The Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, to guarantee free navigation on the river. It first met in Mainz in 1816 and has been based in Strasbourg since 1920. More than two centuries later, it still sets the navigation and safety rules for vessels on the Rhine. It is generally regarded as the oldest international organisation in the world.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.