Sofya Kovalevskaya
1850 – 1891 · 41 years · Stockholm · Europe
The first woman to hold a full professorship in mathematics (Stockholm); known for the Cauchy–Kovalevskaya theorem.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 31 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 3 years younger
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 32 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 41 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 17 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 24 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 22 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 16 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 10 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 29 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 20 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 28 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 31 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 8 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 11 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 27 years older
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 6 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 20 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 6 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 37 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 22 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 10 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 1 year younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 64 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 19 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 13 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 2 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 11 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 16 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 29 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 3 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 6 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 41 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 15 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 3 years older
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 28 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 21 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 35 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 12 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 3 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 11 years younger
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 38 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 1, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 3, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 9, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 11, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 11, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 13, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 14, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 17, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 18, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 19, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 19, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 20, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 21, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 21, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 24, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 26, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 26, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 26, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 28, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 29, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 29, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 33, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 34, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 35, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 35, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 35, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 36, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 36, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 38, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 39, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 39, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 41, Asia