Who Was Alive

Kim Jong-il

Supreme Leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011

Born 16 February 1941 · died 17 December 2011, aged 70

Who was alive at the same time as Kim Jong-il?

  1. Rabindranath Tagore
  2. Mahatma Gandhi
  3. Winston Churchill
  4. Joseph Stalin
  5. Albert Einstein
  6. Pablo Picasso
  7. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  8. Charlie Chaplin
  9. Adolf Hitler
  10. Salvador Dalí
  11. Ronald Reagan
  12. John F. Kennedy
  13. Nelson Mandela
  14. Elizabeth II
  15. Marilyn Monroe
  16. Martin Luther King Jr.
  17. Kim Jong-il
  18. Joe Biden
  19. Donald Trump
  20. George W. Bush
  21. Vladimir Putin
  22. Bill Gates
  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 Kim Jong-il was born, Adolf Hitler was 51, Albert Einstein was 61, Ronald Reagan was 30, Nelson Mandela was 22 and Mahatma Gandhi was 71.

When Kim Jong-il died, Barack Obama was 50, Donald Trump was 65, Vladimir Putin was 59, Nelson Mandela was 93 and George W. Bush was 65.

Born during Kim Jong-il’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Bill Gates and Jimmy Wales.

Not quite contemporaries: Thomas Edison died 10 years before Kim Jong-il was born, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk died 3 years before Kim Jong-il was born, Sigmund Freud died 2 years before Kim Jong-il was born and Marie Curie died 7 years before Kim Jong-il was born.

Compare

All 1,204 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. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  18. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  19. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  20. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  21. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  22. Bill Gates born 1955
  23. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  24. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  25. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  26. Shakira born 1977
  27. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  28. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  29. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  30. Lionel Messi born 1987
  31. Corbin Bleu born 1989
  32. Bill Clinton born 1946
  33. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  34. Basshunter born 1984
  35. Angela Merkel born 1954
  36. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  37. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  38. François Hollande born 1954
  39. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  40. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  41. Cristiano Ronaldo born 1985
  42. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  43. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  44. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  45. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  46. John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  47. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  48. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  49. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  50. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  51. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  52. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  53. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  54. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  55. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  56. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  57. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  58. Elon Musk born 1971
  59. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  60. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  61. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  62. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  63. Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  64. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  65. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  66. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  67. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  68. Lady Gaga born 1986
  69. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  70. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  71. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  72. Madonna born 1958
  73. Kamala Harris born 1964
  74. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  75. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  76. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  77. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  78. Xi Jinping born 1953
  79. Naruhito born 1960
  80. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  81. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  82. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  83. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  84. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  85. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  86. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  87. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  88. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  89. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  90. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  91. Bob Dylan born 1941
  92. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  93. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  94. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  95. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  96. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  97. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  98. Justin Bieber born 1994
  99. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  100. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  101. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  102. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  103. Taylor Swift born 1989
  104. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  105. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  106. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  107. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  108. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  109. Charles III born 1948
  110. Kim Jong-un born 1984
  111. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  112. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  113. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  114. Eminem born 1972
  115. Beyoncé born 1981
  116. Selena Gomez born 1992
  117. Leo XIV born 1955
  118. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  119. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  120. Narendra Modi born 1950
  121. Rafael Correa born 1963
  122. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  123. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  124. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  125. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  126. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  127. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  128. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  129. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  130. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  131. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  132. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  133. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  134. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  135. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  136. Tenzin Gyatso born 1935
  137. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  138. Anna Netrebko born 1971
  139. Mark Zuckerberg born 1984
  140. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  141. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  142. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  143. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  144. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  145. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  146. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  147. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  148. Bob Marley 1945 – 1981
  149. Shinzō Abe 1954 – 2022
  150. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964

The 150 best known are listed.