26. The Soviet Union turned to the BSA in 1993 for help in producing the first Russian Scout handbook;
20,000 copies were distributed.
27. The 20 millionth Scout was registered with the BSA in 1952; by 2000, that number reached 100 million.
28. The gravestone of worldwide Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell is marked with a trail symbol of a circle with a dot in the center, which means “I have gone home.”
29. While Robert Baden-Powell’s English Scouts had nine points in their Scout Law, the Boy Scouts of America added three more: A Scout is brave, clean, and reverent.
30. In 1929, an African American Boy Scout from Fort Worth, Texas, found and returned a woman’s pocketbook that contained more than $300 in cash. The boy declined her liberal reward, saying, “No, madam. I am a Boy Scout and cannot take a tip for doing my duty.”
31. Scouts have served at every presidential inauguration since Woodrow Wilson’s in 1913. Boy Scouts who helped out at the Wilson inauguration were Honor Medal recipients.
32. Portions of the 1963 movie “PT 109,” the story of the sinking of John F. Kennedy’s PT boat during World War II, were filmed on Big Munson Island at the Florida National High Adventure Sea Base.
33. When America entered World War I in 1917, membership in the BSA outnumbered the 200,000-man U.S. Army by more than 68,000 members.
34. American passenger railroads helped boost the population at the first national Scout jamboree in 1937—they offered fares at a special price of 1 cent per mile.
35. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton became an Eagle Scout at age 13, businessman and philanthropist H. Ross Perot at 13, and President Gerald R. Ford at 14.
36. The first Scouts to live in the White House were the sons of 30th U.S. President Calvin Coolidge: John and Calvin Jr.
37. In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Scouts from New York and New Jersey helped reignite the American spirit, collecting more than 153,000 bottles of water for Ground Zero rescue workers—and placing handwritten messages of appreciation and encouragement in their hard hats.
38. The Boy Scout Memorial in Washington, D.C., marks the site of the 1937 National Scout Jamboree. One of the few D.C. memorials to commemorate a living cause, it was accepted in 1964 by Associate Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark on his 50th anniversary as an Eagle Scout.
39. More than 8 million people read Boys’ Life each month.
40. In Scouting’s first decade, dozens of composers turned out Boy Scout sheet music, including John Phillip Sousa, who wrote the “Boy Scouts of America March” in 1916.
41. More than 1.5 million pinewood derby cars are sold each year. If the cars were lined up end to end, they would stretch 166 miles.
42. At the outbreak of World War I, the Boy Scouts of America was the largest uniformed body in the United States—twice as large as the U.S. Army, nearly twice as large as the National Guard, four times larger than the U.S. Navy, and 11 times larger than the U.S. Marine Corps.
43. Each year, the BSA awards 6 million pocket certificates. If stacked on top of one another like a deck of cards, they would be as tall as the Empire State Building, the Washington Monument, both Sears Towers (now Willis Tower), and the John Hancock Conservatory combined.
44. The first African American Boy Scout troop was organized in 1911 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
45. The Florida National High Adventure Sea Base is one of the largest scuba-diving operations in the United States, conducting more than 25,000 individual dives annually.
46. These days, boys may earn the rank of Eagle Scout only until age 18, but until 1965, both boys and men could achieve Scouting’s highest rank.
47. Of the 12 men who would eventually walk on the moon, 11 were former Scouts.
48. Rafael Petit and Juan Carmona of Caracas, Venezuela, hiked to the 1935 National Scout Jamboree, only to find that it was canceled due to a polio outbreak. They returned for the rescheduled 1937 Jamboree—a total of 8,000 miles.
49. The only recorded Tyrannosaurus Rex footprint cast was discovered at Philmont Scout Ranch.
50. Norman Rockwell designed the first 12 Scout medals for the BSA.
