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The first United Nations population forecast came in 1958, when the world population sat just under 3 billion. Many were skeptical of the UN experts’ predictions that the population would double to roughly 6 billion by the year 2000, but their forecasts proved remarkably accurate. In this brief video, Professor Hans Rosling of the Karolinska Institute looks back at how UN population outlooks have played out in the past, and charts new predictions for the human population between now and 2100.
Video by Gapminder
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The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
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Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?
13 minutes
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Family life
In Rwanda, Sébastien finds traces of personal history in the wake of national tragedy
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Dance and theatre
Leaf through Shakespeare’s First Folio for a riveting journey into theatre history
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Architecture
Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world
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Nations and empires
The strange tale of how mangoes became hallowed objects in Maoist China
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Ecology and environmental sciences
In an ancient English rainforest, John creates charcoal and cultivates growth
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Information and communication
Mapping data visualisation’s meteoric rise from Victorian London to today
6 minutes