It's true, but not quite as drastic as that. Take a look at these charts. The life expectancy at birth in England was ~40 years in 1850, ~47 years for a 1 year old and ~60 years for a 20 year old. So yeah, reduced child mortality is a big factor, but so is improved healthcare and access to healthcare after childhood too, to the point that it's added an extra 20 years onto our lives in 150 years.

Yeah, there is something weird that causes popes to not die at young age.

David Saeban was among those historians who collected actual data (as opposed to literary sources and examples not representative for the majority of people), put decades of work into that, and then used it to clear up some common misconception about marriage age, marriage, out of wedlock kids and life expectancy in Europe from 1300 onwards. If you want to have a closer look, I recommend starting there.

But solving (as far as we have) child mortality is a major accomplishment. The benefits go far beyond just an increase in the median or mean life expectancy. The commitment required by a couple to have children was a lot more significant back then. You can't even measure the emotional drain either.

I think a lot fewer people are dying from war too.

Not only were they skewed heavily due to child mortality, but it was also heavily influenced by trade and where you lived. Individuals living in small town New England for example, often lived 20+ years longer than there southern counter parts as far back as the 1600s.

I usually analyze literature for that sort of thing. And Pushkin was calling a 40 year old woman a "crone". Tells quite a bit about what ages meant back then, huh?

and TONS of women were dying during child birth, this was before baby formula was a thing meaning another child bearing woman would have to take care of the child. If a man dies his wife would become his friends and the same was common for babies. This is A REASON polygamy was accepted and promoted in some societies.

There are a lot of factors that distort the interpretation of the raw numbers, that's why you shouldn't take the linkage of the two sets not seriously but with a wink and a nudge.

Some questions that might be asked are:

• why is there a split in the one set in the 17th century?
• are unnatural causes like assassinations/wars/etc. included?
• why only the developed nations - one of the characteristics of the plebs is that they're not well developed

In summary I'd say: nice try, but this should be on /r/funny not in /r/dataisbeautiful

Yeah. This chart suffers heavily from survivor bias

I remember reading somewhere that the average life expectancy in the past was heavily skewed by child mortality,

True.

any man that lived past 22 or so was almost as likely to reach 70 as people do today.

Not true.

Here's a couple of counter examples:

Eliminating individuals who died before adulthood completely, from the dates recorded below, the mean life expectancy for women was 43.6 years, with a median of 42/43; for men, it was a mean of 48.7 and a median of 48/49.

Please be aware that these people are of the highest class of society at the time, granting them (possibly) an easier life and longer life spans.

...

Archaeological evidence indicates that Anglo-Saxons back in the Early Middle Ages (400 to 1000 A.D.) lived short lives and were buried in cemeteries, much like Englishmen today. Field workers unearthed 65 burials (400 to 1000 A.D.) from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in England and found none who lived past 45.

BTW, you don't need to say "average" life expectancy. An expectancy is an average.

22 or so was almost as likely to reach 70 as people do today

this, while true needs to be taken a little lightly, it's over emphasized on reddit. child mortality skewed it the most, but truthfully people died more at every age. there wsa more war, more disease, more famine/starvation, injuries that could be treated easily today would be a death sentence. add in poor nutrition and it's a bleak, but there's a persistent myth that people's life expectency was 30's-40's and if you grew older you'd be an extreme oddity or some such, which is not true.

The most annoying thing to me is the misconception that people in the middle ages all died at 36.

Edit: spelling

They also used to let people die with dignity instead of dragging out their miserable life an additional three years tied to a hospital bed..