Who Was Alive

Voltaire

French writer, historian and philosopher

Born 21 November 1694 · died 30 May 1778, aged 83

Who was alive at the same time as Voltaire?

  1. John Locke
  2. Isaac Newton
  3. Matsuo Bashō
  4. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  5. Johann Sebastian Bach
  6. Voltaire
  7. Benjamin Franklin
  8. Leonhard Euler
  9. Carl Linnaeus
  10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  11. Adam Smith
  12. Immanuel Kant
  13. James Cook
  14. George Washington
  15. John Adams
  16. Thomas Jefferson
  17. Francisco Goya
  18. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  19. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  20. Ludwig van Beethoven
  21. Napoleon
  22. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  23. Jane Austen
  24. Carl Friedrich Gauss
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 Voltaire was born, Isaac Newton was 51, Johann Sebastian Bach was 9, John Locke was 62, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was 48 and Matsuo Bashō was 49 or 50.

When Voltaire died, Napoleon was 8, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 28, George Washington was 46, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 22 and Immanuel Kant was 54.

Born during Voltaire’s lifetime: Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Washington, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson.

Not quite contemporaries: Lord Byron was born 10 years after Voltaire died, Michael Faraday was born 13 years after Voltaire died, Simón Bolívar was born 5 years after Voltaire died and Arthur Schopenhauer was born 10 years after Voltaire died.

Compare

All 129 contemporaries we track

  1. Isaac Newton 1642 – 1727
  2. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  4. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 – 1791
  6. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  7. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  8. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  10. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  11. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  12. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  13. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  14. John Locke 1632 – 1704
  15. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  16. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  17. Matsuo Bashō 1644 – 1694
  18. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  19. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  20. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  21. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  22. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  23. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  24. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  25. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  26. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  27. Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  28. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  29. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  30. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  31. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  32. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  33. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  34. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  35. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  36. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  37. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  38. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  39. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  40. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  41. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  42. Jean de La Fontaine 1621 – 1695
  43. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  44. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  45. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  46. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  47. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  48. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  49. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  50. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  51. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  52. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  53. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  54. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  55. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  56. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  57. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  58. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  59. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  60. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  61. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  62. Christiaan Huygens 1629 – 1695
  63. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  64. Jean Racine 1639 – 1699
  65. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  66. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  67. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  68. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  69. Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 – 1814
  70. Novalis 1772 – 1801
  71. John Dalton 1766 – 1844
  72. Alexander I of Russia 1777 – 1825
  73. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  74. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  75. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  76. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  77. Charles Perrault 1628 – 1703
  78. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  79. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  80. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  81. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  82. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  83. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  84. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  85. Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
  86. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  87. Horatio Nelson 1758 – 1805
  88. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  89. Alexander Hamilton 1757 – 1804
  90. Robert Hooke 1635 – 1703
  91. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1769 – 1852
  92. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  93. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  94. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  95. Hans Christian Ørsted 1777 – 1851
  96. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  97. Gregory XVI 1765 – 1846
  98. Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767 – 1835
  99. David Ricardo 1772 – 1823
  100. John Dryden 1631 – 1700
  101. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  102. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  103. William IV 1765 – 1837
  104. Friedrich Hölderlin 1770 – 1843
  105. Amedeo Avogadro 1776 – 1856
  106. Aurangzeb 1618 – 1707
  107. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  108. Klemens von Metternich 1773 – 1859
  109. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  110. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  111. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  112. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  113. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  114. George IV of the United Kingdom 1762 – 1830
  115. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1768 – 1848
  116. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  117. Georges Danton 1759 – 1794
  118. Leo XII 1760 – 1829
  119. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775 – 1854
  120. E. T. A. Hoffmann 1776 – 1822
  121. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  122. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  123. Thomas Young 1773 – 1829
  124. Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840
  125. William III of England 1650 – 1702
  126. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  127. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  128. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810
  129. Germaine de Staël 1766 – 1817