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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is production of iHeartRadio. Hello

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Speaker 1: and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: that gives a quick look it's something that happened a

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Speaker 1: long time ago. Today, I'm Gabe Lucier and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at a rather unusual pr campaign from the

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Speaker 1: United Nations. It was designed to highlight the growing pains

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Speaker 1: associated with the Earth's ever expanding human population, but it

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Speaker 1: came at the expense of one young family's personal privacy.

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Speaker 1: The day was July eleventh, nineteen eighty seven. The United

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Speaker 1: Nations proclaimed a newborn boy the world's five billionth inhabitant.

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Speaker 1: The baby was named Matai Gaspar and was born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia,

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Speaker 1: which is now the capital city of Croatia. The birth

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Speaker 1: of the five billionth person was the first population milestone

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Speaker 1: to be assigned to precise date. Before it happened, previous milestones,

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Speaker 1: such as the birth of the fourth billionth person in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, had not been connected to a specific day,

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Speaker 1: or even to a specific month. The UN chose to

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Speaker 1: change that for the arrival of the five billionth human

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Speaker 1: as a way to raise awareness of issues related to

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Speaker 1: the world's rising population. The event, known as the Day

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Speaker 1: of five Billion, proved so popular with the public that

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, the UN began marking every July

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Speaker 1: eleventh as World Population Day, a tradition that's still going

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Speaker 1: strong today. The world's five billionth baby was born at

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Speaker 1: eight thirty five am Tanja and Dragotine Gaspar at University

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Speaker 1: Medical Hospital in the city of Zagreb. He had blonde hair,

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Speaker 1: weighed eight pounds, and was said to be in perfect health.

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Speaker 1: The only unusual aspect of his birth is that it

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Speaker 1: was immediately followed by a meet and greet with politicians

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Speaker 1: and reporters in a savvy pr move. Javier Perez de Quaar,

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Speaker 1: the then current UN Secretary General, was on hand at

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Speaker 1: the hospital to personally welcome a Thai Gaspar to the world.

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Speaker 1: Taking the infant in his arms, the Secretary General told

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Speaker 1: the exhausted parents that their son's birth would quote mark

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Speaker 1: a new generation of peace. It's a beautiful baby, he continued,

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Speaker 1: and I want to congratulate you. You should be thankful

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Speaker 1: that your son has been born in prosperity. De Quaar's

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Speaker 1: mention of prosperity was an allusion to the fact that

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Speaker 1: most of the population growth around the world occurs in

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Speaker 1: lefs developed countries where citizens lack access to adequate food,

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Speaker 1: health services, and education. The Day of five Billion was

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Speaker 1: created to shine a light on that very issue and

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Speaker 1: to encourage the public to support policies that would slow

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Speaker 1: the pace of population growth so that the Earth's resources

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Speaker 1: don't run out. Designating Mathai gas Bar as the world's

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Speaker 1: five billionth baby was a way to generate conversation by

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Speaker 1: putting a face to an otherwise abstract number. And if

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Speaker 1: you're wondering how the United Nations determined which baby would

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Speaker 1: be the five billionth, well they didn't, at least not definitively.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, the world population was increasing by

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Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty babies per minute, or two

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty thousand per day. There was no real

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Speaker 1: way to determine exactly when or where the five billionth

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Speaker 1: baby would be born, so UN officials just made their

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Speaker 1: best guess using nineteen eighty four cents data. According to

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Speaker 1: Alex Marshall of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, quote,

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Speaker 1: we took the nineteen eighty four statistics and projected them

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Speaker 1: to arrive at the exact number five billion on July eleventh.

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Speaker 1: He went on to caution that the day of five

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Speaker 1: billion was strictly a formal celebration and that the figures

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Speaker 1: used to set the date were only an approximation. He

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Speaker 1: wasn't kidding either, as the census data they had used

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Speaker 1: included a margin of error of plus or minus twelve months.

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Speaker 1: Given that Mattee Gaspar's designation was totally arbitrary and he

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Speaker 1: was more like a symbol of the five billionth person

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Speaker 1: rather than the five billionth person himself. As for why

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Speaker 1: the city of Zagreb was chosen to host the made

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Speaker 1: up honor, that was luck of the draw as well.

