Thomas Edison
1847 – 1931 · 84 years · Menlo Park · Americas
Inventor of the phonograph, a practical incandescent lamp and early power grids; held over a thousand patents.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios , restored by Michel Vuijlsteke · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 20 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 27 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 28 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 32 years younger
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 34 years younger
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 42 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 19 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 13 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 23 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 31 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 7 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 26 years older
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 34 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 5 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 14 years younger
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 51 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 24 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 71 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 71 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 3 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 45 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 34 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 7 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 4 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 22 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 46 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 14 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 10 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 5 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 19 years younger
Americas
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 9 years younger
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 42 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 38 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, born the same year
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 9 years younger
- Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 16 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 24 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 51 years younger
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 72 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, born the same year
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 9 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 14 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 0, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 1, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 1, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 4, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 6, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 12, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 14, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 14, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 14, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 16, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 17, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 20, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 20, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 21, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 22, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 22, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 22, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 23, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 24, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 29, Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 32, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 36, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 38, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 39, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 42, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 46, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 58, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 61, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 67, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 67, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 68, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 69, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 70, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 70, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 71, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 72, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 81, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 82, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 82, Eastern Europe & Russia