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Were They Alive During This?

Were these people alive at the same time as these events?
Inspired by this quiz by Jacktheguy
Quiz by overtired
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Last updated: December 6, 2022
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First submittedOctober 29, 2021
Times taken35,306
Average score73.3%
Rating4.92
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1. Was William Shakespeare alive during the Battle of Hastings?
Battle of Hastings: 1066. Shakespeare: 1564–1616
Yes
No
2. Was Richard Nixon alive during the First World War?
Nixon: 1913–1994. First World War: 1914–1918
Yes
No
3. Was Leonardo da Vinci alive when Columbus landed in the Americas?
Leonardo: 1452–1519. Columbus landing: 1492
Yes
No
4. Was Adolf Hitler alive when Oscars were first awarded in Hollywood?
Hitler: 1889–1945. Academy Awards: 1929 (officially used "Oscars" in 1939)
Yes
No
5. Was Julius Caesar alive during the construction of Machu Picchu?
Caesar: 100–44 BCE. Machu Picchu: 1450s
Yes
No
6. Was Queen Elizabeth II alive when the Titanic sank?
Titanic sank: 1912. Elizabeth II: 1926–2022
Yes
No
7. Was Charles Dickens alive during the American Civil War?
Dickens: 1812–1870. American Civil War: 1861–1865
Yes
No
8. Was Jesus of Nazareth alive when Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii?
Jesus: c. 4 BCE–30 CE. Pompeii destroyed: 79
Yes
No
9. Was Mahatma Gandhi alive when man landed on the moon?
Gandhi: 1869–1948. Moon landing: 1969
Yes
No
10. Was Britney Spears alive when the Berlin Wall fell?
Britney: 1981–present. Berlin Wall fell: 1989
Yes
No
11. Was Napoleon alive when the Wright brothers first flew an airplane?
Napoleon: 1769–1821. First airplane flight: 1903
Yes
No
12. Was John Lennon alive when Hawaii became a US state?
Lennon: 1940–1980. Hawaii becomes state: 1959
Yes
No
13. Was Chairman Mao alive during the Industrial Revolution?
Industrial Revolution: 1760–1840. Chairman Mao: 1893–1976
Yes
No
14. Was Martin Luther King Jr. alive when slavery was legal in the US?
MLK: 1929–1968. Slavery abolished: 1865
Yes
No
15. Were woolly mammoths alive when the Great Pyramid of Giza was built?
Great Pyramid completed: 2560 BCE. Mammoths go extinct: 2000 BCE
Yes
No
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62 Comments
ruftytufty
+13
Level 79
Oct 31, 2021
Great quiz thank you - could be many more of these!
overtired
+5
Level 87
Oct 31, 2021
Glad you liked it. Make sure you also take Jacktheguy's original quiz - Were They Alive at the Same Time?
Texanoid
+1
Level 71
Nov 19, 2022
Nice user name - I learned the word on JP
FentonsDad
+4
Level 88
Oct 31, 2021
I agree. Cool idea, jacktheguy!
tomwinkler95
+2
Level 72
Oct 31, 2021
Great idea
Iamnotreallyhere
+1
Level 69
Oct 31, 2021
Which Napoleon is this?
Arp2600
+14
Level 88
Oct 31, 2021
Napoleon I, obviously. And Napoleon III was also dead by 1903 anyway.
overtired
+24
Level 87
Oct 31, 2021
Actually, Napoleon the pig from Animal Farm. Seriously though, I had it as Napoleon Bonaparte but I try to keep the clues to one line and I figured it wasn't necessary. His Wiki page is simply "Napoleon".
pctjunkie
+13
Level 91
Oct 31, 2021
And Napoleon Dynamite hadn't been released yet so he couldn't be an answer either.
JuliusLang
+1
Level 53
Jun 23, 2024
What about Napoleon McCallum?
Jacktheguy
+3
Level 92
Oct 31, 2021
Thank you guys for the encouragement, and thank you overtired for making such a great quiz! I was worried that my original quiz was a little too difficult for the front page but I’m glad to see that someone else was able to make it better.
EcceHomo
+3
Level 84
Nov 3, 2021
It is still hard, but it is also very tough-provoking and simultaneously enlightening. Great quiz. Credit to you and overtired.
LivinAWestLife
+9
Level 84
Nov 1, 2021
The woolly mammoth one really got me, and apparently over half of users too.
EcceHomo
+3
Level 84
Nov 3, 2021
Me too, I had no idea they lasted until so recently. So I just read (some of) the wiki page(s) on Woolly mammoths. Lookee what it says here:

The last known population remained on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 4,000 years ago, well into the start of human civilization and concurrent with the construction of the Great Pyramid of ancient Egypt.

