24, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 25, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 34, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 35, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 39, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 42, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 42, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 45, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 47, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 48, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 51, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 51, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 53, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 54, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 55, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 59, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 59, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 63, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 67, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 75, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 76, Americas