Who Was Alive
James B. Sumner
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

James B. Sumner

American chemist

Born 19 November 1887 · died 12 August 1955, aged 67
Also known as James Batcheller Sumner, James Sumner

Who was alive at the same time as James B. Sumner?

  1. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  2. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  3. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  4. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  5. Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
  6. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  7. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  8. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  9. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  10. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  11. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  12. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  13. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  14. James B. Sumner, 1887 – 1955
  15. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  16. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  17. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  18. John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963
  19. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  20. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  21. Joe Biden, born 1942
  22. Donald Trump, born 1946
  23. George W. Bush, born 1946
  24. Vladimir Putin, born 1952

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 James B. Sumner was born, Albert Einstein was 8, Vladimir Lenin was 17, Mahatma Gandhi was 18, Leo Tolstoy was 59 and Joseph Stalin was 8.

When James B. Sumner died, Donald Trump was 9, Vladimir Putin was 2, Ronald Reagan was 44, Nelson Mandela was 37 and George W. Bush was 9.

Born during James B. Sumner’s lifetime: Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, George W. Bush, Joe Biden and Charlie Chaplin.

Not quite contemporaries: Barack Obama was born about 6 years after James B. Sumner died, Michael Jackson was born about 3 years after James B. Sumner died, Karl Marx died about 4 years before James B. Sumner was born and Charles Darwin died about 5 years before James B. Sumner was born.

What happened in James B. Sumner’s lifetime

Where James B. Sumner’s contemporaries were born

James B. Sumner 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 James B. Sumner

The 150 best-known contemporaries

3,096 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as James B. Sumner. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1921.

  1. Donald Trump born 1946
  2. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  3. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  4. Vladimir Putin born 1952
  5. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  6. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  7. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  8. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  9. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  10. George W. Bush born 1946
  11. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  12. Joe Biden born 1942
  13. Vincent van Gogh 1853 – 1890
  14. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  15. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  16. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  17. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  18. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  19. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  20. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  21. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  22. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  23. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  24. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  25. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  26. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  27. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  28. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  29. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  30. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  31. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  32. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  33. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  34. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  35. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  36. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  37. Bill Clinton born 1946
  38. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  39. Angela Merkel born 1954
  40. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  41. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  42. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  43. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  44. François Hollande born 1954
  45. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  46. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  47. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  48. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  49. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  50. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  51. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  52. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  53. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  54. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  55. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  56. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  57. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  58. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  59. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  60. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  61. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  62. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  63. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  64. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  65. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  66. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  67. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  68. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  69. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  70. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  71. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  72. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  73. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  74. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  75. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  76. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  77. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  78. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  79. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  80. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  81. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  82. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  83. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  84. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  85. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  86. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  87. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  88. Xi Jinping born 1953
  89. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  90. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  91. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  92. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  93. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  94. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  95. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  96. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  97. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  98. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  99. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  100. Bob Dylan born 1941
  101. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  102. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  103. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  104. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  105. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  106. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  107. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  108. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  109. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  110. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  111. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  112. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  113. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  114. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  115. Charles III born 1948
  116. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  117. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  118. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  119. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  120. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  121. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  122. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  123. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  124. Narendra Modi born 1950
  125. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  126. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  127. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  128. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  129. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  130. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  131. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  132. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  133. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  134. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  135. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  136. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  137. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  138. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  139. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  140. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  141. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  142. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  143. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  144. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  145. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  146. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  147. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  148. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  149. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  150. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023