Who was alive in the 20th century

466 people and 19 events and eras

Events and eras

• Ottoman Empire c. 1299–1922
• Late Modern Period c. 1800–
• Victorian Era 1837–1901
• First Powered Flight 1903
• WWI 1914–1918
• The Lost Generation c. 1915–c. 1929
• Russian Revolution 1917
• Founding of the Republic of Turkey 1923
• Penicillin 1928
• Stock market crash 1929
• WWII 1939–1945
• Atomic bombings 1945
• Cold War 1947–1991
• Human Rights Declaration 1948
• The Information Age c. 1950–
• The Space Age 1957–
• Man walks on the Moon 1969
• Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989
• World Wide Web 1989

People

• Giuseppe Verdi 1813–1901, composer
• Queen Victoria 1819–1901, queen
• Florence Nightingale 1820–1910, nurse
• Susan B. Anthony 1820–1906, suffragist
• Clara Barton 1821–1912, nurse
• Mary Baker Eddy 1821–1910, religious leader
• Harriet Tubman c. 1822–1913, abolitionist
• Jules Verne 1828–1905, writer
• Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910, writer
• Geronimo 1829–1909, military leader
• Levi Strauss 1829–1902, entrepreneur
• Isabella Bird 1831–1904, explorer
• Dmitri Mendeleev 1834–1907, chemist
• Andrew Carnegie 1835–1919, steel magnate
• Mark Twain 1835–1910, writer
• J. P. Morgan 1837–1913, financier
• Jamsetji Tata 1839–1904, industrialist
• John D. Rockefeller 1839–1937, oil magnate
• Paul Cézanne 1839–1906, painter
• Auguste Rodin 1840–1917, sculptor
• Claude Monet 1840–1926, painter
• Henry Morton Stanley 1841–1904, explorer
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841–1919, painter
• Abdul Hamid II 1842–1918, sultan
• H. J. Heinz 1844–1919, food entrepreneur
• Karl Benz 1844–1929, automobile pioneer
• Mary Cassatt 1844–1926, painter
• Sarah Bernhardt 1844–1923, actress
• George Westinghouse 1846–1914, industrialist
• Alexander Graham Bell 1847–1922, inventor
• Thomas Edison 1847–1931, inventor
• Paul Gauguin 1848–1903, painter
• Antoni Gaudí 1852–1926, architect
• Calamity Jane 1852–1903, frontierswoman
• Marcus Samuel 1853–1927, oil entrepreneur
• George Eastman 1854–1932, entrepreneur
• George Bernard Shaw 1856–1950, playwright
• Nikola Tesla 1856–1943, inventor
• Robert Peary 1856–1920, explorer
• Sigmund Freud 1856–1939, neurologist
• Milton Hershey 1857–1945, chocolate maker
• Émile Durkheim 1858–1917, sociologist
• Emmeline Pankhurst 1858–1928, suffragette
• Giacomo Puccini 1858–1924, composer
• Max Planck 1858–1947, physicist
• Theodore Roosevelt 1858–1919, US president
• Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi 1859–1937, ayatollah
• Arthur Conan Doyle 1859–1930, writer
• Annie Oakley 1860–1926, sharpshooter
• Anton Chekhov 1860–1904, playwright
• Fridtjof Nansen 1861–1930, explorer
• Rabindranath Tagore 1861–1941, poet
• Claude Debussy 1862–1918, composer
• Gustav Klimt 1862–1918, painter
• Edvard Munch 1863–1944, painter
• Henry Ford 1863–1947, auto tycoon
• Swami Vivekananda 1863–1902, monk
• William Randolph Hearst 1863–1951, newspaper publisher
• Max Weber 1864–1920, sociologist
• Nellie Bly 1864–1922, journalist and traveler
