Born ThenBe born in another time
Any year from 1 CE to 2025, weighted by how many people were really born there. Five people from the same place and year live their whole lives in front of you.
Real odds
Most people who ever lived were born before 1800, and most of them in China or India. The draw follows that.
History hits unevenly
A famine, a war or a plague lands on five people from the poorest fifth to the richest. Who survives is not the same.
Papers left behind
Birth registers, draft notices, ship tickets, death records, in the local script. Many lives leave none.
Events
- Antonine Plague 165–180
- Yellow Turban Rebellion 184–205
- Wars of the Three Kingdoms 190–280
- Plague of Cyprian 249–262
- Fall of the Western Roman Empire 376–476
- Justinian's reconquest wars 533–554
- Plague of Justinian 541–549
- Recurrences of the first plague pandemic 558–750
- Early Muslim conquests 632–750
- Indian Ocean slave trade 700–1799
- An Lushan Rebellion 755–763
- Abbasid prosperity (Islamic Golden Age) 786–1000
- Viking raids 793–1066
- Classic Maya collapse 800–950
- Norse settlement of Iceland 874–930
- Song dynasty commercial revolution 960–1270
- Chola expansion 985–1070
- Polynesian settlement of Hawaii 1000–1200
- The Crusades 1096–1291
- Thule migration across the Arctic 1200–1300
- Rise of Great Zimbabwe 1200–1450
- Mongol conquest of the Jin 1211–1234
- Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire 1219–1223
- Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' 1237–1242
- Polynesian settlement of New Zealand 1250–1300
- Mongol sack of Baghdad 1258
- Mongol conquest of the Song 1268–1279
- Great Famine of 1315–1317 1315–1317
- Hundred Years' War 1337–1453
- Black Death 1346–1353
- Return of the plague 1360–1400
- Conquests of Timur 1381–1405
- Timur's sack of Delhi 1398–1399
- Fall of Constantinople 1453
- Sengoku period 1467–1590
- Expulsion of the Jews from Spain 1492
- Collapse of the Taíno population 1493–1530
- Atlantic slave trade (West Africa) 1501–1799
- Atlantic slave trade (Kongo and Angola) 1514–1799
- Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire 1519–1521
- Smallpox epidemic in Mexico 1520–1521
- Smallpox in the Inca Empire 1525–1527
- Ethiopian–Adal war 1529–1543
- Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire 1532–1572
- Cocoliztli epidemic of 1545 1545–1548
- Plantation slavery in Brazil 1550–1799
- Cocoliztli epidemic of 1576 1576–1578
- Russian conquest of Siberia 1580–1700
- Moroccan invasion of the Songhai Empire 1591–1599
- Imjin War 1592–1598
- Tokugawa peace 1603–1780
- Epidemic in coastal New England 1616–1619
- Thirty Years' War 1618–1648
- Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands 1621
- Late Ming famines and rebellions 1627–1644
- Italian plague of 1629–1631 1629–1631
- Deccan famine of 1630–1632 1630–1632
- Sugar slavery in the Caribbean 1640–1799
- Ming–Qing transition 1644–1683
- Slavery in the British North American colonies 1660–1799
- Great Plague of London 1665–1666
- Little Ice Age famines of the 1690s 1693–1698
- 1707 Hōei earthquake and Fuji eruption 1707–1708
- 1755 Lisbon earthquake 1755
- Burmese–Siamese War and fall of Ayutthaya 1765–1767
- Bengal famine of 1770 1769–1771
- Spanish missions in California 1769–1799
- Great Tenmei famine 1782–1788
- Laki haze and the cold winter of 1783–1784 1783–1784
- Laki eruption and the Haze Famine 1783–1785
- Smallpox epidemic around Sydney 1789–1790
- Atlantic slave trade, final decades 1800–1866
- Slavery in the United States 1800–1865
- Slavery in Brazil 1800–1888
- Serfdom in the Russian Empire 1800–1861
- Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815
- Fulani War and the Sokoto Caliphate 1804–1808
- Spanish American wars of independence 1808–1826
- Eruption of Mount Tambora 1815–1816
- British emigration to the colonies and America 1815–1913
- Year Without a Summer 1816–1817
- First cholera pandemic 1817–1824
- Java War 1825–1830
- Cultivation System in Java 1830–1870
- Abolition of slavery in the British Empire 1834–1838
- Indian indenture system 1834–1917
- First Opium War 1839–1842
- German emigration to the Americas 1840–1893
- Great Famine in Ireland 1845–1852
- Chinese emigration from Guangdong and Fujian 1845–1913
- Third cholera pandemic 1846–1860
- Mexican–American War 1846–1848
- Taiping Rebellion 1850–1864
- Victorian gold rush 1851–1869
- Irish emigration after the Famine 1852–1913
- Crimean War 1853–1856
- Third plague pandemic 1855–1930
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 1857–1858
- French conquest of Vietnam 1858–1887
- American Civil War 1861–1865
- January Uprising 1863–1864
