# Notable people who lived into your lifetime **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 1, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492 "2013-04-01T03:17:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/1 "2013-04-01T03:17:28Z")
Can you think of any notable people who lived into your lifetime, but you were too young to appreciate who they were, or learned the fact years later? For me, it’s Salvador Dali. (I was born in 1978) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/2 "2013-04-01T03:21:09Z")
Pancho Barnes. I met her son though, and her daughter-in-law was very nice. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/3 "2013-04-01T03:38:02Z")
Right off the top of my head: Charles Lindbergh, who flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean nonstop. Philo T. Farnsworth, the “Father of Television” who is recognized as the inventor of electronic television transmission. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/4 "2013-04-01T04:48:54Z")
I think I understand the spirit of the OP. When I was a kid, anyone who was dead died “a long time ago”- this would be particularly true of world figures / famous people. I got into The Beatles when I was about 11 years old in 1986. I was aware that John Lennon was dead, which to me meant he died “a long time ago”. I was probably close to 30 before I realized two of my all-time favorites, Charlie Chaplin and Groucho Marx, both lived into my lifetime. I watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” every December while I was growing up (one of my mom’s favorites)- if you told me then that Jimmy Stewart was still alive, I would have looked at you like you were insane. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/5 "2013-04-01T05:22:45Z")
Igor Stravinsky Dmitri Shostakovich ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/6 "2013-04-01T06:20:30Z")
Winston Churchill ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/7 "2013-04-01T07:23:03Z")
Pablo Picasso ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/8 "2013-04-01T07:56:54Z")
A. Einstein. M. Gandhi. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/9 "2013-04-01T07:59:48Z")
Is there some sort of age limit on this? Many people famous people died before I was five years old, when I didn’t know who anyone was outside of my own family and Captain Kangaroo. I looked up some famous people who died in 1967, when I was ten. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know the importance of any of them at the time: Billy Strayhorn Dorothy Parker John Coltrane Carl Sandburg René Magritte Henry J. Kaiser Che Guevara My parents might have told me about Oppenheimer when he died that year, but I don’t have any memory of it. I’m sure I could come up with similar lists for other years. One question is how old you should be to know the importance of major cultural figures when they die. I don’t think it’s too surprising that I didn’t know about Magritte when I was ten. Here’s a similar list of people who died in 1975, when I was eighteen: Walker Evans Haile Selassie Noble Sissle Bernard Herrmann ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/10 "2013-04-01T09:45:54Z")
Some famous people still living when I was born: Black Elk - famous Sioux Medicine Man who was present at the Battles of Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee. George Bernard Shaw - playwright, whose earliest writings were in 1870’s. William Randolph Hearst - publisher, who took control of _The San Francisco Examiner_ in 1887. Philippe Pétain - “Lion of Verdun”, Commander-in-Chief of the French army in 1917 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/11 "2013-04-01T10:40:02Z")
The famous rock trio of Jimi, Janis, and Jim died during the first few months of my life. And the Beatles broke up (a death of sorts). Since that hippie rock era was such a big influence on my cultural development, this is pretty significant. (In a related vein, I sometimes find it amazing that I was alive during the last four of the six moon landings, because it’s always been something “from the past” for me.) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/12 "2013-04-01T13:00:58Z")
While I was alive during JKF’s Presidency, I was only eight when he was assasscinated and did not realize the historical extent of it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/13 "2013-04-01T15:43:24Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > One question is how old you should be to know the importance of major cultural figures when they die. If that’s the criterion, then Harry Truman would probably be the first historical figure to die whose relevance I understood at the time. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/14 "2013-04-01T16:25:03Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Can you think of any notable people who lived into your lifetime, but you were too young to appreciate who they were, or learned the fact years later? For me, it’s Salvador Dali. (I was born in 1978) Some people of note who died after I was born, but before I was out of diapers: Science, mathematics, etc.: Albert Einstein Alan Turing Enrico Fermi Alexander Fleming Hermann Weyl (a big name if you’re a math geek, otherwise “huh?”) Emile Borel (ditto) Thomas J. Watson (founded IBM) Savilly Tartakower (chess grandmaster) Baseball: Cy Young Honus Wagner Connie Mack Literature: Colette Thomas Mann Wallace Stevens A.A. Milne H.L. Mencken Bertholt Brecht Laura Ingalls Wilder Art, Music, Acting: Henri Matisse Charlie “Bird” Parker James Dean Carmen Miranda Jackson Pollock Bela Lugosi Humphrey Bogart Arturo Toscanini Other: Alfred Kinsey Tielhard de Chardin ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/15 "2013-04-01T16:43:19Z")
My cut-off would be grade-schooled aged (give or take 9) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/16 "2013-04-01T17:19:06Z")
I remember the news of Yuri Gagarin’s spaceflight in 1961. That was probably the first ‘in the news’ thing whose importance I recognized at the time. And when the first two Mercury missions (Shepard’s and Grissom’s) went up shortly afterwards, I was keenly aware that these were suborbital missions while Gagarin had orbited the Earth, so we still hadn’t equaled the Russians’ achievement. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/17 "2013-04-01T17:49:34Z")
Four out of six of the Three Stooges. Albert Hoffmann Margaret Hamilton ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/18 "2013-04-01T18:11:56Z")
I’m sure there’s quite a few, but the first one I can think of without looking it up is C.S. Lewis. I was not quite nine when he died(same day as JFK, which I DID notice). I didn’t actually read any of his stuff until young adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/19 "2013-04-01T18:45:08Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Four out of six of the Three Stooges. > Albert Hoffmann > Margaret Hamilton Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Joe DeRita, and Joe Besser? I was a kid when their shorts were first shown on TV and I remember Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe still making feature films such as “The Outlaws Is Coming!” I also remember Margaret Hamilton making Maxwell House commercials as Cora, the storekeeper. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492/20 "2013-04-01T18:46:24Z")
Henry Miller. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/notable-people-who-lived-into-your-lifetime/654492.md?page=2)