Otto III
980 – 1002 · 22 years · Rome · Europe
Reign: 983 – 1002 (Holy Roman Empire & Austria)
King at three and emperor in 996, he proclaimed a "renewal of the Roman Empire", settled in Rome, visited Gniezno in 1000 and opened Charlemagne's tomb in Aachen; he died aged 21.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 14 years older
- Hugh Capet — founder of the Capetian dynasty, 40 years older
- Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 8 years older
- Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, 7 years older
- Conrad II — first Salian emperor, who added the Kingdom of Burgundy to the empire, 10 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 20 years older
- Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 2 years older
- Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, born the same year
Middle East
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, born the same year
- Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 40 years older
Asia
- Murasaki Shikibu — novelist, author of The Tale of Genji, 7 years older
- Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, 14 years older
- Al-Biruni — polymath, 7 years older
Americas
- Leif Erikson — Norse explorer, 10 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 20, Africa
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 20, Europe