Percentage of Chileans who say they feel “boredom,” “indifference,” or “antagonism” toward politics: 53
2/87Percentage of Americans who don’t recognize Dan Rather: 53
3/89Percentage increase, since 1980, in average attendance at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spring-training games: 53
6/89Percentage of American Southerners who say they support Roe v. Wade: 53
4/92Percentage of urbanites in the former Soviet Union who say they would like to own a weapon: 53
6/92Average number of hours per year that a Japanese automaker in the United States spends training each production worker: 53
6/93Percentage of Americans who say they “don’t know enough” about reports of Serbian atrocities to believe them: 53
11/94Percentage who think U.S. military forces should be used to “protect the interests of U.S. corporations”: 53
12/94Percentage change since 1983 in the number of opinions issued by the Supreme Court: -44
1/95Number of all congressional races last fall contested by only one major-party candidate: 53
8/95Average percentage of local-TV evening news time that is devoted to crime and disaster coverage: 53
10/95Percentage by which today’s minimum wage would be increased if its growth since 1968 had kept pace with inflation: 53
11/97Percentage of white Americans who say that they would vote for Colin Powell over Al Gore for president: 53
3/98Number of lawsuits brought against the Cult Awareness Network by members of the Church of Scientology: 53
Number of months since the network went bankrupt in 1996 that Scientologists have owned and operated it: 15
7/98Number of witnesses called in the House campaign-finance investigation who have taken the Fifth: 53
11/99Percentage of American ER viewers who say they learn important health-care information from the program: 53
4/00Percentage change between 1965 and 1995 in the number of U.S. households that pay for housecleaning: +53
12/00Number of Falun Gong members arrested in China who have died in, en route to, or shortly after their release from prison: 53
9/01Percentage of U.S. ninth-grade boys who say we should stop “outsiders” from influencing American traditions and cultures: 53
3/02Number of boxers who have died in the United States since 1970 from injuries sustained in the ring: 53
2/03Percentage change since 2000 in the average value of goods stolen in each U.S. shoplifting incident: +53
2/03Percentage of Jamaicans who say they would be “better off today” had Jamaica remained a British colony: 53
4/04Number of the 76 reported attempts by bears to break into New Jersey homes last year that were successful: 53
8/05Number of Palestinian communities that will be surrounded by the new Israel security fence on at least three sides: 53
3/09Number of twenty PTSD patients in a 2008 study who reported significant improvement after being treated with ecstasy: 20
In a parked car: 12
10/85Percentage of Americans who say television news portrays politicians “too favorably”: 46
Who say it portrays professional sports stars “too favorably”: 54
4/86Percentage increase in the number of Americans planning trips to the Soviet Union in 1986: 54
10/88Percentage of Americans who favor random car searches by police as a way of dealing with the drug problem: 54
9/89Percentage of Americans who can correctly name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: 9
Percentage who can correctly name the judge on The People’s Court: 54
4/94Percentage of Russians who believe the West is attempting “to weaken Russia with its economic advice”: 54
9/94Percentage of Vietnamese who believe it is possible to recognize a person with HIV or AIDS on sight: 54
10/95Percentage of Americans who say that journalists are more cynical than other professionals: 45
Percentage of journalists who say this: 54
1/97Percentage of elderly Medicare patients in fee-for-service plans whose health declined during a four-year study: 28
7/00Percentage of Americans who say that the U.S. government is no longer “ of, by, and for the people ”: 54
10/03Percentage of Americans who believe that George W. Bush was legitimately elected president: 54
11/05Percentage of homes in Orleans Parish that lacked flood insurance: 54
10/06Percentage change since 2004 in the number of Army recruits admitted despite records of “serious criminal misconduct”: +54
12/07Percentage of shopping-mall and party Santas who believe that children “lie when they say they’ve been good”: 54
10/08Percentage change since 2005, due to helium costs, in the price to rent a floating twenty-foot Halloween “scary pumpkin”: +54
11/08Percentage of Afghans who say they would support a coalition government that included the Taliban: 54
9/84Percentage of Americans who say they would not accept a job if a lie-detector test was required: 55
12/84Percentage of all playground injuries that occur on the monkey bars: 55
4/85Average number of Health and Human Services Department employees it takes to answer a letter to the secretary: 55
8/88Percentage change, since last year, in the number of yellow-pages listings for tanning salons: +55
For solar-energy equipment wholesalers: -48
12/88Estimated percentage increase, since 1977, in the number of U.S. businesses owned by Hispanics: 55
5/89Percentage of Japanese overseas development assistance in 1987 that was tied to the purchase of Japanese goods: 28
