Who Was Alive
George Gershwin
Carl Van Vechten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

George Gershwin

American composer and pianist

Born 26 September 1898 · died 11 July 1937, aged 38
Also known as George Jacob Gershwin, Jacob Gershvin, Dzhordzh Gershvin

Who was alive at the same time as George Gershwin?

  1. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  2. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  3. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  4. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  5. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  6. Rabindranath Tagore, 1861 – 1941
  7. Marie Curie, 1867 – 1934
  8. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  9. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  10. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  11. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  12. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  13. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  14. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  15. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882 – 1945
  16. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  17. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  18. George Gershwin, 1898 – 1937
  19. Salvador Dalí, 1904 – 1989
  20. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  21. John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963
  22. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  23. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  24. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929 – 1968

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 George Gershwin was born, Adolf Hitler was 9, Albert Einstein was 19, Vladimir Lenin was 28, Mahatma Gandhi was 28 and Leo Tolstoy was 70.

When George Gershwin died, Adolf Hitler was 48, Albert Einstein was 58, Ronald Reagan was 26, Nelson Mandela was 18 and Mahatma Gandhi was 67.

Born during George Gershwin’s lifetime: Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, Elizabeth II, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Salvador Dalí, Marilyn Monroe and Pope Francis.

Not quite contemporaries: Donald Trump was born about 9 years after George Gershwin died, George W. Bush was born about 9 years after George Gershwin died, Joe Biden was born about 5 years after George Gershwin died and Victor Hugo died about 13 years before George Gershwin was born.

What happened in George Gershwin’s lifetime

Where George Gershwin’s contemporaries were born

George Gershwin 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 George Gershwin

The 150 best-known contemporaries

2,154 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as George Gershwin. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1918.

  1. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  2. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  3. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  4. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  5. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  6. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  7. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  8. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  9. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  10. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  11. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  12. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  13. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  14. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  15. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  16. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  17. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  18. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  19. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  20. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  21. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  22. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  23. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  24. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  25. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  26. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  27. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  28. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  29. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  30. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  31. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  32. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  33. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  34. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  35. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  36. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  37. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  38. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  39. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  40. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  41. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  42. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  43. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  44. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  45. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  46. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  47. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  48. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  49. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  50. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  51. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  52. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  53. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  54. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  55. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  56. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  57. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  58. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  59. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  60. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  61. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  62. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  63. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  64. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  65. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  66. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  67. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  68. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  69. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  70. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  71. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  72. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  73. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  74. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  75. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  76. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  77. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  78. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  79. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  80. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  81. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  82. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  83. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  84. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  85. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  86. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  87. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  88. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  89. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  90. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  91. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  92. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  93. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  94. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  95. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  96. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  97. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  98. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  99. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  100. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  101. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  102. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  103. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  104. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  105. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  106. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  107. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  108. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  109. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  110. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  111. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  112. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  113. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  114. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  115. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  116. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  117. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  118. Isaac Asimov c. 1920 – 1992
  119. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  120. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  121. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  122. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  123. Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922
  124. Octave Mirbeau 1848 – 1917
  125. Calvin Coolidge 1872 – 1933
  126. Boris Yeltsin 1931 – 2007
  127. Kim Il Sung 1912 – 1994
  128. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918 – 2008
  129. Jacques Chirac 1932 – 2019
  130. T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965
  131. Kwame Nkrumah 1909 – 1972
  132. Stanley Kubrick 1928 – 1999
  133. Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931
  134. Marlon Brando 1924 – 2004
  135. Wilhelm Röntgen 1845 – 1923
  136. Hirohito 1901 – 1989
  137. Richard Feynman 1918 – 1988
  138. Woody Allen born 1935
  139. Claude Monet 1840 – 1926
  140. Selma Lagerlöf 1858 – 1940
  141. Bertolt Brecht 1898 – 1956
  142. W. B. Yeats 1865 – 1939
  143. Yasser Arafat 1929 – 2004
  144. Carl Jung 1875 – 1961
  145. Ho Chi Minh 1890 – 1969
  146. Judy Garland 1922 – 1969
  147. Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
  148. Gustav Mahler 1860 – 1911
  149. Sun Yat-sen 1866 – 1925
  150. Vladimir Nabokov 1899 – 1977