Who Was Alive

Michael Jackson

American singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer

Born 29 August 1958 · died 25 June 2009, aged 50

Who was alive at the same time as Michael Jackson?

  1. Winston Churchill
  2. Pablo Picasso
  3. Charlie Chaplin
  4. Mao Zedong
  5. Salvador Dalí
  6. Ronald Reagan
  7. John F. Kennedy
  8. Nelson Mandela
  9. Elizabeth II
  10. Marilyn Monroe
  11. Che Guevara
  12. Martin Luther King Jr.
  13. Pope Francis
  14. Joe Biden
  15. Donald Trump
  16. George W. Bush
  17. Vladimir Putin
  18. Steve Jobs
  19. Bill Gates
  20. Michael Jackson
  21. Barack Obama
  22. Jimmy Wales
  23. Shakira
  24. Lionel Messi
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 Michael Jackson was born, Donald Trump was 12, Vladimir Putin was 5, Ronald Reagan was 47, Nelson Mandela was 40 and George W. Bush was 12.

When Michael Jackson died, Barack Obama was 47, Donald Trump was 63, Vladimir Putin was 56, Nelson Mandela was 90 and George W. Bush was 62.

Born during Michael Jackson’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Jimmy Wales, Shakira, Lionel Messi, Corbin Bleu, Basshunter, Cristiano Ronaldo and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Not quite contemporaries: Adolf Hitler died 13 years before Michael Jackson was born, Albert Einstein died 3 years before Michael Jackson was born, Mahatma Gandhi died 10 years before Michael Jackson was born and Joseph Stalin died 5 years before Michael Jackson was born.

Compare

All 1,117 contemporaries we track

  1. Barack Obama born 1961
  2. Donald Trump born 1946
  3. Vladimir Putin born 1952
  4. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  5. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  6. George W. Bush born 1946
  7. Joe Biden born 1942
  8. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  9. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  10. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  11. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  12. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  13. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  14. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  15. Bill Gates born 1955
  16. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  17. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  18. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  19. Shakira born 1977
  20. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  21. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  22. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  23. Lionel Messi born 1987
  24. Corbin Bleu born 1989
  25. Bill Clinton born 1946
  26. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  27. Basshunter born 1984
  28. Angela Merkel born 1954
  29. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  30. François Hollande born 1954
  31. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  32. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  33. Cristiano Ronaldo born 1985
  34. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  35. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  36. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  37. John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  38. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  39. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  40. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  41. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  42. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  43. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  44. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  45. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  46. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  47. Elon Musk born 1971
  48. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  49. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  50. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  51. Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  52. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  53. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  54. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  55. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  56. Lady Gaga born 1986
  57. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  58. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  59. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  60. Madonna born 1958
  61. Kamala Harris born 1964
  62. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  63. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  64. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  65. Xi Jinping born 1953
  66. Naruhito born 1960
  67. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  68. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  69. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  70. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  71. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  72. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  73. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  74. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  75. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  76. Bob Dylan born 1941
  77. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  78. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  79. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  80. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  81. Justin Bieber born 1994
  82. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  83. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  84. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  85. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  86. Taylor Swift born 1989
  87. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  88. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  89. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  90. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  91. Charles III born 1948
  92. Kim Jong-un born 1984
  93. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  94. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  95. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  96. Eminem born 1972
  97. Beyoncé born 1981
  98. Selena Gomez born 1992
  99. Leo XIV born 1955
  100. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  101. Narendra Modi born 1950
  102. Rafael Correa born 1963
  103. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  104. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  105. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  106. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  107. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  108. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  109. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  110. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  111. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  112. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  113. Tenzin Gyatso born 1935
  114. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  115. Anna Netrebko born 1971
  116. Mark Zuckerberg born 1984
  117. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  118. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  119. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  120. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  121. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  122. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  123. Bob Marley 1945 – 1981
  124. Shinzō Abe 1954 – 2022
  125. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  126. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  127. Isaac Asimov 1919–1920 – 1992
  128. Tim Berners-Lee born 1955
  129. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  130. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  131. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  132. Boris Yeltsin 1931 – 2007
  133. Ali Khamenei 1939 – 2026
  134. Robin Williams 1951 – 2014
  135. Jackie Chan born 1954
  136. Kim Il-sung 1912 – 1994
  137. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918 – 2008
  138. Jacques Chirac 1932 – 2019
  139. Guillermo Lasso born 1955
  140. Céline Dion born 1968
  141. T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965
  142. Stanley Kubrick 1928 – 1999
  143. Roger Federer born 1981
  144. Lana Del Rey born 1985
  145. Kwame Nkrumah 1909 – 1972
  146. Marlon Brando 1924 – 2004
  147. Alexander Lukashenka born 1954
  148. Hirohito 1901 – 1989
  149. Richard Feynman 1918 – 1988
  150. Woody Allen born 1935

The 150 best known are listed.