8/87Number of Palestinian homes in the West Bank that have been demolished or sealed by Israel since 1967: 1,500
9/90Maximum amount a Los Angeles taxi company can be fined if its drivers are found wearing anything plaid: $1,500
6/91Average number of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches an American consumes before reaching adulthood: 1,500
2/93Number of copies of Robert’s Rules of Order bought by Russia’s Congress of Deputies last fall: 1,500
6/93Percentage change, since 1991, in the number of Americans who lost uninsured savings deposited at failed banks: +1,500
8/94Price of holding a wedding at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, in Yorba Linda, California: $1,500
10/99Ratio of the cost of building an F-22 fighter jet to that of upgrading an F-15 to twice the F-22’s effectiveness: 1,500:1
Percentage change in the amount of British cotton products India imported during the same period: +1,500
7/00Number of donkeys used by the U.N. last year to deliver humanitarian aid to displaced families in Afghanistan: 1,500
Percentage of wells there that are dry: 60
3/02Maximum amount one Northern Alliance soldier charged families of dead Taliban soldiers for the return of their corpses: $1,500
5/02Number of Britain’s Anglican clergy to whom their union is offering martial-arts training this year: 1,500
6/04Minimum number of U.S. surgical patients sewn up each year with sponges, clamps, or other tools left inside them: 1,500
4/06Price for which companies can purchase the personal data of all Minnesota drivers’-license holders from the state: $1,500
Estimated number that have bought the data so far: 800
2/09Pounds of ice, sculpted into the word economy, that artists used last fall to create a “literal meltdown” in Manhattan: 1,500
Percentage change since then in the number of students taking LSATs adjusted for Attention Deficit Disorder: +1,510
11/89Number of people arrested for smoking in public places in Quezon City, the Philippines, since March: 1,514
9/86Reported cases of people bitten by rats in New York City in 1985: 311
Of people bitten by other people: 1,519
12/96Amount that Wanted, a British TV game show, pays contestants for each day they elude a team of former KGB agents: $1,560
6/92Number of unmarried couples who have officially registered their relationship as a “domestic partnership” since 1991: 1,586
8/87Blossoms needed to supply nectar for one hummingbird each day: 1,600
4/95Estimated number of Iraqi and Kuwaiti civilians killed by unexploded allied cluster bombs since the end of the Gulf War: 1,600
3/00Estimated amount the BBC paid for noise-producing software last year after workers complained of the quiet: $1,600
1/87Average earnings per acre of farmland in Massachusetts: $1,613
10/98Pounds of gold jewelry and dental fillings amassed during wartime by a single SS officer: 1,640
11/97Average number of Freedom of Information Act requests filed each day last year: 1,644
Percentage of these filed by companies seeking information about government contracts and regulatory loopholes: 75
12/98Year in which Christmas celebrations, plum pudding, and mince pie were outlawed in England: 1647
6/00Price an Illinois company charges for a pen embedded with Abraham Lincoln’s “genetic essence”: $1,650
6/07Number of UFO sightings in France since 1950, according to newly released French government documents: 1,650
4/92Average cost of a year’s worth of facial skin-lightening treatments: $1,700
2/04Percentage change between 2001 and 2002 in Saudi Arabia’s PR spending in the United States: +1,700
3/05Days after Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston separated in January that an Us Weekly executive called the story “our tsunami”: 4
Number of saplings that Pitt paid to have planted in Bhutan last year to counteract his personal CO2 production: 1,700
1/95Amount the village of Oligut, Papua New Guinea, raised last year to send an O.J. Simpson look-alike to Los Angeles: $1,705
9/88Average fine in Bavaria, West Germany, for calling a traffic officer a damischer Bulle (stupid bull): $1,710
For calling a traffic officer a Stinkstiefel (smelly boot): $51
9/98Number of people in Salt Lake City converted to Southern Baptism during a one-week evangelism drive last June: 1,717
12/04Percentage of poor Americans who lived in the suburbs in 1959 and last year, respectively: 17,39
