10/84Percentage of American women who think they would do “better than average” in a fistfight: 27
11/84Percentage of Americans who believed in 1973 that communism is the worst form of government: 44
11/84Percentage increase, since 1970, in the number of adult Americans who live with their parents: 85
12/84Percentage increase, from the mid-1970s to today, in the number of résumés received each year by the CIA: 100
1/85Total U.S. investments including bank loans and stockholdings, in South Africa in 1979: $5,263,100,000
1/85Percentage of Forbes 500 chief executive officers in 1983 who had a “technical background”: 20.6
2/85Percentage decrease in articles by British scientists in the 2,000 leading scientific journals, from 1973 to 1980: 10
5/85Latin American countries in which military governments have been replaced with civilian ones since 1979: 9
6/85Hours spent on strike by Italians in 1979: 192,700,000
6/85Percentage of American women who said they liked sports cars in 1976: 39
Who say that today: 56
7/85Foreign aid budget of the Soviet Union in 1978: $3,500,000,000
8/85Percentage of capital spending by U.S. companies that went for worker health and safety items in 1978: 2.9
9/85Percentage change in the buying power of a Social Security check since 1970: +25
1/86Percentage change in Britain’s manufacturing output since 1979: -6
10/86Membership of the American Federation of Astrologers in 1970: 1,500
11/86Average annual percentage change, since 1978, in the productivity of American blue-collar workers: +3.4
In the productivity of American white-collar workers: -.3
11/86Percentage increase, since 1975, in the number of prime-time TV characters who are women over 50: 500
2/86Portion of Fortune 1000 companies that employed undercover security agents in 1974: 1/10
2/86Percentage increase, since 1974, in the number of self-employed men: 12
4/86Value of British government assets Prime Minister Thatcher has sold since 1979: $20,000,000,000
6/86Amount Mexico has borrowed abroad since 1974: $97,000,000,000
Value of investments and deposits made abroad by Mexicans since 1974: $90,300,000,000
9/86Days spent on strike by British workers in 1979: 29,474,000
9/86Percentage of jobs created in the United States between 1978 and 1984 that pay less than $9,200 annually: 37
1/87Number of times since 1979 Britain has “refined” its method of counting the unemployed: 19
Number of those refinements that resulted in a lower unemployment rate: 18
1/87Percentage of the fish and shellfish harvested in the United States in 1975 that came from farms: 3
Number today: 31
In sorority membership: 25
11/87Number of computer, radar, and systems maintenance technicians employed by the FAA in 1978: 11,000
11/87Percentage change, since 1977, in per capita consumption of white bread: -30
2/87Price of a unit of whole blood in New York City in 1976: $29
Today: $70.75
5/87Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest one percent of Americans in 1972: 28
Number introduced during the current session: 167
12/88Estimated percentage increase, since 1977, in the number of U.S. businesses owned by Hispanics: 55
10/89Ratio of per capita Nicaraguan war casualties since 1979 to per capita American war casualties in Vietnam: 33:1
11/89Percentage increase, since 1979, in the number of Americans unemployed for longer than six months: 51
11/89Percentage decrease, since 1979, in the number of white males applying to U.S. medical schools: 47
2/89Percentage increase, since 1978, in the number of private security firms operating in Colombia: 127
5/89Chances that a Palestinian male in the occupied territories has been arrested at least once since 1979: 1 in 10
10/90Percentage change, since 1978, in the amount of videotape used by members of Congress in the House TV studio: +300
2/90Percentage change, since 1974, in the amount of commercial air traffic in the United States: +100
Percentage change, since 1974, in the number of commercial airports in the United States: 0
2/90Percentage decrease, since 1979, in the number of professorships in American studies in Britain: 50
7/90Amount the West Berlin city government has paid East Germany to dump trash there since 1975: $700,000,000
