7/85Percentage of Americans who say they don’t know how they could get along without Scotch tape: 46
Who say the “bad effects” of credit cards outweigh the good: 46
9/86Percentage of Frosted Flakes eaters who are adults: 46
Percentage today: 46
11/87Total number of hours the Grateful Dead has played “Dark Star” in concert: 46
2/88Percentage increase in fatalities on rural interstates where the speed limit was raised last year: 46
4/92Percentage by which the IRS has determined that the Reagans underreported their income during the 1980: 46
7/92Percentage change, since last year, in the membership of the National Abortion Rights Action League: +46
3/93Percentage of Americans who say that middle age begins when you start worrying about health-care costs: 41
Percentage who say that it begins when you don’t recognize the names of the music groups on the radio: 46
6/94Percentage of Americans who feel they are being “left behind” by technology: 46
Percentage of these who say they don’t care: 16
10/94Number of stories a New York City cat fell last June without sustaining serious injury: 46
Average number of stories a cat must fall before reaching its maximum falling velocity of 60 miles per hour: 5
3/95Percentage of Russians who say they would prefer the government of Leonid Brezhnev to that of Boris Yeltsin: 46
6/95Number of federal agencies whose officers have the authority to carry firearms and make arrests: 46
12/96Percentage of Americans who say that “government” is the biggest obstacle to middle-class prosperity: 28
1/97Percentage of poor, urban fifth-graders in a University of Michigan study who say that they smoke cigarettes: 6
8/97Percentage of Americans who say they’ve never heard of Marv Albert: 46
4/98Percentage of Germans who believe that those who don’t cheat on their taxes “deserve only pity”: 46
11/02Percentage of Latin Americans who said in 1998 that their nation’s privatization of state industries had been beneficial: 46
Percentage who say this today: 35
Percentage of unmarried, cohabiting U.S. couples that are: 41
1/04Minimum number of political parties registered in the United States: 46
Number of them represented in California’s gubernatorial race last year: 6
3/05Number of homosexual penguins found in Japan’s aquariums and zoos last year: 46
Percentage last year: 19
10/05Number of toilet seats at the EU Parliament building in Brussels that a TV station had tested for cocaine: 46
Number that tested positive: 41
9/07Sentence, in months, received by a Veterans Affairs official last year for taking kickbacks on purchases of red tape: 46
10/07Percentage change since 2004 in U.S. immigration to Canada: +46
Percentage change since then in total retail sales in Crawford, Texas: –27
1/88Percentage of U.S. in vitro fertilization clinics that have reported one or more successful pregnancies: 47
1/86Percentage of American men who say they enjoy sex more than money: 47
Percentage of American women who say this: 26
5/88Percentage of 18- to 24-year aids who prefer President Reagan’s hairstyle to Carter’s and Ford’s: 47
6/88Percentage of all sitting federal judges who were appointed by Ronald Reagan: 47
Percentage of Librans who are: 32
3/89Number of mayors in El Salvador who have resigned or been killed since last September: 47
8/89Number of candidates who have declined the job of under secretary for acquisition at the Pentagon this year: 47
11/89Number of times Rajiv Gandhi mentioned his mother or grandfather in an Independence Day speech in August: 47
11/89Percentage decrease, since 1979, in the number of white males applying to U.S. medical schools: 47
2/92Percentage increase, during 1991, in the number of New Hampshire residents receiving food stamps: 47
7/92Percentage of all record sales represented by rock music in 1986: 47
Percentage today: 36
7/93Percentage of Americans who say they would be likely to donate a deceased family member’s organs without permission: 47
12/93Percentage of South African workers who are unemployed: 47
2/94Percentage of all U.S. paperback-book sales accounted for by romance novels: 47
3/94Number of the 61 children murdered in Chicago last year whose mothers first gave birth as teens: 47
2/95Percentage of ob/gyn chief residents graduating each year who have never performed a first-trimester abortion: 47
10/95Number of times the phrase “affirmative action” appears in the text of California’s proposed Civil Rights Initiative: 0
Percentage of Californians favoring the initiative who do not know that it will eliminate affirmative action: 47
3/99Percentage of America’s nuclear power plants that were found to have “serious security lapses” last year: 47
1/01Average age of a new U.S. grandparent in 1999: 47
4/03Percentage change since 1998 in the total promotional spending of U.S. pharmaceutical companies: +47
Percentage change since then in such companies’ average profit per dollar spent on promotion: -24
3/07Estimated percentage of U.S. household spending that is controlled or influenced by children under 14: 47
12/08Percentage of Americans who say they live “paycheck to paycheck”: 47
Percentage of those making over $100,000 per year who say this: 21
5/85Percentage of American astronauts who have experienced motion sickness in space: 48
Percentage who publicly discuss it: 0
7/86Pairs of socks received as gifts by Vice President George Bush: 48
3/89Percentage of Americans who say that pregnant women who smoke or drink should be liable for harm to the fetus: 48
5/89Percentage of American barbequers who combine microwave cooking with outdoor grilling: 48
4/90Number of hours after Charles Stuart’s suicide that the first contract was negotiated for a book about the case: 48
11/91Percentage of Americans who say that the first thing they’ll do when the recession ends is “go out to dinner”: 48
