8/86Walking speed of the average American woman (in feet per minute): 256
Of the average American man: 245
2/97Number of serious crimes prevented by every $1 million spent incarcerating repeat felons, according to a RAND study: 61
Number prevented by every $1 million spent on high-school graduation incentives: 258
12/00Number of known asteroids whose size and orbital trajectories render them “potentially hazardous” to Earth: 258
12/84Number of bird species that have been sighted in Central Park since its opening in 1858: 259
12/91Number of pizzas Moscow’s Pizza Hut delivered to the Russian parliament building during the Soviet coup: 260
7/01Factor by which radiation-dose levels found in the Library of Congress exceed typical levels outside a nuclear plant: 260
11/03Amount that energy companies’ market manipulation cost California consumers between 2000 and 2001 per capita: $260
Amount California has received per capita in energy-company settlements since then: $2.60
6/01Percentage change since 1989 in the annual number of paternity tests conducted at U.S. blood-bank-accredited labs: +262
4/07Number of local Republican officials who have been investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice since 2001: 37
Number of local Democratic officials who have been: 262
7/87Number of voters who are registered independents in Independence, Oregon: 263
8/88Number of New York Times articles since 1984 that have mentioned Nicaragua’s La Prensa: 263
12/07Percentage change since 2000 in the value of China’s private security and surveillance industry: +265
7/02Number of years after its founding that the shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List last April stopped referring to ships as “she”: 268
5/01Percentage of the victims of politically motivated murders in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, last year who were civilians: 90
8/01Estimated number of court decisions citing federal negligence in endangered-species protection that remain unheeded: 270
Percentage of these decisions that President Bush has proposed to allow the government to ignore indefinitely: 100
9/90Gallons of poison the New York State Conservation Department will use this fall to kill fish that displace trout: 271
1/02Minimum number of Winter Olympics volunteers who were rejected last fall after a criminal background check: 273
1/90Percentage increase, since 1980, in the average number of shares traded each day on the New York Stock Exchange: 274
6/86Percentage increase in Atlantic City’s crime rate since gambling was legalized there in 1978: 275
2/08Number of different skin tones that members of the South Asian matchmaking site Shaadi.com can register as having: 6
Number of different “castes” to which they can register as belonging: 275
2/85Percentage increase since 1980 in the number of Houston businesses filing for bankruptcy each month: 276
1/89Percentage increase, since 1987, in the number of Nicaraguans leaving the country: 276
7/98Percentage change since 1994 in the annual number of independent commercial banks opening in the U.S.: +276
11/02Average number of tons of manure produced by U.S. cattle, pig, and chicken feedlots each minute: 277
12/02Minimum number of times the United States has deployed troops abroad in its 226-year history: 277
11/91Change, since 1979, in the average annual earnings of a black woman with only a high school diploma: +$279
4/88Percentage increase, since 1975, in the number of Americans earning more than $1,000,000 a year: 280
2/96Number of plastic liners used by Florida prisons last year to combat chafing caused by leg irons: 280
5/01Estimated number of “crush films” involving live rodents and high-heeled women seized from a New York man in 1999: 70
11/90Number of Georgia third-graders Representative Newt Gingrich paid $2 for every book they read last summer: 282
12/92Average price of an ounce of cow gallstones in South Africa: $285
8/06Number of giant inflatable rats that U.S. unions have purchased to protest non-union projects: 285
1/09Percentage change during the first ten months of the Iraq war “surge” in the number of Iraqis detained in U.S.-run prisons: +63
2/99Number of tourists taken hostage by striking Club Med workers in Martinique for three days last November: 287
1/00Number of ships that sailed in the first expedition of Cheng Ho, the 15th-century Chinese explorer: 287
Minimum number of countries Cheng Ho visited over the course of his seven voyages: 30
11/94Ratio of the number of miles driven by the Japanese to the number of miles they ride on trains each year: 2:1
9/91Total number of the U.S. government’s 3 million employees who were fired last year for poor performance: 290
6/98Percentage change in the annual number of federal indictments of elected officials since Watergate: +291
3/05Minimum number of songs sold on Apple’s online music store that consist entirely of silence: 291
2/87Price of a night’s stay in an underwater room at Jules’ Undersea Lodge in Key Largo (including food and air): $300
5/87Members of the AFL-CIO’s horseshoers union: 300
3/89Price of a five-minute collagen injection to fatten lips: $300
6/90Projected total cost to taxpayers of the S&L bailout, expressed as a percentage of the federal deficit: 300
Rank of the corporation formed to manage the bailout, among the largest U.S. real estate concerns: 1
6/90Average number of Panamanians detained each day for “impeding the renewal of the power of the state”: 300
