11/85Percentage of trees in New Hampshire whose leaves turned red this fall: 13
Percentage whose leaves turned red 35 years ago: 9
U.S. tests: 13
8/91Percentage of the electricity consumed in the United States that is used for air-conditioning: 13
10/91Number of states that have passed laws to protect Little League coaches from civil lawsuits: 13
9/86Number of major corporations that contributed more to Senator Packwood in 1985 than they paid in taxes: 13
10/87Percentage change, since 1980, in the number of senior government officials who are political appointees: +13
1/88Percentage of water beds that are in California: 13
3/88Percentage of black voters who consider George Bush the “craziest” candidate: 13
1/91Hours after the 1991 tax increase was passed that President Bush promised to “hold the line on taxes” from now on: 13
7/91Number of gambling casinos an Austrian company has opened in Czechoslovakia since January 1990: 13
8/91Weeks after President Nixon referred to Rehnquist as “Renschler” and a “clown” that he appointed him to the Court: 13
11/91Percentage increase in the U.S. GNP during the first three years of the Carter Administration: 13
11/91Percentage of Americans who say they are “addicted” to television: 13
5/92Percentage of women who cite a suspected fetal-health problem among the reasons for their abortion: 13
8/92Number of countries that have issued at least one Elvis Presley postage stamp: 13
1/93Number of years in office Saddam Hussein will celebrate this summer: 13
3/93Average number of years a Clinton cabinet member has worked in Washington: 13
5/95Number of times the word “Newtonian” has appeared in the New York Times this year: 13
Number of times it referred to Isaac Newton: 3
9/98Days a Denver school principal was put on leave last May for allowing students a sip of wine on a trip to Paris: 13
4/99Percentage of Chile’s spending on its privatized pension system that goes toward administration: 13
Percentage of spending last year on the U.S. Social Security system that did: 1
4/99Factor by which U.S. stock market growth must exceed GDP growth for Social Security stock investment to work: 5
8/99Days after President Roosevelt’s death in April 1945 that Vice President Truman was told the atomic bomb existed: 13
2/01Weeks that a Massachusetts school prohibited a boy from cross-dressing last fall before a judge overturned the ban: 13
5/01Length, in millimeters, of an I.D. microchip that Singapore now implants in the necks of all imported dogs: 13
11/01Number of years that Osama bin Laden’s half-brother owned the Houston Gulf Airport before his death in 1988: 6
Number of years since then that the airport has been owned by his estate: 13
11/02Number of Latin American nations where the percentage of people calling themselves “leftist” has increased since 1996: 2
Number of Latin American nations where the percentage of people calling themselves “rightist” has increased: 13
3/03Rank shared by Jesus Christ and Bill Clinton among “the greatest Americans of all time,” according to Americans: 13
9/03Ratio of the number of Ethiopians at risk from famine today to those who died in 1984’s record famine: 13:1
10/03Number of states that require energy companies to derive a percentage of their output from alternative sources: 13
7/04Number of times after prison-abuse photos aired in April that the President boasted of freeing Iraq of torture chambers: 13
3/05Average number of years by which a 2004 study found the cells of chronically stressed women to have prematurely aged: 13
9/05Number of years that the world’s tallest hotel has stood uncompleted in North Korea: 13
6/07Percentage of CEOs of S&P 500 companies whose homes are at least 10,000 square feet or sit on more than ten acres: 13
Average percentage by which growth in their companies’ stock prices lagged behind that of CEOs with smaller homes: 7
7/08Average percentage by which a bar-smoking ban in a U.S. county increases the rate of drunk-driving fatalities: 13
10/08Number of Middle Eastern nations that have announced plans to pursue nuclear power since January 2007: 13
1/05Average number of suicides per 100,000 residents in states carried by President Bush in November: 13.5
Average number of suicides in states carried by John Kerry: 9.9
12/05Percentage of middle-class Americans who spent more than a third of their income on home ownership in 1975: 2.8
Percentage in 2001: 13.5