• H. G. Wells 1866–1946, writer
• Matthew Henson 1866–1955, explorer
• Wassily Kandinsky 1866–1944, painter
• Frank Lloyd Wright 1867–1959, architect
• Madam C. J. Walker 1867–1919, entrepreneur
• Marie Curie 1867–1934, scientist
• Wilbur Wright 1867–1912, aviation pioneer
• Robert Falcon Scott 1868–1912, explorer
• Calouste Gulbenkian 1869–1955, oil businessman
• Grigori Rasputin 1869–1916, mystic
• Henri Matisse 1869–1954, painter
• Mahatma Gandhi 1869–1948, resistance leader
• Vladimir Lenin 1870–1924, revolutionary
• Marcel Proust 1871–1922, writer
• Orville Wright 1871–1948, aviation pioneer
• Rosa Luxemburg 1871–1919, revolutionary
• Bertrand Russell 1872–1970, philosopher
• Helena Rubinstein 1872–1965, cosmetics entrepreneur
• Piet Mondrian 1872–1944, painter
• Roald Amundsen 1872–1928, explorer
• Enrico Caruso 1873–1921, opera singer
• Ernest Shackleton 1874–1922, explorer
• Gertrude Stein 1874–1946, writer
• Guglielmo Marconi 1874–1937, inventor
• Harry Houdini 1874–1926, magician
• Howard Carter 1874–1939, archaeologist
• Winston Churchill 1874–1965, prime minister
• Carl Jung 1875–1961, psychiatrist
• Hiram Bingham III 1875–1956, explorer
• Mata Hari 1876–1917, spy
• Willis Carrier 1876–1950, engineer and entrepreneur
• Ziya Gökalp 1876–1924, sociologist
• Said Nursi 1877–1960, theologian
• Joseph Stalin 1878–1953, dictator
• Albert Einstein 1879–1955, physicist
• Helen Keller 1880–1968, activist
• Alexander Fleming 1881–1955, physician
• Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 1881–1938, statesman
• Pablo Picasso 1881–1973, painter
• William Boeing 1881–1956, aviation entrepreneur
• Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882–1945, US president
• Igor Stravinsky 1882–1971, composer
• James Joyce 1882–1941, writer
• Virginia Woolf 1882–1941, writer
• Benito Mussolini 1883–1945, dictator
• Coco Chanel 1883–1971, fashion designer
• Franz Kafka 1883–1924, writer
• John Maynard Keynes 1883–1946, economist
• Ezra Pound 1885–1972, poet
• Niels Bohr 1885–1962, physicist
• Diego Rivera 1886–1957, painter
• Erwin Schrödinger 1887–1961, physicist
• Georgia O'Keeffe 1887–1986, painter
• Jim Thorpe 1887–1953, multi-sport athlete
• Le Corbusier 1887–1965, architect
• Marcel Duchamp 1887–1968, artist
• Srinivasa Ramanujan 1887–1920, mathematician
• T. S. Eliot 1888–1965, poet
• Adolf Hitler 1889–1945, dictator
• Charlie Chaplin 1889–1977, actor
• Edwin Hubble 1889–1953, astronomer
• Jawaharlal Nehru 1889–1964, prime minister
• Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889–1951, philosopher
• Martin Heidegger 1889–1976, philosopher
• Agatha Christie 1890–1976, writer
• Charles de Gaulle 1890–1970, statesman
• Groucho Marx 1890–1977, comedian
• H. P. Lovecraft 1890–1937, writer
• Harland Sanders 1890–1980, restaurateur
• Ho Chi Minh 1890–1969, revolutionary
• Francisco Franco 1892–1975, dictator
• J. R. R. Tolkien 1892–1973, writer
• Joan Miró 1893–1983, painter
• Mao Zedong 1893–1976, revolutionary
• Kiichiro Toyoda 1894–1952, automaker
• Konosuke Matsushita 1894–1989, industrialist
