Who Was Alive

Carl Linnaeus

Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (1707–1778); developed the foundations of modern taxonomy

Born 23 May 1707 · died 10 January 1778, aged 70

Who was alive at the same time as Carl Linnaeus?

  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. Friedrich Schiller
  20. Ludwig van Beethoven
  21. Napoleon
  22. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  23. Jane Austen
  24. Carl Friedrich Gauss
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 Carl Linnaeus was born, Isaac Newton was 64, Johann Sebastian Bach was 22, Voltaire was 12, Benjamin Franklin was 1 and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was 60.

When Carl Linnaeus died, Napoleon was 8, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 28, George Washington was 45, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 21 and Voltaire was 83.

Born during Carl Linnaeus’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: Lord Byron was born 10 years after Carl Linnaeus died, John Locke died 3 years before Carl Linnaeus was born, Matsuo Bashō died 13 years before Carl Linnaeus was born and Michael Faraday was born 13 years after Carl Linnaeus died.

Compare

All 119 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. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  14. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  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. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  23. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  24. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  25. Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  26. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  27. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  28. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  29. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  30. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  31. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  32. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  33. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  34. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  35. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  36. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  37. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  38. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  39. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  40. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  41. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  42. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  43. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  44. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  45. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  46. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  47. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  48. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  49. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  50. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  51. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  52. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  53. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  54. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  55. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  56. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  57. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  58. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  59. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  60. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  61. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  62. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  63. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  64. Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 – 1814
  65. Novalis 1772 – 1801
  66. John Dalton 1766 – 1844
  67. Alexander I of Russia 1777 – 1825
  68. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  69. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  70. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  71. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  72. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  73. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  74. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  75. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  76. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  77. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  78. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  79. Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
  80. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  81. Horatio Nelson 1758 – 1805
  82. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  83. Alexander Hamilton 1757 – 1804
  84. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1769 – 1852
  85. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  86. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  87. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  88. Hans Christian Ørsted 1777 – 1851
  89. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  90. Gregory XVI 1765 – 1846
  91. Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767 – 1835
  92. David Ricardo 1772 – 1823
  93. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  94. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  95. William IV 1765 – 1837
  96. Friedrich Hölderlin 1770 – 1843
  97. Amedeo Avogadro 1776 – 1856
  98. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  99. Klemens von Metternich 1773 – 1859
  100. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  101. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  102. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  103. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  104. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  105. George IV of the United Kingdom 1762 – 1830
  106. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1768 – 1848
  107. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  108. Georges Danton 1759 – 1794
  109. Leo XII 1760 – 1829
  110. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775 – 1854
  111. E. T. A. Hoffmann 1776 – 1822
  112. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  113. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  114. Thomas Young 1773 – 1829
  115. Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840
  116. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  117. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  118. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810
  119. Germaine de Staël 1766 – 1817