4/00Total return on a dollar invested in the “socially responsible” Domini 400 Social Index in 1990: $5.75
3/84Strategic minerals supplied by the Soviet Union to the United States: 6
8/84Number of South African athletes who have changed their citizenship in order to compete in the 1984 Olympics: 6
8/84Number of the six highest-grossing films that were made by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, or both: 6
8/84Percentage of the sexual acts depicted or referred to on prime-time TV that are between married partners: 6
1/85Number of the top ten military contractors that have paid no federal income taxes since 1981: 6
7/85Percentage of all money spent by American tourists in Britain in 1984 that was spent at Harrods: 6
9/88Average number of months that an American spends waiting for red lights to change, in the course of a lifetime: 6
10/92Number of times the National Geographic Society has revised its world map in the last six months: 6
5/86Number of banks in the West that are owned by the Soviet Union: 6
12/86Average number of fund-raising dinners held each night in Beverly Hills: 6
7/87Total amount of time Maj. Gen. Richard Secord has spent in Central America (in hours): 6
8/87Hours that Leave It to Beaver is on the air each week in Des Moines: 6
3/88Value of a B-1 bomber’s weight in silver, expressed as a percentage of an actual bomber’s cost: 6
4/88Estimated ratio of youth gang members to police officers in Los Angeles: 6:1
9/88Number of months it took Ronald Reagan to read Mikhail Gorbachev’s book Perestroika: 6
10/88Percentage of Americans earning less than $15,000 a year who say they have achieved the American Dream: 5
Percentage of Americans earning more than $50,000 a year who say this: 6
11/88Number of special-interest tax breaks in the Republican party platform that would benefit the oil industry: 6
11/88Members of Congress who have sent condolence letters to the families of the victims of the Iranian airliner crash: 6
10/89Number of states in which there are at least as many registered black voters as registered white voters: 6
10/89Estimated number of speeches Oliver North would have to give to earn the $150,000 he was fined in July: 6
2/90Ratio of U.S. emergency aid received by the Colombian military to aid received by the Colombian police last fall: 6:1
Ratio of the cocaine seized by the Colombian military to cocaine seized by the Colombian police in 1988: 1:4
3/90Number of shades of artificial blood sold by Cinema Secrets, a special-effects company in Burbank, California: 6
6/90Pages of guidelines the New York City Transit Authority sent to a Boy Scout who wanted to clean a subway station: 6
8/90Ratio of reported rape victims with incomes of less than $3,000 to those with incomes of more than $15,000: 6:1
11/90Price of a set of “RN” golf balls from the gift shop at the Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California: $6
1/91Number of months a U.S. soldier can function effectively in the Saudi desert, according to the U.S. Army: 6
6/91Number of U.S. city governments that have extended employee health benefits to unmarried “domestic partners”: 6
7/91Number of years a University of South Florida engineering professor has studied the crunching of potato chips: 6
4/92Ratio of the number of fan letters Mary Pickford received in 1919 to the number Madonna received last year: 6:1
Number of states in which it has been found: 6
7/92Ratio of the federal dollars spent last year on S&L and bank bailouts to federal dollars spent on welfare: 6:1
9/92Number of the ten most populous states in which suburbanites constitute a majority: 6
11/92Price of attending a one-night Howl-In at Wolf Haven in Tenino, Washington: $6
3/93Number of times during the transition that Bill Clinton was quoted in the New York Times using the word “stuff”: 6
9/93Number of former U.S. Trade Office employees hired by private companies since 1989 to lobby for NAFTA: 6
1/94Number of Kuwaiti human-rights groups permanently banned last August by the Kuwaiti government: 6
1/94Ratio of copies of The Age of Innocence sold in 1993 to the total number sold during the 1980s: 6:1
6/94Number of dues-paying members of the Osaka, Japan, chapter of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Fan Club: 6
8/94Number of watermelon varieties that are registered trademarks: 6
9/94Days after Nicole Simpson was murdered that her home was included on L.A.’s Grave Line celebrity-death tour: 6
11/94Pounds of feed forced down a duck’s throat each day in the last month of its life in order to produce foie gras: 6
2/95Average amount of fat consumed by an American adult each week, expressed in sticks of butter: 6
3/95Ratio of the number of black teenagers citing violence as their school’s biggest problem to those citing racism: 6:1
9/95Weeks after his appointment last fall that Mexico’s former secretary of education admitted he had no college degree: 6
9/95Hours it took six residents of a Washington town to renovate a local intersection after waiting ten years for the state to do it: 6
10/95Number of Wal-Mart plastic owls a NASA employee bought last May to protect the space shuttle from woodpeckers: 6
11/95Change since September 1994 in the percentage of Americans who say they have no opinion of Bill Clinton: +6
12/95Number of California driver’s licenses made out to Jesus Christ: 6
Number made out to Jesus Christ II: 1
1/96Number of classes in popular culture taught at the Smithsonian last summer by the PR director of People magazine: 6