8/94Price of a nine-night “Schindler’s List” tour of Krakow, Poland, from Edgewater Travel in Chicago: $1,750
1/02Rank of “serendipity” among words most often queried on Cambridge Dictionaries Online last October: 1
12/04Number of levels of executive positions in the federal government in 1960 and this year, respectively: 17,58
Total number of federal executives in each of those years: 451, 2,592
11/96Year in which America last had as bad a relationship with Britain as it does today, according to James Baker: 1773
11/01Number of bills to reform U.S. election procedures introduced in state legislatures since last November: 1,775
Percentage voted down, pending, and passed, respectively: 58, 28, 14
1/00Year in which Marie Antoinette convinced France’s King Louis XVI to declare that all handkerchiefs be square: 1785
7/93Number of presidentially appointed federal jobs that Bill Clinton had not filled after 100 days in office: 1,800
1/00Estimated number of years by which the earliest known African ironwork predates Europe’s Iron Age: 1,800
1/04Percentage increase in U.S. military aid to Uzbekistan since 2001: 1,800
11/96Year in which the British sacked the city of Washington and burned the White House: 1814
4/06Pounds of radioactive produce grown near Chernobyl that were confiscated in Moscow markets last year: 1,820
Number assigned to public affairs: 1,862
9/98Percentage change since 1991 in total Microsoft contributions to the Democratic and Republican parties: +460
Percentage change since then in Microsoft contributions to the Republican Party alone: +1,863
10/90Amount the Pentagon spent on each spare toilet seat cover for its C-5B cargo plane last year: $1,868.15
1/01Year in which the levered voting machines used in some precincts last November were invented: 1892
12/06Cost of an eight-day tour of Israel’s “struggle for survival and security in the Middle East”: $1,895
2/02Year in which Bayer trademarked “Heroin”: 1898
7/85Number of U.S. military officers who have retired since 1980 and taken jobs with defense contractors: 1,900
11/95Percentage increase Yeltsin proposed last year in the number of signatures required to run for the Russian presidency: 1,900
8/96Percentage by which the Pillsbury Bake-Off increased its grand prize last year: 1,900
8/99Average number of Americans killed each week by prescription drugs: 1,900
1/00Year in which a medical dictionary defined heterosexuality as an “abnormal or perverted appetite” for the opposite sex: 1901
2/09Number of applications submitted last fall for a $10,000 collegiate “blogging scholarship”: 1,902
Number that turned out to be spam: 557
2/03Price for a single berth on the February 2001 “Freedom Cruise,” including a tour of Grenada led by Oliver North: $1,906
9/88Amount the Reverend Al Sharpton spends on hair care each year at PrimaDonna beauty salon in Brooklyn: $1,910
10/99Number of tires found along the Mississippi River since 1997 by an Illinois man bent on cleaning it: 1,916
10/95Change since 1979 in the median earnings of an American woman with a full-time job, in constant dollars: +$1,925
Change in the median earnings of an American man with a full-time job: -$2,816
11/96Year in which Gerald Ford modeled for the cover of Cosmopolitan: 1942
11/03First year in which the definition of “turkey” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary went beyond fowl: 1949
8/00Price of a two-week stay at California’s Entrepreneurship Camp, for ages 9 through 16: $1,950
6/98Year in which General Eisenhower said that NATO “will have failed” if U.S. troops were in Europe a decade later: 1951
11/03Last year in which a quarterly rise in U.S. military spending was greater than the one last spring: 1951
6/03Last year in which no film, screenplay, or performance relating to mental illness was nominated for an Oscar: 1953
2/09Year that the U.S. stock market first regained its 1929 pre-crash peak: 1954
8/02Last year in which South Africa’s average life expectancy was as low as it is today: 1955
9/05Year in which perfluorochemicals, used in Teflon and other nonstick products, were first introduced: 1956
Percentage of U.S. children who now have one of these nonbiodegradable chemicals in their bloodstreams: 96
9/00Ratio of Lockheed Martin’s 1999 sales to the $13 million fine it will pay for giving secret technology to China: 1,962:1
11/96Year in which California Rep. Bob Dornan starred in the Hollywood war film The Starfighters: 1964
