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Nelson Mandela – A Man Whose Cause For Freedom Proved Triumphant Very few individuals personify dedication and patience like Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected President. Getting there was a story so epic that it was made into a Hollywood biopic in 2013. Much like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mandela was one of the great transformative civil rights leaders of the 20TH century. He not only directed peaceful demonstrations against the deeply racist South African government, he went on to claim the Nobel Prize in 1993 for helping to end apartheid. Mandela was neither a politician nor an opportunist, but a man deeply committed to improving the lives of his people and applying the same message of freedom and equality to all nations.  "hate race discrimination most intensely and in all its manifestations. I have fought it all during my life; I fight it now, and will do so until the end of my days.” Born in 1918, Mandela became in...

Mahatma Gandhi – The Anti-War Activist With A Global Legacy Mahatma Gandhi left his mark on the world in more ways than one. The leader of India’s independence movement achieved remarkable feats through a form of non-violent civil disobedience that would inspire millions around the world, including many of the people on this list. World leaders, scientists, philosophers and even entrepreneurs have drawn inspiration from Gandhi, whose spiritual significance was just as profound as his role in liberating India. Gandhi was born in India in 1869, a country that was then part of the British Empire. His youth was perhaps uncharacteristic of the Gandhi the history books remember. After an arranged marriage at the age of 13, Gandhi rebelled against his deeply religious upbringing by smoking, eating meat and even stealing. By age 18, he set sail to London to study law. A fledgling law career in India would eventually send the 24-year-old Gandhi to South Afr...

More than 52 percent of the world's population is under 30 years old. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as of 2012, 50.5 percent of the world's population were people under the age of 30. Around 89.7 percent of those young people live in emerging and developing economies like the Middle East and Africa.

There are only three countries in the world that don't use the metric system. For simplicity's sake, most of the more than 200 countries in the world use the metric system when describing things like length or mass. However, there are three countries that stand out: Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States. And soon, that number might be down to two. In 2018, Liberia commerce and industry minister Wilson Tarpeh said the government plans to adopt the metric system in order to promote accountability and transparency in trade, according to the Liberian Observer.

All giant pandas in zoos around the world are on loan from China. The panda at your local zoo may look like it's at home in its cozy sanctuary. But unless you live in China, the pandas that you're seeing are just visiting. That's because every one of the gentle giants in zoos around the world are on loan from China. Yes, they're technically the property of the government of China, according to Vox.

The red-billed quelea is the most common bird on Earth. There may not be any red-billed queleas in your neighborhood, but that's not because there aren't an abundance of them. These birds, which live in sub-Saharan Africa, are considered "agricultural pests" because their massive flocks can obliterate entire crops. Although their numbers fluctuate, there are around 1 to 10 billion queleas, which leads scientists to believe that there are more of them than any other bird on Earth, according to Audobon.

There are 41 countries that recognize sign language as an official language. There are estimated to be 72 million deaf people around the world. There are also about 300 different sign languages—including American Sign Language and International Sign Language—as well as 41 countries that recognize them as an official language

Facebook has more users than the population of the U.S., China, and Brazil combined. Do you use Facebook? If you don't, you're among a number that gets increasingly smaller every day. In fact, 2 billion active users have an account on the social media platform, which is more than the population of the United States, China, and Brazil combined. Facebook's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted about the milestone, saying, "We're making progress connecting the world, and now let's bring the world closer together."

There are only two countries with names that begin with "The." You might find yourself saying "the" before various countries and place names when referring to them thanks to grammar and common pronunciation, which is why we say the United States or the Maldives. However, only The Gambia and The Bahamas formally include "the" in their nation's names.

The oceans contain almost 200,000 different kinds of viruses. The next time you feel like taking a dip in the big blue ocean, you might not want to think about the fact that the seemingly pristine water is home to almost 200,000 different kinds of viruses. While this may sound scary, Matthew Sullivan, a microbiologist at the Ohio State University, told CNN, "Having that road map [of what viruses exist] helps us do a lot of the things we'd be interested in to better understand the ocean and, I hate to say it, but maybe to have to engineer the ocean at some point to combat climate change."

All the ants on Earth weigh about as much as all the humans. The total population of people who are alive on Earth hasn't even hit 8 billion. At the same time, there are 10 quadrillion (10,000,000,000,000,000) individual ants crawling around at any given time. According to wildlife presenter Chris Packham, who appeared on the BBC, when combined, all of those ants would weigh about the same as all of us humans.However, Francis Ratnieks, professor of apiculture at the University of Sussex, disagrees. He says that while this fact may have been true in the past, these days "we must also remember that humans are getting fatter all the time. We're not just increasing in population, we're increasing in fatness, so I think we've left the ants behind."