2/96Number of times Ringo Starr’s Private Issue credit-card ad ran during last year’s six-hour Beatles documentary: 6
4/96Ratio of congressional hearings devoted to Whitewater since last July to those devoted to Medicaid or Medicare: 6:1
4/96Yards by which a failed suicide missed a rowboating psychiatrist after jumping off a California bridge last year: 6
8/96Maximum number of months humanity could survive without invertebrates: 6
11/96Number of checks from tobacco lobbyists that Ohio Rep. John Boehner handed out on the House floor last year: 6
11/96Number of years Bob Dole’s paternal grandparents were on welfare: 6
6/97Weeks after giving birth last February that Michael Jackson’s wife returned to work as his plastic surgeon’s assistant: 6
12/98Years in prison to which a former CIA agent was sentenced last fall for attempting to extort $1 million from the agency: 5
2/99Number of Jeopardy! championships won by freshman Democratic Representative Rush Holt: 6
6/99Hours before NATO began bombing Kosovo in March that NPR aired its last e-mail from a 16-year-old Albanian girl there: 6
9/99Number of CDs of inspirational and patriotic music for which Senator Orrin Hatch has composed the lyrics: 6
10/99Weeks after Pakistan vowed last July to rid a disputed territory of Pakistani rebels that India downed one of its planes: 6
10/99Hours after the Woodstock riots last summer that a participant told a reporter he couldn’t wait to see them on TV: 6
12/99Days before Time Warner’s Fortune Global Forum opened in China last fall that China banned Time’s special China issue: 6
12/99Percentage who say they would vote for Donald Trump for president over Al Gore or George W. Bush: 5
2/00Maximum range at which China North Industries’ new “portable laser disturber” can “injure or dizzy the eyes,” in miles: 6
2/00Days after Ukraine reopened a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl last November that a water leak forced a shutdown: 6
2/00Years after 1993’s Baby Jessica custody ruling that both her birth parents and her adoptive parents filed for divorce: 6
4/00Factor by which combined U.S. individual charitable donations in 1998 exceeded those of foundations and corporations: 6
7/00Number of months after severe floods hit India last October that the country suffered severe drought: 6
11/00Minimum number of chromosomal regions proposed as sites for the tendency toward schizophrenia: 6
1/01Number of last year’s top ten soft-money donors that contributed to both major parties: 6
2/01Rank of assertiveness among qualities the American Psychological Association cites as most common to great presidents: 6
Rank of intellectual brilliance: 1
8/01Number of domestic U.S. military target-practice sites that are closer to populated areas than the one on Vieques: 6
4/02Days earlier than in 1970 that Washington, D.C., cherry blossoms now bloom: 6
4/02Number of the 31 U.S. senators facing reelection this year for whom no challenger has yet been recruited: 6
6/02Years U.S. Latin American policy adviser Otto Reich was a lobbyist for Mobil Oil before his appointment in January: 6
Years into his ambassadorship that he was cited for creating illegal “covert propaganda” in the Iran-Contra scandal: 1
Days after April’s Venezuelan coup that he attributed his ignorance of events there to an “information blackout”: 4
6/02Number of reformist daily newspapers in Iran: 6
6/02Number of the seven U.S. vetoes cast in the U.N. Security Council since 1990 that have blocked censures of Israel: 6
7/02Percentage of Americans who would sign away their right to sue the maker of a pill that could make part of their body bigger: 3
Percentage who say they would do so for the maker of a pill that could make part of their body smaller: 6
8/02Number of months in jail to which one can be sentenced for discussing politics without a permit in Zimbabwe: 6
10/02Number of the last six U.S. presidents who bested their opponents in the company’s election-year Halloween mask sales: 6
1/03Number of states that use nonpartisan commissions to draw new congressional districts: 6
3/03Percentage points by which wearing a swimsuit increased the average math test score among men in a Michigan study: 4
10/03Months before September 11, 2001, that Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force investigated Iraq’s oil resources: 6
1/04Inches by which the Eiffel Tower shrinks in winter: 6
2/04Ratio of the number of bias crimes against Jews to those against Muslims reported in the U.S. in 2002: 6:1
3/04Maximum prison sentence in months for causing the death of a U.S. worker by willfully violating federal safety regulations: 6
4/04Number of countries whose technologies are suspected of having contributed to Pakistan’s nuclear program: 6
Number of countries that have received Pakistani nuclear technology: 4
6/04Number of countries in which the average life expectancy was less than 40 in 2002: 6
9/04Percentage of New York City residents it would take to fill every inch of pavement in midtown Manhattan: 6
9/05Number of chickens trained by European scientists to choose between photos of human faces by pecking: 6
10/05Number of terrorist acts that one song by the Houston-based rapper Arabic Assassin describes him committing: 4
Months he worked as a baggage screener at George Bush Intercontinental Airport before being fired in July: 6
10/05Months that a Louisiana state judge was suspended for wearing an Afro wig and blackface to a Halloween party last year: 6
12/05Minimum number of insurgent attacks in Iraq since November 2003 using explosive-carrying dogs or donkeys: 6
