History of ideas: statistical personalities and the personalities of statisticians

This chapter traces, in tabular form, the historical foundations of modern statistical inference. Three phases of this history are encompassed: probability theory, 1600–1960; data description, 1600‐1960; and the evolution of statistical inference after 1860. Readers are pointed to accounts of the professional and personal lives of some eminent statisticians of the past 150 years. There are lessons from the past for the vibrant future development of the discipline.