Who Was Alive
Frederick William IV
Hermann Biow, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Frederick William IV

King of Prussia

Born 15 October 1795 · died 2 January 1861, aged 65
Also known as Frederick William IV of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl

Who was alive at the same time as Frederick William IV?

  1. Immanuel Kant, 1724 – 1804
  2. George Washington, 1732 – 1799
  3. Thomas Jefferson, 1743 – 1826
  4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749 – 1832
  5. Ludwig van Beethoven, c. 1770 – 1827
  6. Napoleon, 1769 – 1821
  7. Frederick William IV, 1795 – 1861
  8. Alexander Pushkin, 1799 – 1837
  9. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  10. Hans Christian Andersen, 1805 – 1875
  11. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 – 1849
  12. Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865
  13. Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882
  14. Charles Dickens, 1812 – 1870
  15. Karl Marx, 1818 – 1883
  16. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 – 1881
  17. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  18. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  19. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  20. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  21. Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
  22. Oscar Wilde, 1854 – 1900
  23. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  24. Anton Chekhov, 1860 – 1904

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 Frederick William IV was born, Napoleon was 26, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 46, George Washington was 63, Immanuel Kant was 71 and Thomas Jefferson was 52.

When Frederick William IV died, Karl Marx was 42, Abraham Lincoln was 51, Leo Tolstoy was 32, Charles Darwin was 51 and Victor Hugo was 58.

Born during Frederick William IV’s lifetime: Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Darwin, Victor Hugo, Vincent van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Not quite contemporaries: Vladimir Lenin was born about 9 years after Frederick William IV died, Mahatma Gandhi was born about 8 years after Frederick William IV died, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died about 4 years before Frederick William IV was born and Winston Churchill was born about 13 years after Frederick William IV died.

What happened in Frederick William IV’s lifetime

Where Frederick William IV’s contemporaries were born

Frederick William IV is labelled; the others are the best-known people we track who lived at the same time. Each dot is a birthplace from Wikidata (80 of 81 placed); tap one to open that person.
Birthplaces as a list

Compare Frederick William IV

The 150 best-known contemporaries

769 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Frederick William IV. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1828.

  1. Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
  2. Abraham Lincoln 1809 – 1865
  3. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  4. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  5. Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882
  6. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  7. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  8. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  9. Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
  10. Vincent van Gogh 1853 – 1890
  11. Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 – 1881
  12. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  13. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  14. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  15. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  16. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  17. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
  18. Alexander Pushkin 1799 – 1837
  19. Hans Christian Andersen 1805 – 1875
  20. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  21. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  22. Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849
  23. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  24. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  25. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  26. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  27. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  28. Richard Wagner 1813 – 1883
  29. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  30. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  31. Frédéric Chopin 1810 – 1849
  32. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  33. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  34. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  35. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  36. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  37. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  38. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  39. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  40. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  41. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  42. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  43. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  44. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  45. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  46. Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
  47. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  48. Charles Baudelaire 1821 – 1867
  49. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  50. Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  51. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  52. Honoré de Balzac 1799 – 1850
  53. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  54. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  55. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  56. Franz Schubert 1797 – 1828
  57. Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870
  58. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  59. Søren Kierkegaard 1813 – 1855
  60. Heinrich Heine 1797 – 1856
  61. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  62. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  63. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  64. James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
  65. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  66. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  67. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  68. Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922
  69. Octave Mirbeau 1848 – 1917
  70. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  71. Gustave Flaubert 1821 – 1880
  72. Ulysses S. Grant 1822 – 1885
  73. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  74. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  75. Nikolai Gogol c. 1809 – c. 1852
  76. Lewis Carroll 1832 – 1898
  77. Wilhelm Röntgen 1845 – 1923
  78. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
  79. Claude Monet 1840 – 1926
  80. Guy de Maupassant 1850 – 1893
  81. Selma Lagerlöf 1858 – 1940
  82. Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894
  83. Catherine the Great 1729 – 1796
  84. Ivan Turgenev 1818 – 1883
  85. Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
  86. Gustav Mahler 1860 – 1911
  87. John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873
  88. Antonín Dvořák 1841 – 1904
  89. Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892
  90. James A. Garfield 1831 – 1881
  91. Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
  92. William Howard Taft 1857 – 1930
  93. Giacomo Puccini 1858 – 1924
  94. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  95. Grover Cleveland 1837 – 1908
  96. John Keats 1795 – 1821
  97. Andrew Johnson 1808 – 1875
  98. Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862
  99. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  100. James Buchanan 1791 – 1868
  101. James K. Polk 1795 – 1849
  102. Arthur Rimbaud 1854 – 1891
  103. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  104. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
  105. Mikhail Bakunin 1814 – 1876
  106. William McKinley 1843 – 1901
  107. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  108. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  109. Millard Fillmore 1800 – 1874
  110. L. L. Zamenhof 1859 – 1917
  111. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  112. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  113. Franklin Pierce 1804 – 1869
  114. Rutherford B. Hayes 1822 – 1893
  115. Paul Cézanne 1839 – 1906
  116. Henryk Sienkiewicz 1846 – 1916
  117. Benjamin Disraeli 1804 – 1881
  118. Taras Shevchenko 1814 – 1861
  119. George Eliot 1819 – 1880
  120. Henri Bergson 1859 – 1941
  121. George Sand 1804 – 1876
  122. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  123. James Prescott Joule 1818 – 1889
  124. Benjamin Harrison 1833 – 1901
  125. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  126. Hector Berlioz 1803 – 1869
  127. Charlotte Brontë 1816 – 1855
  128. Knut Hamsun 1859 – 1952
  129. Gregor Mendel 1822 – 1884
  130. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  131. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 – 1867
  132. Mary Shelley 1797 – 1851
  133. Auguste Comte 1798 – 1857
  134. Ada Lovelace 1815 – 1852
  135. Paul Gauguin 1848 – 1903
  136. Giuseppe Garibaldi 1807 – 1882
  137. Chester A. Arthur 1829 – 1886
  138. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  139. Robert Schumann 1810 – 1856
  140. Emily Brontë 1818 – 1848
  141. Herman Melville 1819 – 1891
  142. Auguste Rodin 1840 – 1917
  143. Antoni Gaudí 1852 – 1926
  144. Henri Poincaré 1854 – 1912
  145. Pierre Curie 1859 – 1906
  146. Wilhelm II 1859 – 1941
  147. Adam Mickiewicz 1798 – 1855
  148. Joseph Conrad 1857 – 1924
  149. Napoleon III 1808 – 1873
  150. Mikhail Lermontov 1814 – 1841