A graphic illustration of death tolls in historical events and wars

Visualizing cause of death over time in America

As people age, their life expectancy decreases, but the timing and speed of this decline have evolved over the years. Check out this chart which shows the shift in various causes of death of Americans over the last few decades. Data from the...

The Civil War was the deadliest conflict in American history

Between 1861 and 1865, an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers died from battle and disease—more than in all other US wars combined.

Hurricanes may kill 300 times more people than officially reported

A recent study suggests that, since 1930, more than 3.5 million people have died due to hurricanes. This incorporates the long-term effects of storms on people's health and economic well-being, contributing to thousands of premature deaths each year.

How many people died in WWII?

Fallen.io, a short animated data-driven documentary about war and peace, explores the harrowing statistics of World War II and sizes up its numbers to other wars in history, including recent conflicts. Watch and click through this interactive documentary to learn more.

Play 17th-century death roulette

Before modern science and medicine, death was much harder to escape. Using real mortality records from London's Dreadful Visitation–a collection of all the Bills of Mortality from 1665–this interactive game gives you an idea of what may have possibly killed you during the Great Plague. Grow your appreciation for life today as you stumble upon causes of death like “livergrown” and “drowned at St. Katharine’s by the Tower”.

Deadliest maritime disaster

In the final months of World War II, 75 years ago, German citizens and soldiers fleeing the Soviet army died when the “Wilhelm Gustloff” sank

How many people died in the atomic bombings remains disputed

Nearly 80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, historians still disagree on the death toll from the atomic bombings. Estimates vary by up to 100,000, reflecting differences in methodology, sources, and the method used to count later radiation-related deaths.

A collection of contemporary maps from World War II

Newspapers published detailed maps of the conflict in real-time. See different portrayals of the situation, ranging from propaganda maps to speculative maps about the war's outcome. The fascinating depictions reveal how maps can show us the aspirations and intentions of different players in a global conflict.

Test your knowledge of famous death days

Of the thousands of celebrities whose name you know, how many can you remember the year they died? This simple game tests your knowledge of celebrity death days. An exact match gets you 1,000 points, and if you select within 15 years of the right year you get some points. Go see how much you remember here.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

An eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic

One of the most famous modern disasters, the Titanic sank in April, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg, killing an estimated 1,500 passengers and crew. One survivor, Washington Dodge, recorded his events just days after returning to land, offering one of the most immediate first-hand accounts of the ship's sinking.

Death taxes have helped fund wars since the 1860s

Death taxes date back to 700 BCE and were used in Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt. In the US, they've been used to finance wars since the Civil War, and have been levied on both the estate and beneficiary. The estate tax created during WWI to help finance war efforts is still in effect today.

Visualizing Hollywood's flops and winners in 2023

Is the movie worth watching? See how this year's cinematic releases compare with one another by revenue and popularity with this simple chart. Hollywood movies can be ranked on two axes: their popular rating and total revenues earned. In this data...

Explore a database of more than 200,000 wrecks

Only a small fraction of shipwrecks occurring throughout human history have been discovered. This database is the largest compilation to date, and includes more than 80,000 images, with related news updated on a rolling basis.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Hear firsthand stories from the Civil War

Historian and storyteller Fred Kiger narrates detail-rich episodes exploring overlooked people and moments of the Civil War—bringing listeners onto battlefields and into strategy rooms and offering insight into the lives of those who lived the conflict.

An interactive overview of the human toll of the Yemen conflict

The conflict in Yemen shows no signs of stopping. Civilians continue to suffer from military hostilities and human rights violations. More than 20,000 civilians have been killed and injured by the fighting since March 2015, according to the Office...

The worst election polling fails in US history

Presidential pollsters in the US have had some embarrassing failures. Here’s a catalog of those miscalls, from the scholar who literally wrote the book on them.

North Korea, in nine infographics

In recent decades, North Korea has spent nearly a third of its annual Gross Domestic Product on military spending, although data is not always forthcoming. This spending has funded major nuclear and missile projects as a means to deter attacks from...

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Who died during the French Revolution of 1789?

This article examines the human cost of the 1789 French Revolution, during which up to 17,000 people were guillotined and many more were killed by other means. A majority of the guillotine deaths were meted out during the Reign of Terror, a...

Some vacationers flock to the sites of tragedies

Auschwitz, Chernobyl, Gettysburg, and more have all become tourist destinations, despite the horrible events that have occurred at the sites. The phenomenon is sometimes called "dark tourism," a trend that seems to be spurred by interest in history, morbid curiosity, and popular culture (like HBO's series "Chernobyl").

Debunking myths about the American Revolution

The history of the American Revolution and the establishment of democracy are proudly taught in the US, but a number of incorrect details continue to be circulated. This article debunks some of the myths that persist in the public consciousness, like the idea that the war was solely driven by taxes or that Paul Revere was the only rider warning the rebels about the British.

How failures at Versailles Conference led to more racial inequality

Suffering a pandemic and the aftermath of a war that killed 50 million, the world in 1920 faced a turning point as it negotiated a new political order. As today, the key issue was racial inequality.

Alexander the Great, Rudyard Kipling, and more may have died from food poisoning

Though it is hard to prove decades or centuries after their deaths, some researchers suspect that food poisoning killed a variety of historical figures, including US President Zachary Taylor in 1850: Some researchers believe he may have consumed food contaminated with *Salmonella*.

The archaeology of human sacrifice

Human sacrifice appears in cultures around the globe. But how do we know that to be true? Scientists can tell the difference between ritual sacrifice and mass graves better explained by war and political instability. Learn how in this article about...

Tracking the accuracy of past and future predictions of the apocalypyse

Religious figures, scientists, technologists and others have long heralded the ending of the world in what in some traditions is called the apocalypse. This site tracks those failed predictions in the past and charts those coming up in the future.

Discovering how the dinosaurs went extinct may have helped avert nuclear war

This NPR Throughline episode explains how the 1980 discovery that an asteroid-driven dust cloud killed the dinosaurs inspired Cold War scientists’ fears of “nuclear winter”—a sunlight-blocking aftermath of nuclear war that may have discouraged leaders from launching one.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

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.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

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

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

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.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.