2,000 Years of Economic History in 1 Chart

MIN READSep 12, 2017 | 11:23 GMT

A telephone operator in London records the changes in New York's crashing stock market in 1929 as a few men look on with interest.

(London Express/Getty Images)

Long before the invention of modern day maps or gunpowder, the planet's major powers were already duking it out for economic and geopolitical supremacy. Today's chart tells that story in the simplest terms possible. By showing the changing share of the global economy for each country from 1 AD until now, it compares economic productivity over a mind-boggling time period....