Yuri Gagarin
1934 – 1968 · 34 years · Star City · Eastern Europe & Russia
On 12 April 1961 he flew Vostok 1, becoming the first human in space and orbiting Earth in 108 minutes.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Portrait: В. Жихаренко / ТАСС Обработка: Roman Kubanskiy · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 53 years older
- Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 60 years older
- Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 55 years older
- Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 45 years older
- Elizabeth II — Britain's longest-reigning monarch, on the throne for 70 years, 8 years older
- Alan Turing — mathematician, father of computer science, 22 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 56 years older
- Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 40 years older
- Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 28 years older
- Leonid Brezhnev — Soviet leader of the Era of Stagnation, 28 years older
- Mikhail Gorbachev — last leader of the Soviet Union, 3 years older
- Boris Yeltsin — first President of Russia, 3 years older
Middle East
- Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 36 years older
- Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 16 years older
- Umm Kulthum — singer, 36 years older
- Naguib Mahfouz — novelist, Nobel laureate, 23 years older
- Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 32 years older
Africa
- Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 16 years older
- Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 42 years older
- Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 9 years older
- Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 28 years older
- Kwame Nkrumah — first President of Ghana, 25 years older
- Julius Nyerere — first president of Tanzania, 12 years older
Asia
- Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 41 years older
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 65 years older
- Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 44 years older
- Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 33 years older
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 33 years older
- Mother Teresa — nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, 24 years older
Americas
- Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 45 years older
- Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 5 years older
- Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 4 years older
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 50 years older
- Dwight D. Eisenhower — 34th US president, commander of the Normandy landings, 44 years older
- Jorge Luis Borges — writer, 35 years older
Oceania
- Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 36 years older
- Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 15 years older
- Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 2 years younger
- Don Bradman — cricketer, 26 years older
- Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 34 years older
- Albert Namatjira — painter, 32 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1934–1935 Long March — aged 0, Asia
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — aged 1, Africa
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 2, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 2, Europe
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — aged 2, Oceania
- 1936 Turing's universal machine — aged 2, Europe
- 1938 Discovery of nuclear fission — aged 4, Europe
- 1938 Munich Agreement — aged 4, Europe
- 1939–1945 World War II — aged 5, Whole world
- 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 7, Europe
- 1941 German invasion of the USSR — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — aged 7, Oceania
- 1941–1942 Battle of Moscow — aged 7, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — aged 8, Oceania
- 1943 Battle of Kursk — aged 9, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1944 D-Day: Normandy landings — aged 10, Europe
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 11, Asia
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945 Founding of the United Nations — aged 11, Whole world
- 1945 ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer — aged 11, Americas
- 1945 Indonesia proclaims independence — aged 11, Asia
- 1945 Yalta Conference — aged 11, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1945–1946 Nuremberg trials — aged 11, Europe
- 1947–1991 Cold War — aged 13, Whole world
- 1947 Independence and Partition of India — aged 13, Asia
- 1947 Invention of the transistor — aged 13, Americas
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 14, Whole world
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — aged 14, Middle East
- 1949 Founding of NATO — aged 15, Whole world
- 1949 Founding of the People's Republic of China — aged 15, Asia
- 1949 First Soviet atomic bomb test — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1950–1953 Korean War — aged 16, Asia
- 1952 Great Smog of London — aged 18, Europe
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 19, Europe
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 19, Asia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — aged 23, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — aged 27, Eastern Europe & Russia