Who Was Alive
Carl Orff
Orff-Zentrum München, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Carl Orff

German composer

Born 10 July 1895 · died 29 March 1982, aged 86
Also known as Karl Orff

Who was alive at the same time as Carl Orff?

  1. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  2. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  3. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  4. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  5. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  6. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  7. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  8. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  9. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  10. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  11. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  12. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  13. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  14. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  15. Carl Orff, 1895 – 1982
  16. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  17. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  18. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  19. Joe Biden, born 1942
  20. Donald Trump, born 1946
  21. George W. Bush, born 1946
  22. Vladimir Putin, born 1952
  23. Michael Jackson, 1958 – 2009
  24. Barack Obama, born 1961

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 Carl Orff was born, Adolf Hitler was 6, Albert Einstein was 16, Vladimir Lenin was 25, Mahatma Gandhi was 25 and Leo Tolstoy was 66.

When Carl Orff died, Barack Obama was 20, Donald Trump was 35, Michael Jackson was 23, Vladimir Putin was 29 and Ronald Reagan was 71.

Born during Carl Orff’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, George W. Bush and Joe Biden.

Not quite contemporaries: Karl Marx died about 12 years before Carl Orff was born, Charles Darwin died about 13 years before Carl Orff was born, Victor Hugo died about 10 years before Carl Orff was born and Vincent van Gogh died about 5 years before Carl Orff was born.

What happened in Carl Orff’s lifetime

Where Carl Orff’s contemporaries were born

Carl Orff is labelled; the others are the best-known people we track who lived at the same time. Each dot is a birthplace from Wikidata (79 of 81 placed); tap one to open that person.
Birthplaces as a list

Compare Carl Orff

The 150 best-known contemporaries

4,165 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Carl Orff. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1939.

  1. Barack Obama born 1961
  2. Donald Trump born 1946
  3. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  4. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  5. Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
  6. Vladimir Putin born 1952
  7. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  8. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  9. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  10. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  11. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  12. George W. Bush born 1946
  13. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  14. Joe Biden born 1942
  15. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  16. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  17. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  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. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  25. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  26. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  27. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  28. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  29. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  30. Bill Gates born 1955
  31. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  32. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  33. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  34. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  35. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  36. Shakira born 1977
  37. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  38. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  39. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  40. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  41. Bill Clinton born 1946
  42. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  43. Angela Merkel born 1954
  44. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  45. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  46. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  47. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  48. François Hollande born 1954
  49. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  50. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  51. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  52. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  53. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  54. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  55. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  56. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  57. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  58. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  59. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  60. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  61. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  62. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  63. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  64. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  65. Elon Musk born 1971
  66. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  67. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  68. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  69. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  70. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  71. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  72. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  73. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  74. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  75. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  76. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  77. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  78. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  79. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  80. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  81. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  82. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  83. Madonna born 1958
  84. Kamala Harris born 1964
  85. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  86. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  87. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  88. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  89. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  90. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  91. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  92. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  93. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  94. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  95. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  96. Xi Jinping born 1953
  97. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  98. Naruhito born 1960
  99. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  100. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  101. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  102. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  103. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  104. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  105. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  106. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  107. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  108. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  109. Bob Dylan born 1941
  110. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  111. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  112. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  113. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  114. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  115. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  116. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  117. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  118. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  119. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  120. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  121. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  122. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  123. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  124. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  125. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  126. Charles III born 1948
  127. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  128. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  129. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  130. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  131. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  132. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  133. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  134. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  135. Pope Leo XIV born 1955
  136. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  137. Eminem born 1972
  138. Beyoncé born 1981
  139. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  140. Narendra Modi born 1950
  141. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  142. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  143. Rafael Correa born 1963
  144. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  145. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  146. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  147. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  148. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  149. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  150. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006