Who Was Alive
Beatrix Potter
Charles G.Y. King (1854-1937), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Beatrix Potter

British children's writer and illustrator

Born 28 July 1866 · died 22 December 1943, aged 77
Also known as Helen Beatrix Potter Heelis, Helen Beatrix Potter

Who was alive at the same time as Beatrix Potter?

  1. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  2. Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882
  3. Karl Marx, 1818 – 1883
  4. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 – 1881
  5. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  6. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  7. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  8. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  9. Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
  10. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  11. Beatrix Potter, 1866 – 1943
  12. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  13. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  14. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  15. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  16. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  17. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  18. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  19. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  20. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  21. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  22. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  23. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  24. Joe Biden, born 1942

Drag across the timeline, or use the arrow keys, to see who was alive in any year and the age each person reached that year. Dashed lines mark world events. Faded ends mark uncertain dates.

When Beatrix Potter was born, Karl Marx was 48, Leo Tolstoy was 37, Charles Darwin was 57, Victor Hugo was 64 and Vincent van Gogh was 13.

When Beatrix Potter died, Adolf Hitler was 54, Albert Einstein was 64, Ronald Reagan was 32, Nelson Mandela was 25 and Mahatma Gandhi was 74.

Born during Beatrix Potter’s lifetime: Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Ronald Reagan, Vladimir Lenin, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Joe Biden.

Not quite contemporaries: Donald Trump was born about 3 years after Beatrix Potter died, Michael Jackson was born about 15 years after Beatrix Potter died, Vladimir Putin was born about 9 years after Beatrix Potter died and Abraham Lincoln died about a year before Beatrix Potter was born.

What happened in Beatrix Potter’s lifetime

Where Beatrix Potter’s contemporaries were born

Beatrix Potter is labelled; the others are the best-known people we track who lived at the same time. Each dot is a birthplace from Wikidata (80 of 81 placed); tap one to open that person.
Birthplaces as a list

Compare Beatrix Potter

The 150 best-known contemporaries

2,631 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Beatrix Potter. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1905.

  1. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  2. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  3. Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
  4. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  5. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  6. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  7. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  8. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  9. Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882
  10. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  11. Joe Biden born 1942
  12. Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
  13. Vincent van Gogh 1853 – 1890
  14. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  15. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  16. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  17. Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 – 1881
  18. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  19. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  20. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  21. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  22. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  23. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  24. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
  25. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  26. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  27. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  28. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  29. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  30. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  31. Hans Christian Andersen 1805 – 1875
  32. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  33. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  34. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  35. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  36. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  37. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  38. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  39. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  40. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  41. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  42. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  43. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  44. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  45. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  46. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  47. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  48. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  49. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  50. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  51. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  52. Richard Wagner 1813 – 1883
  53. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  54. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  55. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  56. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  57. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  58. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  59. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  60. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  61. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  62. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  63. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  64. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  65. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  66. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  67. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  68. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  69. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  70. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  71. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  72. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  73. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  74. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  75. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  76. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  77. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  78. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  79. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  80. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  81. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  82. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  83. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  84. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  85. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  86. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  87. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  88. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  89. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  90. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  91. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  92. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  93. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  94. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  95. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  96. Bob Dylan born 1941
  97. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  98. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  99. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  100. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  101. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  102. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  103. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  104. Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
  105. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  106. Charles Baudelaire 1821 – 1867
  107. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  108. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  109. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  110. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  111. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  112. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  113. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  114. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  115. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  116. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  117. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  118. Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870
  119. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  120. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  121. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  122. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  123. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  124. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  125. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  126. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  127. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  128. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  129. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  130. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  131. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  132. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  133. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  134. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  135. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  136. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  137. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  138. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  139. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  140. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  141. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  142. James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
  143. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  144. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  145. Isaac Asimov c. 1920 – 1992
  146. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  147. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  148. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  149. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  150. Anatole France 1844 – 1924