Umm Kulthum
c. 1898 – 1975 · 77 years · Cairo · Middle East
Egyptian singer, one of the most celebrated performers of the 20th-century Arab world.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: Production company · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 17 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 24 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 19 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 9 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 31 years older
- George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 3 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 20 years older
- Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 36 years younger
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 28 years older
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 70 years older
- Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 4 years older
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 8 years younger
Middle East
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 17 years older
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, born the same year
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 20 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 37 years older
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 56 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 13 years younger
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 20 years younger
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 6 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 27 years younger
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 54 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 8 years younger
- Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 23 years older
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 5 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 29 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 3 years younger
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 8 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 3 years younger
- Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 9 years older
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 9 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 42 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 32 years younger
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 31 years younger
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 51 years older
- Jorge Luis Borges — writer, 1 year younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 27 years older
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, born the same year
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 21 years younger
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 38 years younger
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 10 years younger
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 2 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1901 First Nobel Prizes — aged 3, Europe
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — aged 5, Americas
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — aged 6, Africa
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 7, Europe
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — aged 7, Middle East
- 1906 San Francisco earthquake — aged 8, Americas
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 10, Middle East
- 1908 Tunguska event — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — aged 10, Middle East
- 1914–1918 World War I — aged 16, Whole world
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 16, Americas
- 1915 Armenian genocide — aged 17, Middle East
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 18, Middle East
- 1917 October Revolution — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 20, Whole world
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 21, Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 30, Europe
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 31, Americas
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 31, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 35, Europe
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 38, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 38, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 41, Whole world
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 43, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 43, Europe
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 44, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 47, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 49, Whole world
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 50, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 51, Whole world
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 55, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 55, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 63, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1969 Moon landing — aged 71, Americas
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 72, Americas
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 77, Asia