Sergei Yesenin
1895 – 1925 · 30 years · Konstantinovo (Ryazan Governorate) · Eastern Europe & Russia
A peasant's son from the Ryazan village of Konstantinovo who became one of the most widely read poets of the Silver Age; he was married to the dancer Isadora Duncan. He was found dead in Leningrad's Angleterre Hotel at 30.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 28 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 21 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 16 years older
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 14 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 6 years older
- Claude Monet — Impressionist painter, 55 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 17 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 25 years older
- Georgy Zhukov — Marshal of the Soviet Union, 1 year younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 67 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 61 years older
- Ivan Pavlov — physiologist, Nobel laureate, 46 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 14 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 34 years older
- Vladimir Mayakovsky — Futurist poet, 2 years older
- Richard Sorge — Soviet intelligence officer, born the same year
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 3 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 53 years older
Africa
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 3 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 51 years older
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 20 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 55 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 44 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 11 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 26 years older
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 2 years older
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 34 years older
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 29 years older
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 16 years older
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 6 years older
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 48 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 39 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 6 years older
- John D. Rockefeller — industrialist, founder of Standard Oil, 56 years older
- Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 32 years older
- Franklin D. Roosevelt — 32nd President of the United States, 13 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 24 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 3 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 48 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 34 years older
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 13 years older
- Katherine Mansfield — short-story writer, 7 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 0, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 1, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 2, Africa
- 1898 Battle of Omdurman — aged 3, Africa
- 1899–1902 Second Boer War — aged 4, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 6, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 8, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 9, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 10, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — aged 10, Middle East
- 1905 Battle of Tsushima — aged 10, Asia
- 1906 San Francisco earthquake — aged 11, Americas
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 13, Middle East
- 1908 Tunguska event — aged 13, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — aged 13, Middle East
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — aged 15, Americas
- 1910 Japan annexes Korea — aged 15, Asia
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — aged 16, Asia
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — aged 16, Oceania
- 1912–1913 Balkan Wars — aged 17, Europe
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — aged 17, Oceania
- 1913 Ford's moving assembly line — aged 18, Americas
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 19, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 19, Americas
- 1914 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand — aged 19, Europe
- 1914 Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon — aged 19, Americas
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 20, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 21, Middle East
- 1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — aged 21, Middle East
- 1916 Battle of the Somme — aged 21, Europe
- 1916–1917 1916 revolt and the Urkun — aged 21, Asia
- 1916 Battle of Verdun — aged 21, Europe
- 1916 Brusilov offensive — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1916 Easter Rising — aged 21, Europe
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 22, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 22, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 23, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 24, Europe