Tokugawa Ieyasu
1543 – 1616 · 73 years · Edo · Asia
Reign: 1600 – 1616 (Japan: shoguns & emperors)
Won the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and founded the Tokugawa shogunate, giving Japan 250 years of peace with Edo (Tokyo) as its seat.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: Kanō Tan'yū · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 4 years younger
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 10 years older
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 21 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 21 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 68 years older
- René Descartes — French philosopher and mathematician, 53 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 13 years older
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 11 years older
- False Dmitry I — pretender who claimed to be Tsarevich Dmitry, 38 years younger
- Michael I — first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, 53 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 9 years younger
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 9 years younger
Middle East
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 28 years younger
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 19 years older
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 49 years older
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 38 years older
- Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 3 years younger
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 17 years older
Africa
- Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba — Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, 40 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 13 years younger
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 6 years younger
- Fasilides — Emperor of Ethiopia, 60 years younger
Asia
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 1 year older
- Matteo Ricci — Jesuit missionary in China, 9 years younger
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 6 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 6 years older
- Yi Sun-sin — Korean admiral, 2 years younger
- Oda Nobunaga — Japanese warlord, 9 years older
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 59 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 4 years older
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 24 years younger
- Pocahontas — Powhatan chief's daughter, 53 years younger
Oceania
- Abel Tasman — Dutch navigator, 60 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — aged 0, Europe
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — aged 2, Americas
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 12, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 13, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 13, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 26, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 28, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 29, Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — aged 39, Europe
- 1582 Yermak's conquest of Sibir — aged 39, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — aged 45, Europe
- 1591 Battle of Tondibi and fall of Songhai — aged 48, Africa
- 1592–1598 Imjin War — aged 49, Asia
- 1598–1613 Time of Troubles — aged 55, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1598 Edict of Nantes — aged 55, Europe
- 1600 Battle of Sekigahara — aged 57, Asia
- 1600 Eruption of Huaynaputina — aged 57, Americas
- 1600 East India Company founded — aged 57, Europe
- c. 1605–1694 Quilombo of Palmares — aged 62, Americas
- 1607 Founding of Jamestown — aged 64, Americas
- 1609 Jesuit reductions among the Guaraní — aged 66, Americas
- 1610 Galileo's telescopic discoveries — aged 67, Europe
- 1612 Minin and Pozharsky liberate Moscow — aged 69, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1613 Election of Michael Romanov as Tsar — aged 70, Eastern Europe & Russia