Yaroslav the Wise
c. 978 – 1054 · 76 years · Kyiv · Eastern Europe & Russia
Reign: 1019 – 1054 (Rus and Russia)
Under him Kievan Rus' flourished: he issued the Russkaya Pravda law code and built St Sophia's Cathedral.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Portrait: Unknown author · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 25 years younger
- Cnut the Great — Danish king who ruled a North Sea empire, 17 years younger
- Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 12 years older
- William the Conqueror — Duke of Normandy, King of England, 50 years younger
- Hugh Capet — founder of the Capetian dynasty, 38 years older
- Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 6 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 18 years older
- Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, 2 years younger
- Iziaslav I — prince of Kiev twice driven from his capital, 46 years younger
- Vsevolod I — prince of Kiev, father of Vladimir Monomakh, 52 years younger
Middle East
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, 2 years younger
- Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 38 years older
Asia
- Murasaki Shikibu — novelist, author of The Tale of Genji, 5 years older
- Al-Biruni — polymath, 5 years older
- Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, 12 years older
- Shen Kuo — polymath, 53 years younger
Americas
- Leif Erikson — Norse explorer, 8 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 22, Africa
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 22, Europe
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — aged 28, Africa
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — aged 32, Asia
- 1021 Norse in North America — aged 43, Americas
- 1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — aged 47, Middle East
- c. 1037 Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1044 First gunpowder formulas in the Wujing Zongyao — aged 66, Asia
- 1054 East–West Schism — aged 76, Middle East
- 1054 Supernova SN 1054 — aged 76, Asia