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Speaker 1: Since July eleventh was the statistical date for the birth

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Speaker 1: of the five billionth baby, the un simply looked at

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Speaker 1: the same Secretary General's calendar and found out where he

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Speaker 1: was going to be that day. The answer turned out

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Speaker 1: to be Zagreb, Yugoslavia, as the city was in the

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Speaker 1: midst of hosting the fourteenth World University Games, also known

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Speaker 1: as the Summer Universe Side. The festivities surrounding the birth

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Speaker 1: succeeded in attracting the public's attention, but they also placed

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Speaker 1: a bit too much attention on baby Mati. He and

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Speaker 1: his parents were hounded by the press for years, and

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Speaker 1: as a result, Mati now has little interest in sharing

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Speaker 1: his life with the public. In a rare twenty fourteen interview,

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Speaker 1: he set the record straight, saying quote, it's nothing special.

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Speaker 1: The only thing that makes my birthday different than somebody

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Speaker 1: else's is the fact that I get phone calls from journalists.

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Speaker 1: My mom took the phone calls until I turned eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and from then on I started answering myself. Thankfully, all

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Speaker 1: that annoying attention doesn't seem to have stopped Matai from

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Speaker 1: enjoying his life. He's now married and still living in Zagreb,

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Speaker 1: where he works as a chemical engineer and enjoys scuba diving.

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Speaker 1: As of twenty twenty three, the five billionth person is

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Speaker 1: now thirty six years old, and the planet Earth is

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Speaker 1: now home to more than eight billion people. That's quite

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Speaker 1: an increase in less than four decades, especially compared to

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Speaker 1: how slowly the world population used to grow prior to

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Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution. For most of human history, birth rates

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Speaker 1: and death rates were both quite high, which kept the

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Speaker 1: global population more or less stable. In fact, it took

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Speaker 1: until around eighteen oh four for us to reach one

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Speaker 1: billion people. But after that, modern medicine and sanitation greatly

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Speaker 1: reduced mortality rates, particularly among infants and children, and with

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Speaker 1: more people surviving to adulthood and then having kids of

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Speaker 1: their own, the Earth's population began to skyrocket from there.

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Speaker 1: Humans crossed the two billion mark in nineteen twenty seven,

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Speaker 1: more than one hundred and twenty years after the first billion,

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Speaker 1: Then just thirty three years later we had three billion

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. It took less than half that time

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Speaker 1: to reach the next milestone in nineteen seventy four, and

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Speaker 1: then another thirteen years later Mathai Gaspar made it five billion.

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Speaker 1: It only took twelve years for the population to hit

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Speaker 1: six billion in nineteen ninety nine, and then another twelve

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Speaker 1: to reach seven billion and twenty eleven. Most recently, humanity

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Speaker 1: passed the eight billion milestone in November of twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: and it only took us eleven years to do it,

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Speaker 1: the shortest interval to date. That steep rise over the

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Speaker 1: last two centuries has stretched Earth's finite resources to their

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Speaker 1: breaking point, and without careful planning to maximize our agricultural systems,

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Speaker 1: government institutions and public infrastructure, we may outgrow the only

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Speaker 1: planet we have in the not too distant future. Current

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Speaker 1: UN projections have the world reaching nine billion people in

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Speaker 1: twenty thirty seven and ten billion in twenty fifty eight.

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Speaker 1: The UN will likely mark those occasions with their own

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Speaker 1: symbolic dates, but they probably won't be designating official ninth

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Speaker 1: and ten billionth babies. That practice was repeated only once,

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Speaker 1: on the day of six billion in nineteen ninety nine.

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Speaker 1: From then on, the United Nations has avoided speculating about

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Speaker 1: the order of specific births, likely in recognition of the

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Speaker 1: undue stress it would put on the child and their parents.

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Speaker 1: That said, plenty of other groups have continued selecting newborns

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Speaker 1: to represent each and every population milestone. So if you

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Speaker 1: find yourself considering parenthood in the late twenty thirties, be

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Speaker 1: prepared to smile for the cameras just in case. I'm gay, bluesier,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep

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Speaker 1: up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have

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Speaker 1: any comments or suggestions, you can always send them my

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Speaker 1: way By writing to this day at iHeartMedia dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in history class