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
8/94Estimated number of standard-sized helium balloons required to lift an American ten-year-old off the ground: 2,450
1/99Estimated amount a major-party U.S. presidential candidate must raise per hour this year to become a nominee: $2,466
8/08Estimated number of juveniles whom the United States has detained as enemy combatants since 2002: 2,500
12/87Requests for changes in the new tax code received by the House Ways and Means Committee this year: 2,500
1/89Number of resumes the Heritage Foundation submitted to George Bush in November: 2,500
4/93Average number of phone calls received each hour by the White House during Bill Clinton’s first 10 days in office: 2,500
2/94Number of U.S. soldiers who identify themselves as Muslims: 2,500
11/95First prize offered in the Colin L. Powell Joint Warfighting Essay Contest, established in April of last year: $2,500
Number of entries received in the contest’s first year: 67
Average number visible from the wilderness: 2,500
Estimated number there today: 2,500
8/99Average number of Zimbabweans killed each week by AIDS: 2,500
6/05Amount for which George W. Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999: $2,500
11/93Number of Palestinians worldwide, per square mile of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: 2,503
7/90Number of votes received by the Beer Drinkers Union in the East German elections held last March: 2,534
Number of votes received by the Unification Now party: 2,396
7/96Number of people who accessed “The Definitive UNABOM Page” during its first month on the Web: 2,602
6/06Number of CIA employees that the Chicago Tribune was able to identify in March through online databases: 2,653
1/97Amount that SculptYours, in Santa Monica, California, charges to bronze a set of buttocks, depending on size: $2,700-$3,700
10/97Maximum distance, in feet, that a pumpkin has ever been mechanically hurled without the use of explosives: 2,710
10/86Number of brands advertised on network television in 1985: 2,713
4/08Estimated number of bacteria transferred to a dip via “double-dipping,” according to a Clemson University study: 2,750
1/92Number of the 6,100 residents of Kuwait detained by the government since last March who are still being held: 2,800
12/93Number of emergency-room admissions last year for injuries involving snowblowers: 2,800
10/98Average price of one of the 200 cabins reserved for a Caribbean cruise next December by The Nation magazine: $2,800
Estimated average hourly earnings of each of the cruise ship’s Indonesian crew members: $2.47
5/00Price of a night in Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s “special suite” equipped with antiques and a living room: $2,800
12/86Number of Haitians intercepted trying to enter the United States in the 9 months before Duvalier fled: 1,601
Number intercepted in the 9 months since he fled: 2,859
11/90Prairie dogs shot at the Top Dog World Championship Prairie Dog Shoot held in Nucla, Colorado, last July: 2,956
10/85Number of high school marching bands that ordered the sheet music for “Barbara Ann” this year: 3,000
3/86Estimated number of white South Africans who emigrate each month: 3,000
3/88Average yearly number of violent demonstrations since 1982 by Palestinians under Israeli occupation: 3,000
3/90Number of Wellington boots for cows that the Gates Rubber Company of Dumfries, Scotland, sold last year: 3,000
10/90Number of requests for New Kids on the Block lyric sheets received by the Parents’ Music Resource Center this year: 3,000
Number of requests for 2 Live Crew lyric sheets: 1,500
8/92Number of different versions of Crystal Pepsi tested before the product was introduced in April: 3,000
11/92Price of an eight-week course in striptease at Moscow’s Taif School of Erotic Dance, in rubles: 3,000
7/93Number of doctors invited to apply for a staff-physician job at a Georgia women’s clinic since February: 3,000
Number who have responded: 1
9/93Estimated number of cows it takes to supply the 22,000 footballs the NFL uses each season: 3,000
10/93Number of handbags equipped with gun pouches sold last year by Feminine Protection of Dallas: 3,000
11/94Pieces of undelivered mail found in the trunk of a car belonging to a Chicago postman last spring: 3,000
