Yi Sun-sin
1545 – 1598 · 53 years · Yeosu · Asia
Admiral who crushed the Japanese navy during the Imjin War using 'turtle ships' and fell in the war's final battle.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: Unknown, War Memorial of Korea · KOGL Type 1 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 12 years older
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 2 years younger
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 19 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 19 years younger
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 70 years older
- Philip II of Spain — King of Spain, 18 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 15 years older
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 13 years older
- False Dmitry I — pretender who claimed to be Tsarevich Dmitry, 36 years younger
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 7 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 7 years younger
- Feodor I — last Rurikid tsar, under whom the Moscow Patriarchate was founded, 12 years younger
Middle East
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 21 years older
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 26 years younger
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 51 years older
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) — wife of Sultan Suleiman I, 40 years older
- Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 1 year younger
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 19 years older
Africa
- Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba — Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, 38 years younger
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 4 years younger
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 11 years younger
Asia
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 3 years older
- Tokugawa Ieyasu — first Tokugawa shogun, 2 years older
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 8 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 8 years older
- Matteo Ricci — Jesuit missionary in China, 7 years younger
- Oda Nobunaga — Japanese warlord, 11 years older
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 61 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 6 years older
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 22 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — aged 0, Americas
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 11, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 11, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 26, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 27, Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — aged 37, Europe
- 1582 Yermak's conquest of Sibir — aged 37, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — aged 43, Europe
- 1591 Battle of Tondibi and fall of Songhai — aged 46, Africa
- 1592–1598 Imjin War — aged 47, Asia
- 1598–1613 Time of Troubles — aged 53, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1598 Edict of Nantes — aged 53, Europe