- Paraguayan War (War of the Triple Alliance) 1864–1870
- Meiji Restoration 1868–1889
- Polish emigration "za chlebem" 1870–1913
- Persian famine of 1870–1872 1870–1872
- Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871
- Long Depression 1873–1879
- Reforms of King Chulalongkorn 1874–1910
- Northern Chinese Famine 1876–1879
- Great Famine of 1876–1878 1876–1878
- Anglo-Zulu War 1879
- Great Italian emigration 1880–1913
- Pogroms in the Russian Empire 1881–1906
- Anglo-Egyptian War and British occupation 1882
- Eruption of Krakatoa 1883
- Third Anglo-Burmese War and annexation 1885–1887
- Atrocities in the Congo Free State 1885–1908
- Great Ethiopian Famine 1888–1892
- African rinderpest epizootic 1888–1897
- 1889–1890 flu pandemic ("Russian flu") 1889–1890
- Russian famine of 1891–1892 1891–1892
- Panic of 1893 1893–1897
- First Sino-Japanese War 1894–1895
- Hamidian massacres 1894–1896
- First Italo-Ethiopian War 1895–1896
- Spanish–American War 1898
- Sixth cholera pandemic 1899–1923
- Boxer Rebellion 1899–1901
- Indian famine of 1899–1900 1899–1900
- Philippine–American War 1899–1902
- Thousand Days' War 1899–1902
- Second Boer War 1899–1902
- Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905
- Herero and Nama genocide 1904–1908
- Maji Maji Rebellion 1905–1907
- Korea under Japanese rule 1910–1945
- Mexican Revolution 1910–1920
- Balkan Wars 1912–1913
- World War I in Europe 1914–1918
- World War I in the Ottoman Empire 1914–1918
- World War I for the United States, Canada and Australia 1914–1918
- Armenian genocide 1915–1917
- Great Migration of Black Americans 1916–1970
- Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917–1922
- 1918 influenza pandemic 1918–1920
- Turkish War of Independence and population exchange 1919–1923
- Irish War of Independence and Civil War 1919–1923
- Great Depression 1929–1939
- Dust Bowl 1930–1939
- Holodomor 1932–1933
- Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia 1935–1941
- Great Purge 1936–1938
- Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
- Second Sino-Japanese War 1937–1945
- World War II on the Eastern Front 1939–1945
- World War II in Western Europe 1939–1945
- World War II for the United States, Canada and Australia 1939–1945
- The Holocaust 1941–1945
- World War II in Japan 1941–1945
- Japanese occupation of the Philippines 1941–1945
- Japanese occupation of Indonesia, Burma and Vietnam 1942–1945
- Bracero program and Mexican migration to the United States 1942–2007
- Bengal famine of 1943 1943–1944
- Indonesian War of Independence 1945–1949
- Chinese Civil War 1946–1949
- Partition of India 1947–1948
- Apartheid 1948–1994
- Division of Germany 1949–1990
- Korean War 1950–1953
- Italian economic miracle and the move north 1950–1970
- Egyptian revolution of 1952 and land reform 1952–1961
- Mau Mau uprising and the Kenya Emergency 1952–1960
- Algerian War and French conscription 1954–1962
- Japanese postwar economic boom 1955–1973
- Vietnam War 1955–1975
- Great Leap Forward famine 1959–1961
- Turkish labour migration to West Germany 1961–1973
- Korean economic miracle 1962–1996
- Vietnam War and the American draft 1964–1973
- Brazilian military dictatorship 1964–1985
- Colombian armed conflict 1964–2016
- Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 1965–1966
- Cultural Revolution 1966–1976
- Green Revolution in India 1966–1985
- Nigerian Civil War (Biafra) 1967–1970
- Egypt's wars with Israel (1967–1973) 1967–1973
- Ujamaa villagization in Tanzania 1967–1977
- 1970 Bhola cyclone 1970
- Bangladesh Liberation War 1971
- Martial law under Marcos 1972–1986
- Migration to the Gulf 1973–2025
- Cambodian genocide 1975–1979
- The Emergency in India 1975–1977
- Dirty War in Argentina 1976–1983
- Iranian Revolution 1978–1982
- China's reform and opening 1978–2015
- Soviet–Afghan War 1979–1989
- Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988
- One-child policy 1980–2015
- Ethiopian famine of 1983–85 1983–1985
- HIV/AIDS epidemic in southern and eastern Africa 1985–2015
- Collapse of the Soviet Union 1991–1998
- Rwandan genocide 1994
- 1997 Asian financial crisis 1997–1999
- Second Congo War 1998–2003
- War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) 2001–2021
- Iraq War 2003–2011
- 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami 2004
- Mexican drug war 2006–2025
- 2008 financial crisis 2008–2010
- Syrian civil war 2011–2024
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami 2011
- Rohingya genocide 2016–2017
- COVID-19 pandemic 2020–2022
- Myanmar civil war since the 2021 coup 2021–2025
- Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022–2025