Percentage of U.S. overseas development assistance in 1987 that was tied to the purchase of American goods: 55
4/90Percentage of men living in Bangladesh who live past the age of 65: 55
Percentage of Americans who say they would not be willing to pay anything at all: 55
5/00Number of endangered tortoises that U.S. Customs agents discovered in a man’s trousers last December in Miami: 55
Percentage who consider the practice “gross”: 55
11/02Years after inventing the Kalashnikov that its namesake said in July that he wished he had made a lawn mower instead: 55
4/06Percentage of U.S. adults in 1985 who said they found overweight people less attractive than others: 55
Percentage who said this last year: 24
4/08Percentage of Americans who believe that their home is still gaining in value: 55
6/85Percentage of American women who said they liked sports cars in 1976: 39
Who say that today: 56
12/88Percentage of doctors who say they would allow a woman to choose a sperm donor based on his religion: 56
11/89Percentage of Americans who say they would never vote for someone who disagrees with their view on abortion: 56
2/90Average number of Russian Orthodox churches reopened in the Soviet Union each week last year: 56
1/92Percentage of Californians who voted in 1990 to limit the term of state legislators: 52
11/92Average number of cleat-dents made in each square foot of playing field during a professional football game: 56
2/93Percentage of Americans who favor military intervention in countries where there is “mass killing”: 56
7/96Days in jail to which a British retiree was sentenced in February for excessive pigeon feeding: 56
10/98Hours it took two men last July to win a contest to decode the federal government’s data-scrambling system: 56
12/99Percentage of U.S. children who say their greatest wish for their parents is that they make more money: 23
2/00Percentage change in the number of marijuana arrests since Bill Clinton became president: +56
8/00Percentage of the trailers provided North Carolina’s Hurricane Floyd victims last fall that were still in use in May: 56
3/01Number of times Colin Powell said, “I don’t recall” or, “I can’t recall” during his 1987 Iran-Contra testimony: 56
5/02Days after scientists this year cited the universe’s average color as pale turquoise that it was amended to light beige: 56
10/02Percentage of Americans who said in August that they had a clear idea of why the U.S. would consider attacking Iraq: 56
7/04Years after symptoms of his deranging genetic disorder appeared that King George III held the throne in England: 56
5/06Minimum number of ranches in Texas where one can shoot a zebra: 56
Percentage last year: 18
3/86Amount Pat Paulsen has raised for his 1988 presidential campaign: $57
3/87Percentage of feature films made in the United States in 1986 that were shot somewhere other than California: 57
5/88Percentage of 1987 congressional roll-call votes in which legislation supported by the President was rejected: 57
9/88Percentage of Texas voters who say they do not consider George Bush “a real Texan”: 57
11/90Percentage of Americans who oppose reducing federal deposit insurance coverage from $100,000 per account: 57
2/91Percentage of the recruitment ads for the U.S. military broadcast since the Iraqi invasion that include combat scenes: 57
Percentage of the ads broadcast before the invasion that did: 0
9/91Percentage of business students at American universities who admit to having cheated on an exam: 57
7/92Number of times President Bush spoke of “change” in speeches and public appearances last year: 57
Number of these times that he was referring to a foreign country: 50
11/92Percentage of arms-transfer agreements signed by Third World countries in 1986 that involved the United States: 8
Percentage of arms-transfer agreements signed by Third World countries last year that involved the United States: 57
5/93Number of minutes of network evening news devoted to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the first ten weeks of 1993: 57
7/95Number of people who developed food poisoning after attending a Connecticut Food Association reception last spring: 57
6/96Percentage of racial epithets published in the New York Times last year that consisted of the word “nigger”: 57
1/00Years after Portuguese adventurers brought guns to Japan in 1543 that Japan owned more guns than any other country: 57
5/00Estimated percentage of people living in Russia’s Ingushetia province last February who were Chechen war refugees: 57
Percentage who are actually enrolled in a foreign-language course: 8
9/07Number of the 121 U.S. biofuel refineries that have been cited by the EPA since 2004 for polluting: 57
9/07Percentage of Americans who report being able to get a same-day or next-day doctor’s appointment when sick: 51
4/08Number of consecutive months that sales at McDonald’s franchises have increased: 57
2/85Percentage of the radio and TV equipment industry’s output purchased by the Pentagon in 1982: 58
Number of feet it moves to the south: 29
8/86Percentage of the proposed 1987 Star Wars budget that is allocated for “demonstration projects”: 58
6/87Percentage increase, since 1980, in the number of U.S. military personnel stationed in sub-Saharan Africa: 58
6/87Percentage of delegates to the 1988 Republican convention who will be selected by March 15, 1988: 58
