Towards the end of 2014, I wrote a couple pieces on data visualization and as I was researching some additional related topics, I stumbled across a couple very early examples of data visualization. This got me thinking about the history of data visualizations and how they came about. After doing some more digging, I found some very interesting facts that I put together in an eBook.
Click here to read The Origins of Data Visualization.
Photo by Janeb13 via Pixabay
Holland experienced the first widely-recorded economic collapses of the modern western era from 1634 to 1637.
In 1593, tulips were brought from Turkey to Holland. The new flower was quickly one of the most sought-after items throughout the country. Soon after, a non-fatal virus rocked the tulip populations throughout Holland, altering the colors and shading of the flowers’ petals.
While already yielding a premium price before the virus starting altering the flowers' look, certain types of tulips eventually reached a point where some were more valued than entire large estates. The Dutch quickly began to believe that the sky was the limit for the tulip market.
Needless to say, as the market reached such ridiculous prices, growers began to over plant and stockpile the tulips that they expected to yield the highest prices. Speculators began to liquidate assets, including family fortunes, life savings, and their estates in order to buy and sell tulips.
During the ramp-up, tulips prices went up 20 times over in just one crazy month. Needless to say, a market price that put a single special tulip at a price equivalent to an entire estate were unsustainable, especially once the hoards of tulips that speculators had liquidated to grow and buy flooded the market. Once the selling started, prices went into a freefall and contracts began to fall apart. Dealers just could not pay the prices they had promised growers and speculators.
In a futile attempt to quell the market, the Dutch government began offering 10% of the face value of contracts that were no longer being honored, but as prices continued to fall, the government had to halt the program and let the market correct itself (There was no selling treasury notes to China like today).
The Tulip Depression would have economic effects upon Holland for decades into the future.
At the top of a very nondescript hill out in Riverside County, CA, you'll find something pretty amazing. I can't tell you exactly where it is because the scientists that discovered it are going to do their best to protect this find, though they recognize that they are fighting a losing battle. According to UC Davis researchers, they have found what they believe to be one of the oldest living plants on the planet that is registering at 13,000 years old.
This plant is a wide-spanning thicket of stunted, gnarled oak trees wedged between a pile of boulders. To the untrained eye, it would appear to be of no consequence. The entire grove of Palmer's oak trunks is one plant with none of its stems rising more than a few feet tall. The plant is actually growing within the boulder pile, which has offered the needed protection in order for the plant to live it's extremely long life.
About a decade ago, while conducting a routine survey of plant life in the area, Michael May and his team came across this very unique plant. Their first clues as to what this plant really was came when they discovered that this apparent grove of trees was producing no fertile acorns, yet was seeming to continue to grow in size somehow. They then noticed that the trees were very similar in appearance, almost as if they were clones. This led them to discover that this is a single plant, growing in an oval 25 yards long and 8 yards wide. Researchers have found many plants that clone themselves, but very few that are this old.
Researchers have named the plant the Jurupa Oak after the mountain range in which it was found. They even believe that the plant has survived numerous fires over the years, with new sprouts springing to life after each fire.
Back in 1904...
...the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
...only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub.
...only 8% of U.S. homes had a telephone.
...a 3-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.
...there were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
...the maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 miles per hour.
...Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
...California was only the 21st most populous state with a mere 1.4 million residents.
...the tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
...the average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
...the average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
...a competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
...more than 95% of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
...90% of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard".
...sugar cost four cents a pound.
...eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
...coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
...most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
...Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
...the five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea, 4. Heart disease, 5. Stroke.
...the American flag had 45 stars.
...Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
...the population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.
...crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
...there was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
...20% of U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
...only 6% of all Americans had graduated high school.
...marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
...18% of households in the U.S had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
...there were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
...letters could take months to travel the world. This information came to me in an "electronic" mail, "copied and pasted" by me into a "software program" on a "computer" and delivered to you via the World Wide Web that involves no paper, writing, or teamsters (who drove horses in 1904), in just a couple of seconds...try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years...
