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January 2000 · Harper's index · Previous · Next

Harper’s Index

Estimated gross global product per capita in the year 1000: $133¹

Amount by which it had changed by the year 1700: +$31²

Estimated number of people today who live on less than $30 per month: 1,300,000,000³

Estimated number who are enslaved: 27,000,000⁴

Rank of the African king of Mali among 14th-century rulers most noted for their riches by a Majorcan mapmaker: 1⁵

Estimated number of years by which the earliest known African ironwork predates Europe's Iron Age: 1,800⁶

Number of ships that sailed in the first expedition of Cheng Ho, the 15th-century Chinese explorer: 287⁷

Minimum number of countries Cheng Ho visited over the course of his seven voyages: 30⁸

Miles that Leif Eriksson sailed from his father's home in Greenland before “discovering” North America in 985: 230⁹

Years by which new evidence suggests that the age of the first human migration to the Americas should be increased: 20,000¹⁰

Percentage of the world's land that was claimed by centralized sovereign governments in 1500: 21¹¹

Percentage today: 91¹²

Number of years after Jews settled in China that they were first allowed to live in Russian territory: 1,045¹³

Months after publishing The Communist Manifesto that Karl Marx became editor of a newspaper funded by industrialists: 2¹⁴

Months' worth of salary lost by Groucho Marx in 1929's stock market crash: 28¹⁵

Number of U.S. banks in 1921, 1933, and 1999, respectively: 30,456, 14,207, 8,675¹⁶

Percentage change in the average amount of cloth required to clothe a U.S. woman between 1913 and 1928: -64¹⁷

Number of World War I battleships said to have been built from the steel donated by U.S. women from their corsets: 2¹⁸

Year in which Marie Antoinette convinced France's King Louis XVI to declare that all handkerchiefs be square: 1785¹⁹

Percentage of the French government's 1788 expenditures that went to support the court at Versailles: 6²⁰

Percentage that went to finance war debt resulting from France's support of the colonies in the American Revolution: 50²¹

Votes by which 18th-century U.S. lawmakers rejected outlawing slavery in all future states beyond the original thirteen: 1²²

Estimated number of anti-slavery petitions sent to Congress between 1835 and 1836: 500²³

Factor by which the Constitution allowed a state to count its slaves when allocating House seats and electoral votes: 3/5²⁴

Chance that a New York State resident in 1776 was a slave: 1 in 7²⁵

Chance that an African American who is a New York State resident today lives below the poverty level: 1 in 4²⁶

Number of African languages added to the Census Bureau Language Program since 1990: 5²⁷

Year in which South Africa's Natal Law Society apologized for trying to thwart Mohandas K. Gandhi's law practice there: 1999²⁸

Approximate year in which Asia had its first recorded trade deficit with Europe: 1835²⁹

Percentage change in the value of India's cotton exports between 1815 and 1832: -92³⁰

Percentage change in the amount of British cotton products India imported during the same period: +1,500³¹

Estimated number of pairs of gloves owned by Elizabeth I: 2,000³²

Estimated number of serfs Catherine the Great gave away as gifts: 45,000³³

Number of Americans now employed as “serfs” or “wenches” at Medieval Times entertainment complexes in the U.S.: 1,400³⁴

Number of people who have been to space: 390³⁵

Number of the universe's spatial dimensions of which physicists now believe we are unaware: 7³⁶

Age at which Albert Einstein spoke his first words: 3³⁷

Estimated amount lost by Isaac Newton in South Sea stock speculation in the 1720s: $2,000,000³⁸

Days of imprisonment and torture undergone by Niccolò Machiavelli after falling out of favor with the Medicis in 1513: 28³⁹

Number of years later that his book The Prince was published, with a dedication to Lorenzo de' Medici: 19⁴⁰

Factor by which Microsoft's average monthly campaign contribution in 1999 exceeded its monthly contribution in 1995: 8⁴¹

Number of the ten largest multinational corporations that produce automobiles or gasoline: 9⁴²

Percentage change since 1990 in the number of prison beds in privately owned or managed U.S. prisons: +856⁴³

Year in which the word “homesick” was coined: 1798⁴⁴

Number of years after North America's first library opened in 1638 that it published a subject guide: 152 ⁴⁵

Number of years between the invention of the first photocopier technology in 1938 and the first commercial-copier sale: 21⁴⁶

Average annual number of copies produced per American six years later: 52⁴⁷

Number of pages accumulated in the FBI's Sex Deviates file by the time the program was abandoned in 1977: 330,000⁴⁸

Percentage of Americans who believe that sex education should be a required school subject: 60⁴⁹

Percentage who believe that the teaching of evolution should be required: 28⁵⁰

Number of dodo heads successfully preserved since the birds' extinction in 1638: 1⁵¹

Number of the world's 6,000 living languages that are indigenous to Papua New Guinea: 1,000⁵²

Percentage change in enrollment in U.S. college-level French and German courses since 1995: -4.5⁵³

