Who Was Alive

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer

Born 28 June 1712 · died 2 July 1778, aged 66

Who was alive at the same time as Jean-Jacques Rousseau?

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 Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born, Isaac Newton was 69, Johann Sebastian Bach was 27, Voltaire was 17, Benjamin Franklin was 6 and Carl Linnaeus was 5.

When Jean-Jacques Rousseau died, Napoleon was 8, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 28, George Washington was 46, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 22 and Immanuel Kant was 54.

Born during Jean-Jacques Rousseau’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: Lord Byron was born 10 years after Jean-Jacques Rousseau died, John Locke died 8 years before Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born, Michael Faraday was born 13 years after Jean-Jacques Rousseau died and Simón Bolívar was born 5 years after Jean-Jacques Rousseau died.

Compare

All 119 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. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  11. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  12. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  13. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  14. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  15. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  16. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  17. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  18. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  19. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  20. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  21. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  22. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  23. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  24. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  25. Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  26. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  27. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  28. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  29. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  30. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  31. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  32. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  33. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  34. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  35. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  36. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  37. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  38. Catherine II of Russia 1729 – 1796
  39. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  40. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  41. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  42. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  43. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  44. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  45. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  46. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  47. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  48. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  49. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  50. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  51. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  52. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  53. Louis XVI of France 1754 – 1793
  54. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  55. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  56. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  57. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  58. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  59. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  60. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  61. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  62. William Herschel 1738 – 1822
  63. Edward Jenner 1749 – 1823
  64. Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 – 1814
  65. Novalis 1772 – 1801
  66. John Dalton 1766 – 1844
  67. Alexander I of Russia 1777 – 1825
  68. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  69. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  70. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck 1744 – 1829
  71. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  72. George III of Great Britain 1738 – 1820
  73. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
  74. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  75. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  76. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  77. Marquis de Sade 1740 – 1814
  78. Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
  79. Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
  80. Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794
  81. Horatio Nelson 1758 – 1805
  82. Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736 – 1813
  83. Alexander Hamilton 1757 – 1804
  84. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1769 – 1852
  85. Johann Gottfried Herder 1744 – 1803
  86. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb 1736 – 1806
  87. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  88. Hans Christian Ørsted 1777 – 1851
  89. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  90. Gregory XVI 1765 – 1846
  91. Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767 – 1835
  92. David Ricardo 1772 – 1823
  93. Isabelle de Charrière 1740 – 1805
  94. Pius VII 1742 – 1823
  95. William IV 1765 – 1837
  96. Friedrich Hölderlin 1770 – 1843
  97. Amedeo Avogadro 1776 – 1856
  98. Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais 1732 – 1799
  99. Klemens von Metternich 1773 – 1859
  100. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  101. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1754 – 1839
  102. Paul I of Russia 1754 – 1801
  103. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  104. Jacques-Louis David 1748 – 1825
  105. George IV of the United Kingdom 1762 – 1830
  106. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1768 – 1848
  107. Joseph Priestley 1733 – 1804
  108. Georges Danton 1759 – 1794
  109. Leo XII 1760 – 1829
  110. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775 – 1854
  111. E. T. A. Hoffmann 1776 – 1822
  112. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  113. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  114. Thomas Young 1773 – 1829
  115. Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840
  116. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  117. Pius VI 1717 – 1799
  118. Henry Cavendish 1731 – 1810
  119. Germaine de Staël 1766 – 1817