Vincent van Gogh
1853 – 1890 · 37 years · Arles · Europe
Dutch Post-Impressionist painter of Sunflowers and The Starry Night, who sold almost nothing in his lifetime.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Vincent van Gogh · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 34 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 35 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 44 years older
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 14 years younger
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 21 years younger
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 26 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 25 years older
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 19 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 13 years older
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 32 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 17 years younger
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 25 years younger
Middle East
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 11 years older
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 8 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 9 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 23 years older
Africa
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 9 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 40 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 25 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 13 years older
- Taytu Betul — Empress of Ethiopia, 2 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 67 years older
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 16 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 16 years older
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 1 year older
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 8 years younger
- Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 13 years younger
- Emperor Taishō — ailing emperor of the 'Taishō democracy' era, 26 years younger
Americas
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 6 years older
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 3 years younger
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 44 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 18 years older
- Alexander Graham Bell — inventor of the telephone, 6 years older
- Woodrow Wilson — 28th US president, World War I and the League of Nations, 3 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 18 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 38 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 15 years older
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 6 years older
- Nellie Melba — operatic soprano, 8 years younger
- Ned Kelly — bushranger and Australian folk hero, 1 year younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 0, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 6, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 8, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 8, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 10, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 11, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 14, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 14, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 15, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 16, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 16, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 17, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 18, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 18, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 21, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 23, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 23, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 23, Middle East
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — aged 25, Europe
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 26, Americas
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — aged 26, Africa
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 30, Asia
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — aged 31, Europe
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 32, Asia
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — aged 32, Africa
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — aged 32, Africa
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 33, Europe
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — aged 33, Africa
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — aged 35, Americas
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 36, Europe
- 1889 Van Gogh's The Starry Night — aged 36, Europe