Who Was Alive
Langston Hughes
Carl Van Vechten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Langston Hughes

American writer

Born 1 February 1901 · died 22 May 1967, aged 66
Also known as James Langston Hughes, James Mercer Langston Hughes

Who was alive at the same time as Langston Hughes?

  1. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  2. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  3. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  4. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  5. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  6. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  7. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  8. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  9. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  10. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  11. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  12. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  13. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  14. Langston Hughes, 1901 – 1967
  15. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  16. John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963
  17. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  18. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  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 Langston Hughes was born, Adolf Hitler was 11, Albert Einstein was 21, Vladimir Lenin was 30, Mahatma Gandhi was 31 and Leo Tolstoy was 72.

When Langston Hughes died, Barack Obama was 5, Donald Trump was 20, Michael Jackson was 8, Vladimir Putin was 14 and Ronald Reagan was 56.

Born during Langston Hughes’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, George W. Bush and Joe Biden.

Not quite contemporaries: Vincent van Gogh died about 11 years before Langston Hughes was born, Friedrich Nietzsche died about a year before Langston Hughes was born, Shakira was born about 10 years after Langston Hughes died and Oscar Wilde died about a year before Langston Hughes was born.

What happened in Langston Hughes’s lifetime

Where Langston Hughes’s contemporaries were born

Langston Hughes 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 Langston Hughes

The 150 best-known contemporaries

3,516 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Langston Hughes. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1934.

  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. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  9. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  10. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  11. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  12. George W. Bush born 1946
  13. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  14. Joe Biden born 1942
  15. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  16. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  17. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  18. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  19. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  20. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  21. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  22. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  23. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  24. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  25. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  26. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  27. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  28. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  29. Bill Gates born 1955
  30. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  31. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  32. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  33. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  34. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  35. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  36. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  37. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  38. Bill Clinton born 1946
  39. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  40. Angela Merkel born 1954
  41. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  42. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  43. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  44. François Hollande born 1954
  45. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  46. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  47. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  48. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  49. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  50. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  51. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  52. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  53. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  54. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  55. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  56. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  57. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  58. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  59. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  60. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  61. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  62. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  63. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  64. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  65. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  66. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  67. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  68. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  69. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  70. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  71. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  72. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  73. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  74. Madonna born 1958
  75. Kamala Harris born 1964
  76. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  77. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  78. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  79. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  80. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  81. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  82. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  83. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  84. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  85. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  86. Xi Jinping born 1953
  87. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  88. Naruhito born 1960
  89. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  90. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  91. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  92. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  93. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  94. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  95. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  96. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  97. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  98. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  99. Bob Dylan born 1941
  100. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  101. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  102. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  103. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  104. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  105. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  106. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  107. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  108. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  109. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  110. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  111. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  112. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  113. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  114. Charles III born 1948
  115. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  116. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  117. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  118. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  119. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  120. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  121. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  122. Pope Leo XIV born 1955
  123. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  124. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  125. Narendra Modi born 1950
  126. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  127. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  128. Rafael Correa born 1963
  129. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  130. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  131. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  132. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  133. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  134. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  135. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  136. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  137. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  138. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  139. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  140. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  141. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  142. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  143. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  144. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  145. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  146. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  147. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  148. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  149. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  150. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973