10/98Estimated number of Catholic priests accused of sexual assault in the U.S. since 1978: 3,000
3/99Number of people detained or evacuated from buildings in California last December due to anonymous anthrax threats: 3,000
7/99Bags of potpourri that the Littleton, Colorado, fire department made from flowers placed at Columbine High School: 3,000
1/00Estimated number of Japanese peasant uprisings in the following 268 years under the Tokugawa regime: 3,000
6/00Minimum number of aquatic species carried in ship ballasts to new ecosystems on any given day: 3,000
6/00Amount Shell Oil paid last year to sponsor the wedding reception of the King of Buganda, Uganda: $3,000
10/00Estimated number of fake haunted houses operating commercially in the United States last October: 3,000
12/00Pounds of ordnance that can be delivered by Boeing’s new X-45A, the world’s first unmanned fighter jet: 3,000
3/02Minimum number of copies of a new Bulgarian translation of Mein Kampf sold last year: 3,000
3/04Number of monkeys fed a nine-course meal at last year’s Chinese Banquet for Monkeys in Lopburi, Thailand: 3,000
5/04Minimum number of Tennesseans who have ordered new license plates bearing the Confederate flag: 3,000
8/06Number of African giant pouched rats that Belgian researchers have trained to sniff out explosives: 36
9/88Members of Loners on Wheels, a recreational-vehicle singles club: 3,025
5/00Number of acres of Brazil ‘s Panambizinho region that the country’s government promised to return to its Indians in 1995: 3,063
Number of acres returned so far: 0
11/91Amount the Resolution Trust Corporation has spent on mugs and golf shirts for buyers of seized S&L assets: $3,098.33
5/86Number of U.S. university scientists who have pledged to refuse Star Wars research funds: 3,100
5/99Briefing books with Al Gore’s photo over Dan Quayle’s bio printed for the 1999 Davos, Switzerland, economics forum: 3,100
5/07Number of cases brought by U.S. Attorneys between 2002 and 2004 that the Justice Department listed as terror-related: 3,279
Percentage of these that had no evidence linking them to terror activity, according to an internal audit: 47
Radius in air downwind from a city: 650
7/91Number of American claims for assets frozen’ during the 1979 Iranian Revolution that are still pending: 3,300
9/90Estimated number of people per square mile during peak season in the Yosemite Valley: 3,320
6/93Number of black men, per 100,000, incarcerated in South Africa: 681
3/04Number of U.S. soldiers whose retirement or leave has been postponed by the Army to maintain troop strength: 3,500
6/04Minimum amount, per kilogram, that the U.S. charges “high income” countries to return spent nuclear fuel: $3,500
9/07Value of the gasoline that the American Red Cross is giving to two randomly selected blood donors this summer: $3,500
7/06Number of U.S. residents the FBI investigated last year using Patriot Act powers that waive the need for a warrant: 3,501
3/97Number of sex offenders’ addresses registered with New Jersey police since the passage of Megan’s law: 3,532
11/97Average number of political ads aired on U.S. TV each day of last year’s election season: 3,585
7/94Number of U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War who have filed for environmental-hazard disability since 1991: 3,593
Number of these who have been granted benefits: 282
12/98Number of hands Gingrich shook last August 22 in an attempt to set a world’s record for “political handshaking”: 3,609
8/06Number of single-family homes sold in the New Orleans area during the first quarter of 2006: 3,659
2/01Estimated number of minors held in U.S. prisons in 1998 without segregation from adult inmates: 3,700
7/03Minimum number of U.S. homes or properties seized under eminent domain since 1997 for private development: 3,722
11/94Age, in years, of two sweet potatoes on display at the Potato Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico: 3,794
11/95Number of “Snapple enthusiasts” who attended the first Snapple Convention, held last summer in a New York suburb: 3,800
5/03Fine that Britain’s education minister has proposed levying on parents whose children are chronic truants: $3,900
