51. Robert E. Peary discovered the North Pole in 1908. When his article on the adventure appeared in print in June 1914, it was not in Harper’s or Collier’s. Only Boys’ Life had it.
52. In April 1937, Cubmobiles, patterned after soapbox derby racers and described as any contrivance on wheels (one, two, three, four, or more wheels) became an annual feature of Cub Scouting.
53. At his family’s request, two separate honor guards of Eagle Scouts played a major role in the 2006 memorial services for President Gerald R. Ford, the first U.S. president to achieve the Eagle Scout rank as a boy.
54. A young George Herman “Babe” Ruth was a Tenderfoot Scout in Troop 23, promising to do a Good Turn daily.
55. The BSA sells almost 1 million neckerchiefs each year. If laid out flat, they would cover 120 football fields, or 124 acres.
56. In 1927, the BSA created Honorary Scouts to distinguish “American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration, and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys.” Among the Honorary Scouts were Orville Wright and Charles Lindbergh.
57. In 1981, real Life Scout Harrison Ford made film history, playing fictional Life Scout Indiana Jones in the first of four adventure films.
58. Of 121 merit badges, the one earned most by Scouts across the country is First Aid; more than 84,419 Scouts earned the badge in 2008.
59. The BSA is eco-friendly! In addition to publishing the first “green” Boy Scout Handbook in 2009, BSA magazines Boys’ Life and Scouting have been certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
60. A Boy Scout was selected to read Abraham Lincoln’s address at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913, one of among several national notices the BSA received that year.
61. Home to the world’s largest collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas, is 53,000 square feet—it would take some 3.2 million merit badges to fully cover the museum’s floor.
62. When Orville Wright wrote how he and his brother Wilbur got to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, for the first engine-powered airplane flight, only Boys’ Life printed “How I Learned to Fly.”
63. Nearly 1.2 million volunteers donate an average of 20 hours per month to the BSA, which totals 288 million hours of time during one year. Independent Sector projects the average value of volunteer time to be $20.25 an hour. Given this hourly rate, the approximate value of the time given by Boy Scout volunteers is more than $5.8 billion annually.
64. A project for Cub Scouts and their parents, pinewood derby cars made since 1954 could form a line stretching from Los Angeles to the island of Tahiti in the Polynesian Islands—a total of more than 5,500 miles.
65. If a Boy Scout attends his weekly patrol and troop meetings, participates in a monthly weekend troop outing, and attends long-term summer camp with his troop, he will have spent as much time with Scouting in a year as he spends in the classroom.
66. The Boy Scout Handbook has had Braille editions for many years; merit badge pamphlets have been recorded on cassette tapes for the blind; and closed-caption training videos have been produced for those who are deaf.
67. Former Sea Scout Paul Siple coined the term wind chill. He experienced the phenomenon firsthand when he accompanied Commander Richard E. Byrd on an 18-month voyage to Antarctica.
68. Inspired by an article he read in Boys’ Life about the adventures of reporters working around the world, Boy Scout Walter Cronkite went on to become the face of television news in the United States.
69. During the 1970s, Kenner Products developed a line of Scout action figures whose right arms, when raised, made the Scout salute.
70. The “turn” in Philmont’s first Scout name, “Philturn,” came from the Scout slogan “Do a Good Turn Daily.”
71. In Scouting’s early years, institutions such as Cornell University, Columbia University, and the universities of Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, and California offered training courses for Scout leaders. More than 400 colleges and 34 seminaries offered such courses by the mid-1930s—half for college credit.
72. As part of the two-year “Strengthen the Arm of Liberty” campaign in 1949–50, Scouts erected more than 200 81⁄2-foot-tall replicas of the Statue of Liberty across the country. Following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the statue on Seattle’s Aiki Beach became an impromptu memorial and gathering place for stunned Seattle residents.
73. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden has dived from the Florida National High Adventure Sea Base.
74. The total number of merit badges earned in 1911 was 85; the number earned in 2008 was 1,913,676.
75. Virtually unchanged since 1911, the design of the Plumbing merit badge is a water faucet.
