![[playfair.png]] **Born:** September 22, 1759 | Benvie, [Forfarshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forfarshire "Forfarshire"), Scotland **Died:** 11 February 1823 (aged 63) | [London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London "London"), England ### Summary Playfair was a Scottish engineer and political economist, responsible for inventing many of the graphical data representations that we commonly use today. In 1786, he invented the line, area, and bar charts. In 1801, he invented the pie-chart and circle graph, to represent whole-part relationships. Interestingly, he also served as a secret-agent on behalf of Great Britain during it's war with the French. As secret agent, Playfair reported on the French Revolution and organized a clandestine counterfeiting operation in 1793 to collapse the French currency. --- #### Related #people #visualization