Who Was Alive

Heinrich Böll

German writer

Born 21 December 1917 · died 16 July 1985, aged 67

Who was alive at the same time as Heinrich Böll?

  1. Thomas Edison
  2. Sigmund Freud
  3. Marie Curie
  4. Mahatma Gandhi
  5. Vladimir Lenin
  6. Winston Churchill
  7. Joseph Stalin
  8. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
  9. Albert Einstein
  10. Pablo Picasso
  11. Charlie Chaplin
  12. Adolf Hitler
  13. Ronald Reagan
  14. John F. Kennedy
  15. Heinrich Böll
  16. Nelson Mandela
  17. Elizabeth II
  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 Heinrich Böll was born, Adolf Hitler was 28, Albert Einstein was 38, Ronald Reagan was 6, Vladimir Lenin was 47 and Mahatma Gandhi was 48.

When Heinrich Böll died, Barack Obama was 23, Donald Trump was 39, Michael Jackson was 26, Vladimir Putin was 32 and Ronald Reagan was 74.

Born during Heinrich Böll’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela, George W. Bush, Joe Biden and Elizabeth II.

Not quite contemporaries: Leo Tolstoy died 7 years before Heinrich Böll was born, Mark Twain died 7 years before Heinrich Böll was born, Anton Chekhov died 13 years before Heinrich Böll was born and Lionel Messi was born 2 years after Heinrich Böll died.

Compare

All 1,255 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. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  9. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  10. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  11. George W. Bush born 1946
  12. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  13. Joe Biden born 1942
  14. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  15. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  16. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  17. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  18. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  19. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 1879–1881 – 1938
  20. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  21. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  22. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  23. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  24. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  25. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  26. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  27. Bill Gates born 1955
  28. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  29. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  30. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  31. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  32. Shakira born 1977
  33. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  34. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  35. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  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. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  74. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  75. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  76. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  77. Madonna born 1958
  78. Kamala Harris born 1964
  79. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  80. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  81. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  82. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  83. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  84. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  85. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  86. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  87. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  88. Xi Jinping born 1953
  89. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  90. Naruhito born 1960
  91. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  92. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  93. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  94. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  95. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  96. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  97. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  98. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  99. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  100. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  101. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  102. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  103. Bob Dylan born 1941
  104. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  105. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  106. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  107. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  108. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  109. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  110. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  111. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  112. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  113. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  114. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  115. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  116. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  117. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  118. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  119. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  120. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  121. Charles III born 1948
  122. Kim Jong-un born 1984
  123. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  124. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  125. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  126. Eminem born 1972
  127. Beyoncé born 1981
  128. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  129. Leo XIV born 1955
  130. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  131. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  132. Narendra Modi born 1950
  133. Rafael Correa born 1963
  134. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  135. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  136. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  137. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  138. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  139. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  140. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  141. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  142. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  143. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  144. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  145. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  146. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  147. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  148. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  149. Tenzin Gyatso born 1935
  150. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965

The 150 best known are listed.