If you’re from Florida you may get tired of people calling your state the “place people go to die.” But, according to this animation created by Maximilian Schich (University of Texas at Dallas) and Mauro Martino (IBM), it’s entirely true. Historians and scientists wanted to map cultural mobility, so they tracked the births and deaths of notable individuals like David, King of Israel, and Leonardo da Vinci, from 600 BC to the present day. Using them as a proxy for skills and ideas, their map reveals intellectual hotspots and tracks how empires rise and crumble. The results prove that the way we stereotype regions is actually…true.
If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, here’s a cheat: Blue dots = life and red dots = death. Now click play!
