Who Was Alive
Joseph Henry
Henry Ulke (1821-1910), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Joseph Henry

American physicist

Born 17 December 1797 · died 13 May 1878, aged 80

Who was alive at the same time as Joseph Henry?

  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. Joseph Henry, 1797 – 1878
  7. Alexander Pushkin, 1799 – 1837
  8. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  9. Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865
  10. Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882
  11. Charles Dickens, 1812 – 1870
  12. Karl Marx, 1818 – 1883
  13. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 – 1881
  14. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  15. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  16. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  17. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  18. Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
  19. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  20. Rabindranath Tagore, 1861 – 1941
  21. Marie Curie, 1867 – 1934
  22. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  23. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  24. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965

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 Joseph Henry was born, Napoleon was 28, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 48, George Washington was 65, Immanuel Kant was 73 and Thomas Jefferson was 54.

When Joseph Henry died, Karl Marx was 60, Vladimir Lenin was 8, Mahatma Gandhi was 8, Leo Tolstoy was 49 and Charles Darwin was 69.

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

Not quite contemporaries: Adolf Hitler was born about 11 years after Joseph Henry died, Albert Einstein was born about a year after Joseph Henry died, Joseph Stalin was born months after Joseph Henry died and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died about 6 years before Joseph Henry was born.

What happened in Joseph Henry’s lifetime

Where Joseph Henry’s contemporaries were born

Joseph Henry 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 Joseph Henry

The 150 best-known contemporaries

1,010 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Joseph Henry. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1838.

  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. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  14. Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 – 1881
  15. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  16. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  17. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  18. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  19. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  20. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
  21. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  22. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  23. Alexander Pushkin 1799 – 1837
  24. Hans Christian Andersen 1805 – 1875
  25. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  26. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  27. Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849
  28. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  29. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  30. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  31. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  32. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  33. Richard Wagner 1813 – 1883
  34. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  35. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  36. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  37. Frédéric Chopin 1810 – 1849
  38. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  39. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  40. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  41. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  42. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  43. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  44. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  45. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  46. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  47. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  48. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  49. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  50. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  51. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  52. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  53. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  54. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  55. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  56. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  57. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  58. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  59. Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
  60. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  61. Charles Baudelaire 1821 – 1867
  62. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  63. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  64. Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  65. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  66. Honoré de Balzac 1799 – 1850
  67. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  68. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  69. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  70. Franz Schubert 1797 – 1828
  71. Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870
  72. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  73. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  74. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  75. Søren Kierkegaard 1813 – 1855
  76. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  77. Heinrich Heine 1797 – 1856
  78. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  79. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  80. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  81. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  82. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  83. James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
  84. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  85. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  86. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  87. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  88. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  89. Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922
  90. Octave Mirbeau 1848 – 1917
  91. Calvin Coolidge 1872 – 1933
  92. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  93. Gustave Flaubert 1821 – 1880
  94. Ulysses S. Grant 1822 – 1885
  95. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  96. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  97. Nikolai Gogol c. 1809 – c. 1852
  98. Lewis Carroll 1832 – 1898
  99. Wilhelm Röntgen 1845 – 1923
  100. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
  101. Claude Monet 1840 – 1926
  102. Guy de Maupassant 1850 – 1893
  103. Selma Lagerlöf 1858 – 1940
  104. Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894
  105. W. B. Yeats 1865 – 1939
  106. Ivan Turgenev 1818 – 1883
  107. Carl Jung 1875 – 1961
  108. Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
  109. Gustav Mahler 1860 – 1911
  110. Sun Yat-sen 1866 – 1925
  111. John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873
  112. Antonín Dvořák 1841 – 1904
  113. Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892
  114. James A. Garfield 1831 – 1881
  115. Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
  116. William Howard Taft 1857 – 1930
  117. Giacomo Puccini 1858 – 1924
  118. Konrad Adenauer 1876 – 1967
  119. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  120. Grover Cleveland 1837 – 1908
  121. Jack London 1876 – 1916
  122. John Keats 1795 – 1821
  123. Andrew Johnson 1808 – 1875
  124. Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862
  125. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  126. James Buchanan 1791 – 1868
  127. James K. Polk 1795 – 1849
  128. Arthur Rimbaud 1854 – 1891
  129. André Gide 1869 – 1951
  130. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  131. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
  132. Mikhail Bakunin 1814 – 1876
  133. William McKinley 1843 – 1901
  134. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  135. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  136. Millard Fillmore 1800 – 1874
  137. L. L. Zamenhof 1859 – 1917
  138. Warren G. Harding 1865 – 1923
  139. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  140. Romain Rolland 1866 – 1944
  141. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  142. Franklin Pierce 1804 – 1869
  143. Rutherford B. Hayes 1822 – 1893
  144. Paul Cézanne 1839 – 1906
  145. Henryk Sienkiewicz 1846 – 1916
  146. Benjamin Disraeli 1804 – 1881
  147. Taras Shevchenko 1814 – 1861
  148. George Eliot 1819 – 1880
  149. Henri Bergson 1859 – 1941
  150. Swami Vivekananda 1863 – 1902