7/91Number of Czechs who have joined the Independent Erotic Initiative Party since its establishment last year: 4,000
4/96Estimated nightly attendance last April at a Maryland “drive-through theater” re-enactment of the crucifixion: 4,000
12/97Number of Squadron Supreme comic books printed this year with ink containing its creator’s ashes: 4,000
2/98Estimated number of professional bounty hunters in the U.S.: 4,000
9/99Minimum estimated number of Sierra Leoneans whose limbs, ears, or lips were chopped off last year by rebel forces: 4,000
10/00Tons of SF5CF3, a synthetic greenhouse gas, discovered this year to have accumulated in the atmosphere since 1950: 4,000
12/00Price for which an eight-year-old Colorado girl was offered for sale by her mother over the Internet last year: $4,000
9/04Minimum number of Americans who registered to vote at strip clubs since May: 4,000
1/05Years since the Justice Department last released the number of U.S. terror suspects taken into “preventive detention”: 3
Estimated number of people who have been taken into such detention since then: 4,000
6/94Number of applicants Sears Roebuck invited to be interviewed last year for 95 executive-training positions: 4,019
11/89Number of parking tickets issued to the Soviet Mission to the United Nations last year: 4,072
9/04Number of prospective teachers in 19 states wrongly issued failing grades on a licensing exam since January 2003: 4,100
1/93Price of an eight-week course in acting for dogs, including room and board, at the Kamer Canine College in L.A.: $4,150
2/98Number of calls made last October to 888-HARASS-U, the presidential-sexual-harassment hot line: 4,195
5/93Estimated amount by which the salary of a US. executive over 6 feet tall will exceed that of one under 5‘5”: $4,200
4/93Estimated distance the average major-league home run would travel if hit on the moon, in feet: 4,200
9/94Price of a 4 1/2-pound-steak dinner at Amarillo’s Big Texan Steak Ranch, if consumed within an hour: $0
6/04Number of accidents on Florida highways in 2002 caused by cars parked on the side of the road: 4,220
1/00Estimated percentage increase since 1000 in the number of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus, respectively: 2,450, 2,300, 1,025
3/99Number by which emigrants from the U.S. to Ireland between 1995 and 1998 exceeded those from Ireland to the U.S.: 4,300
9/87Number of citizen’s arrests made in Los Angeles in 1986: 4,322
11/04Distance in feet traveled by the winning pumpkin at Delaware’s Punkin Chunkin Competition last year: 4,434.28
Length in feet of the barrel of “The Second Amendment” pumpkin cannon from which it was shot: 150
11/88Parking fees that Universal Studios collected from picketers of The Last Temptation of Christ: $4,500
8/04Average megawattage of electricity generated in Iraq each day last year before the invasion: 4,500
1/98Amount the U.S. Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General spent last year on a staff-morale study, per page: $4,538
11/08Amount that Paris Hilton’s parents have donated to John McCain’s campaign: $4,600
2/98Amount by which the number of asylum seekers rejected by France since 1995 exceeds the number that applied: 4,718
4/99Number of federally maintained bridges of which the Department of Transportation has no record: 4,770
12/91Estimated number of mosques that have been built or reopened in the Soviet Union since 1989: 4,800
5/89World’s record for the most footnotes in a law review article: 4,824
12/99Price of a bottle of Czar Nicholas II’s champagne salvaged last year from a ship sunk in 1916: $4,922
11/03Age in years of a California bristlecone pine that is the oldest tree on earth: 4,733
Age in years of a Nevada bristlecone when the U.S. Forest Service let a graduate student cut it down in 1964: 4,950
9/86Cost of annual membership in the Breakfast Club at New York’s 21 Club: $5,000
10/86Membership of the American Federation of Astrologers in 1970: 1,500
12/86Number of journalists who covered Disney World’s fifteenth anniversary: 5,000
9/87Amount the New York Mets spend each season for tape to wrap Gary Carter: $5,000
7/90Number of East German spies still operating in West Germany, according to West Germany: 5,000
9/90Number of people who can be tested for radiation exposure in one day on France’s “hospital train”: 5,000
