12/84Percentage of college men who say they might commit rape if there were no chance of being caught: 35
6/86Percentage change in Chrysler’s profit in 1985: -31.3
In Lee Iacocca’s salary and benefits: +35
9/88Number of Salvadorans killed by death squads in 1987: 24
9/88Percentage of Americans who say that El Salvador’s government is a pro-Soviet regime: 35
2/89Price of a one-year subscription to Incurable Romantix, a computerized love-letter service: $35
4/89Portion of U.S. government revenue in 1989 that will come from Social Security taxes: 1/4
Percentage increase in the 1989 U.S. budget deficit if Social Security funds are not counted as revenue: 35
12/89Percentage of American men who say they deal with depression by trying to figure out their problems: 23
Percentage who say they deal with depression by watching television: 35
6/90Number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Territories in the first 3 months of this year: 30
Number killed as “collaborators” by other Palestinians: 35
2/92Percentage increase in appropriations for the Strategic Defense Initiative voted by Congress last November: 35
7/93Hourly wage the Resolution Trust Corporation paid contract workers last year to photocopy documents: $35
4/94Number of movie deals proposed to Nancy Kerrigan in the week after she was assaulted in January: 35
8/95Percentage of Americans who don’t know that Hiroshima was the site of the first atomic-bomb attack: 35
Percentage who believe the attack was ordered by Richard Nixon: 1
1/96Percentage of Americans who favor placing ads on the dollar bill to help cut the deficit or lower taxes: 35
5/96Number of shades of white offered in the new Ralph Lauren paint collection: 35
1/97Percentage change since 1989 in the number of children living in poverty who have at least one working parent: +35
3/01Minimum number of mentally retarded Americans who have been executed by the justice system since 1976: 35
8/02Percentage change last year in the total profits of Fortune 500 pharmaceutical companies: +35
Percentage change in the total profits of all Fortune 500 companies: -54
1/03Minutes that a Massachusetts surgeon left a patient with an open incision in July while he went to deposit a check: 35
2/03Number of years the New York Police Department’s new Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence worked for the CIA: 35
12/04Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion: 35
4/05Percentage of born-again U.S. Christians who have been divorced: 35
Percentage of other Americans who have been: 35
12/05Price in South Africa next year of a latex vaginal insert that latches onto a rapist’s penis and requires surgical removal: 35¢
6/06Percentage change in U.S. discretionary spending during the first five years of George W. Bush’s presidency: +35
Percentage change during Lyndon Johnson’s and Bill Clinton’s first five years, respectively: +25, ‒8
1/07Percentage of their total cost that five audited Iraqi reconstruction projects spent on overhead costs: 35
Average number of months after workers and equipment were ordered to Iraq that substantial work on the projects began: 6
10/07Percentage change in the average amount of food a person will consume when eating with one other person: +35
Percentage change with four or seven others, respectively: +75, +96
12/07Percentage of contributions from members of the U.S. military for 2002 campaigns that went to Democrats: 23
Percentage for 2008 campaigns so far: 35
1/09Percentage of U.S. veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have filed for disability with the VA: 35
Percentage of those burglaries that are committed by a relative or acquaintance of the victim: 36
8/85Percentage of female executives who say that wearing perfume helps a woman’s career: 36
3/86Percentage of all bills Congress passed in 1985 that established commemorative days, weeks, or months: 36
5/87Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest one percent of Americans in 1972: 28
3/88Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 30
Percentage of North America that is: 36
1/89Percentage of book reviewers who say it is ethical to review a book without having finished it: 36
11/90Percentage of hunting injuries in Georgia that are the result of hunters falling out of trees: 36
8/93Percentage change, since 1990, in contributions to congressional campaigns made by health-care industry PACs: +36
1/94Percentage of Russians who believe their country will become more democratic in the next few years: 36
10/96Maximum months of maternity leave Croatia’s new “family values” plan allows an employed, pregnant mother of two: 36
2/97Number of years the mother in the Family Circus cartoon had the same hairstyle before changing it last year: 36
9/97Number of languages taught in U.S. colleges and universities that were not taught there 10 years ago: 36
Number of languages taught 10 years ago that are not taught today: 15
1/98Number of hours a Moscow hotel flew a Microsoft flag within view of Red Square last fall when Bill Gates visited: 36
Number of lunches Gates ate in Moscow that were not from McDonald’s: 0
9/98Percentage of full-time U.S. undergraduates who are over the age of 22: 36
2/99Percentage change since 1997 in the number of South Korean suicides: +36
12/01Percentage change between 1998 and 1999 in the number of women construction workers: +36
9/03Maximum number of miles that Ford’s most fuel-efficient 2003 car can drive on a gallon of gas: 36
