Sergei Rachmaninoff

composer and pianist

1873 – 1943 · 70 years · Semyonovo (Novgorod Governorate) · Eastern Europe & Russia

After his First Symphony flopped in 1897 he barely composed for four years, then broke through with his Second Piano Concerto (1901). He left Russia in 1917 and spent the rest of his life touring as one of the world's finest pianists.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century

Portrait: Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1 year younger
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 6 years younger
Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 8 years younger
Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 6 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 16 years younger
Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 54 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 5 years younger
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 3 years older
Georgy Zhukov — Marshal of the Soviet Union, 23 years younger
Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 45 years older
Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 39 years older
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 33 years older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 8 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 12 years older
Richard Sorge — Soviet intelligence officer, 22 years younger
Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 31 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 25 years younger
Sergei Witte — finance minister, first chairman of the Council of Ministers, 24 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 45 years younger
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 19 years younger
Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 29 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 52 years younger
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 2 years younger
Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 33 years older

Asia

Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 4 years older
Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 20 years younger
Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 12 years older
Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 16 years younger
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 17 years younger
Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 7 years older

Americas

Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 17 years older
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 26 years older
Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 16 years younger
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 56 years younger
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 57 years younger
Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 10 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 2 years older
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 25 years younger
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 46 years younger
Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 26 years older
Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 9 years younger
Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 12 years older

The world in their lifetime

1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 1, Europe
1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 3, Americas
1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 3, Asia
1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 3, Middle East
1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 — aged 4, Europe
1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 5, Europe
1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 6, Americas
1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 6, Africa
1879 Baku oil boom and Branobel — aged 6, Middle East
1881 Battle of Geok Tepe — aged 8, Asia
1882 Britain occupies Egypt — aged 9, Africa
1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 10, Asia
1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 11, Europe
1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 12, Asia
1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 12, Africa
1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 13, Europe
1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 16, Europe
1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 20, Oceania
1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 32, Europe
1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 35, Middle East
1914–1918 World War I — aged 41, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 41, Americas
1914 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand — aged 41, Europe
1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 42, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 43, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 44, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 44, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 45, Whole world
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 46, Europe
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 55, Europe
1929 Wall Street Crash — aged 56, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 56, Eastern Europe & Russia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 60, Europe
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 63, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 63, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 66, Whole world
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 68, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 68, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 69, Eastern Europe & Russia