10/90Percentage change, since 1978, in the amount of videotape used by members of Congress in the House TV studio: +300
6/91Percentage increase, since Iraq’s defeat, in daily sales at the Frederick’s of Hollywood near Fort Campbell, Kentucky: 300
4/93Percentage change, since 1990, in claims filed with Prudential for treatment of multiple personality disorder: +300
6/95Weight, in pounds, of a “Big Boy” statue stolen from a Toledo outlet of the Big Boy chain last March: 300
Number of days later that its parts were found strewn across the city accompanied by notes reading “Big Boy is dead!”: 2
8/96Percentage change, since last February, in sales of vegetarian cookbooks at Britain’s largest book chain: +300
3/97Percentage of the number of tanks the Republic of Yugoslavia promised to destroy last year that have been destroyed: 300
10/97Number of words per story that United Press International recommended last March that its writers not exceed: 300
3/98Percentage change since 1996 in the acres of U.S. cropland planted with genetically engineered crops: +300
5/98Average number of mosquitoes a dragonfly consumes each day: 300
9/98Percentage change since 1995 in U.S. sales of merchandise featuring The Three Stooges: +300
12/98Estimated number of Japanese who have taken a “ gospel and rhythm ” class this year at Harlem’s Memorial Baptist Church: 300
2/99Percentage by which the breakup of Standard Oil increased the size of John D. Rockefeller’s personal wealth: 300
Percentage change since then in the incidence of self-induced vomiting among girls there since TV came to the island in 1995: +300
3/01Percentage change since 1995 in new drug applications filed with the FDA that include test results from abroad: +300
9/03Estimated acres of forest Henry David Thoreau burned down in 1844 trying to cook fish he had caught for dinner: 300
4/04Amount Iraqi parents were paid for naming sons born on Saddam Hussein’s birthday after him: $200
Minimum number of Iraq’s Saddam Husseins who have officially changed their names or are in the process of doing so: 300
10/04Estimated number of right-wing Jewish extremists Israel monitors as potential threats to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: 300
9/06Minimum number of different vertebrate species that have homosexual sex: 300
11/08Number of free tattoos of Obama’s face given out so far by a body artist in Moore, Oklahoma: 300
7/05Number of U.S. public-school districts that have adopted a class in which the Bible is the primary textbook: 301
5/07Minimum number of new U.S. anti-immigration groups formed since January 2005: 305
3/96Number of corruption charges still pending against Imelda Marcos in the Philippines: 306
Number for the general population aged 15 to 64: 308
1/02Number of years after being executed as witches that six Massachusetts women were exonerated last fall: 309
12/07Minimum number of edits to Wikipedia since June 2004 that have been traced back to the CIA: 310
10/87Federal and state laws declared unconstitutional by the Warren Court: 171
1/95Number of boys who have auditioned to play Howard Stern as a child in his autobiographical film, Private Parts: 320
11/99Estimated tons of depleted-uranium from bullets fired in the Gulf War that are still scattered across the battlefields: 320
7/02Number of requests Nevada has received since January for a new license-plate design featuring a mushroom cloud: 322
11/99Change since 1987 in a U.S. household’s average annual spending on health insurance: +$323.28
Change since then in a household’s annual spending on medical services, supplies, and drugs: -$99.69
12/87Percentage increase, since 1975, in the number of Americans who commute to work on bicycles: 325
3/91Number of Croatian churches that have been damaged since the war in Yugoslavia began last May: 325
6/99Length, in feet, of a transparent bridge Israel is building just under the surface of the Sea of Galilee: 328
Estimated number of inches by which the bridge’s footpath will be submerged so that visitors will appear to walk on water: 3
Average indoor temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit: 23
8/00Number of entertainment award ceremonies scheduled to be held in the U.S. this year: 332
8/89Percentage increase, since 1986, in the number of boys under 13 arrested for rape in New York City: 333
5/90Number of times the word motherfucker appears in Miles Davis’s autobiography: 333
5/08Estimated percentage change since 2001 in the amount of oil at the site of the Exxon Valdez spill: –9
11/01Minimum number of U.S. food products recalled in the last year due to contamination from StarLink corn: 336
1/01Ratio of public housing units built in Jewish communities in Israel since 1975 to those built in Arab communities: 337:1
1/99Number of words devoted to the Depression in Houghton Mifflin’s fifth-grade history book, Build Our Nation: 332
1/90Number of times Edwin Meese used some form of the statement “I don’t recall” during his Iran-Contra testimony: 340
8/07Number of the 525 donors who raised at least $100,000 for Bush in 2004 who have yet to support a 2008 candidate: 343
2/03Number of California inmates serving 25 years to life under the three-strikes law for thefts worth less than $400: 344
9/08Number of H-1B visas, for workers with a “body of highly specialized knowledge,” granted to fashion models last year: 349
