3/84The District of Columbia’s rank (with states) in per capita alcohol consumption: 1
11/85Price of a fully equipped “terrorist-proof” Mercedes 500 at Washington’s Counter Spy Shop: $208,000
12/86Rank of drugs among the most pressing city problems cited by Washington, D.C., blacks: 1
Rank of traffic among the problems cited by Washington, D.C., whites: 1
2/86Rambos in the Washington, D.C., telephone book: 3
6/86Chances that a resident of Washington, D.C., is a lawyer: 1 in 25
5/87Percentage of subway riders in Washington, D.C., who earn $25,000 or more annually: 73
12/89Percentage of Americans who have visited Washington, D.C.: 60
Percentage of Americans who have visited Disneyland or Disney World: 70
5/89Total number of deaths resulting from the uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since December 1987: 432
Total number of homicides in Washington, D.C., since December 1987: 512
8/89Price of a two-hour Scandal Tour of Washington, D.C.: $24
2/90Rank of Washington, D.C., among U. S. cities with the highest per capita viewership of TV evangelists: 1
4/90Rank of Washington, D.C., among U.S. cities with the highest rate of tax delinquency: 1
4/91Number of U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam before a Washington antiwar rally drew more than 75,000 people: 14,000
Number of U.S. combat deaths in the Persian Gulf before the January 26 rally that drew more than 75,000 people: 0
5/91Number of times a nude or seminude woman accepted a Domino’s Pizza delivery in Washington, D.C., last year: 15
9/91Rank of Washington, D.C., high school students, among students with the lowest mathematics scores nationwide: 1
Rank of Washington, D.C., high school students, among those most likely to say they are “good in math”: 1
1/92Portion of his adult life George Bush has spent working inside the Washington Beltway: 1/2
11/92Chances that a shoplifter in Washington, D.C., has been to college: 1 in 2
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
1/93Ratio of the number of health-care lobbying groups in Washington to members of Congress: 3:2
11/93Number of wooden boards split by Congressman Tom Foley at a martial-arts championship held in Washington in July: 4
2/93Ratio of rats to people in Washington, D.C.: 2:1
3/93Average number of years a Clinton cabinet member has worked in Washington: 13
2/94Number of parking tickets given to former Soviet embassy employees in Washington, D.C., that remain unpaid: 50,693
3/94Factor by which the murder rate in Washington, D.C., last year exceeded that of Northern Ireland: 15
9/94Percentage of the World Bank’s employees who work in Washington, D.C.: 95
1/95Average number of Washington, D.C., police officers arrested each year since 1989: 40
5/95Boxes of cookies the Washington, D.C., Girl Scouts must sell each year to cover their liability premiums: 87,000
6/95Percentage change since last year in Washington, D.C., sales of the Bug Sweeper, a telephone-surveillance detector: +100
7/95Gallons of onion ice cream sold last summer at Vidalia restaurant in Washington, D.C.: 10
1/96Chances that a black American adult attended Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963: 1 in 60
1/96Ratio of the infant-mortality rate in Washington, D.C., to the rate in Havana: 2:1
11/96Year in which the British sacked the city of Washington and burned the White House: 1814
2/96Price of the Truth Phone, a lie detector for the telephone, from the Counter Spy Shop in Washington, D.C.: $5,000
7/96Number of the 33 McDonald’s in Washington, D.C., that the city has equipped with community policing stations: 33
9/96Number of silver teaspoons reported missing each year at the Washington Hilton: 20,000
10/97Rank of Hillary Clinton, among the best-selling Halloween masks last year at Washington’s Backstage costume shop: 1
Rank of Bill Clinton and the Cryptkeeper: 2,3
12/97Percentage change since last year in the number of U.S. senators and representatives who admit to being smokers: -22
Number of legislators who drove foreign cars in Washington last year but used domestic cars at home: 74
2/97Number of times that the mother-in-law of Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry has run for president: 2
4/97Average grade level at which a Washington, D.C., inmate can read: 5
Average grade level at which he or she left school: 11
5/97Rank of China among the least effective lobbyists in Washington, according to U.S. Ambassador Jim Sasser: 1
5/97Amount the World Bank will finish spending this year on an expansion of its Washington headquarters: $314,000,000
Ratio of the project’s cost overruns to overdue debt the Bank’s client countries cannot exceed without penalty: 5,150:1
4/98Months after Bill Clinton’s inauguration that heterosexual fellatio was legalized in Washington, D.C.: 4
Number of states in which the practice is still illegal: 14
6/98Number of institutions that are on a “higher moral ground” than the World Bank, according to its president: 0
Amount the Bank spent last year to gild the ceilings of its Washington headquarters: $400,000
8/98Acres of blue netting with which the Washington Monument will be draped for renovation this summer: 1.3
11/99Number of Washington, D.C., police assigned to a neo-Nazi American Nationalist Party march last August: 1,426
12/99Square miles of errant Antarctic icebergs being tracked by the National Ice Center in Washington, D.C.: 10,000
9/99Length in minutes of Newt Gingrich’s monthly head massage at the Bubbles hair salon in Washington, D.C.: 5
2/01Score shouted by Justice Antonin Scalia at a Washington, D.C., tennis court in 1998 before claiming victory: "5-4!"
2/01Number of Catholics who received penance at a weekend-long “confess-a-thon” held in Washington, D.C., last fall: 22,000
3/01Percentage of Washington children who completed an 8-year antismoking program in the 1990s who now smoke regularly: 25.4
12/02Average number of people killed per week by a sniper operating in suburban Maryland and Virginia this fall: 3
Average number of homicides per week during the same period in Washington, D.C.: 7
2/02Number of attendees at a Washington, D.C., conference that month entitled “What if Congress Were Obliterated?”: 60
2/02Amount the Pentagon has paid a Washington P.R. firm since then to help sway public opinion abroad: $7,100,000
4/02Days earlier than in 1970 that Washington, D.C., cherry blossoms now bloom: 6
5/02Number of Amtrak’s 41 routes other than the Boston-Washington, D.C., Metroliner that turn a profit: 0
Percentage change in Metroliner ridership since Amtrak added a new high-speed train to the route two years ago: -9
8/02Percentage of Washington, D.C., murder cases opened last year that remained unsolved by year’s end: 66
7/03Year in which Washington, D.C., neighbors of a WWI-era chemical-weapons test site were told it was cleaned up: 1995
5/04Amount that Tom DeLay’s political action committee spent at the Washington, D.C., Hooters last November: $117.19
11/05Percentage discount that Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has said he will offer poor Americans on oil and gas purchases: 40
Minimum number of Americans who have signed up so far at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington: 140
2/05Price a D.C. hotel charges for its ”Presidential Privilege 2005” inauguration package, which includes a mink coat: $200,500
7/05Number of previous baseball seasons that Washington, D.C., fielded a professional team: 89
Chances that it had a losing record: 4 in 5
6/06Chance since 2001 that a criminal case in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., has been tried off the docket: 1 in 6
10/07Number of escort services and McDonald’s restaurants, respectively, in Washington, D.C.: 26, 23
1/08Chance that a red lipstick tested by a Washington advocacy group last fall contained dangerous levels of lead: 1 in 3