Who Was Alive

Who was alive in 2008?

781 of the people we track were surely alive in 2008. The best known are listed first, with the age each reached that year.

Died in 2008: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Edmund Hillary, Arthur C. Clarke, Suharto, Bobby Fischer, Harold Pinter, Heath Ledger and Paul Newman.

  1. Barack Obama47
  2. Donald Trump62
  3. Michael Jackson50
  4. Vladimir Putin56
  5. Nelson Mandela90
  6. George W. Bush62
  7. Joe Biden66
  8. Elizabeth II82
  9. Bill Gates53
  10. Jimmy Wales42
  11. Pope Francis72
  12. Shakira31
  13. Steve Jobs53
  14. Lionel Messi21
  15. Corbin Bleu19
  16. Bill Clinton62
  17. Basshunter24
  18. Angela Merkel54
  19. Neil Armstrong78
  20. François Hollande54
  21. Cristiano Ronaldo23
  22. Volodymyr Zelenskyy30
  23. Margaret Thatcher83
  24. Gabriel García Márquez81
  25. Fidel Castro82
  26. Mikhail Gorbachev77
  27. Stephen Hawking66
  28. Elon Musk37
  29. Jimmy Carter84
  30. Benedict XVI81
  31. Emmanuel Macron31
  32. Hillary Clinton61
  33. Lady Gaga22
  34. George H. W. Bush84
  35. Nicolas Sarkozy53
  36. Madonna50
  37. Kamala Harris44
  38. Xi Jinping55
  39. Naruhito48
  40. Noam Chomsky80
  41. Hugo Chávez54
  42. Muammar Gaddafi66
  43. Sung Jae-gi41
  44. Bob Dylan67
  45. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan54
  46. Pelé68
  47. Muhammad Ali66
  48. J. K. Rowling43
  49. Justin Bieber14
  50. Kofi Annan70
  51. Taylor Swift19
  52. Osama bin Laden51
  53. Lech Wałęsa65
  54. Charles III60
  55. Kim Jong-un24
  56. Diego Maradona48
  57. Eminem36
  58. Beyoncé27
  59. Selena Gomez16
  60. Leo XIV53
  61. Narendra Modi58
  62. Rafael Correa45
  63. Aung San Suu Kyi63
  64. Steven Spielberg62
  65. Michael Schumacher39
  66. Angelina Jolie33
  67. Benjamin Netanyahu59
  68. Tenzin Gyatso73
  69. Dmitry Medvedev43
  70. Anna Netrebko37
  71. Mark Zuckerberg24
  72. Silvio Berlusconi72
  73. Shinzō Abe54
  74. Tim Berners-Lee53
  75. Mahathir Mohamad83
  76. Ali Khamenei69
  77. Robin Williams57
  78. Jackie Chan54
  79. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn89 †
  80. Jacques Chirac76
  81. Guillermo Lasso53
  82. Céline Dion40
  83. Roger Federer27
  84. Lana Del Rey23
  85. Alexander Lukashenka54
  86. Woody Allen73
  87. Tony Blair55
  88. Rihanna20
  89. Neymar16
  90. Malala Yousafzai11
  91. Scarlett Johansson24
  92. Rafael Nadal22
  93. Greta Thunberg5
  94. Ban Ki-moon64
  95. Arnold Schwarzenegger61
  96. David Cameron42
  97. Linus Torvalds39
  98. Brigitte Bardot74
  99. Novak Djokovic21
  100. Hebe Camargo79
  101. Umberto Eco76
  102. Boris Johnson44
  103. Jair Bolsonaro53
  104. Bashar al-Assad43
  105. Paul McCartney66
  106. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva63
  107. Anggun34
  108. Leonardo DiCaprio34
  109. Agnez Mo22
  110. Stephen King61
  111. Theresa May52
  112. Johnny Depp45
  113. Brad Pitt45
  114. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad52
  115. Britney Spears27
  116. Maya Angelou80
  117. Sean Connery78
  118. Zinedine Zidane36
  119. Henry Kissinger85
  120. Václav Havel72

The 120 best known of 781 are listed.