Who Was Alive

Montesquieu

French philosopher

Born 18 January 1689 · died 10 February 1755, aged 66

Who was alive at the same time as Montesquieu?

  1. John Locke
  2. Louis XIV of France
  3. Isaac Newton
  4. Matsuo Bashō
  5. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  6. Jonathan Swift
  7. Peter the Great
  8. Antonio Vivaldi
  9. Johann Sebastian Bach
  10. Montesquieu
  11. Voltaire
  12. Benjamin Franklin
  13. Leonhard Euler
  14. Carl Linnaeus
  15. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  16. Adam Smith
  17. Immanuel Kant
  18. James Cook
  19. George Washington
  20. John Adams
  21. Thomas Jefferson
  22. Francisco Goya
  23. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  24. James Madison
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 Montesquieu was born, Isaac Newton was 46, Johann Sebastian Bach was 3, John Locke was 56, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was 42 and Matsuo Bashō was 44 or 45.

When Montesquieu died, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 5, George Washington was 22, Voltaire was 60, Immanuel Kant was 30 and Jean-Jacques Rousseau was 42.

Born during Montesquieu’s lifetime: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Washington, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith and Benjamin Franklin.

Not quite contemporaries: Napoleon was born 14 years after Montesquieu died, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born about a year after Montesquieu died, Ludwig van Beethoven was born 13 years after Montesquieu died and Friedrich Schiller was born 4 years after Montesquieu died.

Compare

All 82 contemporaries we track

  1. Isaac Newton 1642 – 1727
  2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  3. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  4. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  5. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  6. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  8. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  9. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  10. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  11. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  12. John Locke 1632 – 1704
  13. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  14. Matsuo Bashō 1644 – 1694
  15. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  16. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  17. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  18. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  19. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  20. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  21. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  22. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  23. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  24. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  25. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  26. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  27. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  28. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  29. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  30. Jean de La Fontaine 1621 – 1695
  31. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  32. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  33. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  34. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  35. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  36. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  37. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  38. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  39. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  40. Christiaan Huygens 1629 – 1695
  41. Jean Racine 1639 – 1699
  42. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  43. Robert Boyle 1627 – 1691
  44. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  45. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  46. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  47. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  48. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  49. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  50. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  51. Charles Perrault 1628 – 1703
  52. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  53. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  54. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  55. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  56. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  57. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  58. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  59. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  60. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  61. Robert Hooke 1635 – 1703
  62. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  63. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  64. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  65. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  66. John Dryden 1631 – 1700
  67. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  68. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  69. Aurangzeb 1618 – 1707
  70. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  71. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  72. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  73. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  74. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  75. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  76. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  77. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  78. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  79. William III of England 1650 – 1702
  80. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  81. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  82. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810