Vladimir Vysotsky

singer-songwriter, poet and actor

1938 – 1980 · 42 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia

An actor at the Taganka Theatre, where he played Hamlet, and the author of hundreds of songs that spread across the country on tape recordings though they were barely released officially. He died at 42 during the Moscow Olympics.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 57 years older
Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 64 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 59 years older
Jean-Paul Sartre — French philosopher and writer, 33 years older
Henry Kissinger — US Secretary of State, 15 years older
Margaret Thatcher — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 13 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Georgy Zhukov — Marshal of the Soviet Union, 42 years older
Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 4 years older
Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 60 years older
Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 32 years older
Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 7 years older
Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 7 years older

Middle East

Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 40 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 20 years older
Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 27 years older
Anastas Mikoyan — Soviet statesman, 43 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 40 years older
Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 36 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 20 years older
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 46 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 13 years older
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 32 years older
Jean-Bédel Bokassa — President of the CAR, then Emperor of Central Africa, 17 years older
Julius Nyerere — first president of Tanzania, 16 years older

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 45 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 69 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 37 years older
Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 28 years older
Indira Gandhi — Prime Minister of India, 21 years older
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 37 years older

Americas

Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 8 years older
Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 49 years older
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 9 years older
Jorge Luis Borges — writer, 39 years older
Ronald Reagan — 40th US president, "Reaganomics" and the end of the Cold War, 27 years older
Richard Nixon — 37th US president, the opening to China and Watergate, 25 years older

Oceania

Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 19 years older
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 2 years older
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 40 years older
Don Bradman — cricketer, 30 years older
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 38 years older
Albert Namatjira — painter, 36 years older

The world in their lifetime

1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 0, Europe
1938 Munich Agreement — aged 0, Europe
1938 Anschluss — aged 0, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 1, Whole world
1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
1939–1940 Winter War — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic states — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
1940 Fall of France — aged 2, Europe
1940 Battle of Britain — aged 2, Europe
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 3, Europe
1941 German invasion of the USSR — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — aged 3, Oceania
1941–1942 Battle of Moscow — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941 Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran — aged 3, Middle East
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
1942 The Battle of Midway — aged 4, Oceania
1942 Fall of Singapore — aged 4, Asia
1942–1943 Battle of the Caucasus — aged 4, Eastern Europe & Russia
1943 Battle of Kursk — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
1943 Tehran Conference — aged 5, Whole world
1943 Bengal famine — aged 5, Asia
1944 D-Day: Normandy landings — aged 6, Europe
1944 Deportations of the peoples of the Caucasus and Crimea — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
1944 Tuva joins the USSR — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
1944 Bretton Woods Conference — aged 6, Whole world
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 7, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 9, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 10, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 11, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 15, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 15, Asia
1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — aged 28, Asia
1969 Moon landing — aged 31, Americas
c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — aged 32, Americas
1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — aged 37, Asia
1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — aged 42, Whole world