2/92Number of U.N. employees worldwide who are currently detained or imprisoned by their host countries: 48
8/92Percentage of cancer specialists who say they would prescribe marijuana for their patients if it were still legal to do so: 48
8/92Percentage of Americans who say that “there is no chance” they would vote for Clinton in November: 48
2/95Percentage of Americans who favor cutting spending on “government programs for poor children”: 9
2/96Blocks from Lincoln’s tomb that a notice was posted last year warning cabdrivers not to pick up black males: 14
Estimated number of days later that the Lincoln Yellow Cab Company agreed to “monitor” its bulletin board: 48
6/97Percentage of Americans who believe they are more likely to see Elvis Presley than campaign-finance reform: 48
8/97Percentage of Americans earning less than $25,000 a year who believe the President propositioned Paula Jones: 29
Percentage of Americans earning at least $50,000 a year who believe this: 48
12/97Number of Krispy Kreme Doughnut “artifacts” on display at the Smithsonian: 48
12/00Number of American states in which physicians may legally prescribe clean needles to addicts: 48
12/00Percentage of Americans who say they would prefer being executed to serving a life sentence without parole: 48
1/02Percentage of Americans who believe that the theory of human evolution is “probably” or “definitely” not true: 47
Percentage of Americans who believe that the tenets of astrology”probably” or “definitely” have some scientific truth: 48
7/02Number of hours Israeli soldiers in Ramallah broadcast pornography on seven Palestinian television stations in March: 48
12/04Number of states with a Libertarian Party presidential candidate on the ballot last month: 48
4/05Percentage of U.S.-born Mexican Americans who have suffered from some psychological disorder: 48
Percentage of Mexican immigrants who have: 29
5/06Percentage of South Korean youth who say their country should back North Korea in the event of war with the U.S.: 48
2/07Percentage of Baghdad’s Shiites who say that all U.S. forces should leave Iraq within six months: 32
Percentage who want a withdrawal on a one-year timeline: 48
Percentage who say forces should be reduced even more gradually, as the “security situation improves”: 0
3/07Percentage of U.S. voters who said in December that “America’s best days” were “in the past”: 48
7/85Percentage of high school students who believe the president can declare a law unconstitutional: 49
7/87Number named Independence: 49
9/87Average age of federal judges appointed by President Reagan: 49
10/87Percentage of black Republicans who are under 30: 49
1/89Percentage of Israeli Jews who favor transferring all Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: 49
10/90Percentage increase, since last year, in the number of traffic accidents in East Germany: 49
Percentage who think this today: 49
11/91Percentage of Americans over 60 who say that spandex clothing is “in”: 49
5/92Percentage of Americans who believe that news coverage of the economy has had a “negative effect” on it: 49
2/94Number of undelivered invitations to Clinton’s Inaugural discovered in an Arkansas warehouse in December: 49
11/94Total number of photographs of Kate Moss in the September issues of Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar: 49
11/94Percentage of American women who say their car is “more reliable” than most men they know: 49
7/96Percentage of American voters who say “there is no chance whatsoever” that they will vote for Bob Dole: 49
12/96Percentage of Americans who believe that the government is concealing evidence of alien visitations: 49
11/02Average number of hours that the calories consumed in an American’s Thanksgiving Day meal could power a 27” TV: 49
7/04Percentage of deaths due to terrorism last year that took place in South Asia: 49
Percentage who say he is a “divider”: 49
11/05Number of out-of-town men who posted to New Orleans ’s Craigslist site seeking refugee women: 49
8/07Cost per minute last spring for callers to the Vienna public library to have literary erotica read to them: 49¢
1/08Percentage of New Jersey residents who say they would like to move out of the state: 49
Percentage who aren’t sure whether they would or not: 7
8/89Amount a Florida mother is seeking in a suit against a teenager who stood up her daughter for a prom date: $49.53
4/96Price of Well … There You Go Again, a new CD-ROM collection of the witticisms of Ronald Reagan: $49.95
11/00Price of a copulating turkey decoy, designed to flush fowl inflamed with territorial jealousy: $49.99
6/84Number of people who have applied for the job of executioner in New Jersey: 50
11/84Percentage decrease-in the cost of seven ounces of Beluga Imperial caviar, from 1982 to 1983: 50
11/84Percentage of nuts that squirrels lose because they forget where they put them (according to Beatrix Potter): 50
12/84Percentage of U.S. car owners who keep maps in their glove compartments: 50
8/03Average number of micrograms by which replicas of the international reference-kilogram cylinder now exceed it in mass: 50
5/86Percentage of Costa Ricans who say that Nicaragua interferes “too much” in Costa Rica’s internal affairs: 40
Percentage who say that the United States interferes too much: 50
4/87Fine for burning a cross without a permit in Charlotte, North Carolina: $50
6/87Number of feet separating President Reagan from reporters as he walks from the White House to his helicopter: 50
Number of feet that separated President Carter from reporters: 2
7/87Amount Dennis Levine earns each month working on the maintenance crew at Lewisburg Federal Prison: $50
8/87Percentage increase in South Africa’s 1988 defense budget: 30
