The 1841 census counted about 8.2 million people on the island of Ireland. Then came the Great Famine of 1845 to 1852: around a million deaths, followed by mass emigration that went on for decades. By 2022 the island had about 7.1 million inhabitants, and the Republic of Ireland had just passed 5 million for the first time since 1851. Nearly two centuries on, the population has still not recovered its pre-Famine level.
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.