7/84Ranking of Denmark, Italy, and the U.S. in the percentage of women who wear C- or D-cup bras: 1,2,3
8/84Rank of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, among all nations, in per-capita military expenditures: 1,2,3
In Los Angeles: 123
3/85Rank of Hill Street Blues, Dallas, and Dynasty among prime-time programs most frequently taped at home: 1,2,3
6/85Rank of indifferent, apathy, and obscure among the vocabulary words appearing most frequently on the SAT: 1,2,3
8/85Rank of vehicles, tape recorders, and office equipment among Japan’s leading exports to the United States: 1,2,3
6/86Rank of France, Italy, and England among destinations of congressional fact-finding trips: 1,2,3
7/86Rank of the Soviet Union, South Africa, and the United States in per capita prison population: 1,2,3
11/86Rank of Mass, bingo, and religious education among the most popular activities at U.S. Catholic churches: 1,2,3
1/87Rank of Doctors Welby, Pierce, and Westphall among TV physicians Americans would go to if they existed: 1,2,3
4/87Rank of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Vogue among the best-selling magazines in college bookstores: 1,2,3
11/87Rank of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States in per capita consumption of poultry: 1,2,3
6/88Rank of “night,” “girl,” and “street” among the nouns most often used in Bruce Springsteen’s songs: 1,2,3
9/88Rank of Princess Di, Bruce Willis, and Michael J. Fox in number of magazine cover appearances last year: 1,2,3
3/89Rank of drugs, kidnapping, and car accidents, among the dangers to children most feared by parents: 1,2,3
5/89Rank of Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and Elliott Abrams, in number of Nightline appearances since 1985: 1,2,3
7/89Rank of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Japan, among countries with the most industrial waste per square mile: 1,2,3
1/90Rank of sex, crime, and the family, among the topics most frequently discussed on Oprah and Geraldo: 1,2,3
1/90Rank of celebrities, politicians, and family members, among the people mentioned most often in Nancy Reagan’s memoirs: 1,2,3
10/90Rank of coffee, alcohol, and soft drinks, among the foods most often consumed or mentioned on prime-time TV: 1,2,3
12/90Rank of TV viewing, eating, and shopping, among activities Americans spend the most leisure time engaged in: 1,2,3
2/91Rank of “acting,” “happiness,” and “modeling,” among ambitions most often cited by Playboy centerfold models: 1,2,3
4/91Rank of white, Hispanic, and black girls, among those who lose the most self-esteem during puberty: 1,2,3
8/91Rank of pharmacists, clergymen, and doctors, among the professionals Americans say are the most honest: 1,2,3
4/92Rank of the South, Midwest, and Northeast, among regions with the highest number of electoral votes in 1980: 1,2,3
11/93Rank of cola, breakfast cereal, and ground beef, among the groceries Americans spend the most on each year: 1,2,3
1/94Rank of Ecuadorans, Italians, and Poles, among the largest illegal immigrant groups in New York State: 1,2,3
5/94Rank of flowers, perfume, and fire extinguishers among Mother’s Day gifts Americans consider “very appropriate”: 1,2,3
12/94Rank of the local, state, and federal governments among the top three employers in Indianapolis: 1,2,3
2/95Rank of Lincoln, Clinton, and Nixon, among U.S. presidents elected by the lowest percentage of voters: 1,2,3
5/96Rank of Mexico, South Korea, and China among the largest traders cited: 1,2,3
7/96Rank of “intelligent,” “smart,” and “bitch” among the words Americans believe best describe Hillary Rodham Clinton: 1,2,3
7/96Rank of “rich,” “crazy,” and “idiot” among the words Americans believe best describe H. Ross Perot: 1,2,3
12/96Rank of arms trading, illegal drug trafficking, and oil production among the world’s largest industries: 1,2,3
1/03Rank of Mom, Dad, and Rudolph Giuliani among those whom recent college graduates say they most wish to emulate: 1,2,3
1/09Rank of Mom, Dad, and Rudolph Giuliani among those whom 2002 college graduates said they most wished to emulate: 1,2,3
8/88Pairs of red socks owned by Morton Downey Jr.: 124
8/97Number of U.S. military personnel convicted of adultery in the last year: 124
11/97Factor by which the B-2 stealth-bomber’s maintenance hours have exceeded its flight hours since last year: 124
