Who Was Alive
Peter Debye
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Peter Debye

Dutch physicist and chemist

Born 24 March 1884 · died 2 November 1966, aged 82
Also known as Peter Joseph William Debye, Peter J. W. Debye

Who was alive at the same time as Peter Debye?

  1. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  2. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  3. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  4. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  5. Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
  6. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  7. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  8. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  9. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  10. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  11. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  12. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  13. Peter Debye, 1884 – 1966
  14. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  15. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  16. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  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 Peter Debye was born, Albert Einstein was 5, Vladimir Lenin was 13, Mahatma Gandhi was 14, Leo Tolstoy was 55 and Joseph Stalin was 5.

When Peter Debye died, Barack Obama was 5, Donald Trump was 20, Michael Jackson was 8, Vladimir Putin was 14 and Ronald Reagan was 55.

Born during Peter Debye’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela and George W. Bush.

Not quite contemporaries: Karl Marx died about a year before Peter Debye was born, Charles Darwin died about 2 years before Peter Debye was born, Fyodor Dostoevsky died about 3 years before Peter Debye was born and Charles Dickens died about 14 years before Peter Debye was born.

What happened in Peter Debye’s lifetime

Where Peter Debye’s contemporaries were born

Peter Debye 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 Peter Debye

The 150 best-known contemporaries

3,616 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Peter Debye. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1925.

  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. Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
  16. Vincent van Gogh 1853 – 1890
  17. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  18. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  19. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  20. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  21. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  22. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  23. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  24. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  25. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  26. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  27. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  28. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  29. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  30. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  31. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  32. Bill Gates born 1955
  33. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  34. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  35. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  36. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  37. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  38. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  39. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  40. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  41. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  42. Bill Clinton born 1946
  43. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  44. Angela Merkel born 1954
  45. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  46. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  47. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  48. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  49. François Hollande born 1954
  50. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  51. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  52. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  53. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  54. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  55. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  56. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  57. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  58. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  59. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  60. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  61. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  62. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  63. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  64. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  65. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  66. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  67. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  68. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  69. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  70. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  71. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  72. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  73. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  74. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  75. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  76. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  77. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  78. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  79. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  80. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  81. Madonna born 1958
  82. Kamala Harris born 1964
  83. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  84. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  85. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  86. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  87. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  88. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  89. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  90. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  91. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  92. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  93. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  94. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  95. Xi Jinping born 1953
  96. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  97. Naruhito born 1960
  98. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  99. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  100. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  101. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  102. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  103. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  104. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  105. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  106. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  107. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  108. Bob Dylan born 1941
  109. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  110. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  111. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  112. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  113. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  114. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  115. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  116. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  117. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  118. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  119. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  120. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  121. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  122. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  123. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  124. Charles III born 1948
  125. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  126. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  127. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  128. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  129. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  130. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  131. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  132. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  133. Pope Leo XIV born 1955
  134. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  135. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  136. Narendra Modi born 1950
  137. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  138. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  139. Rafael Correa born 1963
  140. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  141. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  142. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  143. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  144. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  145. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  146. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  147. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  148. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  149. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  150. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944