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
10/03Year in which House Republicans thrice rejected an amendment to upgrade the U.S. electrical grid: 2001
7/04Last year in which deaths due to terrorism in Israel and the Occupied Territories exceeded those in Kashmir: 2001
5/05Year that Boise, Idaho, banned full nudity in public unless it had “serious artistic merit”: 2001
6/98Year in which all mobile-phone companies will be federally required to be able to locate callers to within 125 feet: 2002
8/02Year in which the prom of Georgia’s Taylor County public high school was first integrated: 2002
9/08Number of deaths in Florida last year caused by illegal drugs: 946
Number caused by prescription drugs: 2,002
11/02Year in which Disney’s Mickey Mouse copyright will expire if the Supreme Court reverses a 1998 extension this winter: 2003
8/06Year that Israel passed a “temporary” law barring Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining citizenship: 2003
Vote by which its Supreme Court upheld the law this May: 6‒5
12/01Ratio of the projected cost of General Electric’s dredging of its PCBs from the Hudson River to its total profits last year: 1:280
Earliest year in which the dredging might begin: 2004
1/05Year by which the third and final phase of the 2003 “road map” to a Palestinian state was to have been reached: 2005
Estimated number of the twenty-five provisions in the first phase that have yet to be completed: 17
2/06Year that a Hindu nationalist party in India rechristened Valentines Day “Prostitution Day”: 2005
1/09Year by which the third and final phase of the 2003 “road map” to a Palestinian state was to have been reached: 2005
Estimated number of the twenty-five provisions of the first phase that have yet to be completed: 12
11/04Deadline for completion of the first federally mandated national list of registered voters: 2006
6/06Year that a signboard tallying the U.S. national debt was erected near Times Square: 1989
Year in which it is expected to run out of digits: 2007
8/08“Year of the Potato,” according to the United Nations: 2008
10/08Year in which the U.S. housing market will hit bottom, based on current futures-market trading: 2010
9/06Year by which humans will “be having sex with robots,” according to the head of the European Robotics Research Network: 2011
1/07Year by which South Korea intends to have a robot in every household: 2013
6/05Year by which every U.S. nuclear weapon will have reached the end of its original design life: 2014
7/97Year in which current ideas of normalcy may be seen as “pathology,” according to a U.S. pharmaceutical executive: 2016
6/04Year in which the Medicare hospital trust fund will be “completely exhausted,” according to the trustees: 2019
12/08Year by which computer server farms worldwide are projected to produce more greenhouse gases than air travel: 2020
9/07Year by which drilling can begin under Greenland’s northeast shelf, at current rates of warming: 2022
9/07Earliest year, in a 2004 estimate, that China was projected to surpass the United States in CO2 production: 2024
4/94Percentage change, since 1992, in New York Times articles mentioning the “information superhighway”: +2,025
6/05Projected year by which U.S. Treasury bonds will sink to junk status, on current fiscal policy: 2026
12/08Year by which New Orleans is expected to be rebuilt, at the current pace: 2028
9/00Percentage by which the cancer death rate in the area around Sydney’s Olympic Village exceeds the rest of the city’s: 8.5
Factor by which dioxin levels detected around the Village site during construction exceeded EPA guidelines: 1,540
8/01Estimated year in which El Paso, Texas, will exhaust its current sources of water: 2030
1/96Tons of sulfuric acid used each year in the manufacture of Jell-O: 2,035
9/88Number of the 10,182 supermarket products introduced last year that were condiments: 1,367
That were health and beauty items: 2,039
3/05Year that the Social Security trustees in 1994 projected the program would no longer be able to pay out full benefits: 2029
Year projected by the trustees in 2004: 2042
12/02Year in which the ozone hole over Antarctica is expected to close as a result of reduced chlorofluorocarbon use: 2050
2/05Year by which the median full-time wage of a U.S. woman will equal that of a U.S. man, based on current trends: 2050
3/05Year that testimony to Chile’s torture commission last year can be divulged or used in court: 2054
5/95Year in which, at the current rate of increase, all Americans will be overweight: 2059
9/96Price McDonnell Douglas charged the U.S. Air Force last year for each C-17 airplane hinge delivered: $2,187
2/00Megawatts by which the world’s nuclear-power capacity changed during 1998: -230
Megawatts by which the world’s wind-power capacity changed that year: +2,200
3/01Price of a designer skirt made of hamster pelts, introduced in Britain last year: $2,200
3/06Number of weapons that have been turned into tools for African farmers by a British nonprofit since 2001: 2,200
Number of farm implements that a rocket launcher yields: 5
8/01Price of a pair of stonewashed, sanded, hand-torn jeans from an Italian designer: $2,222
1/06Number of U.S. prisoners serving life sentences with no parole for crimes they committed while juveniles: 2,225
12/03Number of citizen reports on file at the North American Reporting Center for Amphibian Malformations: 2,240
1/02Gallons of concentrated anthrax that Iraq has admitted to producing as a biological weapon: 2,245
3/01Average number of cows destroyed each day in Britain last year in an effort to eliminate mad cow disease: 2,274
Number of European countries in which cases of the disease mad cow disease have been documented: 13
2/00Number of kidnappings reported in Colombia in the first nine months of last year: 2,283
10/04Price a haunted-house supplier charges for a male figure “being tortured like never before,” flesh-ripping sounds included: $2,295
9/93Number of copies of The Concept of Honest Poverty sold each day in Japan since it was published last September: 2,300
8/03Approximate number of accounting systems in use at the Defense Department: 2,300
10/90Number of times Marion Barry used his car phone to call alleged drug connections during the last four years: 2,312
2/00Number of textbook reproductions of George Washington Crossing the Delaware retouched by a Georgia school last year: 2,322
Number of parental complaints that prompted the school to decide that Washington’s watch fob resembled genitalia: 0
10/90Years it would take Jim Bakker to earn enough to pay his federal fine at his current job cleaning prison toilets: 2,331
2/88Exclamation points in Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities: 2,343
1/90Exclamation points in The Bonfire of the Vanities: 2,343
7/97Number of buffalo-meat hot dogs sold per baseball game at Atlanta’s Turner Field last summer: 2,350
1/00Number of U.S. nuclear bombs currently on “high alert”: 2,380
5/95Damages paid by the Kellogg Company this year after an Ohio man claimed a flaming Pop-Tart ignited his kitchen: $2,400
Amount that an average inner-city African American spends: $2,440