6/98Number of times since 1991 that Boris Yeltsin has replaced a cabinet member: 124
3/84Average price of a gram of cocaine in Los Angeles: $125
10/90Cost of dyeing a dried-out lawn green, from Landscape Services of Santa Barbara, California, per 1,000 square feet: $125
8/96Price a New York City doctors’ group charges for an hour of “psychoanalytically guided self-inquiry” via e-mail: $125
5/97Number of the 133 U.S. polio cases reported between 1980 and 1994 that were caused by the vaccine: 125
Percentage change since then in the number of Republican candidates endorsed by a union: +125
8/00Maximum suggested donation for a week’s course in civil disobedience at Canada’s clandestine Co-Motion Action Camp: $125
6/01Estimated number of people who tried to cross illegally into England via the Channel Tunnel each night last year: 125
3/07Number of the 541 members of India’s lower house of parliament who have been charged with crimes: 125
12/97Number of legal experts who declared the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill to be constitutional: 126
Percentage of the Flat Earth Society’s membership this would represent: 3
3/99Percentage change in gasoline prices in Nigeria after government price caps were lifted last December: +127
3/99Keys required, along with the alt key, to type the euro symbol on new Windows-compatible keyboards sold in the U.S.: 0,1,2,8
1/95Maximum amount of sulfur in one human exhalation before it is considered “bad breath,” in parts per billion: 130
10/89Number of Democratic officeholders who have become Republicans this year: 130
Estimated number of times that a U.S. president has sent troops into combat situations: 130
6/03Minimum number of times that the demonstrators at this year’s largest U.S. peace rally could encircle the Pentagon: 130
1/06Years since a White House House official as senior as I. Lewis Libby had been indicted while in office: 130
Years after resigning that the official, Orville Babcock, drowned while trying to build a lighthouse: 9
8/08Percentage change between 1989 and 2007 in the median price of an American single-family home: +130
Percentage change in the median down payment: +3.7
1/09Years since a White House official as senior as I. Lewis Libby had been indicted while in office: 130
10/91Percentage change, since 1989, in Soviet arms sales to the Third World: -7
Percentage change, since 1989, in U.S. arms sales to the Third World: +131
9/99Number of years since an elected New York City mayor went on to win higher office: 131
Days he has spent vacationing at his California ranch: 132
3/00Percentage change since 1993 in the number of criminal cases dismissed each year in New York City: +132
7/87Number of companies that paid to use the logo of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation: 133
9/97Percentage change since the passage of NAFTA in the average hourly wage of a Mexican maquiladora worker: -30
Percentage change since then in U.S. companies’ domestic sales of products assembled in Mexico: +133
1/00Estimated gross global product per capita in the year 1000: $133
Amount by which it had changed by the year 1700: +$31
1/05Number of House members in 1979 who voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday: 133
Number who are Vice President: 1
7/96Average amount of food an American woman would have to consume each day in order to eat like a bird, in pounds: 134
7/03Number of Serbian Orthodox churches burned down since the end of NATO’s 1999 Operation Allied Force: 134
10/85Average number of 500- and 750-pound bombs dropped by the Salvadoran air force each month: 135
12/92Number of the world’s 187 countries that do not have Most Favored Nation trading status with the United States: 12
Number of the 175 countries with MFN status accused of human rights abuses by Amnesty International last year: 135
4/01Blocks separating Kenneth Starr’s New York University Law School office from Monica Lewinsky’s apartment: 7
Blocks separating Lewinsky’s apartment from Bill Clinton ‘s Harlem office: 135
Percentage of this accounted for by disposable batteries: 26
3/84Officially declared candidates for the 1984 presidential election: 136
8/90Number of American universities that have instituted restrictions on public speech since 1988: 137
5/04Number of blank votes recorded by touchscreen machines in a January election for Florida’s House of Representatives: 137