2/04Percentage by which health-care spending by an obese American exceeds that by an American of normal weight: 36
Percentage by which health-care spending by a daily smoker exceeds that by a nonsmoker: 21
5/04Days before last year’s invasion of Iraq that Osama bin Laden called Saddam Hussein a “socialist infidel”: 36
8/04Approval rating of Lyndon Johnson in March 1968, the month he announced he would not run for reelection: 36
5/05Percentage of U.S. high-school students who believe news stories should require “government approval” before publication: 36
6/07Percentage of British Muslims aged 16 to 24 who advocate death for Muslims who convert to another faith: 36
Percentage who say they “admire organizations like al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West”: 13
9/86Percentage of jobs created in the United States between 1978 and 1984 that pay less than $9,200 annually: 37
10/86Percentage of men who say their biggest sports thrill would be to get the winning hit in the World Series: 32
12/87Average amount of time a child spends in Santa Claus’s lap at Macy’s (in seconds): 37
3/89Number of the Pentagon’s U.S. suppliers that were bought by foreign-owned companies in the first half of 1988: 37
2/90Percentage of Catholic members of the House who voted last fall to federally fund abortions for rape victims: 37
4/91Percentage increase, since 1988, in the number of American college students who have their own credit card: 37
7/92Percentage of Canadians who expect their country to become a part of the United States in the next 50 years: 37
10/92Percentage of Americans in their 20s who say that corruption is an “important factor in getting ahead”: 37
9/93Number of Shemp Howard’s canceled checks sold this year by Odyssey Group of Corona, California, for $695 apiece: 37
11/94Percentage of Americans who think U.S. military forces should be used to “reinstate democratically elected leaders”: 37
3/95Percentage of Americans who favor returning to “President Reagan’s economic policies of the 1980s”: 37
5/95Number of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays quoted on the Senate floor last year by Robert Byrd: 37
12/95Percentage of Americans convicted on federal drug charges in 1991 who turned informant to reduce their sentence: 19
Percentage of those convicted last year who did so: 37
2/96Percentage of Americans who say that Ronald Reagan was the president who “best personified cool ranch tortilla chips”: 25
Percentage who say that Abraham Lincoln was the president who “best personified pretzel logs”: 37
2/97Number of Shakespeare’s 37 plays that West Virginia senator Robert Byrd has quoted on the Senate floor: 37
7/97Lines of Walt Whitman poetry entered as evidence last year in New York’s dispute with New Jersey over Ellis Island: 37
12/99Percentage of federal nuclear-safety inspectors that the Senate proposed laying off last year: 37
7/00Minimum number of new bacteria species discovered to exist in the human mouth last year: 37
9/02Percentage of U.S. college students who say they would try to evade the draft if one were called today: 37
3/03Minimum number of California concerts canceled since August because of new U.S. visa policies: 37
Number of the 22 Cuban nominees invited to last year’s Latin Grammy Awards unable to attend because of such policies: 22
8/03Percentage of pedestrian fatalities on U.S. roadways last year in which the driver was drunk: 18
Percentage in which the pedestrian was: 37
2/04Rank of the U.S. health-care system among the most efficient in the world, according to the World Health Organization: 37
8/05Percentage of newlywed couples who report having had a physically violent fight in the year before marriage: 37
2/08Percentage of likely Republican voters last October who knew that Rudolph Giuliani was pro-choice: 37
1/09Average percentage of Americans who approved of the job Bush was doing during his second term: 37
2/87Price of a bouquet of wilted, dead, or beheaded flowers at Drop Dead Flowers in New York City: $37.50
12/86Percentage of Americans today who say that being single is “not a fully acceptable lifestyle”: 38
12/94Price of 3,4 ounces of Guilt, a new cologne from The Territory Ahead, a Santa Barbara company: $38
11/86Percentage of Chicago public school teachers who send their children to private or parochial schools: 38
12/86Percentage of female college freshmen who say there should be a law against homosexual relationships: 38
5/88Percentage of Brazilians who favor a return to military government: 38
6/90Percentage of Southern California drivers who say they have made “indecent gestures” at other drivers: 38
4/91Percentage of U.S. taxpayers who pay more in Social Security tax than in federal income tax: 38
8/93Percentage change, since 1980, in the number of people calling themselves “American Indian” on the census: +38
3/96Percentage by which Gingrich’s publisher asked retailers last fall to discount his 1995 book, To Renew America: 38
3/96Percentage of British Members of Parliament who believe that stress is reducing their interest in sex: 38
6/97Percentage increase since 1992 in the amount of overtime wages paid the White House domestic staff: +38
2/99Percentage of local TV news directors who say their stations have been sued for libel since 1995: 38
Percentage who say they have dropped “important information” from a story since then for fear of being sued: 28
