Who Was Alive

Daniel Defoe

English trader, writer, and journalist

Born 1659–1662 · died 24 April 1731

Who was alive at the same time as Daniel Defoe?

  1. Thomas Hobbes
  2. Rembrandt
  3. Molière
  4. John Locke
  5. Benedictus de Spinoza
  6. Louis XIV of France
  7. Isaac Newton
  8. Matsuo Bashō
  9. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  10. Daniel Defoe
  11. Jonathan Swift
  12. Peter the Great
  13. Antonio Vivaldi
  14. George Frideric Handel
  15. Johann Sebastian Bach
  16. Montesquieu
  17. Voltaire
  18. Benjamin Franklin
  19. Leonhard Euler
  20. Carl Linnaeus
  21. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  22. Adam Smith
  23. Immanuel Kant
  24. James Cook
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 Daniel Defoe died, Johann Sebastian Bach was 46, Voltaire was 36, Immanuel Kant was 7, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was 18 and Adam Smith was 7.

Born during Daniel Defoe’s lifetime: Johann Sebastian Bach, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Linnaeus and Leonhard Euler.

Not quite contemporaries: George Washington was born about a year after Daniel Defoe died, René Descartes died 9 years before Daniel Defoe was born, Thomas Jefferson was born 12 years after Daniel Defoe died and John Adams was born 4 years after Daniel Defoe died.

Compare

All 65 contemporaries we track

  1. Isaac Newton 1642 – 1727
  2. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  3. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  4. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  6. Molière 1622 – 1673
  7. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  8. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  9. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  10. John Locke 1632 – 1704
  11. Rembrandt 1606 – 1669
  12. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  13. Matsuo Bashō 1644 – 1694
  14. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  15. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  16. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  17. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  18. Benedictus de Spinoza 1632 – 1677
  19. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  20. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  21. Thomas Hobbes 1588 – 1679
  22. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  23. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  24. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  25. John Milton 1608 – 1674
  26. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  27. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  28. Jean de La Fontaine 1621 – 1695
  29. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  30. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  31. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  32. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  33. Christiaan Huygens 1629 – 1695
  34. Jean Racine 1639 – 1699
  35. Johannes Vermeer 1632 – 1675
  36. Pierre de Fermat 1607 – 1665
  37. Robert Boyle 1627 – 1691
  38. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  39. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  40. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  41. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  42. Pierre Corneille 1606 – 1684
  43. Charles Perrault 1628 – 1703
  44. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  45. Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1600 – 1681
  46. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  47. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  48. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  49. Robert Hooke 1635 – 1703
  50. Shah Jahan 1592 – 1666
  51. Charles II of England 1630 – 1685
  52. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  53. John Amos Comenius 1592 – 1670
  54. François de La Rochefoucauld 1613 – 1680
  55. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  56. John Dryden 1631 – 1700
  57. Aurangzeb 1618 – 1707
  58. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  59. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  60. Nicolas Poussin 1594 – 1665
  61. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  62. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  63. William III of England 1650 – 1702
  64. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  65. Pius VI 1717 – 1799