7/84Amount of aid to EI Salvador proposed by the Reagan Administration, per guerrilla: $30,000
9/84Butlers in Britain before World War II: 30,000
7/88Bounty that drug smugglers are rumored to have put on Barco, a U.S. Border Patrol drug-sniffing dog: $30,000
3/89Number of babies conceived in the United States last year with sperm from an anonymous donor: 30,000
5/99Estimated number of deaths for which Kurd rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is accused of being responsible: 30,000
1/07Number of Orthodox Israelis who subscribe to one rabbinically approved cell-phone service: 30,000
Average amount by which “kosher”-to-“kosher” calls are cheaper per minute than calls to non-plan numbers: 3¢
1/05Total number of cats that entered the Cat Fanciers’ Association 2004 “Best Cat in Championship” competition: 31,899
Points by which a cat named Colin Powell defeated the runner-up: 114.35
12/88Average salary and benefits of workers in American industries in which the number of jobs is increasing: $22,000
Average salary and benefits of workers in American industries in which the number of jobs is decreasing: $32,000
8/91Pounds of opium stockpiled by the U.S. Defense Department to treat radiation sickness: 32,000
9/92Estimated number of Tupperware parties and demonstrations held each day, worldwide: 32,000
10/01Ratio of Oregon rainfall in April 2000 to rainfall last April after a Native American tribe held a rain ceremony there: 2:3
Amount the tribe subsequently billed an Oregon power company for costs associated with the ceremony: $32,000
8/94Number of federal workers employed full-time this year to manage national-security documents: 32,397
9/91Number of children admitted to hospital emergency rooms last year for injuries involving shopping carts: 32,866
10/89Amount paid at auction last year for the hat worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz: $33,000
9/90Estimated amount the national debt will increase in the time it takes to read this line: $33,000
8/86Number of rescues made by lifeguards on Southern California beaches in 1985: 33,278
7/95Weight, in pounds, of an apple pie baked by students at Spokane Community College last July: 33,500
12/90Members of the Christian Motorcyclists Association: 33,805
4/91Number of beagles used in radiation research that the Department of Energy will bury in a toxic-waste dump in 1991: 850
12/91Value Lloyd’s of London has placed on a Viking turd owned by England’s Archaeological Resource Centre: $34,000
12/91Amount the city of Montreal will spend this year on a rest room for dogs in William Bowie Park: $34,000
1/96Change since 1994 in the number of antidepressant prescriptions filled each day for managed-care patients: +34,542
1/05Phone number of The G.I. Rights Hotline, a nongovernmental service for U.S. military personnel: 800-394-9544
Estimated number of calls the line received last year from soldiers seeking a way out of the military: 34,800
11/95Average amount a current member of Congress has received from telecommunications-industry PACs since 1985: $34,942
5/95Price of a floral dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in her last film, from Norma’s Jeans of Maryland: $35,000
2/99Amount a fourth-grade Denver class has raised since last March to buy and free Sudanese slaves: $35,000
9/01Price of Bob Dylan’s high-school essay on The Grapes of Wrath, from a New York City collectibles dealer: $35,000
5/06Maximum number of Africans brought to America in any single year during the trans-Atlantic slave trade: 35,000
6/06Minimum amount that a Massachusetts special-ed teacher received in donations from 2003 to 2005 by faking cancer: $35,000
5/07Amount the British military spent in 2002 researching whether psychics could find terrorist hideouts: $35,000
Chance that a psychic it tested could, blindfolded, identify some portion of the contents of a sealed envelope: 1 in 3
7/00Amount the U.S. government spent on drug testing per employee who tested positive between 1997 and 1998: $35,222
2/93Miles of bad checks written by Americans each year: 35,500
1/00Acres of hemp grown by “patriotic” U.S. farmers in 1942 at the behest of the U.S. government: 36,000
2/95Total amount the U.S. government earned last year through the auctioning of Aldrich Ames’s possessions: $36,400
10/91Number of tabs of LSD confiscated at a series of Grateful Dead concerts in Landover, Maryland, in March: 36,442
6/04Number of Library of Congress book collections it would take to hold the data created worldwide in 2002: 36,764
