Who Was Alive

Benjamin Franklin

American polymath and statesman

Born 17 January 1706 · died 17 April 1790, aged 84

Who was alive at the same time as Benjamin Franklin?

  1. Louis XIV of France
  2. Isaac Newton
  3. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  4. Johann Sebastian Bach
  5. Voltaire
  6. Benjamin Franklin
  7. Leonhard Euler
  8. Carl Linnaeus
  9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  10. Adam Smith
  11. Immanuel Kant
  12. James Cook
  13. George Washington
  14. John Adams
  15. Thomas Jefferson
  16. Francisco Goya
  17. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  18. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  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 Benjamin Franklin was born, Isaac Newton was 63, Johann Sebastian Bach was 20, Voltaire was 11, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was 59 and Louis XIV of France was 67.

When Benjamin Franklin died, Napoleon was 20, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 40, George Washington was 58, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 34 and Immanuel Kant was 65.

Born during Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime: Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Washington, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson.

Not quite contemporaries: Victor Hugo was born 12 years after Benjamin Franklin died, Alexander Pushkin was born 9 years after Benjamin Franklin died, Hans Christian Andersen was born 15 years after Benjamin Franklin died and John Locke died 2 years before Benjamin Franklin was born.

Compare

All 136 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. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  13. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  14. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  15. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  16. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  17. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  18. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  19. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  20. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  21. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  22. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  23. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  24. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  25. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  26. Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  27. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  28. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  29. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  30. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  31. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  32. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  33. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  34. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  35. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  36. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  37. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  38. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  39. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  40. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  41. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  42. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  43. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  44. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  45. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  46. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  47. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  48. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  49. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  50. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  51. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  52. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  53. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  54. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  55. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  56. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  57. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 – 1867
  58. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  59. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  60. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  61. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  62. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  63. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  64. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  65. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  66. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  67. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  68. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  69. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  70. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  71. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  72. Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 – 1814
  73. Novalis 1772 – 1801
  74. John Dalton 1766 – 1844
  75. Alexander I of Russia 1777 – 1825
  76. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  77. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  78. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  79. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  80. Washington Irving 1783 – 1859
  81. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  82. Carl von Clausewitz 1780 – 1831
  83. Alessandro Manzoni 1785 – 1873
  84. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  85. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  86. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  87. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  88. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  89. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  90. Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
  91. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  92. Horatio Nelson 1758 – 1805
  93. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  94. Alexander Hamilton 1757 – 1804
  95. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1769 – 1852
  96. Niccolò Paganini 1782 – 1840
  97. Georg Simon Ohm 1789 – 1854
  98. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  99. Humphry Davy 1778 – 1829
  100. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  101. Shaka Zulu 1785–1789 – 1828
  102. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  103. Hans Christian Ørsted 1777 – 1851
  104. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  105. Gregory XVI 1765 – 1846
  106. Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767 – 1835
  107. David Ricardo 1772 – 1823
  108. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  109. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  110. William IV 1765 – 1837
  111. Friedrich Hölderlin 1770 – 1843
  112. Amedeo Avogadro 1776 – 1856
  113. Aurangzeb 1618 – 1707
  114. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  115. Klemens von Metternich 1773 – 1859
  116. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  117. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  118. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  119. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  120. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  121. George IV of the United Kingdom 1762 – 1830
  122. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1768 – 1848
  123. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  124. James Fenimore Cooper 1789 – 1851
  125. Georges Danton 1759 – 1794
  126. Leo XII 1760 – 1829
  127. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775 – 1854
  128. E. T. A. Hoffmann 1776 – 1822
  129. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  130. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  131. Thomas Young 1773 – 1829
  132. Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840
  133. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  134. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  135. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810
  136. Germaine de Staël 1766 – 1817