1/92Number of Polish women who have graduated from the Warsaw School of Grace since it opened in 1988: 5,000
1/93Number of fan letters Mr. Rogers answers personally each year: 5,000
3/95Number of people who attended the return of the buzzards to Hinckley, Ohio, on Buzzard’s Sunday last March: 5,000
5/95Price paid at a charity auction this year for a turtleneck worn by Jimmy Carter during cease-fire talks in Bosnia: $5,000
11/95Price of a man’s solid gold Nelson Mandela Commemorative Timepiece, from Hope Industries of New York: $5,000
2/96Price of the Truth Phone, a lie detector for the telephone, from the Counter Spy Shop in Washington, D.C.: $5,000
6/96Average amount by which the use of seat belts decreases an auto-accident victim’s hospital bills: $5,000
10/97Fine as of last August for opening a McDonald’s in Bermuda: $5,000
7/98Number of rooms planned for the Lunar Hilton: 5,000
8/99Number of troops that could have prevented Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, according to the head of U.N. forces there then: 5,000
9/99Maximum fine to which a British grocer will be subject next year for using anything other than the metric system: £5,000
2/02Estimated number of U.S. cluster bomblets dropped on Afghanistan last fall that remain unexploded: 5,000
4/02Amount a Silverado executive later stole from his investment firm per day of his three and a half years in jail: $5,000
5/03Estimated number of audience cell-phone calls that constituted a “telesymphony” performed last year in Austria: 5,000
Ratio of Afghanistan residents to Western peacekeepers there now: 5,000:1
1/04Reward offered by the U.S. military to any Iraqi who turns in a hand-held launcher and missile: $500
Amount such a weapon can reportedly fetch on the international black market: $5,000
12/04Price of the bottle of champagne a New York club requires patrons to buy in order to use a diamond-encrusted table: $5,000
6/05Number of lines that Italy’s largest cellular operator has set aside for government eavesdropping: 5,000
12/05Average hourly wage made by drug-dealing foot soldiers in Chicago, according to a Columbia University study: $3.41
12/05Miles per hour of two low-flying Danish fighter jets in February when they startled a reindeer named Rudolph to death: 450
Amount his owner, a professional Santa, was paid by the Air Force in September to buy a new Rudolph: $5,000
9/06Number of schools and publishers that subscribe to a California company’s plagiarism-detecting database: 5,000
Chances that a college paper today is plagiarized at least in part, according to a study using the database: 3 in 10
12/06Chances that a Guantánamo detainee was turned over to Coalition forces by an Afghan or Pakistani citizen: 9 in 10
Average reward that leaflets airdropped over their countries promised for every “terrorist” turned in: $5,000
1/07Number of uninsured patients to whom a Texas hospital has given free preventive care since 2002: 5,000
Estimated percentage change over two years in the number of emergency-room visits by these patients: –50
3/09Amount an undisclosed buyer offered the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport last year for the Larry Craig bathroom stall: $5,000
1/91Packets of Kool-Aid a chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has sent to soldiers in the Persian Gulf: 5,040
1/02Amount of debt carried by New York City’s government, per resident, before September 11: $5,066
11/87Reported cases of rectal gonorrhea in San Francisco in 1980: 5,098
4/07Average amount of unpaid tax the IRS discovers for each hour spent auditing a large or medium-sized company: $5,195
11/01Number of deserters from the U.S. military last year: 5,320
11/04Number of U.S. soldiers returned from Iraq in the last year who have been diagnosed with mental-health problems: 5,375
Number of these disposed of at the request of the couples who produced them: 2,500
3/96Price paid at auction last December for a diamond-monogrammed gold shoehorn belonging to Frank Sinatra: $5,520
8/85Cab fare from New York City to Los Angeles: $5,550
10/04Total amount Ohio’s crime-victims compensation fund has paid the survivors of one U.S. soldier killed in Iraq: $5,656.77