9/87Percentage of U.S. hospitals that have applied for patents on inventions using human tissues and cells: 50
9/87Total number of vetoes cast by the United States in the U.N. Security Council: 50
Number of vetoes that have been cast by the Soviet Union since 1980: 2
1/88Percentage of children age 4 or younger living in Israel and the occupied territories who are Arab: 50
4/88Number of states that claim test scores in their elementary schools are above the national average: 50
5/88Percentage of Americans who think that “many problems” are beyond President Reagan’s grasp: 50
10/88Ratio of G.I. Joe dolls to American G.I.s: 50:1
12/88Percentage of doctors who say they would reject an unmarried woman’s request for artificial insemination: 50
3/89Percentage of Americans who watch television during dinner: 50
4/89Average cost per square foot to dig a wine cave in California: $50
5/89Estimated number of galleries that have exhibited paintings and prints by Tony Bennett in the last eight years: 50
10/89Percentage of job applicants to the Houston Police Department who say they have used marijuana: 50
Average age today: 26
2/90Percentage decrease, since 1979, in the number of professorships in American studies in Britain: 50
2/90Percentage of the song dedications that deejay Casey Kasem reads on the air that he says choke him up: 50
4/90Percentage of two-income families whose income would drop below the poverty line if the wife did not work: 50
5/90Estimated percentage increase in handgun sales in South Africa since President de Klerk legalized the ANC: 50
11/90Number of U.S. states that dispose of hazardous waste in another state: 50
7/91Percentage change, since last year, in the number of Americans unemployed for longer than six months: +50
12/91Estimated number of regions worldwide that have declared themselves independent or autonomous since 1989: 50
4/92Number of FBI agents who will be reassigned this year from counter-intelligence to investigations of health-care fraud: 50
11/92Percentage change in housing prices near Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reactor since its cleanup began in 1989: +50
12/92Number of Japanese tour groups scheduled to visit the new Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota, this year: 50
4/93Percentage change, since 1991, in the number of New York Times stories mentioning Elvis: +50
7/93Percentage change, since 1983, in the number of listings under “housekeeping” in the New York City yellow pages: +50
9/94Number of Civil War battlefields within a 50-mile radius of the proposed site of Disney’s America historical theme park: 50
10/94Percentage of Americans who say “nothing the U.S. could accomplish in Haiti would be worth the life of one U.S. soldier”: 50
5/95Ratio of federal spending on foreign aid last year to federal spending on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: 50:1
6/96Number of contestants in the Championship Race for Riding Lawn Mowers, held in Rockford, Illinois, last June: 50
1/97Rank of Texas, the state with the least generous welfare program, among states with the highest adolescent birth rate: 2
Rank of North Dakota, the state with the most generous program: 50
11/97Number of Thanksgiving turkeys granted a presidential pardon since 1947: 50
11/98Portion of the $19.98 price of a video of President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination that goes to the Zapruder family: 1/5
Percentage by which Abraham Zapruder underreported his initial profits from the film to the Warren Commission in 1964: 50
11/98Price a Houston company charges for sending a DNA sample into outer space for possible cloning by aliens: $50
7/99Percentage of the people living in France during the French Revolution who spoke French: 50
10/99Minimum number of TV markets in which last August’s FCC vote will allow networks to own more than one station: 50
Days after the FCC vote that a TV executive told the [NewYorkTimes|New York Times that he was eager to play the “duopoly game”: 1
12/99Percentage change in the number of Israelis living on the West Bank since the signing of 1993’s Oslo peace accords: +50
1/00Percentage of the French government’s 1788 expenditures that went to support the court at Versailles: 6
Percentage that went to finance war debt resulting from France’s support of the colonies in the American Revolution: 50
2/01Estimated percentage of U.S. Army troops deployed in Bosnia who will be replaced by National Guardsmen in 2002: 50
6/01Age range in which a heterosexual U.S. man is most likely to acknowledge having once had a homosexual experience: 50-65
9/01Amount the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, police began offering high-school students this year to inform on their classmates: $50
11/01Percentage of Manhattan’s population killed during the cholera epidemic of 1832: 50
4/02Price that a Canadian firm charges for a ten-inch cement “Garden Liberal” resembling Prime Minister Jean Chretien: $50
8/02Percentage of Afghans who will “soon” get AIDS if adulterous women are not jailed, according to a government deputy: 50
11/02Percentage of U.S. college students who believe the “next Bill Gates” is among today’s generation of college students: 50
Percentage who say they are the next Bill Gates: 24
3/04Minimum number of nuclear weapons in the oceans as a result of U.S. and Soviet accidents: 50
4/04Percentage discount that Lesotho’s prostitutes offered truckers in 2002 who used a condom: 50
10/04Days a House committee postponed July hearings on antidepressants while its chair considered a pharmaceutical-lobbyist job: 50
10/04Ratio of the minimum number of beheadings by the Saudi government last year to those by Saudi terrorists so far this year: 50:1