11/02Percentage of the $3.1 billion owed by securities-law violators between 1995 and 2001 that the SEC has recouped: 13.6
4/86Percentage of Fortune 500 chief executive officers who say they “lose sleep over the competition”: 13.7
8/84Number of countries thought to possess chemical weapons: 14-16
7/86Percentage increase in cases of tuberculosis in New York City in 1985: 14
1/87Percentage of the fish and shellfish harvested in the United States in 1975 that came from farms: 3
4/87Number of information operators on duty weeknights at 2 A.M. in Mississippi: 2
2/90Average number of days a divorced middle-aged American woman spends sick in bed each year: 14
8/90Number of El Salvador’s 15 highest-ranking officers whose troops have committed “brutal human rights abuses”: 14
Number of these officers who have received U.S. training: 12
2/92Number of times David Duke used the word “welfare” in the speech announcing his candidacy for president: 14
6/92Number of San Quentin death-row inmates who are suing the state of California for the right to procreate: 14
10/92Number of years after Columbus’s first Atlantic crossing that a map including the Americas was printed: 14
11/92Number of the 28 major armed conflicts taking place worldwide in which religious differences are involved: 14
6/93Average percentage change last year in a U.S. movie’s box-office gross between the first and second weeks of release: -32
11/93Number of camera crews at the National Archives’ unveiling of new documents about the Kennedy assassination in August: 14
7/94Number of Norman Rockwell paintings owned by Steven Spielberg: 14
2/95Number of times the word “tsunami” appeared in the New York Times in the month following last fall’s elections: 14
12/95Ratio of Republican to Democratic presidential vetoes overridden by Congress since 1960: 14:1
1/96Number of Western European countries whose deficit represents a higher portion of GDP than the U.S. deficit does: 14
6/97Number of Latin American countries in which a rapist is exonerated if the victim accepts his marriage proposal: 14
9/97Number of the 14 black students that the school admitted this year who have decided not to attend: 14
4/98Number of biological materials with military potential sent to Iraq by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the 1980s: 14
4/98Months after Bill Clinton’s inauguration that heterosexual fellatio was legalized in Washington, D.C.: 4
Number of states in which the practice is still illegal: 14
11/98Number of ornamental figures based on German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Germany’s Garden Gnome Museum: 14
1/99Extra days of legal duck hunting this month in three Southern states as a result of Senator Trent Lott’s lobbying: 14
6/99Number of men ticketed for indecent exposure in Opelousas, Louisiana, last year for wearing low-riding pants: 14
2/01Average number of brand-name items requested per shopping trip by a U.S. child between the ages of four and twelve: 14
8/01Age at which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon enlisted in an underground Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine: 14
1/02Number of biological materials with military potential sent to Iraq by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the 1980s: 14
1/03Years after rapper Chuck D called Elvis Presley “straight-out racist” that he claimed “a great deal of respect” for him: 14
8/03Number of countries to which the U.S. sent troops between 1900 and 1993 for the purpose of establishing democracy: 14
Number that were democracies ten years after the withdrawal of U.S. forces: 4
2/04Average number of years before reaching the White House that a twentieth-century U.S. president won his first elected post: 14
2/05Number of Nicaragua’s seventeen regional capitals whose governments are now controlled by the Sandinistas: 14
5/05Minimum age at which Massachusetts allows boys to marry, with parental permission: 14
8/05Percentage of the world’s cell phone users who say they have interrupted sex to answer a call: 14
9/05Number of consecutive years that the value of housing in Japan has dropped since its housing bubble burst: 14
11/05Minimum number of infants impeded from boarding airplanes because their names were on the U.S. no-fly list: 14
1/06Change since 1996 in the percentage of all Latin Americans who say democracy is the best form of governance: ‒8
10/06Factor by which the number of attacks on U.S. forest rangers last year exceeded the number in 1995: 14
