Did you know Charlie Chaplin overlapped with 50 Cent? Interactive tool reveals the surprising famous figures who were alive at the same time

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Published: 10:58 EDT, 29 September 2026 | Updated: 10:58 EDT, 29 September 2026

A new interactive tool has revealed the surprising famous figures who were alive at the same time.

From Charlie Chaplin and 50 Cent to Picasso and Eminem, it doesn’t seem possible that these figures could have possibly existed at the same time.

But this timeline, developed by product designer Stefan Trkulja, shows that history has many more of these strange coincidences than you might think.

To see for yourself how these wildly different historical figures could have crossed paths, you can use the interactive timeline linked here.

Simply type in the name of a historical figure, event, or era to see them appear on the timeline.

Then, tap on the two parts of the timeline you want to compare to see exactly how many years they crossed over.

A new interactive tool has revealed the overlaps between famous figures, including the bizarre fact that Charlie Chaplin and 50 Cent were alive at the same time

Some of the strangest overlaps involve historical figures that feel as if they should come from entirely different eras.

One of the most striking is the fact that legendary actor Charlie Chaplin and the rapper 50 Cent were alive at the same time.

Charlie Chaplin was born in London on April 16, 1889, during the Victorian era and made his first appearance in a silent film in 1914.

He died on Christmas Day 1977, two years after the birth of Curtis James Jackson III, better known as 50 Cent, in New York on July 6, 1975.

But 50 Cent isn’t the only rapper with surprising historical contemporaries.

Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, was born on October 17, 1972.

This gives him an extremely surprising one–year overlap with the Cubist painter Pablo Picasso.

Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Spain, at a time when the Spanish Empire still controlled Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

In another artistic overlap, Pablo Picasso (left) died one year after the birth of Eminem (right)

Even more incredibly, Picasso lived just long enough to be alive when the first mobile phone call was made on April 3, 1973, just five days before his death.

However, perhaps the strangest musical connection of them all is the fact that the last widow of the American Civil War lived long enough to listen to Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, and Dua Lipa.

Helen Viola Jackson was born on August 3, 1919, but at the age of 17 made the rather shocking decision to marry a 93–year–old veteran, James Bolin.

Mr Bolin had fought for the Union in the 14th Missouri Cavalry during the American Civil War, which ended in 1865.

Although her husband died just three years later in 1939, Helen Viola Jackson lived until 2020, reaching the age of 101.

The tool doesn’t just reveal the strange overlapping histories of artists; it also shows how shockingly old some modern staples really are.

For example, Oxford University is actually older than the Aztec Empire.

Historical records show that teaching began at Oxford in 1096, with the first formal colleges forming in the 13th Century.

Helen Viola Jackson was born on August 3, 1919, and was the last widow of the American Civil War when she died in 2020, having lived long enough to see the births of Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Dua Lipa

In another amazing crossover, the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed more than 1,000 years before the last woolly mammoths went extinct

The Aztecs, meanwhile, began with the founding of Tenochtitlán in 1325, while the formal Aztec Empire wouldn’t rise until the late 1420s.

Likewise, you might have heard the fact that Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landings than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

However, you might not know that the ancient Egyptians were building the pyramids while woolly mammoths still walked the Earth.

While they vanished by around 6,000 years ago, a small population held out on Wrangel Island, near Russia, until 1700 BC – over 1,000 years after the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed.

On the other hand, it’s also stunning to discover just how modern some seemingly ancient historical events really are.

Most strikingly, the last guillotine execution in France happened after the release of Star Wars.

The guillotine, which had been the symbol of the French Revolution, was last officially used on September 10, 1977, to behead Hamida Djandoubi at Baumettes Prison in Marseille, France.

Meanwhile, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope hit the cinemas in the US on May 25, 1977.