Editing Infographic (section)

=== Early history ===

In 1626, [[Christoph Scheiner]] published the ''[[Rosa Ursina sive Sol]]'', a book that revealed his research about the rotation of the sun. Infographics appeared in the form of [[illustration]]s demonstrating the Sun's rotation patterns.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.huntington.org/verso/2018/08/conserving-classic-book-sunspots|title=Conserving a Classic Book on Sunspots|work=The Huntington|access-date=29 October 2019}}</ref>

In 1786, [[William Playfair]], an engineer and political economist, published the first data graphs in his book ''The Commercial and Political Atlas''. To represent the economy of 18th century [[England]], Playfair used statistical graphs, [[bar chart]]s, [[line graph]]s, [[area chart]]s, and [[histograms]]. In his work, ''Statistical Breviary'', he is credited with introducing the first [[pie chart]].<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1086/368480 |title = Historical Development of the Graphical Representation of Statistical Data|journal = Osiris|volume = 3|pages = 269–404|year = 1937|last1 = Funkhouser|first1 = H. Gray|jstor=301591|s2cid = 145013441}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Playfair|first1=William|author-link1=William Playfair|last2=Wainer|first2=Howard|author-link2=Howard Wainer|last3=Spence|first3=Ian|author-link3=Ian Spence (psychologist)|title=Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-85554-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Tufte|first=Edward|author-link=Edward Tufte|title=The Visual Display of Quantitative Information|year=1983|publisher=Graphics Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/visualdisplayofq00tuft/page/13 13]|location=Cheshire, Connecticut|isbn=978-0-9613921-4-7|url=https://archive.org/details/visualdisplayofq00tuft/page/13}}</ref>

Around 1820, modern geography was established by [[Carl Ritter]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/geo/courses/geo466/topics/humboldt.html|title=The Profession of Geography: Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121006012124/http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/geo/courses/geo466/topics/humboldt.html|archive-date=2012-10-06}}</ref>   His maps included shared frames, agreed map legends, scales, repeatability, and fidelity. Such a map can be considered a "supersign" which combines sign systems—as defined by [[Charles Sanders Peirce]]—consisting of symbols, icons, indexes as representations.<ref>Benking, Heiner, "Using Maps and Models, SuperSigns and SuperStructures", 2005. [http://benking.de/systems/codata/CODATA-MIST2005.htm]</ref>  Other examples can be seen in the works of geographers Ritter and [[Alexander von Humboldt]].<ref>1st Berlin Symposium on Internet and Society, "Learnings from Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter towards the Grand Global Modern Communication Challenges".</ref>

[[File:Nightingale-mortality.jpg|right|upright=1.2|thumb|[[Polar area diagram]] by [[Florence Nightingale]] illustrating causes of mortality during the [[Crimean War]] (1857)]]
In 1857, English nurse [[Florence Nightingale]] used information graphics to persuade [[Queen Victoria]] to improve conditions in military hospitals.  The principal one she used was the Coxcomb chart, a combination of stacked bar and pie charts, depicting the number and causes of deaths during each month of the [[Crimean War]].

[[File:Minard.png|thumb|upright=1.2|left|[[Charles Joseph Minard|Charles Minard's]] information graphic of [[French invasion of Russia|Napoleon]]'s invasion of Russia]]
1861 saw the release of an influential information graphic on the subject of [[Napoleon]]'s disastrous [[French invasion of Russia|march on Moscow]]. The graphic's creator, [[Charles Joseph Minard]], captured four different changing variables that contributed to Napoleon's downfall in a single [[two-dimensional]] image: the army's direction as they traveled, the location the troops passed through, the size of the army as troops died from hunger and wounds, and the freezing temperatures they experienced.

[[James Joseph Sylvester]] introduced the term "graph" in 1878 in the scientific magazine ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' and published a set of diagrams showing the relationship between chemical bonds and mathematical properties.<ref>{{Cite book | at=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XqYTk0sXmpoC&pg=PA65 p. 65] |title = Graph Theory, 1736-1936|isbn = 9780198539162|last1 = Biggs|first1 = Norman|last2 = Lloyd|first2 = E. Keith |last3 = Wilson|first3 = Robin J.|year = 1998|publisher=Clarendon Press|title-link=Graph Theory, 1736–1936}}</ref> These were also some of the first mathematical graphs.