Who Was Alive
Joseph McCarthy
United Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Joseph McCarthy

American politician

Born 14 November 1908 · died 2 May 1957, aged 48
Also known as Joseph Raymond McCarthy

Who was alive at the same time as Joseph McCarthy?

  1. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  2. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  3. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  4. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  5. Marie Curie, 1867 – 1934
  6. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  7. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  8. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  9. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  10. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  11. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  12. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  13. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  14. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  15. Joseph McCarthy, 1908 – 1957
  16. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  17. John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963
  18. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  19. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  20. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929 – 1968
  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 Joseph McCarthy was born, Adolf Hitler was 19, Albert Einstein was 29, Vladimir Lenin was 38, Mahatma Gandhi was 39 and Leo Tolstoy was 80.

When Joseph McCarthy died, Donald Trump was 10, Vladimir Putin was 4, Ronald Reagan was 46, Nelson Mandela was 38 and George W. Bush was 10.

Born during Joseph McCarthy’s lifetime: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Elizabeth II and John F. Kennedy.

Not quite contemporaries: Barack Obama was born about 4 years after Joseph McCarthy died, Michael Jackson was born about a year after Joseph McCarthy died, Friedrich Nietzsche died about 8 years before Joseph McCarthy was born and Anton Chekhov died about 4 years before Joseph McCarthy was born.

What happened in Joseph McCarthy’s lifetime

Where Joseph McCarthy’s contemporaries were born

Joseph McCarthy 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 Joseph McCarthy

The 150 best-known contemporaries

3,001 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Joseph McCarthy. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1933.

  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. 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. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  21. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  22. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  23. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  24. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  25. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  26. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  27. Bill Gates born 1955
  28. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  29. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  30. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  31. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  32. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  33. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  34. Bill Clinton born 1946
  35. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  36. Angela Merkel born 1954
  37. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  38. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  39. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  40. François Hollande born 1954
  41. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  42. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  43. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  44. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  45. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  46. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  47. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  48. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  49. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  50. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  51. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  52. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  53. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  54. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  55. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  56. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  57. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  58. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  59. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  60. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  61. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  62. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  63. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  64. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  65. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  66. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  67. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  68. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  69. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  70. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  71. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  72. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  73. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  74. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  75. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  76. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  77. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  78. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  79. Xi Jinping born 1953
  80. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  81. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  82. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  83. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  84. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  85. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  86. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  87. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  88. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  89. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  90. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  91. Bob Dylan born 1941
  92. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  93. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  94. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  95. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  96. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  97. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  98. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  99. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  100. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  101. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  102. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  103. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  104. Charles III born 1948
  105. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  106. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  107. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  108. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  109. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  110. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  111. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  112. Pope Leo XIV born 1955
  113. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  114. Narendra Modi born 1950
  115. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  116. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  117. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  118. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  119. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  120. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  121. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  122. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  123. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  124. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  125. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  126. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  127. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  128. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  129. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  130. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  131. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  132. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  133. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  134. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  135. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  136. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  137. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  138. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  139. Bob Marley 1945 – 1981
  140. Shinzo Abe 1954 – 2022
  141. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  142. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  143. Isaac Asimov c. 1920 – 1992
  144. Tim Berners-Lee born 1955
  145. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  146. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  147. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  148. Jackie Chan born 1954
  149. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  150. Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922