WillemLAif
+1
Level 76
Nov 24, 2021
I just read a more recent study about it today and you can scrap the island and take a 100 years off the number. The melting north ("permafrost") reveals more as we speak.
AkJMB
+2
Level 69
Dec 2, 2021
I have heard reports of elderly Alaska Natives some decades back watching African wildlife shows on TV. They did not have much to say but when elephants came on the screen, they had a word for them. Could be the fossils they found from time to time or could be they were around much more recently than generally believed.
QRU
+8
Level 74
Dec 2, 2021
How elderley were they?
martay
+7
Level 70
Oct 26, 2023
Cleopatra (born ~69BC) is closer in time to today than she was to the building of the Great Pyramid (~2500BC).
YellowJacket
+2
Level 80
Sep 15, 2024
Each year I show my students a video at the start of the year that has one of the facts being that Cleopatra was alive closer to the moon landings than to the construction of the pyramids. A second fact is that the wooly mammoths were alive when the pyramids were built. It is fun to see the look of shock on all of the faces when I show that.
Constantinos
+2
Level 74
Nov 2, 2021
Well, Jesus may as well as have not existed.
joeythelemur
+12
Level 82
Nov 8, 2021
???
Carry
+5
Level 63
Nov 9, 2021
You could say that about anyone only known from stories. I think Jesus existed, just not in the grand scheme of the bible. I'm sure we all know how word-of-mouth changes after being retold several times.
Account
+15
Level 59
Dec 2, 2021
He is not only present in the Bible, but also mentioned by roman historians, Tacitus in particular, IIRC.
brandybuck96
+1
Level 83
Jun 27, 2023
Tacitus does mention a man who appears to match the description - a man named Christus who gave his name to the religion and was persecuted under the Romans - but there's not a lot about him and the name 'Jesus' isn't mentioned. Though I guess that's nitpicking.
Juicyjoseph
+1
Level 45
Apr 4, 2025
He’s mentioned by name by Josephus, and while some manuscripts have medieval editions which flatter Jesus, other manuscripts don’t include this, so it’s highly likely the original body mentioning Jesus wasn’t a forgery.
JohnnyYeet
+1
Level 61
Dec 2, 2021
Great quiz! Got all right except Hitler
Cincinnatus
+17
Level 76
Dec 2, 2021
The Mao question is a bit unclear. Mao was alive when the Industrial Revolution was finally hitting China. Maybe rephrase it as the “Western Industrial Revolution”
Danksi
+4
Level 43
Dec 2, 2021
yea mao kinda made his own industrial revolution in china but i understood the question to mean THE industrial revolution
bigbywolf
+5
Level 55
Dec 2, 2021
Thought the same thing. Maybe change it to "Start of the Global Industrial Revolution". Of course, the answer then becomes quite obvious.
MrMagoo
+1
Level 85
Dec 2, 2021
Or British
JWatson24
+10
Level 71
Dec 2, 2021
When people use the term "Industrial Revolution," they are usually referring to the one that occurred in Europe in the 1800s. I think that clue is fine as is.
Account
+3
Level 59
Dec 2, 2021
Agree. Should be rephrased as "Industrial Revolution in Europe"
CardinalSin
+7
Level 80
Dec 2, 2021
Jesus is alive now. He rose again from the dead circa 33 AD so was certainly alive in 70 AD.
JackintheBox
+4
Level 80
Dec 2, 2021
Pompeii was destroyed in AD 79.
perman17
+1
Level 69
Dec 2, 2021
True.
Ferbin
+6
Level 78
Mar 22, 2022
Have you met him to know he's still alive now? Cause it certainly hasn't made the news.

Otherwise, if you're going by the myth of the bible, he ascended to heaven. Unless you think he's alive up there, which causes all kinds of theological-metaphysical problems.

