Who Was Alive
John Coltrane
Gelderen, Hugo van / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

John Coltrane

American jazz saxophonist

Born 23 September 1926 · died 17 July 1967, aged 40
Also known as St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane, Trane

Who was alive at the same time as John Coltrane?

  1. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  2. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  3. Marie Curie, 1867 – 1934
  4. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  5. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  6. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  7. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  8. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  9. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  10. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  11. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  12. Salvador Dalí, 1904 – 1989
  13. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  14. John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963
  15. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  16. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  17. John Coltrane, 1926 – 1967
  18. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929 – 1968
  19. Joe Biden, born 1942
  20. Donald Trump, born 1946
  21. George W. Bush, born 1946
  22. Vladimir Putin, born 1952
  23. Michael Jackson, 1958 – 2009
  24. Barack Obama, born 1961

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 John Coltrane was born, Adolf Hitler was 37, Albert Einstein was 47, Ronald Reagan was 15, Nelson Mandela was 8 and Mahatma Gandhi was 56.

When John Coltrane died, Barack Obama was 5, Donald Trump was 21, Michael Jackson was 8, Vladimir Putin was 14 and Ronald Reagan was 56.

Born during John Coltrane’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bill Gates.

Not quite contemporaries: Vladimir Lenin died about 2 years before John Coltrane was born, Franz Kafka died about 2 years before John Coltrane was born, Shakira was born about 10 years after John Coltrane died and Volodymyr Zelenskyy was born about 11 years after John Coltrane died.

What happened in John Coltrane’s lifetime

Where John Coltrane’s contemporaries were born

John Coltrane is labelled; the others are the best-known people we track who lived at the same time. Each dot is a birthplace from Wikidata (78 of 81 placed); tap one to open that person.
Birthplaces as a list

Compare John Coltrane

The 150 best-known contemporaries

3,263 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as John Coltrane. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1947.

  1. Barack Obama born 1961
  2. Donald Trump born 1946
  3. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  4. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  5. Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
  6. Vladimir Putin born 1952
  7. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  8. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  9. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  10. George W. Bush born 1946
  11. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  12. Joe Biden born 1942
  13. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  14. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  15. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  16. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  17. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  18. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  19. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  20. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  21. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  22. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  23. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  24. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  25. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  26. Bill Gates born 1955
  27. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  28. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  29. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  30. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  31. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  32. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  33. Bill Clinton born 1946
  34. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  35. Angela Merkel born 1954
  36. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  37. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  38. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  39. François Hollande born 1954
  40. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  41. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  42. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  43. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  44. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  45. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  46. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  47. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  48. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  49. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  50. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  51. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  52. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  53. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  54. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  55. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  56. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  57. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  58. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  59. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  60. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  61. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  62. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  63. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  64. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  65. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  66. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  67. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  68. Madonna born 1958
  69. Kamala Harris born 1964
  70. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  71. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  72. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  73. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  74. Xi Jinping born 1953
  75. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  76. Naruhito born 1960
  77. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  78. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  79. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  80. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  81. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  82. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  83. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  84. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  85. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  86. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  87. Bob Dylan born 1941
  88. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  89. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  90. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  91. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  92. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  93. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  94. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  95. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  96. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  97. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  98. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  99. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  100. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  101. Charles III born 1948
  102. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  103. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  104. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  105. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  106. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  107. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  108. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  109. Pope Leo XIV born 1955
  110. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  111. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  112. Narendra Modi born 1950
  113. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  114. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  115. Rafael Correa born 1963
  116. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  117. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  118. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  119. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  120. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  121. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  122. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  123. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  124. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  125. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  126. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  127. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  128. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  129. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  130. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  131. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  132. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  133. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  134. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  135. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  136. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  137. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  138. Bob Marley 1945 – 1981
  139. Shinzo Abe 1954 – 2022
  140. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  141. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  142. Isaac Asimov c. 1920 – 1992
  143. Tim Berners-Lee born 1955
  144. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  145. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  146. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  147. Jackie Chan born 1954
  148. Calvin Coolidge 1872 – 1933
  149. Boris Yeltsin 1931 – 2007
  150. Ali Khamenei 1939 – 2026