In 1971, Phil Knight, co-founder of what would become Nike, asked Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University, for a logo that suggested motion. She delivered a stylised tick, the 'Swoosh', and billed $35, about 17 hours of work at $2 an hour. Knight wasn't thrilled, but thought it would grow on him. In 1983, he gave her a gold ring featuring the logo, along with a block of company shares.
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.