Swami Vivekananda
1863 – 1902 · 39 years · Kolkata · Asia
Disciple of Ramakrishna who introduced Vedanta and yoga to the West, famed for his 1893 Parliament of Religions speech.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Dziewa at English Wikipedia · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 44 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 4 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 11 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 10 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 16 years younger
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 18 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 35 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 29 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 7 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 23 years older
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 15 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 42 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 18 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 21 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 2 years older
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 19 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 33 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 19 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 50 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 29 years younger
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 23 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 12 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 35 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 6 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 26 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 11 years older
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 2 years older
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 3 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 16 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 16 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 7 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 26 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 28 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 16 years older
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 7 years older
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 8 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 25 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 16 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 2 years older
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 48 years older
- Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 19 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 0, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 1, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 4, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 5, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 6, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 6, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 7, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 8, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 8, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 11, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 13, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 13, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 13, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 14, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 15, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 16, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 16, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 20, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 21, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 22, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 22, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 22, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 23, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 23, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 25, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 26, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 26, Europe
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — aged 28, Asia
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 30, Oceania
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — aged 30, Oceania
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — aged 31, Asia
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — aged 31, Asia
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — aged 32, Europe
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — aged 32, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — aged 33, Asia
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — aged 34, Africa
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 38, Europe