Who Was Alive

Nelson Mandela

President of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist

Born 18 July 1918 · died 5 December 2013, aged 95

Who was alive at the same time as Nelson Mandela?

  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. Salvador Dalí
  14. Ronald Reagan
  15. John F. Kennedy
  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 Nelson Mandela was born, Adolf Hitler was 29, Albert Einstein was 39, Ronald Reagan was 7, Vladimir Lenin was 48 and Mahatma Gandhi was 48.

When Nelson Mandela died, Barack Obama was 52, Donald Trump was 67, Vladimir Putin was 61, George W. Bush was 67 and Joe Biden was 71.

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

Not quite contemporaries: Leo Tolstoy died 8 years before Nelson Mandela was born, Mark Twain died 8 years before Nelson Mandela was born, Anton Chekhov died 14 years before Nelson Mandela was born and Jules Verne died 13 years before Nelson Mandela was born.

Compare

All 1,322 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. 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. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  18. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 1879–1881 – 1938
  19. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  20. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  21. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  22. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  23. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  24. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  25. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  26. Bill Gates born 1955
  27. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  28. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  29. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  30. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  31. Shakira born 1977
  32. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  33. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  34. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  35. Lionel Messi born 1987
  36. Corbin Bleu born 1989
  37. Bill Clinton born 1946
  38. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  39. Basshunter born 1984
  40. Angela Merkel born 1954
  41. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  42. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  43. François Hollande born 1954
  44. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  45. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  46. Cristiano Ronaldo born 1985
  47. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  48. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  49. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  50. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  51. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  52. John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  53. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  54. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  55. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  56. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  57. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  58. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  59. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  60. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  61. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  62. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  63. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  64. Elon Musk born 1971
  65. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  66. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  67. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  68. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  69. Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  70. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  71. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  72. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  73. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  74. Lady Gaga born 1986
  75. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  76. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  77. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  78. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  79. Madonna born 1958
  80. Kamala Harris born 1964
  81. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  82. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  83. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  84. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  85. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  86. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  87. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  88. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  89. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  90. Xi Jinping born 1953
  91. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  92. Naruhito born 1960
  93. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  94. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  95. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  96. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  97. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  98. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  99. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  100. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  101. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  102. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  103. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  104. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  105. Bob Dylan born 1941
  106. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  107. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  108. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  109. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  110. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  111. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  112. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  113. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  114. Justin Bieber born 1994
  115. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  116. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  117. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  118. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  119. Taylor Swift born 1989
  120. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  121. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  122. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  123. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  124. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  125. Charles III born 1948
  126. Kim Jong-un born 1984
  127. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  128. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  129. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  130. Eminem born 1972
  131. Beyoncé born 1981
  132. Selena Gomez born 1992
  133. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  134. Leo XIV born 1955
  135. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  136. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  137. Narendra Modi born 1950
  138. Rafael Correa born 1963
  139. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  140. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  141. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  142. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  143. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  144. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  145. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  146. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  147. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  148. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  149. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  150. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006

The 150 best known are listed.