in 1693 halley published an article on life annuities (a kind of pension), which featured an analysis of age-at-death on the basis of the breslau statistics caspar neumann had been able to provide. this article allowed the british government to sell life annuities at an appropriate price based on the age of the purchaser. halley's work strongly influenced the development of actuarial science. the construction of the life-table for breslau, which followed more primitive work by john graunt, is now seen as a major event in the history of demography.