Map of maps, timeline of timelines
April 24, 2007 10:20 PM   Subscribe

Milestones in graphics, maps, and visualizations. An incredible site for anyone interested in the history of visualization of data. See the first town map from 6200 BCE. Take a look at some of the most important graphics through history, including the London cholera map and the diagrams that made Florence Nightingale's case, as well as recent examples of some of the worst. Also check out the fascinating history of timelines, or Cabinet magazine's beautifully illustrated Timeline of Timelines.
posted by blahblahblah (13 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
And some previous points on the mefi timeline post timeline: 1, 2, 3.
posted by cortex at 10:28 PM on April 24, 2007


aaah, my eyes have been opened. I never even knew such a treasure trove existed. thanks blahx3 and cortex. particularly the one to the metatimelines of future histories by the grandmasters. I do wonder what would happen if all those timelines collapsed into themselves in a wormhole of some kind. what kind of a parallel universe would it take us into?
posted by infini at 10:52 PM on April 24, 2007


Ur on my wallz, decorating them.
posted by orthogonality at 11:00 PM on April 24, 2007


I love this! Thanks!
posted by tickingclock at 11:15 PM on April 24, 2007


Excellent find!
posted by Rumple at 11:20 PM on April 24, 2007


That first town map looks like El Lay.
posted by Eekacat at 11:30 PM on April 24, 2007


Fine site. Too bad it neglected to mention Huff's great How To Lie With Statistics. The recent examples of the worst links could be used as illustrations for Huff's book.
posted by CCBC at 1:38 AM on April 25, 2007


Nice.

For a daily blast of this kind of thing: Information Aesthetics.
posted by jack_mo at 3:24 AM on April 25, 2007


Still missing from the collection: the ultra-rare London cholera epidemic anagram mashups.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:06 AM on April 25, 2007


This 30-foot timechart was created in 1899 and shows the late Victorian world view of history, it is delightfully non politically correct - the period 1900-present has been added on to make it complete, and the whole thing is on sturdy cardboard and in a large folded book format. It is most useful for understanding the traditional Christian view (history ends at the tower of babel around 400bc), in particular when reading any literature from the 19th century, or any non-fiction work about the 19th century. I reference it all the time and has done a lot to help me better understand the Victorian world view. It is a fairly accurate guide for western and "oriental" history starting around the time of the Roman Empire going forward. The artwork is some of the best I've seen in a timechart, again, delightfully Victorian, all hand painted.
posted by stbalbach at 6:42 AM on April 25, 2007


"The average person will eat over 10,000 bars of chocolate, shed 121 pints of tears and have sex more than 4,200 times".

A documentary airing tonight in the UK is attempting a new method of visualizing statistics related to an individual's impact on the environment. Human Footprint is scheduled to air on Channel 4 at 9PM GMT.

There is a "calculator" you can use to get the statistics adjusted for your age (and give you a little more data behind the statistics if you can sit through a page by page flash demo).
posted by notmtwain at 7:38 AM on April 25, 2007


[This is excellent.]
posted by languagehat at 9:03 AM on April 25, 2007


Here's a bunch of examples using the Simile project's Timeline. It's the Google Maps of timelines.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:31 PM on May 1, 2007


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