8/98Truckloads of nuclear waste the Department of Energy plans to begin driving to New Mexico for storage this year: 37,000
Number of highway accidents the DOE estimates these shipments will be involved in through the year 2033: 50
3/04Fine paid by two of John Ashcroft’s PACs for breaking campaign-finance laws during the 2000 election cycle: $37,000
3/95Average amount of his Social Security and Medicare taxes a single 30-year-old man will never receive in benefits: $37,200
Average amount in excess of his Social Security and Medicare taxes a single 65-year-old man will receive: $35,200
4/05Amount a Nebraska man made this year by auctioning his forehead to advertisers: $37,375
9/06Number of Chinese illegals who have been caught by the United States but China has so far refused to take back: 39,000
4/05Price of an original Picasso drawing sold in January on Costco.com: $39,999.99
1/89Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class: $40,000
2/92Number of people who attended the sentencing to death of 35 convicted drug dealers in China last August: 40,000
11/95Number of illegal Vietnamese immigrants the German government plans to deport over the next five years: 40,000
1/98Number of Fiat owners Paris police were ordered last fall to question in connection with Princess Diana’s death: 40,000
12/98Maximum amount that the Canadian government has agreed to spend on a soldier’s sex-change operation: $40,000
2/02Estimated number of appendectomies performed each year on Americans without appendicitis: 40,000
3/07Minimum number of hits received each month by the GM website Hummerkids.com: 40,000
2/09Price for one D.C. hotel’s “Eco-Inaugural” package, which includes use of a Lexus hybrid and a driver for four days: $40,000
3/09Number of days in November that a family farm near Denver opened up its fields for free picking: 1
Number of people who showed up: 40,000
3/09Estimated total, in pounds, of explosives dropped by Israel on Gaza during the first week of this winter’s attack: 40,000
Estimated total fired into Israel by Palestinians last year: 40,000
6/84Market value of labor performed annually by the average American housewife: $40,288.04
3/97Federal funds spent since last October to gild Newt Gingrich’s office ceiling, gold excluded: $40,400
1/85Number of pedestrians issued summonses for jaywalking in New York City in 1983: 517
1/06Average height gain, in inches, of adolescents who use human growth hormone over five and a half years: 2
Cost per inch that represents: $41,000
12/94Price paid at auction this year for Elvis Presley’s American Express card: $41,500
4/04Average amount a Bush Cabinet member will save this year due to cuts in capital-gains and dividend taxes: $42,000
8/05Number of corpses shipped on Delta Air Lines last year: 42,175
4/88Number of garages in Los Angeles that are used as homes: 42,300
8/02Number of round-trips to the sun represented by the world’s outstanding frequent-flyer miles: 42,500
1/89Number of Americans who have a lifetime subscription to Reader’s Digest: 43,000
8/08Number of U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003 after being deemed medically “non-deployable”: 43,000
9/99Amount the Bush campaign spent for one day’s use of a plot of land near the entrance to last month’s Iowa straw poll: $43,500
12/08Minimum number of properties the U.S. government was forced to buy as part of the S&L bailout: 43,640
Number of churches and athletic clubs, respectively, that this purchase included: 3, 27
8/92Years it would take a Nike worker in Indonesia to earn Michael Jordan’s endorsement fee: 44,492
5/88Average number of homeless people in New York City shelters and welfare hotels each day in 1987: 28,000
Estimated number of vacant New York City apartments that landlords kept off the market during 1987: 45,000
10/01Amount of campaign contributions that Sen. James Jeffords has returned since leaving the Republican Party in May: $17,470
Estimated amount of new contributions he has received since then: $45,000
Percentage by which this exceeds the seating capacity of Wrigley Field: 14
1/09Minimum number of copies sold, since it was released in 2006, of Flipping Houses for Dummies: 45,000
3/03Minimum number of local activists the Denver police department has gathered information on since the 1950s: 3,200
Amount the department spent in 2000 to put these names in an internal database: $45,800
12/91Acres of land on the West Bank seized by the Israeli government since the peace process began last March: 46,000
3/94Number of Ukrainians who have joined the Communist Party since the ban on it was lifted last October: 46,000
