The BIG and Small of it All

He was first, Ferdinand Magellan, to see how big our world was at the time. He set out from Spain in 1519 with five ships seeking fame and fortune by finding a western sea route to the spice islands.

En-route, he discovered the Strait of Magellan (How's that for a coincidence?) in the south of Chile which opened to the Pacific Ocean. Magellan was the first European to cross the large and dangerous Pacific and while he did find spices from the East, only one of his ships and just 18 of his original crew of 270 made it home. Magellan himself was killed in a battle on the journey but, as history records, "his ambitious expedition proved that the globe could be circled by sea and that the world was much larger than had previously been imagined."

That was when our world was truly BIG.


In 1873, Philius Fogg of London with his valet Passepartout fictionally made the trip in 80 days in a hot air balloon and numerous other modes of transportation and madcap adventures on a $20,000 bet... big money in those days. Jules Verne wrote this fun adventure tale that has been made into a movie in 1956 and remade in 2001. Both have great casts and are worth the look.

In 1924, a flimsy-looking bi-plane was the first to make the 25,000-plus mile journey by air but it took 175 days.

Today, the International Space Station at 5 miles-per-second takes less than 90 minutes to go around once... then again and again at 17,150 mph.

So the world is getting smaller all the time.

More proof:

Did you know that nearly half of the United States population is within a days drove of Columbus, Ohio?

Not only that but 90 percent of our population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart according to Harper's Index.

The equivalent of half of the planet's population has flown on a 747.

If you have ever taken a road trip of 2,500 miles or more, you have actually driven the equivalent of 1/10th of the way around the world.

Now go sing It's a small, small world this time... and mean it!

So you see, we are getting smaller all the time!

The scary part... North Korea can now reach almost every part of the globe with a nuclear war head... and so can every nuclear power on this earth.

Your angry neighbor is right next door... and on your Facebook page and in your face.