FORGET ME NOT

125+ years of war casualties drawn as a poppy field. Each conflict becomes a forget-me-not flower. Stem length shows duration, flower size encodes deaths. Scroll through history as wars bloom and fade, 1899-2026.

Visual Encoding

Element	Data Property	Scale
Stem span (arc)	Conflict duration	Linear (start to end year)
Flower height	Annual casualty rate	Log scale [500, 15M]
Flower size	Total deaths	Sqrt scale [0, 20M] to [18, 140]px
Center color	Geographic region	5 categorical colors
Petal color	Forget-me-not blue	Fixed #779ecb

Region Colors

• Europe: #b91c1c (red)
• Asia: #d97706 (amber)
• Africa: #15803d (green)
• Middle East: #1d4ed8 (blue)
• Americas: #7e22ce (purple)

Features

• 101 conflicts: Major wars with documented casualties
• Horizontal timeline: Scroll through more than a century of history
• Interactive flowers: Hover, click, or focus any flower for conflict details
• Perceptual scaling: Sqrt for area, log for rates
• Accessible: Keyboard navigation, screen reader labels, reduced motion support

Technical Stack

• D3.js v7: SVG rendering and scales
• Tailwind CSS 2.2.19: Utility-first styling (CDN)
• Vanilla JavaScript: No frameworks
• Playfair Display + Lato fonts: Serif + sans-serif pairing

Files

• index.html - Complete single-file application
• social-share.png - Open Graph image (1200x762)
• highres.png - High resolution capture
• LICENSE - MIT

Data Structure

Embedded in initChart():

{ "n": "Conflict Name", "s": 1939, "e": 1945, "d": 75000000, "r": "Europe" }
// n=name, s=start, e=end, d=deaths, r=region

Local Development

python3 -m http.server 8000
# Visit http://localhost:8000

Data Sources

Casualty estimates compiled from:

• Wikipedia List of Wars and Anthropogenic Disasters by Death Toll
• Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP)
• Various historical sources and scholarly estimates

Note: Casualty figures for historical conflicts vary widely across sources. This visualization uses mid-range estimates.

Author

Luke Steuber · dr.eamer.dev · @lukesteuber.com

License

MIT