Who Was Alive
Charles Laughton
Clarence Sinclair Bull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Laughton

British actor

Born 1 July 1899 · died 15 December 1962, aged 63

Who was alive at the same time as Charles Laughton?

  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. Charles Laughton, 1899 – 1962
  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 Charles Laughton was born, Adolf Hitler was 10, Albert Einstein was 20, Vladimir Lenin was 29, Mahatma Gandhi was 29 and Leo Tolstoy was 70.

When Charles Laughton died, Barack Obama was 1, Donald Trump was 16, Michael Jackson was 4, Vladimir Putin was 10 and Ronald Reagan was 51.

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

Not quite contemporaries: Victor Hugo died about 14 years before Charles Laughton was born, Vincent van Gogh died about 9 years before Charles Laughton was born, Jimmy Wales was born about 4 years after Charles Laughton died and Shakira was born about 15 years after Charles Laughton died.

What happened in Charles Laughton’s lifetime

Where Charles Laughton’s contemporaries were born

Charles Laughton 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 Charles Laughton

The 150 best-known contemporaries

3,321 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Charles Laughton. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1931.

  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. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  35. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  36. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  37. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  38. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  39. Bill Clinton born 1946
  40. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  41. Angela Merkel born 1954
  42. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  43. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  44. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  45. François Hollande born 1954
  46. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  47. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  48. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  49. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  50. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  51. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  52. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  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. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  64. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  65. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  66. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  67. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  68. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  69. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  70. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  71. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  72. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  73. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  74. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  75. Madonna born 1958
  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. Xi Jinping born 1953
  87. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  88. Naruhito born 1960
  89. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  90. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  91. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  92. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  93. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  94. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  95. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  96. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  97. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  98. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  99. Bob Dylan born 1941
  100. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  101. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  102. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  103. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  104. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  105. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  106. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  107. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  108. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  109. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  110. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  111. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  112. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  113. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  114. Charles III born 1948
  115. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  116. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  117. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  118. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  119. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  120. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  121. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  122. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  123. Pope Leo XIV born 1955
  124. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  125. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  126. Narendra Modi born 1950
  127. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  128. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  129. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  130. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  131. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  132. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  133. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  134. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  135. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  136. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  137. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  138. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  139. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  140. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  141. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  142. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  143. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  144. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  145. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  146. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  147. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  148. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  149. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  150. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943