Percentage change in enrollment in college-level Arabic and Biblical Hebrew courses: +44.7⁵⁴

Portion of the Islamic world that was controlled by Shiites in 1000: 1/2⁵⁵

Percentage of Muslims who were Shiites in 1000 and percentage who are Shiites today, respectively: 5, 14⁵⁶

Estimated percentage increase since 1000 in the number of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus, respectively: 2,450, 2,300, 1,025⁵⁷

Estimated percentage increase since then in the number of Buddhists: 4,275⁵⁸

Pounds of armor worn by a European knight in the 11th and 13th centuries, respectively: 71, 90⁵⁹

Chances that one of the 49 armed conflicts fought worldwide since 1990 relied exclusively on small arms: 9 in 10⁶⁰

Hours required to assemble a prefabricated nuclear-bomb shelter, according to a 1961 Life magazine cover story: 4⁶¹

Number of New York City children issued Civil Defense dog tags by 1952 to identify them after a nuclear attack: 2,500,000⁶²

Number of false alarms of nuclear missile attacks generated by the U.S. early warning system between 1977 and 1984: 20,784⁶³

Number of U.S. nuclear bombs currently on “high alert”: 2,380⁶⁴

Rank of “shed[ding] my enemies' blood and wring[ing] tears from their women” among Genghis Khan's greatest joys: 1⁶⁵

Rank of “crush[ing] your enemies . . . and hear[ing] the lamentations of the women” among Conan the Barbarian's: 1⁶⁶

Chance that a U.S. woman over the age of 40 made love in her clothes in the 1940s: 1 in 3⁶⁷

Chance that a woman under the age of 40 did: 1 in 12⁶⁸

Year in which a medical dictionary defined heterosexuality as an “abnormal or perverted appetite” for the opposite sex: 1901⁶⁹

Year in which the New York Times first reported a “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals”: 1981⁷⁰

Chances that a person who has died of AIDS since then has died in sub-Saharan Africa: 4 in 5⁷¹

Chance that a 16th-century Aztec was killed by smallpox: 1 in 2⁷²

Chance that a 14th-century European was killed by bubonic plague: 1 in 4⁷³

Number of pharmacies in the Cambodian city of Angkor Thom in the 13th century: 102⁷⁴

Number of Chinese engineers who accompanied the Mongol Khan Hulägu on his siege of Baghdad in 1257: 1,000⁷⁵

Year in which China introduced the first paper currency: 1022⁷⁶

Years after Portuguese adventurers brought guns to Japan in 1543 that Japan owned more guns than any other country: 57⁷⁷

Estimated number of Japanese peasant uprisings in the following 268 years under the Tokugawa regime: 3,000⁷⁸

Number of major European peasant revolutions begun between 1809 and 1848: 8⁷⁹

Number of these that were begun in the name of the Catholic Church or to reinstate a deposed monarch: 7⁸⁰

Number of popes stabbed, strangled, or poisoned to death in the last three decades of the 10th century: 5⁸¹

Percentage of the 14,000 Bulgar survivors of the 1014 battle at Kleidion who were blinded by the victorious Byzantines: 99⁸²

Ratio of the number of U.S. soldiers who died from disease during World War I to those who died in combat: 1:1⁸³

Chance that a soldier who died in combat in the 20th century was American: 1 in 72⁸⁴

Chance that a civilian who died in a 20th-century war was American: 1 in 62,000⁸⁵

Projected rank of heart disease and severe depression among the leading causes of death and disability in 2020: 1,2⁸⁶

Percentage change since 1930 in the annual U.S. death rate for cancer: +11⁸⁷

Percentage change since then in the U.S. death rate for all cancers except that of the lung: -20⁸⁸

Estimated number of years that Virginia used tobacco as a currency: 200⁸⁹

Acres of hemp grown by “patriotic” U.S. farmers in 1942 at the behest of the U.S. government: 36,000⁹⁰

Estimated number of non-native species that have entered the North American ecosystem since 1500: 50,000⁹¹

Inches by which today's largest corncobs exceed the length of those grown in Mexico in 1500: 12⁹²

Estimated bushels of maize paid annually to the Aztec rulers of the city of Tenochtitlán by their subjects: 210,000⁹³

Pounds of meat consumed daily by the household of the 10th-century emir of Cordova: 13,000⁹⁴

Number of women in his harem: 6,300⁹⁵

Days of peace the emir claimed to have known in his lifetime: 14⁹⁶

Estimated temperature of Hell, according to two Spanish physicists' interpretation of the Bible: 832°F⁹⁷

Estimated temperature of Heaven: 448°F⁹⁸

Estimated number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, according to the American Institute of Physics: 1064⁹⁹

Estimated number that can dance in a row across a pinhead's diameter, “Rockettes-style”: 1032¹⁰⁰

Factor by which the estimated size of the universe has been increased since 1900: 1,000,000¹⁰¹

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