2/07Number of U.S. states that passed legislation last year expanding the right to shoot someone in self-defense: 14
4/07Number of vehicles in the motorcade that transports President Bush to his regular bike ride in Maryland: 14
1/08Number of states where a majority of public-school students were poor enough to qualify for subsidized lunches in 1989: 1
Number today: 14
7/08Percentage of registered voters who said in March that they would “seriously consider” voting for Ralph Nader: 14
6/85Average age at which American girls began to menstruate in 1900: 14.3
2/92Percentage of all employed black American men with a college degree who earned poverty-level wages in 1979: 9.5
Percentage today: 14.8
2/93Price of “Bill Your Ex,” a billing kit for the collection of court-ordered support payments: $14.95
12/87Price of a pound of reindeer meat at Lobel’s Prime Meats in New York City: $14.98
12/87Price of Pet Rest—a casket, body bag, sympathy card, and memorial-service text—for a guinea pig: $14.99
5/84Percentage of black baseball players in leadership positions (catcher, shortstop, second base): 15
Percentage of Protestants who say that: 3
5/85Portion of U.S. military pensioners who work full time: 2/3
Percentage of U.S. military pensioners who are over 65: 15
11/85Pairs of sunglasses owned by Jack Nicholson: 15
5/89Estimated rate at which rain would have to fall to re-create the flood described in Genesis, in feet per hour: 15
10/07Number of different areas of U.S. infrastructure graded by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2005: 15
Average grade and highest grade, respectively, that the group gave out: D, C+
12/86Percentage of college students who say they spend more than half their waking hours worrying: 15
3/87Cubic feet of fresh air circulated per minute for each passenger on a commercial flight in 1976: 15
Today: 6
3/89Percentage increase in garter belt sales at Frederick’s of Hollywood since the release of Bull Durham: 15
8/89Number of bulletproof vests the Washington Post has bought for its reporters and photographers this year: 15
11/89Number of the 15 fax machines in the Gaza Strip whose use the Israeli government has suspended: 15
1/90Number of polyps removed from Ronald Reagan during his presidency: 15
4/90Number of times George Steinbrenner has seen the film Patton: 15
7/90Number of the 15 republics in the Soviet Union in which there are independence movements: 15
10/90Change, since 1988, in the number of minutes an American man spends on personal grooming each day: +15
5/91Number of times a nude or seminude woman accepted a Domino’s Pizza delivery in Washington, D.C., last year: 15
6/91Percentage change, since 1988, in the number of doctors whose licenses have been revoked by state medical boards: +15
Percentage change, since 1989, in the profits earned in the United States by American-owned companies: -21
6/92Percentage of American fathers who say their children should have “more sexual freedom” than they had as teenagers: 15
6/92Percentage of Americans between the ages of 27 and 45 who had their first kiss at a school prom or dance: 15
11/92Number of Green Party candidates running for the U.S. Congress this month: 15
3/93Average number of operations performed each week by Joanna Corti, a Santa Fe, New Mexico, “psychic surgeon”: 15
5/93Number of portraits of Zsa Zsa Gabor on display in her homes: 15
12/93Estimated percentage of the value of each bank transaction in Russia that is spent on bribes for Central Bank personnel: 15
3/94Factor by which the murder rate in Washington, D.C., last year exceeded that of Northern Ireland: 15
5/94Number of students enrolled this term in “The Films of Keanu Reeves,” a course offered at a Pasadena arts college: 15
8/95Percentage of radio-talk-show listeners who blame the “mainstream media” for the Oklahoma bombing: 15
10/95Number of microwave ovens blown up at a New York State prison this year by inmates trying to light cigarettes: 15
1/96Percentage of L.A. police officers who are black: 15
Percentage of L.A. residents who are: 14
4/96Rank of vintner Ernest Gallo, among the largest lifetime contributors to Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, respectively: 1,5
8/96Price a John Wayne Gacy web site charges for a printout of a 1976 photograph of Gacy with Rosalynn Carter: $15
Years after Gacy became an Illinois Democratic Party precinct captain that he was arrested for 33 murders: 3
