In 1904, American Elizabeth Magie patented 'The Landlord's Game', a board game designed to show how concentrated land ownership enriches landlords at tenants' expense. The game spread and evolved over the next three decades. In 1935, Parker Brothers launched Monopoly, credited to Charles Darrow, and then bought Magie's patent for 500 dollars. Her role as the game's original creator was only widely recognised decades later.
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.