4/85Pairs of toe shoes the New York City Ballet orders for principal dancer Suzanne Farrell each season: 350
6/86Number of New York City police officers who are members of the Screen Actors Guild: 350
8/91Average number of Israeli apartments damaged in each Scud attack before Patriot missiles were deployed: 219
1/95Estimated number of organizations that predict the millennium will bring “some form of Armageddon”: 350
4/96Estimated amount Steve Forbes spent campaigning before the Iowa Caucus in February, per Iowan who voted for him: $350
8/97Price California’s Fidelity Information Recovery service charges to send an “operative” to test a mate’s faithfulness: $350
3/98Price of a velvet-and-silk Chairman Mao jacket from Shanghai Tang, a new boutique on New York’s Madison Avenue: $350
5/99Number of subscribers to PursuitWatch, an L.A. paging service that alerts customers when a high-speed chase is televised: 350
2/01Number of articles published since 1998 containing the words “George W. Bush” and “aura of inevitability”: 350
4/03Fine levied on three Norwegians in 2001 for throwing paper airplanes at the U.S. embassy: $350
8/99Weight in pounds of Thailand’s 1999 Jumbo Queen, displaying “the grace, elegance, and enormity of an elephant”: 352
10/03Number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last two years: 354
11/04Percentage change from 2000 to 2003 in the number of immigration appeals sent to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court: +355
7/08Number of Americans who gave the maximum legal donation to both McCain and Obama in the primaries: 359
7/94Number of guns manufactured in the United States each hour: 360
11/08Number of marijuana plants found under cultivation inside Miami’s Mall of the Americas in August: 360
8/90Number of Colombians killed by death squads last year because they were believed to be homosexuals or prostitutes: 364
Number this year: 370
7/86Number of patented life forms: 374
6/94Number of times Hector Montalvo, a New York City bank teller, has seen Cats: 374
1/01Number of land mines per square mile left behind in southern Lebanon by Israeli forces when they withdrew last May: 376
3/97Average number of 101 Dalmatians products introduced each day since the film’s release last winter: 380
1/08Estimated number of D.C. residents who are paid to stand in line for lobbyists hoping to attend congressional hearings: 380
Average amount each line-stander is paid per hour: $20
5/90Number of words in the English language that exist because of typographical errors or misreadings: 381
12/92Percentage change, since 1970, in the number of American women working more than one job: +390
10/01Number of people arrested at last year’s Republican National Convention: 390
10/93Number of jokes told about Bill Clinton this-year in the monologues of late-night network TV talk shows: 391
Number of jokes told about George Bush during his first six months in office: 60
9/84Infantry platoon leaders in the Marine Corps: 243
2/96Percentage change, since then, in the number of Americans undergoing credit counseling: +397
4/88Average number of Latin American Catholics who convert to evangelical Christianity each hour: 400
10/88Number of New York City public-school teachers who were assaulted on the job during the last school year: 400
12/88Estimated number of courses on “The Sixties” offered at American colleges and universities this year: 400
1/89Pounds of fish consumed each day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California: 125
Pounds of fish consumed each day at Le Bernardin restaurant in New York City: 400
5/90Ratio of Latin America’s total foreign debt to U.S. aid that President Bush has pledged to the region for next year: 400:1
1/91Percentage change in sales of the predictions of Nostradamus at Waldenbooks in the month after the Iraqi invasion: +400
11/95Estimated percentage change since 1991 in the number of Brazilian workers engaged in forced labor: +400
6/97Hourly fee paid the “ethics adviser” employed by Kenneth Starr during his first 19 months as Special Prosecutor: $400
11/99Percentage change since 1995 in the number of surgeons worldwide using maggots to cleanse wounds: +400
Percentage change since then in the number of U.S. troop deployments: +400
2/01Percentage change since 1987 in the jellyfish population off Louisiana’s coast: +400
5/02Estimated percentage by which British arms sales to African countries next year will exceed such sales in 1999: 400
5/06Estimated number of Ugandan prisoners who escaped in February while guards celebrated the president’s reelection: 400
4/89Number of babies to whom Volkswagen has given savings bonds, since 1964, for being born in one of its cars: 405
3/01Pounds of marijuana that a private company has been contracted to grow for Canada’s health ministry next year: 407
5/05Average number of Mexicans who have died each year since 2000 trying to cross to the United States: 407
6/89Number of African cichlid fish killed to make a suit worn by John Cleese in a photograph in Playboy last year: 412
Value of the average garden’s yield of fruits and vegetables: $414
9/98Price of a gold-plated crucifix pendant with a built-in alarm, from Britain’s Avon Silversmiths: $414
8/02Average amount by which the price a black American pays for a new car exceeds that paid by a white for the same model: $420
2/06Percentage change since 1996 in the amount that drug companies spend on direct-to-consumer advertising: +420