Who Was Alive
John Herschel
Julia Margaret Cameron, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

John Herschel

British mathematician and astronomer

Born 7 March 1792 · died 11 May 1871, aged 79
Also known as John Frederick William Herschel, John F. W. Herschel, Sir John Herschel

Who was alive at the same time as John Herschel?

  1. Immanuel Kant, 1724 – 1804
  2. George Washington, 1732 – 1799
  3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749 – 1832
  4. Ludwig van Beethoven, c. 1770 – 1827
  5. Napoleon, 1769 – 1821
  6. John Herschel, 1792 – 1871
  7. Alexander Pushkin, 1799 – 1837
  8. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  9. Hans Christian Andersen, 1805 – 1875
  10. Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865
  11. Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882
  12. Charles Dickens, 1812 – 1870
  13. Karl Marx, 1818 – 1883
  14. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 – 1881
  15. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  16. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  17. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  18. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  19. Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
  20. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  21. Rabindranath Tagore, 1861 – 1941
  22. Marie Curie, 1867 – 1934
  23. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  24. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924

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 Herschel was born, Napoleon was 22, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 42, George Washington was 60, Immanuel Kant was 67 and Thomas Jefferson was 48.

When John Herschel died, Karl Marx was 53, Vladimir Lenin was 1, Mahatma Gandhi was 1, Leo Tolstoy was 42 and Charles Darwin was 62.

Born during John Herschel’s lifetime: Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Vladimir Lenin, Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Darwin, Victor Hugo and Vincent van Gogh.

Not quite contemporaries: Albert Einstein was born about 8 years after John Herschel died, Joseph Stalin was born about 7 years after John Herschel died, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died about a year before John Herschel was born and Pablo Picasso was born about 10 years after John Herschel died.

What happened in John Herschel’s lifetime

Where John Herschel’s contemporaries were born

John Herschel 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 John Herschel

The 150 best-known contemporaries

923 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as John Herschel. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1832.

  1. Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
  2. Abraham Lincoln 1809 – 1865
  3. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  4. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  5. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  6. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  7. Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882
  8. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  9. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  10. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  11. Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
  12. Vincent van Gogh 1853 – 1890
  13. Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 – 1881
  14. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  15. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  16. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  17. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  18. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  19. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
  20. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  21. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  22. Alexander Pushkin 1799 – 1837
  23. Hans Christian Andersen 1805 – 1875
  24. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  25. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  26. Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849
  27. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  28. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  29. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  30. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  31. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  32. Richard Wagner 1813 – 1883
  33. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  34. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  35. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  36. Frédéric Chopin 1810 – 1849
  37. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  38. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  39. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  40. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  41. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  42. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  43. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  44. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  45. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  46. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  47. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  48. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  49. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  50. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  51. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  52. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  53. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  54. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  55. Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
  56. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  57. Charles Baudelaire 1821 – 1867
  58. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  59. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  60. Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  61. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  62. Honoré de Balzac 1799 – 1850
  63. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  64. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  65. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  66. Franz Schubert 1797 – 1828
  67. Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870
  68. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  69. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  70. Søren Kierkegaard 1813 – 1855
  71. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  72. Heinrich Heine 1797 – 1856
  73. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  74. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  75. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  76. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  77. James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
  78. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  79. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  80. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  81. Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922
  82. Octave Mirbeau 1848 – 1917
  83. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  84. Gustave Flaubert 1821 – 1880
  85. Ulysses S. Grant 1822 – 1885
  86. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  87. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  88. Nikolai Gogol c. 1809 – c. 1852
  89. Lewis Carroll 1832 – 1898
  90. Wilhelm Röntgen 1845 – 1923
  91. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
  92. Claude Monet 1840 – 1926
  93. Guy de Maupassant 1850 – 1893
  94. Selma Lagerlöf 1858 – 1940
  95. Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894
  96. W. B. Yeats 1865 – 1939
  97. Catherine the Great 1729 – 1796
  98. Ivan Turgenev 1818 – 1883
  99. Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
  100. Gustav Mahler 1860 – 1911
  101. Sun Yat-sen 1866 – 1925
  102. John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873
  103. Antonín Dvořák 1841 – 1904
  104. Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892
  105. James A. Garfield 1831 – 1881
  106. Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
  107. William Howard Taft 1857 – 1930
  108. Giacomo Puccini 1858 – 1924
  109. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  110. Grover Cleveland 1837 – 1908
  111. John Keats 1795 – 1821
  112. Andrew Johnson 1808 – 1875
  113. Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862
  114. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  115. James Buchanan 1791 – 1868
  116. James K. Polk 1795 – 1849
  117. Arthur Rimbaud 1854 – 1891
  118. André Gide 1869 – 1951
  119. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  120. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
  121. Mikhail Bakunin 1814 – 1876
  122. William McKinley 1843 – 1901
  123. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  124. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  125. Millard Fillmore 1800 – 1874
  126. L. L. Zamenhof 1859 – 1917
  127. Warren G. Harding 1865 – 1923
  128. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  129. Romain Rolland 1866 – 1944
  130. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  131. Franklin Pierce 1804 – 1869
  132. Rutherford B. Hayes 1822 – 1893
  133. Paul Cézanne 1839 – 1906
  134. Henryk Sienkiewicz 1846 – 1916
  135. Benjamin Disraeli 1804 – 1881
  136. Taras Shevchenko 1814 – 1861
  137. George Eliot 1819 – 1880
  138. Henri Bergson 1859 – 1941
  139. Swami Vivekananda 1863 – 1902
  140. George Sand 1804 – 1876
  141. Nicholas II 1868 – 1918
  142. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  143. James Prescott Joule 1818 – 1889
  144. Benjamin Harrison 1833 – 1901
  145. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  146. Hector Berlioz 1803 – 1869
  147. Charlotte Brontë 1816 – 1855
  148. Knut Hamsun 1859 – 1952
  149. Gregor Mendel 1822 – 1884
  150. Luigi Pirandello 1867 – 1936