Who Was Alive

Christiaan Huygens

Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer

Born 14 April 1629 · died 8 July 1695, aged 66

Who was alive at the same time as Christiaan Huygens?

  1. Galileo Galilei
  2. Johannes Kepler
  3. Peter Paul Rubens
  4. Thomas Hobbes
  5. René Descartes
  6. Diego Velázquez
  7. Rembrandt
  8. John Milton
  9. Molière
  10. Blaise Pascal
  11. Christiaan Huygens
  12. John Locke
  13. Benedictus de Spinoza
  14. Louis XIV of France
  15. Isaac Newton
  16. Matsuo Bashō
  17. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  18. Jonathan Swift
  19. Peter the Great
  20. Antonio Vivaldi
  21. George Frideric Handel
  22. Johann Sebastian Bach
  23. Montesquieu
  24. Voltaire
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 Christiaan Huygens was born, Galileo Galilei was 65, René Descartes was 33, Molière was 7, Rembrandt was 22 and Blaise Pascal was 5.

When Christiaan Huygens died, Isaac Newton was 52, Johann Sebastian Bach was 10, Voltaire was under a year old, John Locke was 62 and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was 49.

Born during Christiaan Huygens’s lifetime: Isaac Newton, Johann Sebastian Bach, Voltaire, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Matsuo Bashō, Louis XIV of France and Peter the Great.

Not quite contemporaries: William Shakespeare died 13 years before Christiaan Huygens was born, Miguel de Cervantes died 13 years before Christiaan Huygens was born, Benjamin Franklin was born 11 years after Christiaan Huygens died and Carl Linnaeus was born 12 years after Christiaan Huygens died.

Compare

All 59 contemporaries we track

  1. Isaac Newton 1642 – 1727
  2. Galileo Galilei 1564 – 1642
  3. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  4. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  5. René Descartes 1596 – 1650
  6. Molière 1622 – 1673
  7. John Locke 1632 – 1704
  8. Rembrandt 1606 – 1669
  9. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  10. Matsuo Bashō 1644 – 1694
  11. Blaise Pascal 1623 – 1662
  12. Johannes Kepler 1571 – 1630
  13. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  14. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  15. Benedictus de Spinoza 1632 – 1677
  16. Peter Paul Rubens 1577 – 1640
  17. Diego Velázquez 1599 – 1660
  18. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  19. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  20. Thomas Hobbes 1588 – 1679
  21. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  22. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  23. John Milton 1608 – 1674
  24. Jean de La Fontaine 1621 – 1695
  25. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  26. Lope de Vega 1562 – 1635
  27. Oliver Cromwell 1599 – 1658
  28. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  29. Jean Racine 1639 – 1699
  30. Johannes Vermeer 1632 – 1675
  31. Pierre de Fermat 1607 – 1665
  32. Robert Boyle 1627 – 1691
  33. Charles I of England 1600 – 1649
  34. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  35. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  36. Pierre Corneille 1606 – 1684
  37. Charles Perrault 1628 – 1703
  38. Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu 1585 – 1642
  39. Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1600 – 1681
  40. Abel Tasman 1603 – 1659
  41. Robert Hooke 1635 – 1703
  42. Shah Jahan 1592 – 1666
  43. John Donne 1572 – 1631
  44. Charles II of England 1630 – 1685
  45. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  46. John Amos Comenius 1592 – 1670
  47. François de La Rochefoucauld 1613 – 1680
  48. John Dryden 1631 – 1700
  49. Aurangzeb 1618 – 1707
  50. Louis XIII of France 1601 – 1643
  51. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  52. William Harvey 1578 – 1657
  53. Hugo Grotius 1583 – 1645
  54. Evangelista Torricelli 1608 – 1647
  55. Nicolas Poussin 1594 – 1665
  56. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  57. Urban VIII 1568 – 1644
  58. William III of England 1650 – 1702
  59. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745