Sergei Korolev

◍ Open on the globe

Unknown author · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

chief designer of Soviet rockets

1907 – 1966 · 59 years · Podlipki (Korolyov) · Eastern Europe & Russia

Led the development of the R-7 rocket, Sputnik (1957) and the Vostok spacecraft that carried Gagarin into orbit.

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

Portrait: Unknown author · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 26 years older
Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 33 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 28 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 18 years older
Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 40 years older
George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 12 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 29 years older
Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 27 years younger
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 37 years older
Anna Akhmatova — poet, 18 years older
Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 13 years older
Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 1 year older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 26 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 9 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 11 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 46 years older
Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 65 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 9 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 11 years younger
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 15 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 18 years younger
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 1 year older
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 32 years older
Kwame Nkrumah — first President of Ghana, 2 years younger

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 14 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 38 years older
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 17 years older
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 6 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 6 years older
Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 18 years older

Americas

Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 18 years older
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 22 years younger
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 51 years older
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 23 years younger
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 60 years older
Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 23 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 36 years older
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 9 years older
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 12 years younger
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 29 years younger
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 7 years older
Don Bradman — cricketer, 1 year younger

The world in their lifetime

1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 1, Middle East
1908 Tunguska event — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
1908 Young Turk Revolution — aged 1, Middle East
1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — aged 3, Americas
1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — aged 4, Asia
1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — aged 4, Oceania
1912–1913 Balkan Wars — aged 5, Europe
1912 The death of Scott's polar party — aged 5, Oceania
1913 Ford's moving assembly line — aged 6, Americas
1914–1918 World War I — aged 7, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 7, Americas
1914 Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon — aged 7, Americas
1915 Armenian genocide — aged 8, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 9, Middle East
1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — aged 9, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917 February Revolution — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 11, Whole world
1918 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — aged 11, Europe
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 12, Europe
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 21, Europe
1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 22, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 22, Eastern Europe & Russia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 26, Europe
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 29, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 32, Whole world
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 34, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 34, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 35, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 38, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 38, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 40, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 41, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 42, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 46, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 46, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 50, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 54, Eastern Europe & Russia