Who Was Alive
Louis Braille
Henri Thiriat, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Louis Braille

French organist and inventor

Born 4 January 1809 · died 6 January 1852, aged 43
Also known as Braille

Who was alive at the same time as Louis Braille?

  1. Thomas Jefferson, 1743 – 1826
  2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749 – 1832
  3. Ludwig van Beethoven, c. 1770 – 1827
  4. Napoleon, 1769 – 1821
  5. Jane Austen, 1775 – 1817
  6. Carl Friedrich Gauss, 1777 – 1855
  7. Lord Byron, 1788 – 1824
  8. Alexander Pushkin, 1799 – 1837
  9. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  10. Hans Christian Andersen, 1805 – 1875
  11. Louis Braille, 1809 – 1852
  12. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 – 1849
  13. Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865
  14. Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882
  15. Charles Dickens, 1812 – 1870
  16. Richard Wagner, 1813 – 1883
  17. Otto von Bismarck, 1815 – 1898
  18. Karl Marx, 1818 – 1883
  19. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 – 1881
  20. Louis Pasteur, 1822 – 1895
  21. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  22. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  23. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  24. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931

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 Louis Braille was born, Napoleon was 39, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 59, Victor Hugo was 6, Alexander Pushkin was 9 and Hans Christian Andersen was 3.

When Louis Braille died, Karl Marx was 33, Abraham Lincoln was 42, Leo Tolstoy was 23, Charles Darwin was 42 and Victor Hugo was 49.

Born during Louis Braille’s lifetime: Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Darwin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Edison and Mark Twain.

Not quite contemporaries: George Washington died about 10 years before Louis Braille was born, Vincent van Gogh was born about a year after Louis Braille died, Immanuel Kant died about 5 years before Louis Braille was born and Sigmund Freud was born about 4 years after Louis Braille died.

What happened in Louis Braille’s lifetime

Where Louis Braille’s contemporaries were born

Louis Braille 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 Louis Braille

The 150 best-known contemporaries

621 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Louis Braille. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1831.

  1. Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
  2. Abraham Lincoln 1809 – 1865
  3. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  4. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  5. Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882
  6. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  7. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  8. Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
  9. Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 – 1881
  10. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  11. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  12. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  13. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
  14. Alexander Pushkin 1799 – 1837
  15. Hans Christian Andersen 1805 – 1875
  16. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  17. Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849
  18. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  19. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  20. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  21. Richard Wagner 1813 – 1883
  22. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  23. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  24. Frédéric Chopin 1810 – 1849
  25. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  26. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  27. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  28. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  29. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  30. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  31. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  32. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  33. Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
  34. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  35. Charles Baudelaire 1821 – 1867
  36. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  37. Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  38. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  39. Honoré de Balzac 1799 – 1850
  40. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  41. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  42. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  43. Franz Schubert 1797 – 1828
  44. Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870
  45. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  46. Søren Kierkegaard 1813 – 1855
  47. Heinrich Heine 1797 – 1856
  48. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  49. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  50. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  51. James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
  52. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  53. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  54. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  55. Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922
  56. Octave Mirbeau 1848 – 1917
  57. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  58. Gustave Flaubert 1821 – 1880
  59. Ulysses S. Grant 1822 – 1885
  60. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  61. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  62. Nikolai Gogol c. 1809 – c. 1852
  63. Lewis Carroll 1832 – 1898
  64. Wilhelm Röntgen 1845 – 1923
  65. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
  66. Claude Monet 1840 – 1926
  67. Guy de Maupassant 1850 – 1893
  68. Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894
  69. Ivan Turgenev 1818 – 1883
  70. Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
  71. John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873
  72. Antonín Dvořák 1841 – 1904
  73. Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892
  74. James A. Garfield 1831 – 1881
  75. Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
  76. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  77. Grover Cleveland 1837 – 1908
  78. John Keats 1795 – 1821
  79. Andrew Johnson 1808 – 1875
  80. Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862
  81. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  82. James Buchanan 1791 – 1868
  83. James K. Polk 1795 – 1849
  84. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  85. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
  86. Mikhail Bakunin 1814 – 1876
  87. William McKinley 1843 – 1901
  88. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  89. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  90. Millard Fillmore 1800 – 1874
  91. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  92. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  93. Franklin Pierce 1804 – 1869
  94. Rutherford B. Hayes 1822 – 1893
  95. Paul Cézanne 1839 – 1906
  96. Henryk Sienkiewicz 1846 – 1916
  97. Benjamin Disraeli 1804 – 1881
  98. Taras Shevchenko 1814 – 1861
  99. George Eliot 1819 – 1880
  100. George Sand 1804 – 1876
  101. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  102. James Prescott Joule 1818 – 1889
  103. Benjamin Harrison 1833 – 1901
  104. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  105. Hector Berlioz 1803 – 1869
  106. Charlotte Brontë 1816 – 1855
  107. Gregor Mendel 1822 – 1884
  108. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  109. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 – 1867
  110. Mary Shelley 1797 – 1851
  111. Auguste Comte 1798 – 1857
  112. Ada Lovelace 1815 – 1852
  113. Paul Gauguin 1848 – 1903
  114. Giuseppe Garibaldi 1807 – 1882
  115. Chester A. Arthur 1829 – 1886
  116. Robert Schumann 1810 – 1856
  117. Emily Brontë 1818 – 1848
  118. Herman Melville 1819 – 1891
  119. Auguste Rodin 1840 – 1917
  120. Adam Mickiewicz 1798 – 1855
  121. Napoleon III 1808 – 1873
  122. Mikhail Lermontov 1814 – 1841
  123. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  124. Franz Liszt 1811 – 1886
  125. Theodor Mommsen 1817 – 1903
  126. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1832 – 1910
  127. Robert Koch 1843 – 1910
  128. Felix Mendelssohn 1809 – 1847
  129. Frédéric Mistral 1830 – 1914
  130. William James 1842 – 1910
  131. Ivan Pavlov 1849 – 1936
  132. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  133. Giosuè Carducci 1835 – 1907
  134. Sully Prudhomme 1839 – 1907
  135. Eugène Delacroix 1798 – 1863
  136. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  137. Herbert Spencer 1820 – 1903
  138. Thomas Carlyle 1795 – 1881
  139. Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811 – 1896
  140. Thomas Hardy 1840 – 1928
  141. Peter Kropotkin 1842 – 1921
  142. Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809 – 1892
  143. Pope Pius X 1835 – 1914
  144. Paul Verlaine 1844 – 1896
  145. August Strindberg 1849 – 1912
  146. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  147. Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804 – 1864
  148. John Ruskin 1819 – 1900
  149. Edgar Degas 1834 – 1917
  150. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 – 1882