Zachary Taylor
1784 – 1850 · 66 years · Washington, D.C. · Americas
Reign: 1849 – 1850 (US presidents)
A career soldier famed for his victory at Buena Vista (1847). He served only 16 months as president, dying in July 1850 amid the dispute over slavery in the new territories.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 35 years older
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 14 years older
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 25 years younger
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 15 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 34 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 35 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 15 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 37 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 44 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 50 years younger
- Catherine the Great — Empress of Russia, 55 years older
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 56 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 1 year younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 39 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 23 years older
- Mustafa IV — sultan who overthrew the reformer Selim III, 5 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 46 years younger
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 15 years older
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 3 years younger
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 29 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 6 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 2 years younger
- Usman dan Fodio — founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, 30 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 24 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 11 years older
- Qianlong Emperor — Qing emperor of China, 73 years older
- Tipu Sultan — ruler of Mysore, 33 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 53 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 9 years younger
Americas
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 1 year older
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 25 years younger
- George Washington — first President of the United States, 52 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 6 years older
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, 17 years older
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 22 years younger
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 26 years older
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 12 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 28 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 31 years younger
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 46 years older
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 20 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1787 US Constitution — aged 3, Americas
- 1788 First Fleet arrives in Australia — aged 4, Oceania
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — aged 5, Europe
- 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — aged 5, Europe
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — aged 7, Americas
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 12, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 14, Africa
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 19, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 20, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 20, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 20, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 21, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 21, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 26, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 28, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 30, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 31, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 31, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 32, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 33, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 33, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 35, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 38, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 44, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 47, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 49, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 51, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 51, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 54, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 55, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 55, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 55, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 55, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 61, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 62, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 62, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 63, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 64, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 64, Europe