Boston Marathon Historical Timeline

April 18, 2019

Part of the coverage The Huntington News does annually is content focused on the Boston Marathon. In the April 18 issue in 2019, to accompany a story about Northeastern University students and alumni competing in the race, I created a data visualization reflecting key moments in the race's history.

A map shows the path of the Boston Marathon. Points along it are marked with dates and facts about the race.

The map visualization uses geographic references to show the route of the race. The history of the race is mapped onto the visualization with the race course acting as a timeline; each mile of the 26.2 miles represents about 4.6 years. (Click to expand)

The graphic used a map of the race course, tracing throug the various municipalities the 26.2 mile course crosses through, as the basis for a timeline with prominent events from the founding of the race in 1897 to 2019. Each mile on the map represents about 4.6 years

The visualization was created in Adobe Illustrator, which I used to create a streamlined design and to measure the lengths to appropriately place dates along the timeline.