Who Was Alive
David Thouless
Mary Levin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

David Thouless

British physicist

Born 21 September 1934 · died 6 April 2019, aged 84
Also known as David J. Thouless, David James Thouless

Who was alive at the same time as David Thouless?

  1. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  2. Rabindranath Tagore, 1861 – 1941
  3. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  4. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  5. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  6. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  7. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  8. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  9. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882 – 1945
  10. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  11. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  12. Salvador Dalí, 1904 – 1989
  13. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  14. John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963
  15. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  16. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  17. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929 – 1968
  18. David Thouless, 1934 – 2019
  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 David Thouless was born, Adolf Hitler was 45, Albert Einstein was 55, Ronald Reagan was 23, Nelson Mandela was 16 and Mahatma Gandhi was 64.

When David Thouless died, Barack Obama was 57, Donald Trump was 72, Vladimir Putin was 66, George W. Bush was 72 and Joe Biden was 76.

Born during David Thouless’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Bill Gates and Jimmy Wales.

Not quite contemporaries: Vladimir Lenin died about 10 years before David Thouless was born, Thomas Edison died about 3 years before David Thouless was born, Marie Curie died months before David Thouless was born and Franz Kafka died about 10 years before David Thouless was born.

What happened in David Thouless’s lifetime

Where David Thouless’s contemporaries were born

David Thouless 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 David Thouless

The 150 best-known contemporaries

4,348 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as David Thouless. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1977.

  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. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  9. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  10. George W. Bush born 1946
  11. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  12. Joe Biden born 1942
  13. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  14. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  15. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  16. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  17. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  18. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  19. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  20. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  21. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  22. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  23. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  24. Bill Gates born 1955
  25. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  26. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  27. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  28. Shakira born 1977
  29. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  30. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  31. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  32. Lionel Messi born 1987
  33. Corbin Bleu born 1989
  34. Bill Clinton born 1946
  35. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  36. Basshunter born 1984
  37. Angela Merkel born 1954
  38. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  39. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  40. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  41. François Hollande born 1954
  42. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  43. Volodymyr Zelenskyy born 1978
  44. Cristiano Ronaldo born 1985
  45. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  46. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  47. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  48. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  49. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  50. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  51. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  52. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  53. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  54. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  55. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  56. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  57. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  58. Elon Musk born 1971
  59. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  60. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  61. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  62. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  63. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  64. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  65. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  66. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  67. Emmanuel Macron born 1977
  68. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  69. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  70. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  71. Lady Gaga born 1986
  72. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  73. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  74. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  75. Madonna born 1958
  76. Kamala Harris born 1964
  77. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  78. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  79. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  80. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  81. Xi Jinping born 1953
  82. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  83. Naruhito born 1960
  84. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  85. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  86. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  87. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  88. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  89. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  90. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  91. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  92. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  93. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  94. Bob Dylan born 1941
  95. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  96. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  97. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  98. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  99. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  100. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  101. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  102. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  103. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  104. Justin Bieber born 1994
  105. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  106. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  107. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  108. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  109. Taylor Swift born 1989
  110. Charles III born 1948
  111. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  112. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  113. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  114. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  115. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  116. Kim Jong Un born 1984
  117. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  118. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  119. Pope Leo XIV born 1955
  120. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  121. Eminem born 1972
  122. Beyoncé born 1981
  123. Selena Gomez born 1992
  124. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  125. Narendra Modi born 1950
  126. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  127. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  128. Rafael Correa born 1963
  129. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  130. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  131. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  132. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  133. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  134. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  135. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  136. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  137. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  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. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  145. Anna Netrebko born 1971
  146. Mark Zuckerberg born 1984
  147. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  148. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  149. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  150. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971