• Babe Ruth 1895–1948, baseball player
• Buster Keaton 1895–1966, actor
• Jack Dempsey 1895–1983, boxer
• F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896–1940, writer
• Amelia Earhart 1897–1937, aviator
• Joseph Goebbels 1897–1945, Nazi propagandist
• Paavo Nurmi 1897–1973, runner
• William Faulkner 1897–1962, writer
• Alexander Calder 1898–1976, sculptor
• Enzo Ferrari 1898–1988, automaker
• Tamara de Lempicka 1898–1980, painter
• Umm Kulthum c. 1898–1975, singer
• Al Capone 1899–1947, gangster
• Alfred Hitchcock 1899–1980, director
• Duke Ellington 1899–1974, musician
• Ernest Hemingway 1899–1961, writer
• Jorge Luis Borges 1899–1986, writer
• Adi Dassler 1900–1978, shoemaker
• Heinrich Himmler 1900–1945, Nazi leader
• Louis Armstrong 1901–1971, musician
• Vehbi Koç 1901–1996, industrialist
• Walt Disney 1901–1966, animator and entrepreneur
• Werner Heisenberg 1901–1976, physicist
• Ansel Adams 1902–1984, photographer
• Barbara McClintock 1902–1992, geneticist
• Charles Lindbergh 1902–1974, aviator
• John Steinbeck 1902–1968, writer
• Nazım Hikmet 1902–1963, poet
• Ray Kroc 1902–1984, fast food entrepreneur
• Ruhollah Khomeini 1902–1989, ayatollah
• Bing Crosby 1903–1977, singer
• George Orwell 1903–1950, writer
• John Dillinger 1903–1934, gangster
• John von Neumann 1903–1957, mathematician
• Lou Gehrig 1903–1941, baseball player
• Mark Rothko 1903–1970, painter
• Dr. Seuss 1904–1991, writer
• J. Robert Oppenheimer 1904–1967, physicist
• Johnny Weissmuller 1904–1984, swimmer
• Pablo Neruda 1904–1973, poet
• Salvador Dalí 1904–1989, painter
• Christian Dior 1905–1957, fashion designer
• Greta Garbo 1905–1990, actress
• Howard Hughes 1905–1976, aviator and tycoon
• Jean-Paul Sartre 1905–1980, philosopher
• Adolf Eichmann 1906–1962, Nazi officer
• Aristotle Onassis c. 1906–1975, shipping magnate
• Hannah Arendt 1906–1975, political theorist
• Samuel Beckett 1906–1989, playwright
• Soichiro Honda 1906–1991, industrialist
• Frida Kahlo 1907–1954, painter
• John Wayne 1907–1979, actor
• Katharine Hepburn 1907–2003, actress
• Don Bradman 1908–2001, cricketer
• Estée Lauder 1908–2004, cosmetics entrepreneur
• Henri Cartier-Bresson 1908–2004, photographer
• Oskar Schindler 1908–1974, industrialist and rescuer
• Simone de Beauvoir 1908–1986, philosopher
• Clyde Barrow 1909–1934, outlaw
• Akira Kurosawa 1910–1998, director
• Bonnie Parker 1910–1934, outlaw
• Cahit Arf 1910–1997, mathematician
• Jacques Cousteau 1910–1997, oceanographer
• Mother Teresa 1910–1997, missionary
• Josef Mengele 1911–1979, Nazi doctor
• L. Ron Hubbard 1911–1986, religious founder
• Louise Bourgeois 1911–2010, sculptor
• Marshall McLuhan 1911–1980, media theorist
• Alan Turing 1912–1954, computer scientist
• Jackson Pollock 1912–1956, painter
• Milton Friedman 1912–2006, economist
• Raoul Wallenberg 1912–c. 1947, diplomat
• Albert Camus 1913–1960, writer
• Jesse Owens 1913–1980, sprinter
• Jimmy Hoffa 1913–c. 1975, union leader
• Rosa Parks 1913–2005, activist
• Sabiha Gökçen 1913–2001, aviator