9/96Percentage of Americans who say their opinion of the President has been diminished by the FBI-files scandal: 15
Percentage who say their opinion of him has been improved by it: 2
12/97Estimated percentage of North Korea’s rural population that died of starvation this year: 15
5/98Number of minutes that Mir’s Russian cosmonauts spent this year advertising a “space pen” live on QVC: 15
10/98Number of years that President Clinton’s private lawyer David Kendall has vetted articles for the National Enquirer: 15
3/99Date and time of the annual pi celebration held at San Francisco’s Exploratorium: 3/14, 1:59
2/00Maximum number of years to which a Burmese citizen may be sentenced for owning an unregistered computer: 15
4/00Number of former welfare recipients New York City trained since last April to work as phone psychics: 15
5/00Age by which Russian president Vladimir Putin tried to volunteer for the KGB: 15
6/00Number of years after the term “confidence man” was coined in 1849 that the word “ industrialist ” was introduced: 15
9/00Number of years of planning and construction devoted to France’s Maginot Line fortifications in World War II: 15
7/01Number of the sixteen previous Republican presidents who experienced a recession during their first term in office: 15
4/02Days that the Taliban left bodies hanging after an execution, according to a judge in the new government: 4
Estimated number of minutes to which he says the country’s new administration will reduce such hanging time: 15
8/02Extra amount Oregon charges per year to register a hybrid gas/electric car in compensation for lost gasoline taxes: $15
1/03Minimum number of locals hired to act as Arabs heckling U.S. troops during an army war game in California last year: 15
6/03Percentage unemployment in Palestine, West Virginia, the hometown of former POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch: 15
9/03Number of females on the American Film Institute’s list of the fifty greatest movie villains, aliens included: 15
Number on its list of the fifty greatest movie heroes, Lassie included: 7
2/04Percentage of the vote in last November’s New Haven, Connecticut, mayoral race won by the Guilty Party candidate: 15
10/04Maximum percentage income- and corporate-tax rate under laws made for Iraqis by the Coalition Provisional Authority: 15
11/04Maximum number of rounds a semi-automatic rifle may hold to be considered legal in New Jersey: 15
Maximum number allowed by the recently lifted federal ban on assault rifles: 10
12/04Number of overseas bullet suppliers the U.S. Army contracted with last year and this year, respectively: 1,5
4/06Number of glasses of wine or sherry that seventeen homeless alcoholics were allowed daily, in a Canadian study: 15
Number of the participants who reduced their alcohol intake, quit the study, or died, respectively: 11, 3, 3
5/06Rank of “ Christian ” among one-word descriptions of George W. Bush offered by Americans in February 2005: 15
11/06Number of the fifty states that are still not in compliance with the 2002 Help America Vote Act: 8
Number that now use electronic voting machines with no recountable paper trail: 15
6/07Number of recent computer models that a team of climate experts studied to assess Arctic warming: 15
Number of the models that showed the North Pole having ice-free summers by 2100: 7
9/07Number of the 150 foreign-service officers at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad who speak fluent Arabic: 15
2/09Annual percentage interest rate that Venezuela charged Argentina for a $1 billion loan last August: 15
11/88Percentage of Americans who say they have “a great deal of confidence” in the executive branch of government: 16
11/88Percentage of Americans who believe that the Soviet Union is a member of NATO: 16
7/89Number of coin-operated suntan-lotion spray dispensers in Ocean City, Maryland: 16
11/91Average number of drugs prescribed each year to an American over 60: 16
1/92Percentage increase in U.S. health-care costs since January 1990: 16
1/92Number of journalists killed in Yugoslavia since last June: 16
10/92Number of the 20 U.S. communities applying to host nuclear-waste dumpsites that are Indian reservations: 16
3/93Number of bras on display at the Frederick’s of Hollywood Celebrity Lingerie Hall of Fame, in California: 16
12/94Percentage of American children who say they use flattery to get their parents to buy them things: 16