Percentage of delegates to the 1984 Republican convention who were selected by March 15, 1984: 17
12/88Percentage of American teenagers who do not know the meaning of the date stamped on dairy products: 58
12/89Percentage of Americans who live in an area where the air does not meet the standards of the 1970 Clean Air Act: 58
12/91Percentage of American men who say they would rather have sex with Betty Rubble than Wilma Flintstone: 58
9/92Percentage of Americans who believe that their IQ is higher than average: 58
11/92Number of sea lions illegally killed by gunfire off the coast of northern California this year: 58
8/93Percentage of Americans who think all ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia are equally to blame for the war there: 58
2/94Percentage change, since 1992, in U.N. members abstaining from a vote to condemn Iraq for its human-rights record: +58
2/95Percentage of American adults who say they have “never heard of the Internet”: 58
12/97Percentage of Colombia’s municipalities controlled by rebel groups: 58
5/02Percentage of writers of U.S. clinical-practice guidelines who have financial ties to pharmaceutical companies: 58
9/03Percentage of Americans in June who favored U.S. military action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons: 56
Percentage in July who disapproved of the United States waging preemptive attacks on any country: 58
1/05Factor by which an Iraqi is more likely to die today than in the last year of the Hussein regime: 2.5
5/07Percentage of Americans in February who said they would be unlikely to vote for a candidate who has been divorced twice: 26
Percentage who said they would be unlikely to vote for a 72-year-old: 58
Percentage who said they would be unlikely to vote for an African American or a smoker, respectively: 6, 21
8/07Number of different nationalities represented among the staff at the headquarters of Coca-Cola: 58
Percentage of Republicans who do: 58
1/86Percentage of Jeeps sold in 1984 that were bought by people living in urban or suburban areas: 59
10/86Percentage of Americans who say the United States should not send troops if Nicaragua invades Honduras: 59
2/90Tons of the Berlin Wall shipped to the United States since November by Hyman Products of St. Louis: 59
Change, since the opening of the Wall, in the value of stock of the top 10 U.S. defense contractors: -$1,140,000,000
2/92Average approval rating, two months before the New Hampshire primary, of U.S. presidents who won a second term: 59
Approval rating of President Bush two months before the New Hampshire primary: 41
11/92Price of one 20-pound crate of kindling from trees “felled by natural causes,” from Eddie Bauer: $59
10/93Percentage of Americans who believe that Clinton’s advisers make “most of the important decisions in the White House”: 59
Percentage who said this about Ronald Reagan’s advisers ten years ago: 58
12/93Average amount of fat consumed by an American each year, in pounds: 59
11/94Percentage of Americans who said last year that they favored national health insurance financed by new taxes: 59
4/96Percentage of Americans who believe that “most people can be trusted”: 35
3/97Ratio of attendance at U.S. bingo games last year to attendance at professional basketball games: 59:1
4/97Percentage of black teenagers who say it is “extremely important” to learn U.S. history and geography in high school: 59
5/98Number of consecutive hours that a Maryland man spent kissing a motorboat last winter in order to win it in a contest: 59
8/98Percentage by which India expects to increase the budget of its Department of Atomic Energy in the next year: 59
6/99Percentage change since 1990 in the number of U.S. traffic disputes in which one driver kills or injures another: +59
2/00Number of the 65 international trade disputes settled through the WTO that led to a change in national policy or law: 59
Number of the 10 disputes involving environmental or public heath issues that led to a weakening of national laws: 10
11/00Percentage of U.S. public school teachers who hold a second job: 59
2/03Percentage of Americans surveyed in October who chose the word “hopeful” to describe their feelings about the economy: 37
Percentage who chose “angry,” “worried,” or “confused”: 59
10/06Number of the 66 U.S. senators favoring the anti-flag-burning amendment in June who signed up as its named sponsors: 59
11/06Average percentage change in the U.S. aid a country receives when it sits on the U.N. Security Council: +59
1/08Percentage of Republicans today who say that free trade is bad for the U.S. economy: 59
3/86Percentage of families living below the poverty line in which at least one member is employed: 60
9/86Percentage of the 2,000 referendums on water fluoridation held since 1950 that have been voted down: 60
3/87Price of a Latin mass on videocassette: $60
7/87Percentage increase, since 1978, in the number of full-time workers who are paid minimum wage: 60
9/88Number of West Berlin prostitutes the government has placed in other lines of work: 60
1/89Percentage of Americans who have little or no sympathy for “people who get AIDS from homosexual activity”: 60
7/89Length of the entry for the word “set” in the 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, in pages: 60
2/90Number of times Tammy Faye Bakker mentions crying in her two books I Gotta Be Me and Run to the Roar: 60