Who Was Alive

Barack Obama

44th President of the United States

Born 4 August 1961 · living, 65 as of September 2026

Who was alive at the same time as Barack Obama?

  1. Winston Churchill
  2. Pablo Picasso
  3. Charlie Chaplin
  4. Mao Zedong
  5. Salvador Dalí
  6. Ronald Reagan
  7. John F. Kennedy
  8. Nelson Mandela
  9. Elizabeth II
  10. Marilyn Monroe
  11. Che Guevara
  12. Martin Luther King Jr.
  13. Pope Francis
  14. Joe Biden
  15. Donald Trump
  16. George W. Bush
  17. Vladimir Putin
  18. Steve Jobs
  19. Bill Gates
  20. Michael Jackson
  21. Barack Obama
  22. Jimmy Wales
  23. Shakira
  24. Lionel Messi
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 Barack Obama was born, Donald Trump was 15, Michael Jackson was 2, Vladimir Putin was 8, Ronald Reagan was 50 and Nelson Mandela was 43.

Born during Barack Obama’s lifetime: Jimmy Wales, Shakira, Lionel Messi, Corbin Bleu, Basshunter, Cristiano Ronaldo, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Elon Musk.

Not quite contemporaries: Albert Einstein died 6 years before Barack Obama was born, Mahatma Gandhi died 13 years before Barack Obama was born, Joseph Stalin died 8 years before Barack Obama was born and George Orwell died 11 years before Barack Obama was born.

Compare

All 1,102 contemporaries we track

  1. Donald Trump born 1946
  2. Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
  3. Vladimir Putin born 1952
  4. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  5. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  6. George W. Bush born 1946
  7. Joe Biden born 1942
  8. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  9. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  10. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  11. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  12. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  13. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  14. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  15. Bill Gates born 1955
  16. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  17. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  18. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  19. Shakira born 1977
  20. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  21. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  22. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  23. Lionel Messi born 1987
  24. Corbin Bleu born 1989
  25. Bill Clinton born 1946
  26. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  27. Basshunter born 1984
  28. Angela Merkel born 1954
  29. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  30. François Hollande born 1954
  31. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  32. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  33. Cristiano Ronaldo born 1985
  34. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  35. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  36. John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  37. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  38. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  39. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  40. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  41. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  42. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  43. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  44. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  45. Elon Musk born 1971
  46. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  47. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  48. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  49. Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  50. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  51. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  52. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  53. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  54. Lady Gaga born 1986
  55. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  56. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  57. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  58. Madonna born 1958
  59. Kamala Harris born 1964
  60. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  61. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  62. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  63. Xi Jinping born 1953
  64. Naruhito born 1960
  65. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  66. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  67. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  68. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  69. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  70. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  71. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  72. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  73. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  74. Bob Dylan born 1941
  75. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  76. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  77. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  78. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  79. Justin Bieber born 1994
  80. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  81. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  82. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  83. Taylor Swift born 1989
  84. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  85. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  86. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  87. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  88. Charles III born 1948
  89. Kim Jong-un born 1984
  90. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  91. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  92. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  93. Eminem born 1972
  94. Beyoncé born 1981
  95. Selena Gomez born 1992
  96. Leo XIV born 1955
  97. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  98. Narendra Modi born 1950
  99. Rafael Correa born 1963
  100. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  101. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  102. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  103. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  104. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  105. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  106. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  107. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  108. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  109. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  110. Tenzin Gyatso born 1935
  111. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  112. Anna Netrebko born 1971
  113. Mark Zuckerberg born 1984
  114. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  115. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  116. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  117. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  118. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  119. Bob Marley 1945 – 1981
  120. Shinzō Abe 1954 – 2022
  121. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  122. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  123. Isaac Asimov 1919–1920 – 1992
  124. Tim Berners-Lee born 1955
  125. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  126. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  127. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  128. Boris Yeltsin 1931 – 2007
  129. Ali Khamenei 1939 – 2026
  130. Robin Williams 1951 – 2014
  131. Jackie Chan born 1954
  132. Kim Il-sung 1912 – 1994
  133. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918 – 2008
  134. Jacques Chirac 1932 – 2019
  135. Guillermo Lasso born 1955
  136. Céline Dion born 1968
  137. T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965
  138. Stanley Kubrick 1928 – 1999
  139. Roger Federer born 1981
  140. Lana Del Rey born 1985
  141. Kwame Nkrumah 1909 – 1972
  142. Marlon Brando 1924 – 2004
  143. Alexander Lukashenka born 1954
  144. Hirohito 1901 – 1989
  145. Richard Feynman 1918 – 1988
  146. Woody Allen born 1935
  147. Tony Blair born 1953
  148. Rihanna born 1988
  149. Neymar born 1992
  150. Malala Yousafzai born 1997

The 150 best known are listed.