← 1810 1830 →

Who was alive in 1820?

1,169 well-known people were alive in 1820, including Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon. Here are the 80 most notable:

• Karl Marx (1818–1883) — German-born philosopher (1818-1883)
• Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) — president of the United States from 1861 to 1865 (1809-1865)
• Napoleon (1769–1821) — French military leader, French Emperor 1804–1814 and again in 1815 (1769–1821)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) — German writer, artist, natural scientist and politician (1749–1832)
• Charles Darwin (1809–1882) — English naturalist and biologist (1809–1882)
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) — German composer (1770-1827)
• Victor Hugo (1802–1885) — French novelist, poet, dramatist and politician (1802–1885)
• Charles Dickens (1812–1870) — English novelist and social critic (1812–1870)
• Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) — Russian poet, playwright, and novelist (1799–1837)
• Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) — Danish writer and poet (1805–1875)
• Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) — American writer and literary critic (1809–1849)
• Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) — Founding Father, U.S. president from 1801 to 1809 (1743–1826)
• Lord Byron (1788–1824) — English Romantic poet and lyricist (1788–1824)
• Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) — German statesman and Chancellor (1815-1898)
• Richard Wagner (1813–1883) — German composer (1813–1883)
• Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) — Polish composer and pianist (1810–1849)
• Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) — German mathematician and physicist (1777–1855)
• Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) — German philosopher, sociologist and economist (1820–1895)
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) — German philosopher and theologian (1770–1831)
• John Adams (1735–1826) — Founding Father, U.S. president from 1797 to 1801 (1735–1826)
• Francisco Goya (1746–1828) — Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)
• Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) — Italian opera composer (1813–1901)
• Michael Faraday (1791–1867) — British scientist (1791–1867)
• Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) — Japanese artist (1760-1849)
• Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) — Venezuelan statesman and military officer (1783–1830)
• Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) — French writer and dramatist (1802–1870)
• James Madison (1751–1836) — President of the United States from 1809 to 1817 (1751–1836)
• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) — German philosopher (1788-1860)
• Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) — French novelist and playwright (1799–1850)
• Victoria (1819–1901) — Queen of the United Kingdom from 1837 to 1901 (1819-1901)
• Franz Schubert (1797–1828) — Austrian composer (1797–1828)
• Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) — Danish theologian, philosopher, poet and social critic (1813–1855)
• Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) — German poet, writer and literary critic (1797–1856)
• John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) — President of the United States from 1825 to 1829
• Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) — president of the United States from 1829 to 1837
• William Blake (1757–1827) — English poet and artist (1757–1827)
• James Monroe (1758–1831) — president of the United States from 1817 to 1825 (1758–1831)
• Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) — Russian writer of Ukrainian origin (1809–1852)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) — American philosopher (1803–1882)
• John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) — British philosopher and political economist (1806–1873)
• Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) — Russian writer (1818–1883)
• Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) — English social reformer, statistician, and founder of modern nursing (1820–1910)
• Walt Whitman (1819–1892) — American poet, essayist and journalist (1819–1892)
• Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) — president of the United States from 1837 to 1841
• Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) — President of the United States from 1865 to 1869
• Zachary Taylor (1784–1850) — president of the United States from 1849 to 1850
• James Buchanan (1791–1868) — president of the United States from 1857 to 1861
• James K. Polk (1795–1849) — President of the United States from 1845 to 1849 (1795–1849)
• Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) — American essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817–1862)
• John Tyler (1790–1862) — president of the United States from 1841 to 1845
• John Keats (1795–1821) — English Romantic poet (1795–1821)
• Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) — Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer (1769-1859)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) — British Romantic poet (1792–1822)
• Millard Fillmore (1800–1874) — president of the United States from 1850 to 1853
• William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) — president of the United States in 1841
• William Wordsworth (1770–1850) — English Romantic poet (1770–1850)
• Franklin Pierce (1804–1869) — president of the United States from 1853 to 1857
• Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) — British statesman (1804–1881)
• Walter Scott (1771–1832) — Scottish novelist, poet and playwright (1771–1832)
• Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) — Russian revolutionary anarchist and philosopher (1814–1876)
• George Eliot (1819–1880) — English novelist, essayist, poet and journalist (1819–1880)
• Taras Shevchenko (1814–1861) — Ukrainian poet and artist (1814–1861)
• Stendhal (1783–1842) — French writer (1783–1842)
• George Sand (1804–1876) — French novelist and memoirist (1804–1876)
• Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) — British novelist and poet (1816-1855)
• James Prescott Joule (1818–1889) — English physicist and brewer (1818–1889)
• Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) — French painter (1780–1867)
• Auguste Comte (1798–1857) — French philosopher, mathematician and sociologist (1798–1857)
• Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) — French composer and conductor (1803–1869)
• Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) — English mathematician (1815–1852)
• Mary Shelley (1797–1851) — English writer (1797–1851)
• Emily Brontë (1818–1848) — English novelist and poet (1818–1848)
• Joseph Fourier (1768–1830) — French mathematician and physicist (1768 – 1830)
• Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) — Italian general, patriot and republican (1807–1882)
• Robert Schumann (1810–1856) — German composer, pianist and critic (1810–1856)
• Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) — Polish national poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, and political activist (1798-1855)
• Herman Melville (1819–1891) — American writer and poet (1819–1891)
• Napoleon III (1808–1873) — President of the Second French Republic, Emperor of the Second French Empire and last monarch of France (1808–1873)
• Mikhail Lermontov (1814–1841) — Russian writer, poet and painter (1814–1841)
• Franz Liszt (1811–1886) — Hungarian romantic composer and virtuoso pianist (1811-1886)

See who was alive and where on the interactive globe →

Explore the full timeline of 24,643 well-known lives →