Interesting Facts
...that you always cared about to know!!


Wal-Mart is the largest American corporation in terms of sales, $245 billion last year. It is now the nation's largest grocer, toy seller and furniture retailer. More than 30 percent of the disposable diapers purchased in the country are sold in Wal-Mart stores, as are 30 percent of hair-care products, 26 percent of toothpaste and 20 percent of pet food. Wal-Mart has nearly 3,000 stores in the United States, and plans to add an additional 1,000 over the next five years. Increasingly, the company is taking its formula abroad; Wal-Mart is now the largest private employer in Mexico.
(The New York Times, "http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/weekinreview/07LOHR.html", December 7, 2003)


"The United States grows more food now than it did 50 years ago, on about 25 percent less acreage, and with a fraction of the workers it once used."
(The New York Times, "Amid dying towns of rural plains, one makes a stand", http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/01/national/01RURA.html, December 1, 2003)


"There is ample statistical evidence of the explosion of cheating in high school. Michael S. Josephson, who runs an ethics institute in Los Angeles, found in 2002 that 74 percent of 10,000 high school students surveyed nationwide had cheated on a test in the previous 12 months, up from 61 percent 10 years earlier. Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University professor, published similar findings in 2001: of 4,500 high school students, 75 percent had cheated at least once on a test, up from 50 percent in 1993 and 25 percent in 1963."
(The New York Times, "Exposing the Cheat Sheet, With the Students' Adi", http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/26/nyregion/26CHEA.html, November 26, 2003)


Scientists at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that daily consumption of calories increased by 87 from 1977 until 1996 in the US . 80% of this increase is due to sweeteners in soft drinks. Worldwide, consumption increased on average by 74 calories a day.
(Der Standard,"Globale Fettsucht durch Softdrinks", http://derstandard.at/?id=1489012, November 21, 2003)


According to the 2000 census, 30.6 percent of Hartford's 125,000 residents live below the poverty line. Forty percent of the adult population is functionally illiterate, and more than half the city's students drop out of high school. The per capita income is $13,428.
(The New York Times,"Hartford is no longer the insurance capital", http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/nyregion/21HART.html?8hpib, November 21, 2003)



Human Development Index of Top 5 and Bottom 5 Countries in the World















Public expenditure on education
(as % of GDP) 
Public expenditure on health
(as % of GDP)
Military expenditure         
 (as % of GDP)
Total debt service
(as % of GDP)














 
    1990
1998-2000   1990   2000   1990   2001   1990   2001  
1 Norway
7.1
6.8
6.4
6.6
2.9
1.8
..
..
2 Iceland
5.4
..
6.8
7.5
0.0
0.0
..
..
3 Sweden
7.4
7.8
7.6
6.5
2.7
2.0
..
..
4 Australia
5.1
4.7
5.3
6.0
2.2
1.7
..
..
5 Netherlands
6.0
4.8
5.7
5.5
2.5
1.6
..
..
7
 United States
5.2
4.8
4.7
5.8
5.3
3.1
--
--
16
 Austria
5.4
5.8
5.2
5.6
1.0
0.8
--
--
170 Mozambique
3.9
2.4
3.6
2.7
10.1
2.3
3.2
2.4
171 Burundi
3.4
3.4
1.1
1.6
3.4
8.1
3.7
3.3
172 Mali
..
2.8
1.6
2.2
2.1
2.0
2.8
3.0
173 Burkina Faso
2.7
..
1.0
3.0
3.0
1.6
1.2
1.5
174 Niger
3.2
2.7
..
1.8
..
1.1 l 4.0
1.3
175 Sierra Leone
..
1.0
..
2.6
0.9
3.6 l 3.3
12.8
Full Excel Spreadsheet
(United Nationas Development Programme, Human Development Report, http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/indicator/indic_163_1_1.html, November 16, 2003)

US College and University Endowments, 2002

Rank Institution Endowment1
1. Harvard Univ. (Cambridge, Mass.) $17,518,021,000
2. Yale Univ. (New Haven, Conn.) 10,442,036,000
3. Princeton Univ. (Princeton, N.J.) 8,320,000,000
4. Univ. of Texas System Administration (Austin, Tex.) 8,259,705,297
5. Stanford Univ. (Stanford, Calif.) 7,612,767,540
(From http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112636.html, Source: Council for Aid to Education, http://www.cae.org, November 16, 2003)

