History
The number of babies born globally in a year will always be a guestimate, but the best guess is around 350,000 babies born each day worldwide. That works out to more than 4 new babies every second! The world population grew very slowly for the majority of human history, passing 1 billion around 1800. Only 130 years later, the population hit 2 billion. What happened? The industrial revolution changed everything. Immunizations, better medicines, better hospitals, and more food production were just some of the results, and this led to a more stable, growing population. The 20th century saw accelerated growth, as the world population hit 3 billion in 1959 and 4 billion in 1974. In 2016, the world population reached 7.5 billion, but growth rates are declining, so the next doubling should still be 200 years away. Still, that’s a lot of babies!