Oda Nobunaga
1534 – 1582 · 48 years · Kyoto · Asia
Reign: 1573 – 1582 (Japan: shoguns & emperors)
First of Japan's three great unifiers, who pioneered mass use of firearms and conquered central Japan before dying in a betrayal.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: 狩野宗秀 (Kanō Sōshū, 1551 - 1601) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 1 year older
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 13 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 59 years older
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 30 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 30 years younger
- Martin Luther — church reformer, 51 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 4 years older
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 2 years older
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 18 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 18 years younger
- Feodor I — last Rurikid tsar, under whom the Moscow Patriarchate was founded, 23 years younger
Middle East
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 10 years older
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 40 years older
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 29 years older
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 37 years younger
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 8 years older
- Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 12 years younger
Africa
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 15 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 22 years younger
Asia
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 8 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyasu — first Tokugawa shogun, 9 years younger
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 3 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 3 years younger
- Yi Sun-sin — Korean admiral, 11 years younger
- Matteo Ricci — Jesuit missionary in China, 18 years younger
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 50 years older
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 49 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 5 years younger
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 33 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome — aged 0, Europe
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — aged 8, Americas
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — aged 9, Europe
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — aged 11, Americas
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — aged 13, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 22, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 22, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 37, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 38, Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — aged 48, Europe
- 1582 Yermak's conquest of Sibir — aged 48, Eastern Europe & Russia