Juicyjoseph
+1
Level 45
Apr 4, 2025
Technically, theologically Jesus is alive but in Heaven above, having been bodily assumed into Heaven. But for the purposes of the quiz, I suppose we can simplify life to mean “roaming the earth”, which he wasn’t doing when Vesuvius erupted. Still seems insulting to use BCE and CE when the entire system is based on his birth, even if it was improperly calculated at the time.
luxint
+2
Level 66
Dec 2, 2021
Utterly daft but fun quiz. Thank you.
JackintheBox
+7
Level 80
Dec 2, 2021
How is this quiz daft? It's quite informative
JackintheBox
+1
Level 80
Dec 2, 2021
Wow, I managed to get all correct!
Zettabyte
+1
Level 43
Dec 2, 2021
The most shocking answer was that the Queen wasn't alive during the Titanic.
emoney9
+6
Level 80
Dec 2, 2021
The Titanic sank in 1912, so if she was alive then, she would be at least 109 years old now.
rockihi
+1
Level 54
Dec 2, 2021
14/15 got the Caesar one wrong
DukeOfLorraine
+1
Level 66
Jun 5, 2025
Precolombian civs that existed when the Spanish arrived were surprisingly young.
FSLiudger
+2
Level 59
Dec 2, 2021
Well #8 kinda is a question of faith. Cool Quiz tho
SpartanLlama
+1
Level 74
Dec 2, 2021
Well yeah, though I always thought he was born in 1 CE and that's why the calendar works that way, BC does mean Before Christ after all
jmellor13
+3
Level 67
Dec 2, 2021
I think the person (Dionysus?) who calculated the years was off by a bit, so the consensus is that Jesus was actually born in 6 or 7 BC.
MindWax
+6
Level 86
Feb 15, 2024
No faith required. There's no doubt whatsoever, no matter whose calculations you use, that Jesus of Nazareth would have been dead by 79 CE. Unless you mean believing Jesus existed at all requires faith, in which case it takes just as much faith to believe in Julius Caesar.
Juicyjoseph
+1
Level 45
Apr 4, 2025
It’s more so that technically because of you’re Christian, Jesus rose from the dead, so he wouldn’t have been “dead”, just bodily assumed into Heaven. But for the purposes of the quiz, I guess it was just easier to say than “was Jesus roaming the earth when Vesuvius erupted”.
SpartanLlama
+1
Level 74
Dec 2, 2021
14, just missed Da Vinci
Trolololz
+1
Level 78
Dec 3, 2021
I've heard of the IR going until like 1910
kitshef
+1
Level 86
Jul 31, 2022
Brilliant quiz. Possibly my favorite on Jetpunk.
RJF
+4
Level 65
Sep 10, 2022
May need to add the qualifier that we're talking about the FIRST Industrial Revolution here. By most definitions the second had also ended by the 1890s, but that is somewhat more debatable, while Mao cértainly wasn't alive during the first.
Iggy1
+3
Level 47
Dec 6, 2022
The description after you answer for 6 needs to be updated. May she rest in peace.
overtired
+3
Level 87
Dec 6, 2022
Thanks, updated.
SMARTPERS0N
+1
Level 46
Jun 16, 2023
only missed 2, charles dickens and mao
CardinalSin
+1
Level 80
Sep 16, 2024
According to your dates, Qn 3 should be true but my Yes answer has been marked wrong.
overtired
+1
Level 87
Sep 16, 2024
“Yes” is set as the correct answer on that question and always has been.
AFDparsons
+3
Level 66
Sep 16, 2024
Slavery is still technically legal in the United States. It just has a prerequisite.
Baalhammon
+4
Level 70
Sep 17, 2024
Great quiz!

I would change question 13 though, the industrial revolution isn't really something that can be dated as specifically as this quiz assumes. And you could even say that Mao's lifetime and an industrial revolution do overlap, if we're looking at China specifically.

Point is, it's too contested and ambiguous a concept to be included in a quiz about historical dates imo.

InterAlia
+3
Level 79
Oct 9, 2024
I think you've just answered the age-old question about how the Egyptians moved those huge stones to build the pyramids.
DukeOfLorraine
+1
Level 66
Jun 5, 2025
About Mao and the industrial revolution, you used the dates for the UK but it spread later to the rest of the world. Mao notably forcefully industrialised China (with varying results...) and before that was alive during the early 20th century when the tech spread to China.

Better precise "the industrial revolution in the UK".

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