Who Was Alive

Adam Smith

Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Born June 1723 · died 17 July 1790, aged 67

Who was alive at the same time as Adam Smith?

  1. Isaac Newton
  2. Peter the Great
  3. Johann Sebastian Bach
  4. Voltaire
  5. Benjamin Franklin
  6. Leonhard Euler
  7. Carl Linnaeus
  8. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  9. Adam Smith
  10. Immanuel Kant
  11. James Cook
  12. George Washington
  13. John Adams
  14. Thomas Jefferson
  15. Francisco Goya
  16. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  17. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  18. Friedrich Schiller
  19. Ludwig van Beethoven
  20. Napoleon
  21. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  22. Jane Austen
  23. Carl Friedrich Gauss
  24. Lord Byron
Drag across the timeline to see who was alive in any year and the age each person reached that year. Faded ends mark uncertain dates.

When Adam Smith was born, Isaac Newton was 80, Johann Sebastian Bach was 38, Voltaire was 28, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was 10 or 11 and Benjamin Franklin was 17.

When Adam Smith died, Napoleon was 20, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 40, George Washington was 58, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 34 and Immanuel Kant was 66.

Born during Adam Smith’s lifetime: Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Washington, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson and Lord Byron.

Not quite contemporaries: Victor Hugo was born 12 years after Adam Smith died, Alexander Pushkin was born 9 years after Adam Smith died, Hans Christian Andersen was born 15 years after Adam Smith died and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz died 7 years before Adam Smith was born.

Compare

All 132 contemporaries we track

  1. Isaac Newton 1642 – 1727
  2. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  4. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 – 1791
  6. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  7. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  8. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  9. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  11. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  12. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  13. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  14. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  15. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  16. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  17. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  18. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  19. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  20. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  21. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  22. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  23. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  24. Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  25. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  26. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  27. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  28. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  29. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  30. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  31. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  32. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  33. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  34. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  35. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  36. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  37. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  38. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  39. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  40. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  41. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  42. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  43. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  44. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  45. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  46. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  47. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  48. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  49. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  50. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  51. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  52. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  53. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  54. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  55. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 – 1867
  56. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  57. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  58. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  59. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  60. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  61. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  62. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  63. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  64. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  65. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  66. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  67. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  68. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  69. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  70. Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 – 1814
  71. Novalis 1772 – 1801
  72. John Dalton 1766 – 1844
  73. Alexander I of Russia 1777 – 1825
  74. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  75. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  76. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  77. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  78. Washington Irving 1783 – 1859
  79. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  80. Carl von Clausewitz 1780 – 1831
  81. Alessandro Manzoni 1785 – 1873
  82. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  83. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  84. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  85. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  86. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  87. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  88. Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
  89. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  90. Horatio Nelson 1758 – 1805
  91. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  92. Alexander Hamilton 1757 – 1804
  93. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1769 – 1852
  94. Niccolò Paganini 1782 – 1840
  95. Georg Simon Ohm 1789 – 1854
  96. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  97. Humphry Davy 1778 – 1829
  98. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  99. Shaka Zulu 1785–1789 – 1828
  100. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  101. Hans Christian Ørsted 1777 – 1851
  102. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  103. Gregory XVI 1765 – 1846
  104. Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767 – 1835
  105. David Ricardo 1772 – 1823
  106. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  107. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  108. William IV 1765 – 1837
  109. Friedrich Hölderlin 1770 – 1843
  110. Amedeo Avogadro 1776 – 1856
  111. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  112. Klemens von Metternich 1773 – 1859
  113. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  114. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  115. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  116. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  117. George IV of the United Kingdom 1762 – 1830
  118. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1768 – 1848
  119. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  120. James Fenimore Cooper 1789 – 1851
  121. Georges Danton 1759 – 1794
  122. Leo XII 1760 – 1829
  123. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775 – 1854
  124. E. T. A. Hoffmann 1776 – 1822
  125. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  126. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  127. Thomas Young 1773 – 1829
  128. Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840
  129. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  130. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  131. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810
  132. Germaine de Staël 1766 – 1817