1654–1858 CE · selected probability and public-health milestones · Europe · Science
Work on probability, mortality tables and statistical graphics created new ways to calculate uncertainty and analyse population health, although the underlying records remained incomplete and selective.
Atlas dossier · Early Modern WorldFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
The 1654 correspondence between Pascal and Fermat addressed mathematical problems of chance. Graunt’s 1662 analysis of London bills of mortality instead drew patterns from population records. These are connected histories of uncertainty and evidence, but they are not the same discovery.
American Physical Society: Pascal’s letters to Fermat ↗London’s bills excluded people outside the reporting parishes and their categories changed over time. Statistical results inherit such limits from the records used to produce them. The 1858 endpoint acknowledges Florence Nightingale’s statistical work and election to the Statistical Society; it replaces an 1837 date that did not fit her contribution.
Science Museum: epidemiology and the bills of mortality ↗Nightingale used statistical diagrams to communicate preventable mortality to non-specialist readers. Her graphics connected measurement to public-health reform, while also demonstrating that a persuasive visualisation is an argument built from selected data.
Science Museum: Florence Nightingale, pioneer statistician ↗A visual presentation accompanying this entry. Read each image’s attribution to distinguish archival records, later depictions and reconstructions.
Enlarge and examine the pictureRights-cleared archival or official image · CC0
Portrait of Blaise Pascal MET DP828975.jpg — Augustin de Saint-Aubin / Augustin Pajou; CC0; via Wikimedia Commons
Source and reuse terms ↗ · Read the licence ↗Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
Elsewhere in the world
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c. 1730–1760 CE · regional revival movements · AmericasThe Great AwakeningRevival movements transformed Protestant worship, print culture and ideas of individual conscience.