1/02Number of mock biological attacks with live bacteria carried out domestically by the U.S. Army between 1949 and 1969: 199
Year in which the Army released bacteria into New York City’s subway system: 1966
3/04Year in which then-congressman Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech criticizing war profiteering by Brown & Root: 1966
3/99Average amount each American living in poverty would receive if 1998’s budget surplus were divided among them: $1,967
1/02Last year in which Americans’ confidence in the federal government “to do what is right” was as high as it is today: 1968
Year in which Kalawao, Hawaii, the county with the largest income gap, ceased functioning as a leper colony: 1969
6/99Last year in which neither a Dole nor a Bush has appeared on the Republican presidential ticket: 1972
4/04Last year in which U.S. commercial crude-oil inventories were as low as they were in January: 1975
7/04Last year in which French frogs were served at the Brotherhood of the Frog Thigh Tasters’ annual fair in Vittel, France: 1977
3/02Last year in which a country other than Afghanistan was the world’s top source of refugees: 1980
6/03Year in which Detroit presented Saddam Hussein with a key to the city: 1980
Last year there was a decrease: 1980
1/00Year in which the New York Times first reported a “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals”: 1981
3/90Amount of free Doritos distributed in Daytona Beach, Florida, during the 1989 spring break, in pounds: 1,982
1/06Last year in which the price of heating oil was as high as it is expected to be this winter: 1982
10/03Year in which Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs: 1983
10/99Year in which some of the nuclear “secrets” that Congress alleges China stole were published in the U.S.: 1984
11/00Year in which anxiety eclipsed depression among the most common mental-health problems in the United States: 1984
3/01Year in which a political candidate first sued Palm Beach County over problems with hanging chads: 1984
11/02Year in which the Washington Post’s executive editor gave up voting, in order “to be as unbiased as possible”: 1984
1/09Year in which a political candidate first sued Palm Beach County over problems with hanging chads: 1984
12/99Year in which New York’s Marriott Marquis hotel began taking reservations for New Year’s Eve 1999: 1983
Year in which the hotel opened: 1985
2/95Year in which newly elected Congressman Sonny Bono first registered to vote: 1987
9/00Year in which Mikhail Gorbachev told Ronald Reagan, “I think you’re wasting your money ” on Star Wars: 1987
1/02Last year for which General Accounting Office data on U.S. baggage screeners was not classified as “sensitive”: 1987
4/94Year in which Rush Limbaugh voted in a presidential election for the first time: 1988
2/97Year in which Tupperware salespeople began to say that air is “whispered” out of containers rather than “burped”: 1990
6/99Year in which the CIA predicted a “violent conflagration” in Yugoslavia: 1990
8/91Year Brazil’s Supreme Court first ruled that it is illegal for a man to kill his adulterous wife to defend his honor: 1991
4/96Last year in which the majority of U.S. ob-gyn residents were men: 1991
2/01Year in which Colin Powell complained, “I’m running out of villains. I’m down to Castro and Kim Il Sung”: 1991
12/99Year in which Congress banned the State Department’s military training program for Indonesian troops: 1992
1/08Percentage of Americans who say they trust the Democrats and the Republicans, respectively, to ensure prosperity: 54, 34
2/94Year in which the South Korean government stopped defining footwashing at barbershops as an “act of lechery”: 1993
6/99Year in which former Secretary of State Warren Christopher said that “ Serbian influence” in Kosovo must be limited: 1993
10/94Year in which the Department of Energy will begin spending less on military projects than on environmental ones: 1994
11/96Year in which Barbara Bush was named “First Lady of the Century” by Outlaw Biker magazine: 1995
7/03Year in which Washington, D.C., neighbors of a WWI-era chemical-weapons test site were told it was cleaned up: 1995
5/04Number of Haiti’s elections since 1994 called “bogus electoral exercises” by the State Department’s Roger Noriega: 3
Percentage of Western Hemisphere countries besides Cuba whose leaders Noriega believes have been “freely elected”: 100
Number discovered since then: 145