Copenhagen is the most bike-friendly city in the world. Many places around the world are trying to figure out how to rework their infrastructure to accommodate cyclists and hopefully, in turn, encourage residents to use the environmentally friendly mode of transportation. That's why Copenhagen has become such a role model; according to Wired, it's the most bike-friendly city in the world.

Canada has nine percent of the world's forests. Our neighbors to the north boast 396.9-million hectares of forests, or nine percent of all of the forest area in the entire world, according to Natural Resources Canada.

It's estimated that Sweden has more islands than any other country. With 221,800 islands, Sweden is thought to have more islands than any other country in the world. Only about 1,000 of them are inhabited

Nearly half of the world's population watched both the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup games. Soccer—or football, depending on who you ask—is the most popular sport around the world. That's why when the FIFA World Cup games took place in both 2010 and 2014, nearly half of the world's population (around 3.2 billion people) tuned in to see who would win.

South Sudan is the youngest country in the world. Some countries are hundreds of years old, while others can trace their nation's history back for thousands of years. But South Sudan in North Africa just gained its independence from Sudan in 2011, which currently makes it the youngest country in the world.

More people visit France than any other country. France is a beautiful country, filled to the brim with delicious wines, scrumptious cheese, and tons of romance. So it's no surprise that more people want to visit France than any other country in the world, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. In 2017, the European country welcomed 86.9 million people. Spain was the second-most popular destination with 81.8 million visitors, followed by the United States (76.9 million), China (60.7 million), and Italy (58.3 million). La vie est belle!

Tokyo is the world's largest city with 37 million inhabitants. Tokyo is a booming city—not only by Japanese standards, but also compared to cities around the world. With around 37 million people living in Tokyo, it's the world's largest city when it comes to population size, according to Reuters. The next largest city is Delhi, India, (population 29 million) and Shanghai, China (population 26 million).

There's a website that tracks the world's population in real time. As of 2019, the overall human population is estimated to be more than 7.7 billion people. And if you want to watch that increase in real time, you can tune into the World Population Clock, which shows the upticks and downticks as babies are born and other people die. You can also see the current populations of different countries, including China (1,420,000,000+), India (1,368,000,000+), and the U.S. (329,000,000+).

Japan is the world's most earthquake-prone country. Earthquakes can range from minor tremors that are barely noticeable to building-toppling ground-shakers that cause massive destruction. But it's an inevitable part of life for those who live in countries such as China, Indonesia, Iran, and Turkey, which are some of the most earthquake-prone places on the planet. However, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, Japan records the most earthquakes in the world.

The Earth's ozone layer will make a full recovery in 50 years. Because of pollution, the Earth's ozone layer has suffered a lot. That's bad news for everyone, since the fragile gas layer protects our planet and shields us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. Fortunately, climate change experts believe that the ozone layer will fully heal within 50 years, according to a 2018 report from the United Nations.The recovery is thanks in large part to the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which put a global ban on the use of one of the main culprits for the damage: chlorofluorocarbons (CFOs). Previously, CFOs had been common in refrigerators, aerosol cans, and dry-cleaning chemicals.

Four babies are born every second. Every second, we welcome four new babies into our overall population. Do a little math and you'll find out that means there are approximately 250 births each minute, 15,000 each hour, and 360,000 each day. In a full year, there are around 131.4 million babies born on Earth, according to the Ecology Global Network.

The longest place name on the planet is 85 letters long. People who live in Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya Hill, Australia, need a little patience when it comes to learning to spell their hometown's name. But you know what? So do the folks from Lake Chargoggagoggman-chauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Massachusetts and Tweebuffelsmeteen-skootmorsdoodgeskietfontein, South Africa. None of them have quite as much work to do when jotting down their address as those who live in Taumatawhakatangihanga-koauauotamateaturipukakapikimaung-ahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, New Zealand, though. At 85 letters long, this is the longest place name in the world.

- May 1 -International Workers' Day International Workers' Day International Workers' Day is a celebration of the international labour movement that occurs on May Day, May 1, a traditional Spring holiday in much of Europe. May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries, and celebrated unofficially in many other countries. In some countries the public holiday is officially Labor Day while in others the public holiday marks the traditional Spring festival known as May Day. Other countries, such as the United States celebrate Labour Days on another date, usually with special significance to the labour movement in that country. History International Workers' Day is the commemoration of the May 4, 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. The police were trying to disperse a public assembly during a general strike for the eight-hour workday, when an unidentified person threw a bomb at them. The police reacted by firing on the workers, killing four demonst...