7/90Percentage of American women who said in 1970 that men were “basically kind, gentle, and thoughtful”: 67
Percentage who say this today: 51
9/90Change, since 1972, in the percentage of employed American men who have an employer-financed pension plan: -5
Change in the percentage of employed American women who do: +5
11/91Change, since 1979, in the average annual earnings of a black woman with only a high school diploma: +$279
4/91Percentage of TV evening-news coverage of the Vietnam War between 1965 and 1970 that depicted casualties in battle: 3
7/91Number of American claims for assets frozen’ during the 1979 Iranian Revolution that are still pending: 3,300
7/91Number of U.S. households that watched NBC each week in 1979, when the network was in last place: 13,300,000
Number that watch NBC today, when the network is in first place: 11,800,000
12/92Percentage change, since 1970, in the number of American women working more than one job: +390
2/92Percentage of all employed black American men with a college degree who earned poverty-level wages in 1979: 9.5
Percentage today: 14.8
7/92Days after the Kent State killings in 1970 that Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released their song “Ohio”: 31
11/93Average number of members of Congress charged with a crime each decade between 1789 and 1970: 2
6/93Amount by which the 1994 Pentagon budget exceeds the 1975 Pentagon budget, in constant dollars: $32,100,000,000
7/93Number of women scalped by hay balers in New York State since 1976: 4
8/93Days elapsed between the fire at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the first TV movie about it: 34
11/94Leftover campaign funds spent on legal fees by 11 former members of Congress between 1979 and 1993: $1,409,445
9/94Chances that a black federal judge appointed since 1977 was appointed by Bill Clinton: 3 in 4
10/95Change since 1979 in the median earnings of an American woman with a full-time job, in constant dollars: +$1,925
Change in the median earnings of an American man with a full-time job: -$2,816
6/95Number of the 272 U.S. prisoners executed since 1976 who were white men convicted of killing a black man: 1
6/95Percentage change since 1974 in the number of annulments granted to Catholic couples in the U.S.: +647
Percentage change in the number employed by the federal government: +5
8/95Chances that a Catholic saint canonized since 1978 is Vietnamese: 2 in 5
9/95Percentage change since 1973 in the number of full-time photographers employed by National Geographic: -87
10/96Number of state and federal court opinions written since 1977 that have included a reference to Elvis Presley: 189
11/96Number of weeks Bill Gates served as a congressional page in 1972: 8
12/96Percentage change in the homicide rate in Canada since the 1976 abolition of the death penalty there: -27
8/96Price a John Wayne Gacy web site charges for a printout of a 1976 photograph of Gacy with Rosalynn Carter: $15
Years after Gacy became an Illinois Democratic Party precinct captain that he was arrested for 33 murders: 3
10/97Number of Illinois death-row prisoners released since 1977 after their convictions were overturned: 9
11/97Number of people that Pope John Paul II has beatified or canonized since 1978: 1,049
11/97Years it took a prisoner injured at the 1975 Attica prison riots to win a judgment against New York State last June: 26
Number of other Attica prisoners’ cases pending: 1,280
12/97Number of years federal law limited congressional campaign spending before this was ruled unconstitutional in 1976: 2
12/97Percentage change since 1970 in the number of Americans employed by U.S. toy manufacturers: -40
2/97Price paid at an Indiana auction last September for a 1975 Ford Escort previously owned by Pope John Paul II: $102,000
3/97Amount oil companies owe the U.S. for undervaluing the oil pumped from public land since 1978: $2,050,000,000
8/97Highest bid offered at auction last May for the Watergate Hotel lock picked in 1972 to get into DNC offices: $13,000
Bid the seller expected: $25,000
1/98Ratio of TV viewers who watched a 1973 Elvis Presley concert to those who watched the 1969 moon landing: 3:1
10/98Estimated number of Catholic priests accused of sexual assault in the U.S. since 1978: 3,000
