Who Was Alive

Thomas Sankara

President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987

Born 21 December 1949 · died 15 October 1987, aged 37

Who was alive at the same time as Thomas Sankara?

  1. Winston Churchill
  2. Joseph Stalin
  3. Albert Einstein
  4. Pablo Picasso
  5. Charlie Chaplin
  6. Mao Zedong
  7. Salvador Dalí
  8. Ronald Reagan
  9. John F. Kennedy
  10. Nelson Mandela
  11. Elizabeth II
  12. Marilyn Monroe
  13. Martin Luther King Jr.
  14. Pope Francis
  15. Joe Biden
  16. Donald Trump
  17. George W. Bush
  18. Thomas Sankara
  19. Vladimir Putin
  20. Bill Gates
  21. Michael Jackson
  22. Barack Obama
  23. Jimmy Wales
  24. Shakira
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 Thomas Sankara was born, Donald Trump was 3, Albert Einstein was 70, Ronald Reagan was 38, Nelson Mandela was 31 and George W. Bush was 3.

When Thomas Sankara died, Barack Obama was 26, Donald Trump was 41, Michael Jackson was 29, Vladimir Putin was 35 and Ronald Reagan was 76.

Born during Thomas Sankara’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Bill Gates, Jimmy Wales, Shakira, Steve Jobs and Lionel Messi.

Not quite contemporaries: Adolf Hitler died 4 years before Thomas Sankara was born, Mahatma Gandhi died about a year before Thomas Sankara was born, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk died 11 years before Thomas Sankara was born and Sigmund Freud died 10 years before Thomas Sankara was born.

Compare

All 1,111 contemporaries we track

  1. Barack Obama born 1961
  2. Donald Trump born 1946
  3. Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
  4. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  5. Vladimir Putin born 1952
  6. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  7. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  8. George W. Bush born 1946
  9. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  10. Joe Biden born 1942
  11. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  12. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  13. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  14. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  15. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  16. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  17. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  18. Bill Gates born 1955
  19. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  20. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  21. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  22. Shakira born 1977
  23. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  24. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  25. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  26. Lionel Messi born 1987
  27. Bill Clinton born 1946
  28. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  29. Basshunter born 1984
  30. Angela Merkel born 1954
  31. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  32. François Hollande born 1954
  33. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  34. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  35. Cristiano Ronaldo born 1985
  36. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  37. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  38. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  39. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  40. John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  41. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  42. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  43. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  44. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  45. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  46. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  47. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  48. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  49. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  50. Elon Musk born 1971
  51. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  52. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  53. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  54. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  55. Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  56. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  57. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  58. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  59. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  60. Lady Gaga born 1986
  61. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  62. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  63. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  64. Madonna born 1958
  65. Kamala Harris born 1964
  66. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  67. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  68. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  69. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  70. Xi Jinping born 1953
  71. Naruhito born 1960
  72. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  73. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  74. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  75. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  76. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  77. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  78. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  79. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  80. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  81. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  82. Bob Dylan born 1941
  83. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  84. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  85. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  86. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  87. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  88. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  89. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  90. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  91. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  92. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  93. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  94. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  95. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  96. Charles III born 1948
  97. Kim Jong-un born 1984
  98. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  99. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  100. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  101. Eminem born 1972
  102. Beyoncé born 1981
  103. Leo XIV born 1955
  104. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  105. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  106. Narendra Modi born 1950
  107. Rafael Correa born 1963
  108. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  109. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  110. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  111. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  112. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  113. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  114. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  115. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  116. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  117. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  118. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  119. Tenzin Gyatso born 1935
  120. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  121. Anna Netrebko born 1971
  122. Mark Zuckerberg born 1984
  123. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  124. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  125. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  126. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  127. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  128. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  129. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  130. Bob Marley 1945 – 1981
  131. Shinzō Abe 1954 – 2022
  132. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  133. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  134. Isaac Asimov 1919–1920 – 1992
  135. Tim Berners-Lee born 1955
  136. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  137. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  138. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  139. Boris Yeltsin 1931 – 2007
  140. Ali Khamenei 1939 – 2026
  141. Robin Williams 1951 – 2014
  142. Jackie Chan born 1954
  143. Kim Il-sung 1912 – 1994
  144. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918 – 2008
  145. Jacques Chirac 1932 – 2019
  146. Guillermo Lasso born 1955
  147. Céline Dion born 1968
  148. T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965
  149. Stanley Kubrick 1928 – 1999
  150. Roger Federer born 1981

The 150 best known are listed.