The first references to statistical extremes may perhaps be found in the Genesis (The Bible, vol. I): the largest age of Methu'selah and the concrete applications faced by Noah-- the long rain, the large flood, the structural safety of the ark --. But as the pre-history of the area can be considered to last to the first quarter of our century, we can say that Statistical Extremes emer ged in the last half-century. It began with the paper by Dodd in 1923, followed quickly by the papers of Fre-chet in 1927 and Fisher and Tippett in 1928, after by the papers by de Finetti in 1932, by Gumbel in...

The first references to statistical extremes may perhaps be found in the Genesis (The Bible, vol. I): the largest age of Methu'selah and the concrete applications faced by Noah-- the long rain, the large flood, the structural safety of the ark --. But as the pre-history of the area can be considered to last to the first quarter of our century, we can say that Statistical Extremes emer- ged in the last half-century. It began with the paper by Dodd in 1923, followed quickly by the papers of Fre-chet in 1927 and Fisher and Tippett in 1928, after by the papers by de Finetti in 1932, by Gumbel in...