Rafael Trujillo

dictator of the Dominican Republic

1891 – 1961 · 70 years · San Cristóbal · Americas

He ruled the Dominican Republic for 31 years and renamed the capital, Santo Domingo, Ciudad Trujillo. In 1937 his army killed 17,000–35,000 Haitians on his orders in the Parsley Massacre; he was killed in an ambush by conspirators in 1961.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 17 years older
Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 10 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 12 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 2 years older
Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 24 years older
Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 72 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Georgy Zhukov — Marshal of the Soviet Union, 5 years younger
Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 13 years older
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 21 years older
Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 43 years younger
Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 63 years older
Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 57 years older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 10 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 7 years younger
Richard Sorge — Soviet intelligence officer, 4 years younger
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 27 years younger
Vladimir Mayakovsky — Futurist poet, 2 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 30 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 27 years younger
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 1 year younger
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 34 years younger
Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 47 years older
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 16 years older
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 15 years younger

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 2 years younger
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 22 years older
Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 2 years older
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 1 year older
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 10 years younger
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 10 years younger

Americas

Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 2 years older
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 35 years older
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 44 years older
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 38 years younger
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 39 years younger
Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 7 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 20 years older
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 7 years younger
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 28 years younger
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 45 years younger
Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 9 years older
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 9 years younger

The world in their lifetime

1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 0, Asia
1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 2, Oceania
1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 2, Oceania
1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 3, Asia
1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 3, Asia
1894–1906 Dreyfus affair — aged 3, Europe
1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 4, Europe
1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 5, Asia
1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 6, Africa
1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 14, Europe
1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 17, Middle East
1914–1918 World War I — aged 23, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 23, Americas
1914 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand — aged 23, Europe
1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 24, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 25, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 27, Whole world
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 28, Europe
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 37, Europe
1929 Wall Street Crash — aged 38, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 38, Eastern Europe & Russia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 42, Europe
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 45, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 48, Whole world
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 50, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 50, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 51, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 54, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 54, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 56, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 57, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 58, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 62, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 62, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 66, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 70, Eastern Europe & Russia