February 8th is National Boy Scouts Day! To celebrate the anniversary of when William Dickson Boyce filed the letters of incorporation, we’ve put together some fun facts about the Boy Scouts of America.
1. There used to be a lot of agriculture based badges. From Beef and Pork Production to Dairying, the BSA was something of a rival to the National FFA. However, since the 1970’s, those badges have been combined into the Animal Science badge.
2. Since Howard Taft, the sitting US President has been considered the honorary President of the BSA. Although many former presidents have been members of the Boy Scouts, only Gerald Ford has risen all the way up to the Eagle Scout rank.
3. Only 5 countries in the world don’t have Scouting; North Korea, Andorra, China, Cuba, and Laos.
4. Badges have been discontinued over the years. Some former options were, Nut Culture (how to cultivate nuts), Pathfinding, Taxidermy, Invention (requiring the Scout to file a patent), and Stalking (of wildlife).
5. The Boy Scouts of America is the second largest scouting organization in the world. Indonesia is the largest.
6. The BSA sells almost 1 million neckerchiefs each year. If laid out flat, they would cover 120 football fields, or 124 acres!
7. Norman Rockwell was a big supporter of the Scouts, from being a scout himself, to designing the first 12 merit badges and illustrating the Brown & Bigelow Boy Scout Calendar for free. Many of his iconic images also prominently feature Scouts in them.
8. NASA and Scouting have a close connection with two-thirds of all former astronauts being members. 11 of the 12 astronauts who walked on the moon were Boy Scouts, with Neil Armstrong and Charles Duke both having achieved Eagle Scout status.
9. When American entered WW1 in 1917, the Boy Scouts of America membership outnumbered the US Army by 68,000.
10. If you lined up all the Pinewood Derby cars made since 1954, they could form a line stretching from Las Angeles to the island of Tahiti in the Polynesian Island with a total of more than 5,500 miles.