3/84Astrologers in the United States: 10,000
1/85Percentage of Midwesterners who judge their chances of going to heaven as good to excellent: 69
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 that some numbers are especially lucky for some people: 40
11/86Percentage of Americans who don’t know how long a meter is: 66
Who don’t know who William Rehnquist is: 71
2/87Percentage of Americans who don’t recognize Dan Rather: 53
10/88Percentage of Americans who have never heard of or have no opinion about Shimon Peres: 41
Percentage who have never heard of or have no opinion about P. W. Borha: 45
11/88Percentage of Americans who believe that the Soviet Union is a member of NATO: 16
2/90Percentage of American twenty-one-year-olds who can read a bus schedule: 20
7/91Number of the original 13 American states that cannot locate their handwritten original copy of the Bill of Rights: 4
7/92Percentage of Americans who believe that the president can suspend the Bill of Rights during wartime: 23
Chances that an American does not know that the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution: 2 in 3
10/93Chances that an American has never heard of the North American Free Trade Agreement: 2 in 5
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
6/93Percentage of Panamanians who say they want U.S. military bases to remain in their country past the year 2000: 80
9/93Ratio of the number of Canadians who favor a U.S.-style health-care system to those who believe Elvis is alive: 1:2
10/94Percentage of Americans who believe that the world will be “better off” in the year 2000: 26
11/94Percentage of Americans who believe that killing a doctor who performs abortions is a “justifiable act”: 3
5/94Percentage of American adults who believe that if they used a personal computer they would damage it: 32
1/95Estimated number of organizations that predict the millennium will bring “some form of Armageddon”: 350
1/95Percentage of Americans who said last October that they had “never heard of” Newt Gingrich: 42
2/95Percentage of American adults who say they have “never heard of the Internet”: 58
1/96Percentage of Americans who believe officeholders engaged in a “serious debate” of Medicare last year: 11
11/96Percentage of Americans who believe politicians don’t grant special favors to large campaign contributors: 5
4/96Chances that an American does not know which political party favors greater Medicare and Medicaid cuts: 1 in 3
4/96Percentage of Americans who believe that “most people can be trusted”: 35
1/97Rank of Aries among the astrological signs of people most likely to be in an automobile accident: 1
8/97Percentage of Americans who believe Richard Nixon did nothing “worse than what other presidents have done”: 70
1/98Ratio of estimated U.S. aid to Russia through the year 2000 to the amount of aid George Soros has pledged: 4:5
1/98Minimum price of 2000 Secure, a millennium-bug insurance policy offered by a New York City brokerage firm: $2,000,000
1/98Percentage of Canadian adults under the age of 25 who believe that Neil Armstrong was the first Canadian in space: 10
Percentage who believe that Allen Ginsberg was Canadian: 20
9/98Portion of the Defense Department’s “critical” computer systems that are not vulnerable to the year 2000 bug: 1/3
10/99Gallons of untreated sewage that spilled onto L.A.’s streets last June after a sanitation plant’s Y2K test: 1,200,000
11/99Number of films about Y2K disasters that Hollywood studios are planning to release in the next four months: 0
12/99Number of countries that have not made public their assessment of the Y2K readiness of their computer systems: 91
12/99Number of titles for “horseless carriages” issued to new car owners in Maine last spring due to a Y2K error: 2,000
2/99Estimated number of U.S. Christians who moved to Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives last year to await the millennium: 100
3/99Chance that an IBM-compatible personal computer made since 1997 has Y2K flaws: 1 in 2
12/01Estimated amount Cleveland has spent in the last two years fulfilling Y2K-protection contracts: $11,000,000
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
2/02Percentage of Americans who believe that U.S. Muslims have an “obligation to help authorities track down terrorists”: 60
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
5/03Percentage of Americans who believed in early March that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks: 45
Weeks before this poll was taken that President Bush said that he “can’t make [the] claim” of such a link: 5
9/03Estimated acres of forest Henry David Thoreau burned down in 1844 trying to cook fish he had caught for dinner: 300
12/05Number of Alabama state senators co-sponsoring a bill last summer to “protect” public displays of the Ten Commandments: 10
Number of them who could list the Commandments: 1
5/05Percentage of U.S. high-school students who believe news stories should require “government approval” before publication: 36
7/06Rank of atheists among minorities whom Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry: 1
Rank of Muslims and African Americans, respectively: 2, 3
11/07Percentage of Americans who believe the U.S. has “already achieved victory in Iraq”: 11
12/07Percentage of U.S. CEOs who believed this spring that the economy was either “good” or “excellent”: 84
1/09Percentage of Americans in 2006 who believed that U.S. Muslims should have to carry special I.D.: 39