Silvio Berlusconi
1936 – 2023 · 87 years · Milan · Europe
Owner of the Mediaset TV empire and AC Milan, he led three Italian governments between 1994 and 2011 — nine years in all, longer than any other post-war prime minister. As a young man he sang on cruise ships.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 55 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 62 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 57 years older
- Henry Kissinger — US Secretary of State, 13 years older
- Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 10 years older
- Margaret Thatcher — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 11 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Georgy Zhukov — Marshal of the Soviet Union, 40 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 2 years older
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 58 years older
- Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 5 years older
- Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 5 years older
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 30 years older
Middle East
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 38 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 18 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 25 years older
- Anastas Mikoyan — Soviet statesman, 41 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 38 years older
- Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 34 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 18 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 44 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 11 years older
- Chinua Achebe — novelist, 6 years older
- Miriam Makeba — singer, 4 years older
- Wangarĩ Maathai — environmentalist, Nobel laureate, 4 years younger
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 43 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 67 years older
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 26 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 35 years older
- Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 19 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 35 years older
Americas
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 6 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 47 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 7 years older
- Jimmy Carter — 39th US president, the Camp David Accords, 12 years older
- Pelé — footballer, 4 years younger
- Fidel Castro — leader of Cuba, 10 years older
Oceania
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 17 years older
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, born the same year
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 38 years older
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 28 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 36 years older
- Albert Namatjira — painter, 34 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 0, Europe
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 0, Oceania
- 1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 0, Europe
- 1937–1938 Nanjing Massacre — aged 1, Asia
- 1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 2, Europe
- 1938 Munich Agreement — aged 2, Europe
- 1938 Anschluss — aged 2, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 3, Whole world
- 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1939–1940 Winter War — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic states — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1940 Fall of France — aged 4, Europe
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 5, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 9, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 11, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 12, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 13, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 17, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 17, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 21, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 25, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — aged 30, Asia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 33, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 34, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 39, Asia
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 44, Whole world
- 1981 AIDS first described — aged 45, Whole world
- 1983 ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — aged 47, Americas
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — aged 49, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — aged 53, Europe
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — aged 53, Europe
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — aged 53, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 2001 September 11 attacks — aged 65, Americas
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — aged 68, Asia
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — aged 75, Asia