Sālote Tupou III
1900 – 1965 · 65 years · Nukuʻalofa · Oceania
Ruled Tonga for nearly half a century and kept it independent; the world took to her at Elizabeth II's coronation, riding through the rain in an open carriage.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Tonga → Makakaaaa · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 26 years older
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 19 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 21 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 11 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 33 years older
- George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 5 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 22 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 34 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 30 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 72 years older
- Anna Akhmatova — poet, 11 years older
- Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 6 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 19 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 2 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 18 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 39 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 58 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 2 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 18 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 8 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 25 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 56 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 25 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 6 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 7 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 31 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 10 years older
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 11 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 1 year younger
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 1 year younger
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 11 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 44 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 29 years younger
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 30 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 53 years older
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 16 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 29 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 2 years older
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 19 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 36 years younger
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 18 years older
- Albert Namatjira — painter, 2 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 1, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 3, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 4, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 5, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — aged 5, Middle East
- 1906 San Francisco earthquake — aged 6, Americas
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 8, Middle East
- 1908 Tunguska event — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — aged 8, Middle East
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — aged 10, Americas
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — aged 11, Asia
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — aged 11, Oceania
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 14, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 14, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 15, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 16, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 18, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 19, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 28, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 29, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 33, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 36, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 36, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 39, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 41, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 41, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 42, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 45, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 45, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 47, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 48, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 49, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 53, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 53, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 57, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 61, Eastern Europe & Russia