Who Was Alive
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Christian Albrecht Jensen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

Prussian astronomer and mathematician

Born 22 July 1784 · died 17 March 1846, aged 61
Also known as Friedrich Bessel

Who was alive at the same time as Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel?

  1. Benjamin Franklin, 1706 – 1790
  2. Adam Smith, 1723 – 1790
  3. Immanuel Kant, 1724 – 1804
  4. George Washington, 1732 – 1799
  5. Thomas Jefferson, 1743 – 1826
  6. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749 – 1832
  7. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756 – 1791
  8. Ludwig van Beethoven, c. 1770 – 1827
  9. Napoleon, 1769 – 1821
  10. Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, 1784 – 1846
  11. Lord Byron, 1788 – 1824
  12. Alexander Pushkin, 1799 – 1837
  13. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  14. Hans Christian Andersen, 1805 – 1875
  15. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 – 1849
  16. Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865
  17. Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882
  18. Charles Dickens, 1812 – 1870
  19. Otto von Bismarck, 1815 – 1898
  20. Karl Marx, 1818 – 1883
  21. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 – 1881
  22. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  23. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  24. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900

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 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was born, Napoleon was 14, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 34, George Washington was 52, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 28 and Immanuel Kant was 60.

When Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel died, Karl Marx was 27, Abraham Lincoln was 37, Leo Tolstoy was 17, Charles Darwin was 37 and Victor Hugo was 44.

Born during Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel’s lifetime: Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Darwin, Victor Hugo, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche and Mark Twain.

Not quite contemporaries: Vincent van Gogh was born about 7 years after Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel died, Voltaire died about 6 years before Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was born, Thomas Edison was born about a year after Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel died and Sigmund Freud was born about 10 years after Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel died.

What happened in Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel’s lifetime

Where Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel’s contemporaries were born

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel 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 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

The 150 best-known contemporaries

660 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1815.

  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. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 – 1791
  9. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  10. Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
  11. Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 – 1881
  12. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  13. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  14. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  15. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
  16. Alexander Pushkin 1799 – 1837
  17. Hans Christian Andersen 1805 – 1875
  18. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  19. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  20. Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849
  21. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  22. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  23. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  24. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  25. Richard Wagner 1813 – 1883
  26. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  27. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  28. Frédéric Chopin 1810 – 1849
  29. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  30. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  31. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  32. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  33. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  34. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  35. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  36. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  37. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  38. Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
  39. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  40. Charles Baudelaire 1821 – 1867
  41. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  42. Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  43. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  44. Honoré de Balzac 1799 – 1850
  45. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  46. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  47. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  48. Franz Schubert 1797 – 1828
  49. Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870
  50. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  51. Søren Kierkegaard 1813 – 1855
  52. Heinrich Heine 1797 – 1856
  53. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  54. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  55. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  56. James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
  57. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  58. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  59. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  60. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  61. Gustave Flaubert 1821 – 1880
  62. Ulysses S. Grant 1822 – 1885
  63. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  64. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  65. Nikolai Gogol c. 1809 – c. 1852
  66. Lewis Carroll 1832 – 1898
  67. Wilhelm Röntgen 1845 – 1923
  68. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
  69. Claude Monet 1840 – 1926
  70. Catherine the Great 1729 – 1796
  71. Ivan Turgenev 1818 – 1883
  72. Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
  73. John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873
  74. Antonín Dvořák 1841 – 1904
  75. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  76. Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892
  77. James A. Garfield 1831 – 1881
  78. Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
  79. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  80. Grover Cleveland 1837 – 1908
  81. John Keats 1795 – 1821
  82. Andrew Johnson 1808 – 1875
  83. Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862
  84. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  85. James Buchanan 1791 – 1868
  86. James K. Polk 1795 – 1849
  87. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  88. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
  89. Mikhail Bakunin 1814 – 1876
  90. William McKinley 1843 – 1901
  91. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  92. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  93. Millard Fillmore 1800 – 1874
  94. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  95. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  96. Franklin Pierce 1804 – 1869
  97. Rutherford B. Hayes 1822 – 1893
  98. Paul Cézanne 1839 – 1906
  99. Benjamin Disraeli 1804 – 1881
  100. Taras Shevchenko 1814 – 1861
  101. George Eliot 1819 – 1880
  102. George Sand 1804 – 1876
  103. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  104. James Prescott Joule 1818 – 1889
  105. Benjamin Harrison 1833 – 1901
  106. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  107. Hector Berlioz 1803 – 1869
  108. Charlotte Brontë 1816 – 1855
  109. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  110. Gregor Mendel 1822 – 1884
  111. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  112. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  113. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  114. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 – 1867
  115. Mary Shelley 1797 – 1851
  116. Auguste Comte 1798 – 1857
  117. Ada Lovelace 1815 – 1852
  118. Giuseppe Garibaldi 1807 – 1882
  119. Chester A. Arthur 1829 – 1886
  120. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  121. Robert Schumann 1810 – 1856
  122. Emily Brontë 1818 – 1848
  123. Herman Melville 1819 – 1891
  124. Auguste Rodin 1840 – 1917
  125. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  126. Adam Mickiewicz 1798 – 1855
  127. Napoleon III 1808 – 1873
  128. Mikhail Lermontov 1814 – 1841
  129. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  130. Franz Liszt 1811 – 1886
  131. Louis XVI 1754 – 1793
  132. Theodor Mommsen 1817 – 1903
  133. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1832 – 1910
  134. Robert Koch 1843 – 1910
  135. Frederick the Great 1712 – 1786
  136. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  137. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  138. Felix Mendelssohn 1809 – 1847
  139. Frédéric Mistral 1830 – 1914
  140. William James 1842 – 1910
  141. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  142. Giosuè Carducci 1835 – 1907
  143. Sully Prudhomme 1839 – 1907
  144. Eugène Delacroix 1798 – 1863
  145. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  146. Herbert Spencer 1820 – 1903
  147. Thomas Carlyle 1795 – 1881
  148. Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811 – 1896
  149. Thomas Hardy 1840 – 1928
  150. Peter Kropotkin 1842 – 1921