Tokugawa Yoshinobu
1837 – 1913 · 76 years · Edo · Asia
Reign: 1867 – 1868 (Japan: shoguns & emperors)
He became shogun in early 1867 and returned power to the emperor that November. After losing the Battle of Toba–Fushimi in 1868 he surrendered Edo without a fight and lived 45 more years as a private man, taking up photography.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Frederick Sutton · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 18 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 19 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 30 years younger
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 28 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 37 years younger
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 16 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 9 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 3 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 3 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 16 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 33 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 41 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 44 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 5 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 24 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 14 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 61 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 7 years younger
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 7 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 24 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 55 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 68 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 3 years younger
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 9 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 32 years younger
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 56 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 15 years younger
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 24 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 29 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 42 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 10 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 19 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 28 years older
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 52 years younger
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 2 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 10 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 34 years younger
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 61 years younger
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 1 year younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 10 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 22 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 24 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 1, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 2, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 2, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 2, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 2, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 8, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 9, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 9, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 10, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 11, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 11, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 14, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 16, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 22, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 24, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 24, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 26, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 27, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 30, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 30, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 31, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 32, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 32, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 32, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 33, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 34, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 34, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 37, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 39, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 39, Asia
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 42, Americas
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 46, Asia
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 48, Asia
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 49, Europe
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 52, Europe
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 56, Oceania
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 68, Europe
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 71, Middle East