Who Was Alive

Denis Diderot

French Enlightenment philosopher writer and encyclopædist

Born 5 October 1713 · died 31 July 1784, aged 70

Who was alive at the same time as Denis Diderot?

  1. Louis XIV of France
  2. Isaac Newton
  3. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  4. Johann Sebastian Bach
  5. Voltaire
  6. Benjamin Franklin
  7. Leonhard Euler
  8. Carl Linnaeus
  9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  10. Denis Diderot
  11. Adam Smith
  12. Immanuel Kant
  13. James Cook
  14. George Washington
  15. John Adams
  16. Thomas Jefferson
  17. Francisco Goya
  18. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  19. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  20. Ludwig van Beethoven
  21. Napoleon
  22. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  23. Jane Austen
  24. Carl Friedrich Gauss
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 Denis Diderot was born, Isaac Newton was 70, Johann Sebastian Bach was 28, Voltaire was 18, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was 1 and Benjamin Franklin was 7.

When Denis Diderot died, Napoleon was 14, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 34, George Washington was 52, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 28 and Immanuel Kant was 60.

Born during Denis Diderot’s lifetime: Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Washington, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith.

Not quite contemporaries: Alexander Pushkin was born 15 years after Denis Diderot died, Lord Byron was born 4 years after Denis Diderot died, John Locke died 9 years before Denis Diderot was born and Michael Faraday was born 7 years after Denis Diderot died.

Compare

All 127 contemporaries we track

  1. Isaac Newton 1642 – 1727
  2. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  4. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 – 1791
  6. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  7. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  8. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  9. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  11. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  12. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  13. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  14. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  15. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  16. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  17. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  18. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  19. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  20. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  21. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  22. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  23. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  24. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  25. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  26. Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  27. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  28. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  29. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  30. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  31. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  32. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  33. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  34. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  35. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  36. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  37. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  38. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  39. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  40. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  41. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  42. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  43. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  44. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  45. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  46. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  47. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  48. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  49. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  50. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  51. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  52. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  53. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 – 1867
  54. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  55. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  56. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  57. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  58. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  59. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  60. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  61. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  62. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  63. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  64. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  65. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  66. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  67. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  68. Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 – 1814
  69. Novalis 1772 – 1801
  70. John Dalton 1766 – 1844
  71. Alexander I of Russia 1777 – 1825
  72. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  73. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  74. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  75. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  76. Washington Irving 1783 – 1859
  77. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  78. Carl von Clausewitz 1780 – 1831
  79. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  80. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  81. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  82. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  83. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  84. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  85. Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
  86. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  87. Horatio Nelson 1758 – 1805
  88. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  89. Alexander Hamilton 1757 – 1804
  90. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1769 – 1852
  91. Niccolò Paganini 1782 – 1840
  92. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  93. Humphry Davy 1778 – 1829
  94. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  95. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  96. Hans Christian Ørsted 1777 – 1851
  97. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  98. Gregory XVI 1765 – 1846
  99. Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767 – 1835
  100. David Ricardo 1772 – 1823
  101. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  102. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  103. William IV 1765 – 1837
  104. Friedrich Hölderlin 1770 – 1843
  105. Amedeo Avogadro 1776 – 1856
  106. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  107. Klemens von Metternich 1773 – 1859
  108. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  109. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  110. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  111. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  112. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  113. George IV of the United Kingdom 1762 – 1830
  114. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1768 – 1848
  115. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  116. Georges Danton 1759 – 1794
  117. Leo XII 1760 – 1829
  118. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775 – 1854
  119. E. T. A. Hoffmann 1776 – 1822
  120. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  121. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  122. Thomas Young 1773 – 1829
  123. Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840
  124. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  125. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  126. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810
  127. Germaine de Staël 1766 – 1817