Ranavalona I
1778 – 1861 · 83 years · Antananarivo · Africa
Ruled Madagascar for 33 years, expelling missionaries and repelling French and British attempts to control the island.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Portrait: Philippe-Auguste Ramanankirahina (1860-1915) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 29 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 31 years younger
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 8 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 9 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 40 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 41 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 43 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 21 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 50 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 56 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 62 years younger
- Catherine the Great — Empress of Russia, 49 years older
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 7 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 45 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 64 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 52 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 17 years older
- Mustafa IV — sultan who overthrew the reformer Selim III, 1 year younger
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 9 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 35 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 9 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 66 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 8 years younger
- Usman dan Fodio — founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, 24 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 18 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 5 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 59 years younger
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 67 years older
- Tipu Sultan — ruler of Mysore, 27 years older
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 15 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 31 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 5 years younger
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 46 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 69 years younger
- Benjamin Franklin — American scientist and statesman, 72 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, born the same year
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 20 years older
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 6 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 34 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 37 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 40 years older
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 14 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1783–1784 Laki eruption — aged 5, Europe
- 1783 Russian annexation of Crimea (1783) — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1783 First manned balloon flight — aged 5, Europe
- 1787 US Constitution — aged 9, Americas
- 1788 First Fleet arrives in Australia — aged 10, Oceania
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — aged 11, Europe
- 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — aged 11, Europe
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — aged 13, Americas
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 18, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 20, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 25, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 26, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 26, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 26, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 27, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 27, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 32, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 34, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 36, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 37, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 37, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 38, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 39, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 39, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 41, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 44, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 50, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 53, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 55, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 57, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 57, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 60, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 61, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 61, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 61, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 61, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 67, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 68, Americas
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 75, Asia
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 83, Europe