9/98Estimated number of American senior citizens who played tackle football last year: 47,000
8/00Amount New Jersey’s Camden police spent on riot gear in preparation for Philadelphia’s GOP convention: $47,775
10/99Legal fees paid by Princess Diana’s memorial fund this year to stop the Franklin Mint’s sale of Diana souvenirs: $48,000
2/06Number of people whom Coalition forces have imprisoned in Iraq at some point since March 2003: 48,526
3/89Total length of all roads built during the Roman Empire, in miles: 49,000
8/91Amount David Eilers, a 15-year-old Atlanta resident, earned last year from his lawn-mowing service: $49,000
6/93Estimated total number of couples married in group ceremonies by Reverend Sun Myung Moon since 1960: 49,132
Of a female Columbia University MBA: $40,022
8/93Average value of the goods and services produced each year by a full-time Japanese worker: $38,200
Average value of the goods and services produced each year by a full-time American worker: $49,600
8/98Amount British Nuclear Fuels paid the British Scouts last year to add its logo to their scientist badge: $49,776
6/89Amount Du Pont contributed to the new National Plastic Museum in Leominster, Massachusetts: $50,000
9/91Value of the prizes won by Tom Sedivy of California, in the 95 radio call-in contests he won last year: $50,000
11/93Amount the Louisiana Campaign Finance Office has earned on sales of David Duke’s 1991 campaign-contributors list: $50,000
3/94Number of condoms that will be distributed in Volusia County, Florida, during spring break this year: 50,000
6/94Membership of the Arcigola Slow Food Movement, a group founded in Italy to protest the proliferation of fast food: 50,000
7/96Number of cards on exhibit at the Business Card Museum in Erdenheim, Pennsylvania: 50,000
1/97Number of Bill Clinton Waffles a California bakery has sold since their introduction last September: 50,000
5/98Amount for which a Missouri inmate offered to sell one of his organs last winter to pay legal fees: $50,000
10/98Number of assault weapons the Defense Department gave away to foreign governments last year: 50,000
Number of grenade launchers: 10,000
9/99Number of millennia before humans first farmed that farmer ants were farming the spongy fungus on which they feed: 50,000
1/00Estimated number of non-native species that have entered the North American ecosystem since 1500: 50,000
2/02Estimated number of acres of Civil War battlefield that were lost to development last year: 50,000
4/02Fine paid by Neil Bush in 1991 after federal regulators found him guilty of “ethical lapses”: $50,000
Minimum number of violations for which the Securities and Exchange Commission cited George W. Bush in the same year: 4
6/02Number of books to which a national reading program has assigned points that students can accumulate for rewards: 50,000
Points assigned to Tom Clancy’s Executive Orders and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, respectively: 78, 40
2/05Number of Britons who have signed a declaration stating they will disobey any ban on fox hunting: 50,000
Number of foxes eaten by a British performance artist to protest the protests of the proposed ban: 2
4/05Average age of a Bay Area career-day audience this year to which a speaker touted stripping as a profession: 13
7/05Total value of bets taken by a U.K. bookmaker this spring on the identity of the new pope: £50,000
5/07Denomination in rials of Iran’s new largest banknote, which features a nuclear-power symbol on its back: 50,000
2/94Number of parking tickets given to former Soviet embassy employees in Washington, D.C., that remain unpaid: 50,693
12/05Estimated number of U.S. abortions that were prevented in 2000 through use of the morning-after pill: 51,000
5/85U.S. military aid to El Salvador since 1980, per guerrilla: $52,300
5/04Federal funds given last September to a group organizing the recall of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez: $53,400
7/87Number of cars exported to Japan by West Germany in 1986: 53,916
By the United States: 2,345
5/06Average number of Africans who have legally emigrated to the United States each year since 2000: 55,000
10/97Estimated number of cans of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup spilled on a San Diego interstate last February: 55,800
6/01Estimated number of blank ballots cast in protest during Israel’s national election in February: 56,000
Days before the election that the Israeli supreme court rejected a request that blank ballots be counted: 4
11/98Votes cast in an Oklahoma Democratic Senate primary last August for a candidate who had died a month earlier: 56,393
