Who Was Alive

James Cook

British explorer, cartographer and naval officer

Born 27 October 1728 · died 14 February 1779, aged 50

Who was alive at the same time as James Cook?

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 James Cook was born, Johann Sebastian Bach was 43, Voltaire was 33, Immanuel Kant was 4, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was 16 and Adam Smith was 5.

When James Cook died, Napoleon was 9, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 29, George Washington was 46, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 23 and Immanuel Kant was 54.

Born during James Cook’s lifetime: Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Washington, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Thomas Jefferson, Jane Austen and Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Not quite contemporaries: Isaac Newton died about a year before James Cook was born, Lord Byron was born 9 years after James Cook died, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz died 12 years before James Cook was born and Louis XIV of France died 13 years before James Cook was born.

Compare

All 114 contemporaries we track

  1. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  3. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  4. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 – 1791
  5. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  6. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  7. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  8. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  10. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  11. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  12. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  13. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  14. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  15. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  16. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  17. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  18. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  19. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  20. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  21. Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  22. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  23. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  24. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  25. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  26. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  27. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  28. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  29. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  30. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  31. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  32. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  33. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  34. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  35. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  36. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  37. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  38. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  39. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  40. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  41. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  42. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  43. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  44. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  45. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  46. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  47. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  48. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  49. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  50. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  51. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  52. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  53. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  54. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  55. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  56. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  57. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  58. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  59. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  60. Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 – 1814
  61. Novalis 1772 – 1801
  62. John Dalton 1766 – 1844
  63. Alexander I of Russia 1777 – 1825
  64. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  65. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  66. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  67. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  68. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  69. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  70. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  71. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  72. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  73. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  74. Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
  75. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  76. Horatio Nelson 1758 – 1805
  77. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  78. Alexander Hamilton 1757 – 1804
  79. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1769 – 1852
  80. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  81. Humphry Davy 1778 – 1829
  82. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  83. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  84. Hans Christian Ørsted 1777 – 1851
  85. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  86. Gregory XVI 1765 – 1846
  87. Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767 – 1835
  88. David Ricardo 1772 – 1823
  89. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  90. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  91. William IV 1765 – 1837
  92. Friedrich Hölderlin 1770 – 1843
  93. Amedeo Avogadro 1776 – 1856
  94. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  95. Klemens von Metternich 1773 – 1859
  96. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  97. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  98. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  99. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  100. George IV of the United Kingdom 1762 – 1830
  101. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1768 – 1848
  102. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  103. Georges Danton 1759 – 1794
  104. Leo XII 1760 – 1829
  105. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775 – 1854
  106. E. T. A. Hoffmann 1776 – 1822
  107. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  108. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  109. Thomas Young 1773 – 1829
  110. Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840
  111. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  112. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  113. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810
  114. Germaine de Staël 1766 – 1817