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by tnecniv 3813 days ago
I think math classes should be paired with history more. My probability professor often offered historical context (for example, the Poisson distribution first being used to model deaths due to horse kicks in the Prussian army) to the ideas we discussed, and the stories were often both interesting and insightful.
2 comments

I've been refreshing on Calculus and I found that Kline's book was good at application as well as a bit of history, at least I never got the history part at University and I found it very interesting.

http://store.doverpublications.com/0486404536.html

Nature and Growth of Mathematics by Edna Kramer is a fantastic book interweaving history and math.