8/99Age at death last March of the sturgeon Nikita, Khrushchev’s gift to Norway, after an accidental immersion in salt water: 38
9/00Date by which the Palestinian Authority announced last summer that a Palestinian state would be established: 9/13/00
Percentage of Palestinians who said at the time that they believed this would occur: 38
5/01Average age at which an American believes his or her physical attractiveness peaks: 38
12/01Ratio of businesses to military sites attacked by international terrorists between 1995 and 2000: 38:1
9/02Percentage change since 2000 in the number of awards won by Americans at the World Championship Cheese Contest: +38
5/04Days after Smith & Wesson Holding appointed a chairman last winter that he resigned over old armed-robbery convictions: 38
12/06Number of people the U.S. counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer personally killed last season on the TV show 24: 38
Minutes after the ranking last fall that Norway’s aid minister said Norwegians needed to fight their “culture of whining”: 38
8/08Percentage of U.S. students aged 12 to 17 who say they use text-message slang in their written school assignments: 38
8/08Number of American cities where all regularly scheduled airplane service has been eliminated during the past year: 38
3/09Extra points that a California student added to his GPA last year by hacking into a school computer: 1.9
5/84Percentage of congressmen who believe virtuous living is the path to salvation: 39
11/85Percentage of the 90,000 Latin Americans who have “disappeared” since 1963 who were Guatemalan: 39
6/86Percentage of Americans who say they have never heard the word “yuppie”: 39
4/87Number of times the South Korean government put opposition leader Kim Dae Jung under house arrest in 1986: 39
3/88Number of candidates in the Philippines’ January regional elections who were murdered during the campaign: 39
4/88Percentage of armed conflicts in the twentieth century that were won by the country or faction that started them: 39
8/88Number of twelve-fingered Amish dwarfs in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: 39
11/88Percentage increase in video rentals of Hoosiers on the weekend following Dan Quayle’s acceptance speech: 39
4/89Average number of points a student gains on the math section of the SAT per 100 hours of preparatory classes: 39
1/90Percentage of Americans who said in 1985 that they had never heard the word yuppie: 39
3/90Ratio of U.S. soldiers killed to those wounded in the U.S. invasion of Panama: 1:14
Ratio of Panamanian soldiers killed to those wounded in the invasion: 2:1
Percentage of the Panamanians killed in the invasion who were civilians: 39
6/90Number of people killed by stray bullets in New York City last year: 39
2/92Average number of shopping carts stolen from American supermarkets each hour: 39
1/93Additional electoral votes Bill Clinton would have won if blacks in the South had voted at 1988 levels: 39
10/94Number of years Bob Dole’s health insurance has been paid for by the federal government: 39
1/95Number of states that are under court order to alleviate overcrowding and poor conditions at one or all of their prisons: 39
2/95Number of GAIT signatories that have been cited by the U.S. government for lax child-labor-law enforcement: 39
7/96Gallons of chewing gum scraped up each year by the maintenance crew at the Statue of Liberty: 39
8/99Age at which Elizabeth Dole became a Republican: 39
8/00Percentage of refugees from the Bosnian war who have not returned to their homes since 1995’s peace accord: 39
4/01Percentage of San Francisco Opera employees who claim to have been sickened by theatrical fog or smoke: 39
1/04Estimated percentage of Afghanistan’s GDP last year accounted for by opium exports: 39
2/05Percentage change since March 2002 in total U.S. corporate profits, as valued in dollars: +39
Percentage change as valued in euros: -8
11/06Percentage of Americans who cannot say in which year the September 11 attacks occurred: 30
8/07Percentage of Marines stationed in Iraq who say they agree that “all non-combatants should be treated as insurgents”: 16
Percentage who say they “neither agree nor disagree”: 39
1/09Percentage of Americans in 2006 who believed that U.S. Muslims should have to carry special I.D.: 39
6/84Percentage decrease in television viewing in homes with personal computers: 40
8/84Percentage of Americans who say they have made changes in their lives to “get out of the rat race”: 40
6/85Percentage of New York City children who live below the poverty line: 40
7/85Number of children’s TV shows based on toys in 1983: 14
3/89Estimated number of countries in which foreign aid accounts for more than a quarter of the national budget: 40
11/93Number of hunters who have had their cremated remains loaded into a shotgun shell and shot at an animal: 40
9/87Percentage of the National Security Council’s staff that were military officers in January 1981: 18
6/88Percentage of British citizens who say that Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom: 27
Percentage of political deaths in Northern Ireland, since 1969, that have been caused by the IRA: 40
6/88Percentage of dogs that are overweight: 40
9/88Percentage of all voters who had an unfavorable opinion of George Bush in July 1988: 40
12/88Percentage of child psychologists who advise parents of pre-school children to “confirm Santa’s existence”: 40
3/89Percentage of Iowa farmers who support an independent Palestinian state: 40