Votes by which the race was won: 12
9/96Percentage increase since 1980 in the average tuition at a U.S. public college or university: 138
Percentage increase since then in the average tuition at an Ivy League school: 77
1/01Percentage change since 1990 in the U.S. industrial-robot population: +138
11/05Rank of the FBI among ideal employers, according to U.S. undergraduates polled in spring 2004: 138
Rank of Microsoft in 2004 and 2005, respectively: 1, 8
3/09Number of times that Caroline Kennedy said “you know” during a 45-minute interview with the New York Times: 138
Average number of minutes per weekday the child of a nonworking mother watches television: 139
12/86Number of Oklahomans who contributed $10,000 or more to the Republican National Committee in 1981: 140
8/90Number of times the phrase “read my lips” has appeared in the Washington Post since George Bush’s inauguration: 140
9/97Percentage change since 1987 in the number of expert witnesses listed by the nation’s largest referral service: +140
11/05Percentage discount that Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has said he will offer poor Americans on oil and gas purchases: 40
Minimum number of Americans who have signed up so far at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington: 140
3/90Percentage increase, since 1977, in the number of American children diagnosed as having learning disabilities: 142
2/93Percentage change, since last year, in the number of Americans who are older than the president: +142
2/96Percentage change since 1985 in the number of personal bankruptcy applications filed in U.S. courts: +142
2/03Number of deaths in 2001 that the Japanese government classified as having resulted from overwork: 143
9/08The fair price of a barrel of oil, according to Osama bin Laden in 1998: $144
Date on which oil reached $144 per barrel: 7/2/08
6/85Cost of a car wash at Steve’s Detailing in New York City: $145
12/97Percentage change since last year in the number of prisoners beheaded in Saudi Arabia: +146
5/00Percentage change since 1988 in the amount of seafood eaten worldwide that is cultivated rather than caught: +146
9/90Number of U. S. factories that pose a “high risk” of cancer to nearby residents, according to the EPA: 149
8/05Average amount of sugar consumed each year by a U.S. preschooler, expressed as a percentage of body weight: 149
Number of times he has declared an event or outcome not to be “acceptable”: 149
3/84Books published in East Germany in honor of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth: 150
In West Germany: 50
4/86Number of seats on an American Airlines Boeing 727-200 before deregulation in 1978: 129
Number today: 150
Percentage change in the number of FAA inspectors since then: +2
10/87Cost of storing a unit of blood for three years at Bloodline, Inc., in New Jersey: $150
3/90Number of gay marriages that have taken place in Copenhagen since they became legally binding last October: 150
1/91Pounds of Saudi Arabian sand the army has imported to study its effect on military equipment: 150
4/93Number of “Home of Bill Clinton” birdhouses sold by Russell’s Smokehouse in Hope, Arkansas, since November: 150
4/93Percentage change, since 1991, in sales of rubber chickens at House of Magic in San Francisco: +150
1/98Rolls of toilet paper received in lieu of an annual bonus last fall by each worker at a Moscow clock factory: 150
5/00Percentage increase in NATO troops required to seal Kosovo ‘s border, according to a Pentagon official last March: 150
5/04Minimum number of Italian men accused of paying for a “sexual anxieties” diagnosis to avoid military service last winter: 150
10/04Estimated price a British cable company will charge for a kit to track “ evidence of the paranormal” via the Internet: £150
2/05Number of children’s choir members from Pink Floyd’s 1979 hit “Another Brick in the Wall” who are now seeking royalties: 1
Estimated amount each member is owed: £150
1/08Minimum number of U.S. deaths from food allergies each year, according to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network: 150
8/00Average number of seconds it takes to complete a transaction at a Wendy’s drive-through: 150.29
4/88Number of tourists in Jerusalem who received psychiatric treatment for religious delusions last year: 152