11/98Estimated number of American women arrested for child abuse since 1977 after using drugs or alcohol while pregnant: 200
9/98Percentage of U.S. universities that use student evaluations as a factor in granting tenure: 88
11/99Total U.S. arms sales to Indonesia since it invaded East Timor in 1975: $1,200,000,000
6/99Average number of rural acres lost to “urban sprawl” in the United States each year since 1970: 1,000,000
1/00Number of pages accumulated in the FBI’s Sex Deviates file by the time the program was abandoned in 1977: 330,000
1/00Number of false alarms of nuclear missile attacks generated by the U.S. early warning system between 1977 and 1984: 20,784
10/00Percentage of House votes cast by Dick Cheney and Al Gore on abortion between 1979 and 1984 that were the same: 93
11/00Percentage change since 1979 in the number of cocaine users in the United States: -62
3/00Ratio of major party presidential primaries to be held before April this year to those held before April in 1984: 3:1
3/00Damages awarded this year to prisoners who “suffered reprisals” after the 1971 Attica prison uprising, per prisoner: $6,250
3/00Estimated percentage change since 1979 in the number of birds killed annually by U.S. communications towers: +186
3/00Percentage change since the 1970s in the number of salmon in the Atlantic Ocean: -90
4/00Portion of Texas industrial plants operating under “grandfathered” emissions rules that predate 1971’s Clean Air Act: 1/2
4/00Estimated tons of PCBs that General Electric has leaked into the Hudson River since 1977’s ban on dumping the toxin: 6.8
5/00Portion of Iran’s current population that was under the age of ten at the outset of the 1979 hostage crisis: 7/10
1/01Ratio of public housing units built in Jewish communities in Israel since 1975 to those built in Arab communities: 337:1
9/01Percentage of African-American children in the South attending majority-white schools in 1976 and 1996, respectively: 38, 35
3/02Number of boxers who have died in the United States since 1970 from injuries sustained in the ring: 53
4/02Days earlier than in 1970 that Washington, D.C., cherry blossoms now bloom: 6
8/02Number of names of U.S. peace and civil-rights activists in the CIA’s Operation CHAOS database in 1973: 300,000
7/03Number of American states that have revoked helmet requirements for adult motorcycle riders since 1975: 30
1/04Days in 1970 that northern Alaska was cold enough to operate oil-drilling machinery without damaging the tundra: 213
4/04Factor by which the average pay of a pro baseball player and a Fortune 500 CEO, respectively, have increased since 1973: 16, 4
9/04Secret access code to the computer controls of the U.S. nuclear-tipped missile arsenal between 1968 and 1976: 00000000
1/05Number of House members in 1979 who voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday: 133
Number who are Vice President: 1
12/05Percentage of middle-class Americans who spent more than a third of their income on home ownership in 1975: 2.8
Percentage in 2001: 13.5
12/05Number of degrees Fahrenheit that temperatures in California ’s wine country have risen since 1971: 1.6
2/05Number of children’s choir members from Pink Floyd’s 1979 hit “Another Brick in the Wall” who are now seeking royalties: 1
Estimated amount each member is owed: £150
5/06Estimated percentage share of global GDP in 1974 that came from “developed” and “emerging” nations, respectively: 61, 39
Estimated percentage from those nations today: 49, 51
6/06Percentage of U.S. abortions in 1973 and 2002, respectively, that took place in the first trimester: 38, 61
Ratings for Harry Truman in 1952 and Richard Nixon in 1974, respectively, the only presidents ever to climb as high: 67, 66
11/07Estimated percentage of women’s college sports teams that were coached by women when Title IX was enacted in 1972: 90
Percentage today: 42
2/07Total oil revenues that have flowed into Nigeria since 1974: $728,500,000,000
2/08Number of the three Israeli-Palestinian peace summits since 1979 that were held in the last two years of a U.S. presidency: 3
2/09Profit that the federal government made in 1983 on stock obtained in its 1979 bailout of Chrysler: $311,000,000