Visualizing 100 years of Pulitzers

The full list of every Pulitzer Prize winner

Since its inception in 1917, over 2,000 Pulitzers have been awarded to writers published in the US, from poetry and fiction to investigative reporting and history books. You can explore the winners by decade and year here, or click the view to see winners by category, including those no longer used.

The Pulitzer's evolving categories mirror the state of contemporary journalism

The inaugural prizes in 1917 selected four winners: two for newspaper journalism (including a look inside the German Empire amid World War I) and two for books, but the slate has evolved to include online-only outlets (2009), magazines (2015), and audio reporting (2020). The 2024 Pulitzers, in particular, marked a noticeable shift: More digital outlets were awarded than traditional newspapers, illustrating a sharp decline in local newspapers and a rise in digital outlets.

Winning Pulitzers doesn't attract readers to newspapers

A 2014 study by Nate Silver found that newspapers that win the awards rarely see a change in circulation. While plenty has changed in the media landscape since the article was published in 2014, it's still a fascinating peek into how prestigious awards affect (or, more accurately, don't affect) readership.

Visualizing decades of stock market performance

Stock markets and the indexes that track their biggest companies tend to ebb and flow, with long growth periods punctuated by shorter recessions. Track the 60-year history of one of the most common stock market indexes, the S&P 500, with this data visualization. The chart highlights the long-term durability of markets despite appearance of short-term volatility.

Browse over a century of Billboard issues

For a music nerd, there's nothing more fascinating than poring over the Billboard charts from past decades to see how music—and the way it's categorized—has evolved. This digital archive allows you to click through almost every issue of the magazine and, in the process, watch the gradual emergence of nearly every American musical trend of the past century.

Charting 4,000 years of human history

Care to hang all of human history on your wall? This data visualization charts 4,000 years of humanity. This "histomap" was originally published in 1931 and sold for $1 per copy of the 5-foot-long chart. It was said to detail the course of...

See data measuring the emotional range of Meryl Streep

With nearly a century's worth of ceremonies and winners, the Academy Awards has plenty of data to be mined. Explore the career of the most-nominated-actor-ever, Meryl Streep, as well as data related to how Oscars impact film profits, and how winners express gratitude in their speeches.

Visualizing the enormity of plastic waste compared to global landmarks

The team at Reuters Graphics visualizes the world’s addiction to plastic bottles. Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. The illustrations included in this visual explainer show what that pile of plastic would look like if it was collected over longer periods of time and how large the piles would be compared to famous landmarks.

Experience games that explore Nobel Prize-winning work

Inspired by the educators who set laureates on their path, the Nobel Foundation has created a library of interactive activities for the general public. These allow users to make groundbreaking discoveries, showing that such work is accessible to all.

100 years of passenger air travel: a visual guide

This interactive timeline covers the first 100 years of passenger air travel, which was created in 1925 when the U.S. Post Office allowed private airlines to start delivering mail.

Newspaper headlines from a century ago today

The Library of Congress' Chronicling America project is dedicated to providing access to information about historic newspapers, with the goal of digitizing these windows into the country's past. This (among other archives) lets you explore a number of different local papers' front pages from a century ago on today's date.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Jules Feiffer revolutionized the political cartoon

Feiffer’s drawings for various newspapers functioned less as entertainment and more as editorial, skewering popular beliefs and accepted dogmas. In 1986, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work.

Visualizing where happiness comes from

Researchers asked 10,000 participants to list 10 things that recently made them happy. One author broke down the responses into subject-verb-object categories, isolating the people and events that made responders satisfied. The result highlights how simple things like having dinner or watching a movie made someone happy. Dive in and look for some ideas or tips on feeling happy today with this fascinating visualization.

Wikipedia's puzzle globe logo was developed by a 17-year-old

In 2003, the site held a contest for its users to submit designs for a new logo. Paul Stansifer submitted the winning design, which used the incomplete puzzle as a symbol for the encyclopedia being a work in progress. Symbols and letters would later replace text within Stansifer's colorful design.

See the results of all 59 presidential elections from 1789 to 2024

This interactive tool lets users explore the outcomes of every US presidential election from George Washington's uncontested 1789 victory through 2024, showing how electoral votes, state results, and shifting coalitions shaped each race.

The best photos of scientists at work in 2025

The winners of Nature's 2025 photo competition capture the essence of scientific fieldwork in diverse and challenging environments. From a biologist battling waves for whale research to ice core drilling in polar night conditions, this gallery details the research being each winning photo.

A visual database of pollens

Pollen is a powdery substance made up of small grains involved in the fertilization process of plants. There are thousands of types of pollens across the world, and you can see real images of them in this visual database.

Striking demographic trends from 2022

This article lists the 15 most striking research findings by Pew Research Center in 2022. The topics highlighted represent a sample of the Center’s research, compiled through surveys. Findings examine public opinion around the biggest news events...

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

See the news with AI-generated data visualizations

Realtime uses generative AI to create immediate data visualizations of news items on its regularly-updated feed, pulling from public data feeds. Peruse stories around sports, economics, politics, and more with the helpful aid of charts and graphs. See the shape of the news with this clever AI tool here.

An interactive periodic table maps every possible combination of cheese variables

Plotting milk type, texture, rind, mold, aging, and processing as intersecting axes, the tool shows which combinations already exist as named cheeses, which survive only as rare regional styles, and which remain entirely unexplored.

Analyzing the PGA Tour's leaderboard

In 2007, the PGA Tour introduced the FedEx Cup, marking the first time men's pro golf had a playoff system. This PGA Tour interactive shows the Cup standings year-to-date, along with video and news updates. Click on a player's name and get a detailed page about their career, including total wins, scorecards from recent matches, and what clubs are in their bag.

A detailed analysis of romance novel covers through history

A lot has changed in the romance genre over time, a fact that's clearest in the way that the books are marketed to consumers. This interactive data visualization surveyed decades of romance book jackets, finding that raunchy, realistic paintings of scantily clad models have largely been replaced by vibrantly colored illustrations, often with the characters drawn as cartoons.

The man behind the Preakness' iconic weathervane, which features every winner's name

Since 1988, Lawrence Jones has climbed into Pimlico's cherry picker to paint the Preakness winners' silks on its iconic weathervane—a tradition born in 1909. This America's Best Racing profiles Jones, a retired graphic artist, and how he has to meticulously paint the weathervane—even under challenging conditions. Learn the rich history of the event, and what happened to the weathervane after the 1966 fire.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Twelve artworks you'll love zooming into

Zoom in on these famous paintings to see what's hiding up close, then go exploring the rest of Google's incredible Arts and Culture hub.

The best Cannes Lions winners of all time

Cannes Lions has been highlighting the best campaigns for over 70 years. This list brings together nine of the best from the festival’s history, with standouts from Mastercard, Adidas, and Burger King.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

The tragic Pulitzer Prize-winning image 'The Vulture and the Little Girl' (1993) generated controversy, raised concerns about ethics in photography, and eventually led to the photographer's death.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Calculate how much of your tax dollars go to each federal program based on your income, filing status, and number of children

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.