Wang Yangming
.jpg?width=160 "Cai Shixin · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
1472 – 1529 · 57 years · Shaoxing · Asia
Taught that the principle of things lies within one's own heart-mind and that knowledge and action are one: to know the good and not do it is not to know it. Also a senior official and general.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 15th century
Portrait: Cai Shixin · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
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Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Nicolaus Copernicus — astronomer, 1 year younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 3 years younger
- Leonardo da Vinci — painter, scientist and inventor, 20 years older
- Martin Luther — church reformer, 11 years younger
- Niccolò Machiavelli — Florentine political thinker and diplomat, 3 years older
- Maximilian I — "the Last Knight", who raised the Habsburgs through shrewd marriages, 13 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vasily III — grand prince who completed the unification of the Russian lands, 7 years younger
- Ivan III — Grand Prince of Moscow, 32 years older
- Sophia Palaiologina — Grand Princess of Moscow, 17 years older
Middle East
- Selim I the Grim — sultan who took Cairo and Mecca, 2 years older
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 22 years younger
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 33 years younger
- Bayezid II — sultan who took in the Jews expelled from Spain, 25 years older
Africa
- Askia Muhammad I — Emperor of Songhai, 29 years older
- Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi — Adal imam and general, 34 years younger
Asia
- Guru Nanak — founder of Sikhism, 3 years older
- Vasco da Gama — navigator, 3 years older
- Babur — founder of the Mughal Empire, 11 years younger
- Ashikaga Yoshimasa — shogun of the Ōnin War and the Silver Pavilion, 36 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshitane — shogun who held office twice and was driven out twice, 6 years older
- Mirabai — mystic poet, 26 years younger
Americas
- Christopher Columbus — navigator, 21 years older
- Moctezuma II — Aztec emperor, 6 years older
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 12 years younger
- Hernán Cortés — conquistador, 13 years younger
- Ferdinand Magellan — navigator, 8 years younger
- Amerigo Vespucci — navigator, 18 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1478 Annexation of Novgorod by Moscow — aged 6, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1480 Great Stand on the Ugra River — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1488 Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope — aged 16, Africa
- 1492 Columbus reaches the Americas — aged 20, Americas
- 1492 Fall of Granada — aged 20, Europe
- 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas — aged 22, Europe
- 1498 Vasco da Gama reaches India — aged 26, Asia
- 1501 Founding of Safavid Iran — aged 29, Middle East
- 1508–1512 Sistine Chapel ceiling — aged 36, Europe
- 1511 Portuguese capture of Malacca — aged 39, Asia
- 1517 Luther's Ninety-five Theses — aged 45, Europe
- 1519–1522 Magellan's circumnavigation — aged 47, Americas
- 1520–1566 Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent — aged 48, Middle East
- 1521 Fall of Tenochtitlan — aged 49, Americas
- 1526–1867 Atlantic slave trade — aged 54, Whole world
- 1526 First Battle of Panipat — aged 54, Asia
- 1526 Battle of Mohács — aged 54, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1529–1543 Ahmad Gragn invades Ethiopia — aged 57, Africa