Who Was Alive

David Attenborough

British broadcaster and naturalist

Born 8 May 1926 · living, 100 as of September 2026

Who was alive at the same time as David Attenborough?

  1. Thomas Edison
  2. Sigmund Freud
  3. Marie Curie
  4. Mahatma Gandhi
  5. Winston Churchill
  6. Joseph Stalin
  7. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
  8. Albert Einstein
  9. Pablo Picasso
  10. Charlie Chaplin
  11. Adolf Hitler
  12. Salvador Dalí
  13. Ronald Reagan
  14. John F. Kennedy
  15. Nelson Mandela
  16. Elizabeth II
  17. David Attenborough
  18. Martin Luther King Jr.
  19. Joe Biden
  20. Donald Trump
  21. George W. Bush
  22. Vladimir Putin
  23. Michael Jackson
  24. Barack Obama
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 David Attenborough was born, Adolf Hitler was 37, Albert Einstein was 47, Ronald Reagan was 15, Nelson Mandela was 7 and Mahatma Gandhi was 56.

Born during David Attenborough’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bill Gates.

Not quite contemporaries: Vladimir Lenin died 2 years before David Attenborough was born, Franz Kafka died 2 years before David Attenborough was born, Sarah Bernhardt died 3 years before David Attenborough was born and Theodore Roosevelt died 7 years before David Attenborough was born.

Compare

All 1,286 contemporaries we track

  1. Barack Obama born 1961
  2. Donald Trump born 1946
  3. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  4. Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
  5. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  6. Vladimir Putin born 1952
  7. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  8. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  9. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  10. George W. Bush born 1946
  11. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  12. Joe Biden born 1942
  13. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  14. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  15. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  16. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  17. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  18. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 1879–1881 – 1938
  19. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  20. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  21. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  22. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  23. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  24. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  25. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  26. Bill Gates born 1955
  27. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  28. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  29. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  30. Shakira born 1977
  31. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  32. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  33. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  34. Lionel Messi born 1987
  35. Corbin Bleu born 1989
  36. Bill Clinton born 1946
  37. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  38. Basshunter born 1984
  39. Angela Merkel born 1954
  40. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  41. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  42. François Hollande born 1954
  43. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  44. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  45. Cristiano Ronaldo born 1985
  46. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  47. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  48. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  49. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  50. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  51. John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  52. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  53. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  54. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  55. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  56. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  57. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  58. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  59. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  60. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  61. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  62. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  63. Elon Musk born 1971
  64. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  65. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  66. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  67. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  68. Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  69. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  70. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  71. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  72. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  73. Lady Gaga born 1986
  74. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  75. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  76. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  77. Madonna born 1958
  78. Kamala Harris born 1964
  79. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  80. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  81. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  82. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  83. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  84. Xi Jinping born 1953
  85. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  86. Naruhito born 1960
  87. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  88. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  89. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  90. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  91. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  92. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  93. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  94. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  95. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  96. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  97. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  98. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  99. Bob Dylan born 1941
  100. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  101. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  102. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  103. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  104. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  105. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  106. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  107. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  108. Justin Bieber born 1994
  109. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  110. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  111. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  112. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  113. Taylor Swift born 1989
  114. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  115. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  116. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  117. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  118. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  119. Charles III born 1948
  120. Kim Jong-un born 1984
  121. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  122. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  123. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  124. Eminem born 1972
  125. Beyoncé born 1981
  126. Selena Gomez born 1992
  127. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  128. Leo XIV born 1955
  129. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  130. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  131. Narendra Modi born 1950
  132. Rafael Correa born 1963
  133. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  134. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  135. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  136. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  137. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  138. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  139. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  140. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  141. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  142. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  143. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  144. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  145. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  146. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  147. Tenzin Gyatso born 1935
  148. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  149. Anna Netrebko born 1971
  150. Mark Zuckerberg born 1984

The 150 best known are listed.