• Joe DiMaggio 1914–1999, baseball player
• Joe Louis 1914–1981, boxer
• Jonas Salk 1914–1995, virologist
• Tenzing Norgay 1914–1986, mountaineer
• Thor Heyerdahl 1914–2002, explorer
• Arthur Miller 1915–2005, playwright
• Billie Holiday 1915–1959, singer
• Frank Sinatra 1915–1998, singer
• Francis Crick 1916–2004, molecular biologist
• Ella Fitzgerald 1917–1996, singer
• John F. Kennedy 1917–1963, US president
• Billy Graham 1918–2018, evangelist
• Ingmar Bergman 1918–2007, director
• Nelson Mandela 1918–2013, statesman
• Richard Feynman 1918–1988, physicist
• Sam Walton 1918–1992, retailer
• Edmund Hillary 1919–2008, mountaineer
• Eva Perón 1919–1952, political figure
• Jackie Robinson 1919–1972, baseball player
• Federico Fellini 1920–1993, director
• Isaac Asimov 1920–1992, writer
• Pope John Paul II 1920–2005, pope
• Rosalind Franklin 1920–1958, chemist
• Akio Morita 1921–1999, electronics entrepreneur
• Satyajit Ray 1921–1992, director
• Sugar Ray Robinson 1921–1989, boxer
• Emil Zátopek 1922–2000, runner
• Jack Kerouac 1922–1969, writer
• Rocky Marciano 1923–1969, boxer
• Yaşar Kemal 1923–2015, writer
• Marlon Brando 1924–2004, actor
• Frantz Fanon 1925–1961, political philosopher
• Malcolm X 1925–1965, civil rights activist
• Margaret Thatcher 1925–2013, prime minister
• Pol Pot 1925–1998, dictator
• Alfredo Di Stéfano 1926–2014, footballer
• Chuck Berry 1926–2017, musician
• Elizabeth II 1926–2022, queen
• Fidel Castro 1926–2016, revolutionary
• Harper Lee 1926–2016, writer
• Ingvar Kamprad 1926–2018, entrepreneur
• Marilyn Monroe 1926–1962, actress
• Michel Foucault 1926–1984, philosopher
• Miles Davis 1926–1991, musician
• Thich Nhat Hanh 1926–2022, Buddhist monk
• Ferenc Puskás 1927–2006, footballer
• Gabriel García Márquez 1927–2014, writer
• Andy Warhol 1928–1987, artist
• Che Guevara 1928–1967, revolutionary
• James Watson 1928–2025, molecular biologist
• Maya Angelou 1928–2014, poet
• Noam Chomsky 1928–, linguist
• Stanley Kubrick 1928–1999, director
• Anne Frank 1929–1945, diarist
• Arnold Palmer 1929–2016, golfer
• Audrey Hepburn 1929–1993, actress
• Frank Gehry 1929–2025, architect
• Lev Yashin 1929–1990, goalkeeper
• Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968, civil rights leader
• Yayoi Kusama 1929–2026, artist
• Ali al-Sistani 1930–, ayatollah
• Buzz Aldrin 1930–, astronaut
• Chinua Achebe 1930–2013, writer
• Harvey Milk 1930–1978, politician
• Neil Armstrong 1930–2012, astronaut
• Ray Charles 1930–2004, musician
• Warren Buffett 1930–, investor
• Desmond Tutu 1931–2021, archbishop
• Mikhail Gorbachev 1931–2022, statesman
• Rupert Murdoch 1931–, media mogul
• Toni Morrison 1931–2019, writer
• Abebe Bikila 1932–1973, marathon runner
• Elizabeth Taylor 1932–2011, actress
• Umberto Eco 1932–2016, writer
• Amartya Sen 1933–, economist
• Sakıp Sabancı 1933–2004, industrialist
• Bill Russell 1934–2022, basketball player
• Carl Sagan 1934–1996, astronomer
• Charles Manson 1934–2017, cult leader
• Giorgio Armani 1934–2025, fashion designer
• Jane Goodall 1934–2025, primatologist