2/06Percentage of Americans who say that fighting terrorism should be one of the nation’s top two priorities: 6
4/06Ratio, in the United States, of antiabortion “pregnancy centers” to abortion clinics: 6:1
3/07Number of anti-Zionist Orthodox rabbis who appeared at Iran’s conference to “discuss” the Holocaust last December: 6
9/07Number of U.S. states that have added pets to their domestic-violence laws: 6
Rank of “buckethead”: 6
5/08Factor by which a gay U.S. college student is more likely to attempt suicide than a straight one: 2
7/08Minimum number of U.S. cities that have shortened the yellow light on traffic signals to under the legal limit: 6
1/09Months before September 11, 2001, that Cheney’s Energy Task Force investigated Iraq’s oil resources: 6
10/04Seconds by which this year’s winner of the men’s Olympic 400-meter dash was faster than the winner of the women’s: 5.81
8/04Number of years a judge ordered a man convicted of cocaine possession last spring to keep a coffin in his home: 6.5
2/06Average amount it costs U.S. companies to process a query through a call center: $6.62
2/92Average level of testosterone in the saliva of male trial lawyers, in nanograms per deciliter: 6.7
8/96Minimum length the European Committee for Standardization set for condoms this year, in inches: 6.7
4/00Estimated tons of PCBs that General Electric has leaked into the Hudson River since 1977’s ban on dumping the toxin: 6.8
6/84Percentage of the U.S. population that ate at McDonald’s each day last year: 7
8/84Most books on the New York Times best-seller list at one time edited by a single editor (Michael Korda): 7
6/85Copies of Bride’s bought by the magazine’s average reader: 7
10/91Number of years that it would take to execute every American on death row, at a rate of one execution per day: 7
3/86Number of Russians who subscribe to the New York Times: 7
5/86Lifespan of a sidewalk tree in New York City (in years): 7
6/86Number of people who have barreled over Niagara Falls and survived: 7
5/87Number of the 15 novels on the New York Times March 15 best-seller list with the word “of” in the title: 7
Number of guards in New York City jails who committed suicide in 1986: 7
1/90Points by which President Reagan’s approval rating went up after he was shot in 1981: 7
5/90Number of dating services created in Magdeburg, East Germany, since last November: 7
Average percentage today: 7
6/91Percentage of Americans who say that time moves “too slowly”: 7
7/91Percentage of American junior high school students who say they have sex at least once a week: 7
10/91World’s record for the longest period of time a Life Saver has been kept intact in a human mouth, in hours: 7
2/92Estimated change in average U.S. temperatures this winter due to a volcanic eruption in the Philippines last year: -0.9° F
Estimated number of days the Washington, D.C., cherry-blossom season will be delayed this year due to the eruption: 7
2/92Number of times since 1982 that Punxsutawney Phil, the nation’s “official” groundhog, saw his shadow on February 2: 7
5/92Ratio of per capita water consumption by Israelis living on the West Bank to that of Palestinians living there: 7:1
7/92Number of the 50 highest-rated first-run programs ever broadcast on TV that were episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies: 7
6/93Percentage of the $490 million in criminal fines levied against failed S&Ls since 1989 that have been paid: 7
9/93Number of Mexicans who became billionaires last year: 7
1/94Hours the average Chinese worker must work to earn the price of an ice-cream cone at Beijing’s new Baskin-Robbins: 7
4/94Ratio of the value of contracts signed by Michael Jackson in 1993 to that of contracts canceled: 7:1
12/94Number of weeks Danielle Steel employed a full-time gift-wrapper last year for her seven children’s birthdays: 7
8/96Minimum price of a line of Al Kracht’s custom poetry, from Limerick Lane Poetryworks of Chappaqua, New York: $7
10/96Number of Constitutional amendments called for in the Republican Party platform: 7
6/97Quarts of Starbucks Java Chip ice cream found in the freezer of the Heaven’s Gate compound last March 27: 7
6/97Combined number of root canals performed last year on two Kodiak bears at the San Francisco Zoo: 7
8/97Number of months since Congress imposed a moratorium on hearing new ethics complaints against members: 6
8/97Ratio of The Lost World to Jurassic Park in the amount of screen time devoted to dinosaurs eating people: 7:1
10/97Seating capacity of the President’s new Hot Spring Grandee® hot tub: 7
11/97Months after a Hard Rock Cafe opened in Beirut last winter that the U.S. lifted its ban on travel in Lebanon: 7
3/98Ratio of chickens killed last January in Hong Kong’s flu scare to total chickens sold in the U.S. each day at KFCs: 3:2
Days of prayer that Buddhist monks and nuns devoted to the souls of slaughtered chickens last winter in Hong Kong: 7
7/98Number of field hands working at Mt. Vernon this summer as Pioneer Farmer Interns: 7
7/98Percentage of all privately owned bison in the U.S. that belong to Ted Turner: 7
1/99Number of dates since 1914 that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have predicted as the start of the apocalypse: 7
2/99Ratio of reporters who covered John Glenn’s 1998 shuttle flight to those who covered his first space flight in 1962: 7:1
2/99Weeks after DNA testing confirmed Bill Clinton’s adultery last fall that such testing confirmed Thomas Jefferson’s as well: 7
3/99Number of professional-style kitchens in the home Mike Tyson is attempting to sell: 7