2/90Number of one-year-olds on the waiting list for the French for Tots program in New York City: 152
1/00Number of years after North America’s first library opened in 1638 that it published a subject guide: 152
8/87Number of mosques in the Gaza Strip in 1967: 71
11/96Number of members in the Hillary Rodham Clinton fan club in Bombay, India: 153
10/06Number of U.S. coal-burning plants on which construction has begun or been completed since 2005: 153
7/07Percentage change in the number of Louisiana and Mississippi newborns named Katrina in the year after the hurricane: +153
1/09Percentage change in the number of Louisiana and Mississippi newborns named Katrina in the year after the storm: +153
11/97Number of presidential nominees for U.S. government positions denied a Senate hearing since 1987: 154
2/00Percentage change in Colombia’s estimated cocaine production since 1990: +154
11/86Number of college courses on the Vietnam War offered in 1980: 58
4/88Percentage increase, since 1967, in the number of mosques in the Gaza Strip: 158
7/97Number of years the U.S. Army estimates that its supply of sand-colored, aircraft-size camouflage coverings will last: 159
6/86Number of schools that have invited Lee Iacocca to speak at their graduations: 150
Number that have invited Mario Cuomo: 160
5/87Number of times the word “fuck” appears in Nails, the autobiography of the Mets’ Lenny Dykstra: 160
10/95Price of a six-day how-to course in prostitution from Amsterdam’s Prostitute Information Centre: $160
2/98Gallons of liquor George Washington distributed to his district’s voters before his first election to office in 1758: 160
11/06Number of State Department foreign-service members whose jobs require them to know Arabic: 160
Number of them who actually do: 64
Number that have one today: 161
11/94Number of U.S. soldiers certified as fluent in Haitian Creole: 161
10/96Number of countries whose GNP last year was less than the amount spent worldwide at Wal-Mart: 161
6/96Number of U.S. news stories published since 1991 containing the words “princess” and “colonic irrigation”: 162
6/86Number of weddings performed each day in 1985 at Las Vegas’s Little Church of the West: 163
2/87Percentage increase, in the first six months of 1986, in cases of penicillin-resistant gonorrhea: 163
5/03Number of words that the Times devoted to 1998’s U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa per resulting death: 163
10/85Percentage change in acres of forest in New York State since 1880: +164
11/97Days after Mexico’s drug czar was arrested this year for corruption that his lawyer was arrested for bribing jurors: 165
1/99Value of each 20,000-yen government-issued “ shopping voucher” to be received this year by 35 million Japanese: $165
12/01Price of a 12-hour do-it-yourself anger-management course from an online vendor: $165
11/03Attendance at last year’s largest annual conference on “establishing the truth behind” JFK’s assassination: 165
Minimum number of such conferences held worldwide each year: 3
8/05Number of U.S. cities that have agreed to meet the Kyoto Protocols on global warming: 166
Number introduced during the current session: 167
11/05Percentage change since 2004 in the number of NFL teams that require all fans to get full pat-downs: +167
7/06Average number of extra calories children consume for every hour of television they watch: 167
12/07Number of bills, amendments, and resolutions sponsored by Fred Thompson during his eight years in the Senate: 167
1/93Retirement benefits that will be paid to George Bush in 1993, expressed as a percentage of his previous salary: 169
12/93Percentage change, since 1980, in the number of U.S. physicians specializing in emergency medicine: +171
11/02Number of colleges that have organizations to elect John Cusack as U.S. president in 2004: 172
10/05Estimated amount of African wealth held in foreign accounts, expressed as a percentage of African GDP: 172
1/09Percentage change since 2001 in the average amount U.S. workers spend on out-of-pocket medical expenses: +172
5/88Number of jokes told about the Republican candidates on late-night network television in January and February: 173
About the Democratic Candidates: 110
6/90Average number of U.S. companies that filed for bankruptcy each day last year: 173
7/93Price of a “Hillary Wig,” with detachable hairband, from New York City’s Jacquelyn Wigs: $175