Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Minard chart of Napoleon's Russian Campaign

 
Original - Charles Minard's 1869 chart details the losses of men, the position of the army, and the freezing temperatures on Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. Created in an effort to show the horrors of war, the graph "defies the pen of the historian in its brutal eloquence."
Reason
Minard's Carte figurative has been called the best statistical graphic ever drawn, and is quite famous. Minard weaves together multiple streams of data: timelines, army locations, losses in men, and temperatures, all which stunningly portray the disastrous military campaign. The Newberry Library cartography department tells me that the only known copies belong to a library in France (Ecole polytechnique?) and an original is actually on display right now in the Field Museum here in Chicago through the end of the month in their mind-blowing Maps exhibit!
Articles this image appears in
Charles Minard, French invasion of Russia, and others
Creator
Charles Minard, 1869

Promoted Image:Minard.png MER-C 02:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]