Pyotr Smirnov
1831 – 1898 · 67 years · Kayurovo (Yaroslavl Governorate) · Eastern Europe & Russia
Born to serfs and freed in 1857, he opened a vodka distillery in Moscow and became Russia's 'vodka king' and a purveyor to the Imperial court. The Smirnoff brand was later created by his son Vladimir.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 12 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 13 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 22 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 22 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 36 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 43 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 3 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 3 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 9 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 10 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 39 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 47 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 50 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 11 years younger
- Sergei Witte — finance minister, first chairman of the Council of Ministers, 18 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 30 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 8 years older
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 13 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 13 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 18 years older
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 62 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 3 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 9 years younger
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 20 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 38 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 6 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 21 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 30 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 35 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 48 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 16 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 25 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 22 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 4 years younger
- John D. Rockefeller — industrialist, founder of Standard Oil, 8 years younger
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 9 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 40 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 16 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 7 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 16 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 19 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 30 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 0, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 2, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 4, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 4, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 7, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 8, Asia
- 1839 The daguerreotype — aged 8, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 8, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 8, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 14, Europe
- 1846 First surgery under ether — aged 15, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 15, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 16, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 17, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 17, Europe
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — aged 19, Asia
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 20, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 22, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 22, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1856–1860 Second Opium War — aged 25, Asia
- 1858 Treaty of Aigun — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 28, Europe
- 1859 Imam Shamil surrenders at Gunib — aged 28, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 30, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 30, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 30, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 32, Americas
- 1863 Battle of Gettysburg — aged 32, Americas
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 33, Americas
- 1865 Assassination of Abraham Lincoln — aged 34, Americas
- 1866 Austro-Prussian War — aged 35, Europe
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 45, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 48, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 52, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 54, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 55, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 58, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 62, Oceania