From 1912 to 1948, the Olympic Games held competitions in painting, sculpture, literature, music and architecture, for works inspired by sport. Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games, wanted to unite body and mind. He himself won gold for literature in 1912 with his 'Ode to Sport', entered under a pseudonym. The events were dropped after 1948, partly because the artists were professionals, and their medals no longer appear in official tallies.
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.