10/95Average amount Americans contributed to the U.S. Treasury each day to help reduce the national debt: $56,743
6/95Number of times an Akron radio station played “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” between August and October last year: 57,161
5/04Median household income a pair of U.S. single mothers would have if they married each other: $40,568
9/92Number of people who attended the World Grits Festival, held in St. George, South Carolina, last spring: 60,000
10/92Average annual salary Zabar’s delicatessen in New York City pays lox slicers with at least ten years’ experience: $60,000
2/95Number of marijuana plants for which a grower may be sentenced to death under the crime bill passed last fall: 60,000
6/95Copies of the premier issue of the Russian-language edition of Cosmopolitan sold in Russia last summer: 60,000
3/97Amount the Library of Congress spent last year to create a braille edition of Playboy: $60,000
2/98Estimated gallons of jet fuel required to send Al Gore to Kyoto’s Global Warming Conference last December: 60,000
4/99Estimated attendance at a rally for debt relief for poor countries held outside Britain’s 1998 G-7 summit: 60,000
10/01Number of “useless laws” that Italy’s new prime minister promised to eliminate if elected: 60,000
9/03Estimated number of soccer balls the U.S. government sent Iraq this summer to help “bring life back to normal”: 60,000
8/00Number of leaf-cutter ants required to lift a 10-pound picnic basket: 60,133
8/89Amount an unemployed graduate is seeking in a consumer-fraud suit against Goddard College: $61,500
10/95Amount an auditor estimated last year that Oregon could save each year by feeding prisoners less food: $62,000
4/00Age in years of the first baby born in Denmark last January, according to the hospital’s computer: 100
Number of Americans who are at least this old: 62,000
4/85Number of manufacturing jobs New England has gained since 1982: 64,650
8/97Estimated number of former Nazi SS officers or their dependents receiving a pension from the German government: 65,000
Number of them who live in the U.S.: 3,377
2/04Number of disabled Californians whose home aid Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to eliminate: 65,000
3/09Number of exotic marine animals that a new Dubai hotel keeps in its 3 million gallons of decorative tanks: 65,000
6/05Number of merit badges in Safety awarded to Boy Scouts since 2001: 15,417
Number in Shotgun Shooting: 65,249
5/08Number of Silicon Valley workers earning between $30,000 and $80,000 who have lost their jobs since 2002: 62,000
9/02Minimum number of U.S. companies, individuals, and organizations that are licensed to possess radioactive material: 67,000
2/02Pages of Reagan White House archives to be kept from the public indefinitely by order of President Bush last October: 68,000
10/07Number of copies Pope Benedict XVI’s book Jesus of Nazareth has sold in the United States: 68,000
Estimated number of pieces of silver that could be bought with the royalties: 21,250
8/87Amount the Tobacco Institute donated to underwrite the antidrug booklet Helping Youth Say No: $70,000
9/93Number of East Germans who have joined Weight Watchers since 1990: 70,000
12/02Number of names on the State Department’s list of “suspected terrorists”: 70,000
11/02Number of Australians who listed “Jedi” as their religious affiliation on the country’s 2001 census: 70,509
11/95Price Fiji began charging this year for guaranteed citizenship to each Hong Kong resident who wishes to move there: $70,970
3/89Amount antique dealer Malcolm Willits received from the sale of six secondhand Oscars in the last year: $71,740
3/09Minimum number of U.S. homeowners whose banks improved their mortgage terms in the first quarter of last year: 73,000
Percentage of them who were a month or more behind on their payments six months after the relief: 55
1/94Amount the Miami tourist bureau will spend this year on public-relations “crisis management”: $75,000
9/94Amount Wayne Newton spent last year refurbishing his pet penguins’ pond on his Nevada ranch: $75,000
11/97Factor by which Forbes magazine’s estimate of the net worth of Russia’s security chief exceeds his own: 75,000
10/98Number of calls made last year to the Social Security Administration’s fraud hotline: 75,000
Amount recovered as a result: $55,900
2/90Amount a federal legal-aid program spent last year on a legal brief arguing that the program was unconstitutional: $77,000
8/89Pounds of toxic chemicals released during each space-shuttle launch: 77,000