12/85Number of people who attended the International Conference on Spelling Reform held in England last summer: 17
11/90Number of Georgia third-graders Representative Newt Gingrich paid $2 for every book they read last summer: 282
5/90Estimated decrease in U.S. births in the spring if the previous summer’s temperature is 5 degrees above normal: 10,000
11/91Number of times Senator Tom Harkin used the word ”bullshit” in public speeches last summer: 17
8/91Gallons of suntan lotion sold each summer at Empire Haven Nudist Park and Resort in Moravia, New York: 9
11/92Percentage of the 417,000 jobs Bush says have been created this year that were government-financed summer jobs: 40
1/93Number of years in office Saddam Hussein will celebrate this summer: 13
12/93Value of the one-million dinar note issued by the Yugoslav National Bank last summer, in dollars: $0.0013
3/94Amount for which a robber beat a motel security guard to death with a Bible last summer in Georgia: $18
11/95Number of “Snapple enthusiasts” who attended the first Snapple Convention, held last summer in a New York suburb: 3,800
12/95Estimated portion of all U.S. layoffs announced last summer that were the result of a merger: 1/3
4/95Percentage change since last summer in the market value of a Nolan Ryan rookie baseball card: -25
6/95Copies of the premier issue of the Russian-language edition of Cosmopolitan sold in Russia last summer: 60,000
7/95Gallons of onion ice cream sold last summer at Vidalia restaurant in Washington, D.C.: 10
1/96Number of classes in popular culture taught at the Smithsonian last summer by the PR director of People magazine: 6
12/96Weeks after Russian president Boris Yeltsin had a heart attack last summer that the CIA found out about it: 11
7/96Number of months before the Summer Olympics that the planners began manufacturing ice for the event: 3.5
3/97Value of the corporate tax breaks attached to last summer’s minimum-wage bill: $21,400,000,000
7/97Number of buffalo-meat hot dogs sold per baseball game at Atlanta’s Turner Field last summer: 2,350
7/98Price of Vermont’s ten-day International Summer Institute for Youth in Holocaust Studies camp: $1,000
7/98Number of field hands working at Mt. Vernon this summer as Pioneer Farmer Interns: 7
8/98Acres of blue netting with which the Washington Monument will be draped for renovation this summer: 1.3
1/99Number of Boston library workers who required counseling last summer after a flood soaked 50,000 cartons of books: 12
10/99Number of Vietnam-era helicopters that the U.S. donated to Mexico for drug control between 1996 and 1997: 73
Percentage of them that the U.S. agreed to take back last summer after Mexico found them defective: 100
10/99Hours after the Woodstock riots last summer that a participant told a reporter he couldn’t wait to see them on TV: 6
10/00Number of G.O.P. presidential conventions since 1911 with a larger percentage of black delegates than last summer’s: 5
10/00Minimum number of times that Senator John McCain winked while endorsing George W. Bush at last summer’s convention: 5
9/00Date by which the Palestinian Authority announced last summer that a Palestinian state would be established: 9/13/00
Percentage of Palestinians who said at the time that they believed this would occur: 38
11/01Number of business days given Nevada citizens last summer as notice of the only public hearing on the 7,300-square-foot site: 10
11/01Ratio of New York bird deaths last summer attributed to West Nile virus to those attributed to pollution: 2:3
8/01Number of 21 cruise ships tested by Alaska last summer whose wastewater met federal sewage-treatment standards: 1
8/01Percentage of Palestinians working in Israel last summer who lost their job after Israel’s blockade began in October: 70
10/02Number of teenagers enrolled last summer in Secure Corps, a “homeland security training” camp in Pennsylvania: 92
12/03Number of New York City eighth-graders deemed “proficient” on last year’s end-of-summer-school reading exam: 0
Percentage of those who took the test who were promoted to the ninth grade: 78
7/03Number of years Neil Bush was married before asking his wife for a divorce via email last summer: 22
9/03Estimated number of soccer balls the U.S. government sent Iraq this summer to help “bring life back to normal”: 60,000
11/04Weight in pounds of a “millionaire” seeking “Cinderella” in a New York magazine personal ad last summer: 444
12/04Estimated average price of a female newborn in a Bulgarian infant-selling ring busted this summer: $6,000
Estimated average price of a male newborn: $18,000
7/04Ratio of ambient fine-particle emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles to those from cooking meat in Houston in summer: 5:4
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
2/05Number of copies of Helping Your Child Learn History destroyed by the Department of Education last summer: 338,500
8/05Amount that the Catholic Church spent in Britain this summer advertising for new priests on bar coasters: $1,100
3/06Number of copies sold in Japan since last summer of a comic book about the worthlessness of China: 180,000
8/06Number of AK-47s that have gone missing after being sent by the Pentagon to Iraq last summer: 26,000
6/07Number of recent computer models that a team of climate experts studied to assess Arctic warming: 15
Number of the models that showed the North Pole having ice-free summers by 2100: 7
9/07Value of the gasoline that the American Red Cross is giving to two randomly selected blood donors this summer: $3,500
10/08Estimated number of U.S. lives saved per month by $4 gasoline, through reduced driving nationwide: 1,000
11/08Number of the 77 applications to protest during the Beijing Olympics this summer that were denied: 1
Number that were withdrawn by the petitioners or suspended for incorrect paperwork: 76