The Minard System

THE MOST FAMOUS STATISTICAL CHART IN HISTORY -- 9/11/19

Today's selection -- from The Minard System by Sandra Rendgen. In an age when the use and importance of data and statistics were first emerging, Charles Joseph Minard (1781-1870) pioneered the use of visuals to portray that data. His most famous chart, published in 1869 and revered by those in his field, shows Napoleon's army of 422,000 soldiers marching to Moscow and returning as a decimated force of only 10,000:

"This work has stood out from Minard's extensive oeuvre for a long time and continues to do so today. Its fame has even produced some curious momentos, such as a T-shirt feauturing [it]. ... Much of this selective fame can be traced back to the enthusiastic praise that the American statistician and political scientist Edward Tufte (b. 1942) bestowed on this graphic. He reasoned that 'it may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn,' and published a facsimile of it. .../.../