• Yuri Gagarin 1934–1968, cosmonaut
• 14th Dalai Lama 1935–, Buddhist leader
• Elvis Presley 1935–1977, musician
• Sylvia Earle 1935–, oceanographer
• Woody Allen 1935–, director
• Pope Francis 1936–2025, pope
• Wilt Chamberlain 1936–1999, basketball player
• Yves Saint Laurent 1936–2008, fashion designer
• David Hockney 1937–2026, painter
• George Carlin 1937–2008, comedian
• Jack Nicholson 1937–, actor
• Ratan Tata 1937–2024, industrialist
• Saddam Hussein 1937–2006, dictator
• Valentina Tereshkova 1937–, cosmonaut
• Bernie Madoff 1938–2021, fraudster
• Fela Kuti 1938–1997, musician
• Phil Knight 1938–, entrepreneur
• Ted Turner 1938–2026, media entrepreneur
• Lee Harvey Oswald 1939–1963, assassin
• Margaret Atwood 1939–, writer
• Ralph Lauren 1939–, fashion designer
• Bruce Lee 1940–1973, actor
• Carlos Slim 1940–, investor
• Jack Nicklaus 1940–, golfer
• John Lennon 1940–1980, musician
• Muhammad Yunus 1940–, social entrepreneur
• Pelé 1940–2022, footballer
• Richard Pryor 1940–2005, comedian
• Ringo Starr 1940–, musician
• Bob Dylan 1941–, musician
• Hayao Miyazaki 1941–, animator
• Martha Stewart 1941–, entrepreneur
• Aretha Franklin 1942–2018, singer
• Jimi Hendrix 1942–1970, musician
• Joe Biden 1942–, US president
• Martin Scorsese 1942–, director
• Muammar Gaddafi 1942–2011, dictator
• Muhammad Ali 1942–2016, boxer
• Paul McCartney 1942–, musician
• Robert Ballard 1942–, oceanographer
• Stephen Hawking 1942–2018, physicist
• Barış Manço 1943–1999, musician
• Billie Jean King 1943–, tennis player
• Bobby Fischer 1943–2008, chess player
• George Harrison 1943–2001, musician
• Janis Joplin 1943–1970, singer
• Jim Morrison 1943–1971, singer
• Mick Jagger 1943–, musician
• Robert De Niro 1943–, actor
• Larry Ellison 1944–, entrepreneur
• Reinhold Messner 1944–, mountaineer
• Bob Marley 1945–1981, musician
• Franz Beckenbauer 1945–2024, footballer
• Aziz Sancar 1946–, biochemist
• Dolly Parton 1946–2026, singer
• Donald Trump 1946–, US president
• Freddie Mercury 1946–1991, singer
• Steven Spielberg 1946–, director
• Ted Bundy 1946–1989, serial killer
• David Bowie 1947–2016, musician
• Elton John 1947–, musician
• Geoffrey Hinton 1947–, computer scientist
• Johan Cruyff 1947–2016, footballer
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1947–, basketball player
• Stephen King 1947–, writer
• Haruki Murakami 1949–, writer
• Meryl Streep 1949–, actress
• Niki Lauda 1949–2019, racing driver
• Pablo Escobar 1949–1993, drug lord
• Slavoj Žižek 1949–, philosopher
• Mark Spitz 1950–, swimmer
• Richard Branson 1950–, entrepreneur
• Steve Wozniak 1950–, engineer and entrepreneur
• Stevie Wonder 1950–, musician
• Zaha Hadid 1950–2016, architect
• Robin Williams 1951–2014, actor
• Sally Ride 1951–2012, astronaut
• Orhan Pamuk 1952–, writer
• Vladimir Putin 1952–, president
• Xi Jinping 1953–, president
• Angela Merkel 1954–, chancellor
• Jackie Chan 1954–, actor
• James Cameron 1954–, filmmaker and deep-sea explorer
• Oprah Winfrey 1954–, media entrepreneur
• Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 1954–, president
