Tulsidas
c. 1532 – 1623 · 91 years · Varanasi · Asia
Poet-saint who retold the Ramayana in vernacular Awadhi; his Ramcharitmanas remains one of India's most widely read books.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: Mohan, 1949 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 1 year younger
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 15 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 32 years younger
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 32 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 57 years older
- René Descartes — French philosopher and mathematician, 64 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 2 years older
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, born the same year
- Michael I — first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, 64 years younger
- False Dmitry I — pretender who claimed to be Tsarevich Dmitry, 49 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 20 years younger
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 20 years younger
Middle East
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 39 years younger
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 8 years older
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 38 years older
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 27 years older
- Murad IV — sultan who retook Baghdad and banned tobacco, 80 years younger
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 6 years older
Africa
- Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba — Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, 51 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 24 years younger
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 17 years younger
- Fasilides — Emperor of Ethiopia, 71 years younger
- Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi — Adal imam and general, 26 years older
Asia
- Tokugawa Ieyasu — first Tokugawa shogun, 11 years younger
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 10 years younger
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 5 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 5 years younger
- Matteo Ricci — Jesuit missionary in China, 20 years younger
- Yi Sun-sin — Korean admiral, 13 years younger
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 48 years older
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 47 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 7 years younger
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 35 years younger
- Pocahontas — Powhatan chief's daughter, 64 years younger
Oceania
- Abel Tasman — Dutch navigator, 71 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1532 Capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca — aged 0, Americas
- 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome — aged 2, Europe
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — aged 10, Americas
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — aged 11, Europe
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — aged 13, Americas
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 24, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 24, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 39, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 40, Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — aged 50, Europe
- 1582 Yermak's conquest of Sibir — aged 50, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — aged 56, Europe
- 1591 Battle of Tondibi and fall of Songhai — aged 59, Africa
- 1592–1598 Imjin War — aged 60, Asia
- 1598–1613 Time of Troubles — aged 66, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1598 Edict of Nantes — aged 66, Europe
- 1600 Battle of Sekigahara — aged 68, Asia
- 1600 Eruption of Huaynaputina — aged 68, Americas
- 1600 East India Company founded — aged 68, Europe
- c. 1605–1694 Quilombo of Palmares — aged 73, Americas
- 1607 Founding of Jamestown — aged 75, Americas
- 1609 Jesuit reductions among the Guaraní — aged 77, Americas
- 1610 Galileo's telescopic discoveries — aged 78, Europe
- 1612 Minin and Pozharsky liberate Moscow — aged 80, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1613 Election of Michael Romanov as Tsar — aged 81, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War — aged 86, Europe