4/08Membership price for ScientificMatch.com, a dating site that recommends mates based on genetic compatibility: $1,995
8/99Year in which George W. Bush first described juvenile “superpredators” as “fatherless, jobless, fearless, and godless”: 1996
8/97First edition of Joy of Cooking not to include a recipe for a soup made from endangered turtles: 1997
8/98Year in which the Tennessee legislature approved the Fifteenth Amendment, granting blacks the right to vote: 1997
12/03Year in which a terrorist threat against “S. Claus,” the “Prime Minister” of the North Pole, was declassified by the CIA: 1997
12/99Year in which the Pentagon’s military training program for Indonesian troops ended: 1998
2/01Year in which the maker of genetically engineered StarLink corn promised the EPA it would be fed only to animals: 1998
Estimated percentage of the U.S. corn supply now contaminated with genetically engineered StarLink corn: 20
2/02Last year in which there was a decrease in racial-profiling claims made against U.S. airport security: 1998
Ratio of the number of such claims made last year before September 11 to those made in all of 2000: 2:1
11/02Number of reports that President Bush referred to on September 7 as evidence of Iraq’s nuclear threat: 2
Last year in which the agency Bush cited as the reports’ author had new information on Iraq’s nuclear program: 1998
Number of “indications” the agency had then of “any physical capability” to produce weapons-grade nuclear material: 0
1/00Year in which South Africa’s Natal Law Society apologized for trying to thwart Mohandas K. Gandhi’s law practice there: 1999
5/03Last calendar year in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained in value: 1999
11/03Last year in which visits to U.S. national parks increased: 1999
4/04Year in which Citigroup formed a company called Buconero, Italian for “black hole,” to help Parmalat conceal debt: 1999
10/84Number of members of the International Flat Earth Research Society: 2,000
12/08Estimated number of professional “union-avoidance consultants” currently working in the United States: 2,000
7/88Price paid in West Virginia last April for a case of Billy Beer: $2,000
6/91Number of residential units the Resolution Trust Corporation plans to give away this year: 2,000
7/94Number of unused condoms discovered last year aboard a 53-man German submarine sunk during World War II: 2,000
7/94Participants in the annual Nude Chili Cookoff held at the Treehouse Fun Ranch in Devore, California, last July: 2,000
6/96Average amount Americans spend on legal drugs per second: $2,000
9/98Year by which Dan Quayle says he’s convinced that Republicans “will select a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton ”: 2000
12/99Number of titles for “horseless carriages” issued to new car owners in Maine last spring due to a Y2K error: 2,000
1/00Estimated number of pairs of gloves owned by Elizabeth I: 2,000
7/00Fine for “nudity” that Mississippi has proposed levying on fully clothed men “in a discernibly turgid state”: $2,000
10/00Year in which scientists confirmed that subjecting newborn rats to pain may have long-term neurological effects: 2000
2/03Minimum number of soldiers killed or severely injured each year in the Russian army’s initiation hazing: 2,000
6/03Number of mine-detecting monkeys erroneously reported to have been given to the United States by Morocco in March: 2,000
9/03Year in which Dick Cheney said that his policy as CEO of Halliburton was that “we wouldn’t do anything in Iraq”: 2000
1/04Estimated number of Americans who refuse to pay some or all of their federal income taxes to protest military spending: 2,000
6/04Estimated revenue lost by an Oregon county since it suspended granting heterosexuals marriage licenses last March: $2,000
4/05Number of Canadian work permits granted since 1998 to stem a labor shortage in “exotic dancing”: 2,000
3/06Minimum number of registered sex offenders who evacuated during Hurricane Katrina and cannot be accounted for: 2,000
Minimum number who sent pictures to try out: 2,000
8/08Number of skateboards being sent to Iraq for the “Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience,” now under construction: 2,000
2/09Minimum number of Amish households in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that use electricity generated by solar power: 2,000
11/01Year in which the French recognized the murder of two thirds of Turkey’s Armenians during World War I as “genocide”: 2001