• Bill Gates 1955–, entrepreneur
• Katalin Karikó 1955–, biochemist
• Pope Leo XIV 1955–, pope
• Steve Jobs 1955–2011, entrepreneur
• Tim Berners-Lee 1955–, computer scientist
• Björn Borg 1956–, tennis player
• Judith Butler 1956–, philosopher
• Larry Bird 1956–, basketball player
• Martina Navratilova 1956–, tennis player
• Tom Hanks 1956–, actor
• Ai Weiwei 1957–, artist
• Aliko Dangote 1957–, industrialist
• Osama bin Laden 1957–2011, terrorist leader
• Keith Haring 1958–1990, artist
• Madonna 1958–, musician
• Michael Jackson 1958–2009, musician
• Prince 1958–2016, musician
• Magic Johnson 1959–, basketball player
• Ayrton Senna 1960–1994, racing driver
• Diego Maradona 1960–2020, footballer
• Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960–1988, painter
• Jeffrey Dahmer 1960–1994, serial killer
• Barack Obama 1961–, US president
• Carl Lewis 1961–, sprinter
• Diana, Princess of Wales 1961–1997, princess
• Nadia Comăneci 1961–, gymnast
• Wayne Gretzky 1961–, ice hockey player
• Garry Kasparov 1963–, chess player
• Jensen Huang 1963–, entrepreneur
• Michael Jordan 1963–, basketball player
• Quentin Tarantino 1963–, director
• Whitney Houston 1963–2012, singer
• Jack Ma 1964–, entrepreneur
• Jeff Bezos 1964–, entrepreneur
• Damien Hirst 1965–, artist
• J. K. Rowling 1965–, writer
• Michael Dell 1965–, entrepreneur
• Shah Rukh Khan 1965–, actor
• Mike Tyson 1966–, boxer
• Kurt Cobain 1967–1994, musician
• Naim Süleymanoğlu 1967–2017, weightlifter
• Jay-Z 1969–, rapper
• Michael Schumacher 1969–, racing driver
• Steffi Graf 1969–, tennis player
• Elon Musk 1971–, entrepreneur
• Hakan Şükür 1971–, footballer
• Sara Blakely 1971–, entrepreneur
• Tupac Shakur 1971–1996, rapper
• Eminem 1972–, rapper
• Shaquille O'Neal 1972–, basketball player
• Tarkan 1972–, singer
• Zinedine Zidane 1972–, footballer
• Larry Page 1973–, entrepreneur
• Sachin Tendulkar 1973–, cricketer
• Sergey Brin 1973–, entrepreneur
• Banksy c. 1974–, street artist
• David Beckham 1975–, footballer
• Tiger Woods 1975–, golfer
• Ronaldo Nazário 1976–, footballer
• Tom Brady 1977–, American football player
• Kobe Bryant 1978–2020, basketball player
• Valentino Rossi 1979–, motorcycle racer
• Venus Williams 1980–, tennis player
• Yao Ming 1980–, basketball player
• Anna Kournikova 1981–, tennis player
• Beyoncé 1981–, musician
• Roger Federer 1981–, tennis player
• Serena Williams 1981–, tennis player
• Edward Snowden 1983–, whistleblower
• Eliud Kipchoge 1984–, marathon runner
• LeBron James 1984–, basketball player
• Mark Zuckerberg 1984–, entrepreneur
• Cristiano Ronaldo 1985–, footballer
• Lewis Hamilton 1985–, racing driver
• Michael Phelps 1985–, swimmer
• Lady Gaga 1986–, musician
• Rafael Nadal 1986–, tennis player
• Usain Bolt 1986–, sprinter
• Lionel Messi 1987–, footballer
• Novak Djokovic 1987–, tennis player
• Adele 1988–, singer
• Taylor Swift 1989–, musician
• Magnus Carlsen 1990–, chess player
• RM 1994–, rapper
• Malala Yousafzai 1997–, activist
• Simone Biles 1997–, gymnast
• Kylian Mbappé 1998–, footballer