Who Was Alive

Wernher von Braun

German and later American aerospace engineer and space architect

Born 23 March 1912 · died 16 June 1977, aged 65

Who was alive at the same time as Wernher von Braun?

  1. Thomas Edison
  2. Sigmund Freud
  3. Marie Curie
  4. Mahatma Gandhi
  5. Vladimir Lenin
  6. Winston Churchill
  7. Joseph Stalin
  8. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
  9. Albert Einstein
  10. Pablo Picasso
  11. Charlie Chaplin
  12. Adolf Hitler
  13. Ronald Reagan
  14. Wernher von Braun
  15. John F. Kennedy
  16. Nelson Mandela
  17. Elizabeth II
  18. Martin Luther King Jr.
  19. Joe Biden
  20. Donald Trump
  21. George W. Bush
  22. Vladimir Putin
  23. Michael Jackson
  24. Barack Obama
Drag across the timeline to see who was alive in any year and the age each person reached that year. Faded ends mark uncertain dates.

When Wernher von Braun was born, Adolf Hitler was 22, Albert Einstein was 33, Ronald Reagan was 1, Vladimir Lenin was 41 and Mahatma Gandhi was 42.

When Wernher von Braun died, Barack Obama was 15, Donald Trump was 31, Michael Jackson was 18, Vladimir Putin was 24 and Ronald Reagan was 66.

Born during Wernher von Braun’s lifetime: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela, George W. Bush, Joe Biden and Elizabeth II.

Not quite contemporaries: Leo Tolstoy died 2 years before Wernher von Braun was born, Friedrich Nietzsche died 12 years before Wernher von Braun was born, Mark Twain died 2 years before Wernher von Braun was born and Anton Chekhov died 8 years before Wernher von Braun was born.

Compare

All 1,203 contemporaries we track

  1. Barack Obama born 1961
  2. Donald Trump born 1946
  3. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  4. Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
  5. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  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. George W. Bush born 1946
  12. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  13. Joe Biden born 1942
  14. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  15. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  16. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  17. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  18. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  19. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 1879–1881 – 1938
  20. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  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 Delano Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  27. Bill Gates born 1955
  28. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  29. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  30. Jimmy Wales born 1966
  31. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  32. Shakira born 1977
  33. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  34. Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
  35. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  36. Bill Clinton born 1946
  37. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  38. Angela Merkel born 1954
  39. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  40. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  41. François Hollande born 1954
  42. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  43. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  44. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  45. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  46. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  47. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  48. John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  49. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  50. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  51. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  52. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  53. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  54. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  55. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  56. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  57. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  58. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  59. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  60. Elon Musk born 1971
  61. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  62. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  63. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  64. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  65. Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  66. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  67. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  68. Hillary Clinton born 1947
  69. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  70. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  71. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  72. Nicolas Sarkozy born 1955
  73. Madonna born 1958
  74. Kamala Harris born 1964
  75. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  76. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  77. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  78. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  79. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  80. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  81. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  82. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  83. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  84. Xi Jinping born 1953
  85. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  86. Naruhito born 1960
  87. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  88. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  89. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  90. Hugo Chávez 1954 – 2013
  91. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  92. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  93. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  94. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  95. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  96. Sung Jae-gi 1967 – 2013
  97. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  98. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  99. Bob Dylan born 1941
  100. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan born 1954
  101. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  102. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  103. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  104. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  105. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  106. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  107. J. K. Rowling born 1965
  108. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  109. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  110. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  111. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  112. Osama bin Laden 1957 – 2011
  113. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  114. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  115. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  116. Freddie Mercury 1946 – 1991
  117. Charles III born 1948
  118. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  119. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  120. Diego Maradona 1960 – 2020
  121. Eminem born 1972
  122. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  123. Leo XIV born 1955
  124. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  125. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  126. Narendra Modi born 1950
  127. Rafael Correa born 1963
  128. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  129. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  130. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  131. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  132. Aung San Suu Kyi born 1945
  133. Steven Spielberg born 1946
  134. Michael Schumacher born 1969
  135. Angelina Jolie born 1975
  136. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  137. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  138. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  139. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  140. Benjamin Netanyahu born 1949
  141. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  142. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  143. Tenzin Gyatso born 1935
  144. Dmitry Medvedev born 1965
  145. Anna Netrebko born 1971
  146. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  147. Rafael Orozco Maestre 1954 – 1992
  148. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  149. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  150. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955

The 150 best known are listed.