Tokugawa Iesada
1824 – 1858 · 34 years · Edo · Asia
Reign: 1853 – 1858 (Japan: shoguns & emperors)
A sickly shogun, 1853–1858. His rule saw the Convention of Kanagawa with the United States (1854), which opened Shimoda and Hakodate, and the Harris Treaty of commerce (1858); the dispute over his heir split the elite.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 15 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 6 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 5 years older
- Victor Hugo — novelist and poet, 22 years older
- Napoleon III — last French monarch, who surrendered to Prussia at Sedan, 16 years older
- Charles Dickens — novelist, 12 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 3 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 4 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 10 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 16 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 25 years older
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 6 years older
Middle East
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 1 year older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 18 years younger
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 39 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 6 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 20 years younger
Africa
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 11 years older
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 55 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 20 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 46 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 38 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 4 years younger
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 64 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 13 years younger
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 51 years older
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 31 years older
- Empress Dowager Cixi — Empress Dowager of China, 11 years younger
- Shoqan Walikhanov — Kazakh scholar and explorer, 11 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 15 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 23 years younger
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 18 years older
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 2 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 46 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 11 years younger
Oceania
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 12 years older
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 9 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 14 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 23 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 4, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 7, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 9, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 11, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 11, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 14, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 15, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 15, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 15, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 15, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 21, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 22, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 22, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 23, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 24, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 24, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 27, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 29, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia