  November 27, 2004, marked the 250th anniversary of the death of Abraham De
Moivre, best known in statistical circles for his famous large-sample
approximation to the binomial distribution, whose generalization is now
referred to as the Central Limit Theorem. De Moivre was one of the great
pioneers of classical probability theory. He also made seminal contributions in
analytic geometry, complex analysis and the theory of annuities. The first
biography of De Moivre, on which almost all subsequent ones have since relied,
was written in French by Matthew Maty. It was published in 1755 in the Journal
britannique. The authors provide here, for the first time, a complete
translation into English of Maty's biography of De Moivre. New material, much
of it taken from modern sources, is given in footnotes, along with numerous
annotations designed to provide additional clarity to Maty's biography for
contemporary readers.