Universities in Austria are funded by the government.
Public expenditure on all Austrian universities (in Million Euro)
Year  1998    1999    2000    2001  
Expenditure  € 2,282,021  € 2,404,854  € 2,312,615  € 2,386,422

(Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur, Hochschulbericht 2002, http://www.bmbwk.gv.at, November 16, 2003)



Highest Peaks in the World (above 8,000 meters)
Peak Location Feet Meters
1. Mount Everest Nepal 29,035 ft. 8,850 m.
2. K2
 Pakistan/China 28,250 ft. 8,611 m.
3. Kangchenjunga Nepal/India 28,169 ft. 8,586 m.
4. Lhotse
 Nepal 27,940 ft. 8,516 m.
5. Makalu Nepal 27,765 ft. 8,462 m.
6. Cho Oyu Nepal 26,906 ft. 8,201 m.
7. Dhaulagiri Nepal 26,794 ft. 8,167 m.
8. Manaslu Nepal 26,758 ft. 8,156 m.
9. Nanga Parbat Pakistan 26,658 ft. 8,125 m.
10. Annapurna Nepal 26,545 ft. 8,091 m.
11. Gasherbrum I Pakistan/China 26,470 ft. 8,068 m.
12. Broad Peak Pakistan/China 26,400 ft. 8,047 m.
13. Gasherbrum II Pakistan/China 26,360 ft. 8,035 m.
14. Shisha Pangma Nepal/Tibet 26,289 ft. 8,013 m.

Highest Peaks of the Seven Continents
Peak Continent Feet Meters
1. Mount Everest Asia 29,035 ft. 8,850 m.
2. Aconcagua South America 22,841 ft. 6,962 m.
3. Mount McKinley North America 20,320 ft. 6,194 m.
4. Mount Kilimanjaro Africa 19,563 ft. 5,963 m.
5. Mount Elbrus Europe 18,481 ft. 5,633 m.
6. Puncak Jaya Australia/Oceania 16,502 ft. 5,030 m.
7. Vinson Massif Antarctica 16,066 ft. 4,897 m.
(Big surprise, the highest mountain in Europe is not Mont Blanc which is only 4,807 meters high!)
(Peakware World Mountain Encyklopedia, http://www.peakware.com/encyclopedia/highest.htm, November 16, 2003)



Population Figures
U.S. POPClock   World POPClock 

Europe - Demographic profile
Years 2000-2020

Indicator 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Population (thousands) 727 986 724 722 719 714 713 402 705 410
Male population (thousands) 350 900 349 325 346 919 343 954 340 243
Female population (thousands) 377 086 375 397 372 795 369 448 365 167
Population sex ratio (males per 100 females) 93.1 93.1 93.1 93.1 93.2
Percentage aged 0-4 (%) 5.1 4.8 4.7 4.7 4.6
Percentage aged 5-14 (%) 12.4 10.9 10.1 9.8 9.7
Percentage aged 15-24 (%) 13.9 13.8 12.7 11.2 10.4
Percentage aged 60 or over (%) 20.2 20.7 22.1 24.0 26.2
Percentage aged 65 or over (%) 14.7 15.9 16.3 17.6 19.3
Percentage aged 80 or over (%) 2.9 3.5 4.2 4.5 5.1
Percentage of women aged 15-49 (%) 48.8 48.5 46.9 44.7 42.9
Median age (years) 37.7 39.3 40.8 42.2 43.6
Population density (per sq. km) 32 32 31 31 31

Northern America - Demographic profile
Years 2000-2020

Indicator 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Population (thousands) 315 915 332 156 348 139 363 953 379 589
Male population (thousands) 155 239 163 343 171 319 179 175 186 819
Female population (thousands) 160 676 168 814 176 820 184 779 192 770
Population sex ratio (males per 100 females) 96.6 96.8 96.9 97.0 96.9
Percentage aged 0-4 (%) 7.0 6.9 6.7 6.7 6.6
Percentage aged 5-14 (%) 14.5 14.0 13.3 13.1 12.9
Percentage aged 15-24 (%) 13.7 14.1 14.2 13.7 13.1
Percentage aged 60 or over (%) 16.2 16.8 18.3 20.2 22.4
Percentage aged 65 or over (%) 12.3 12.4 13.0 14.4 16.2
Percentage aged 80 or over (%) 3.2 3.5 3.7 3.7 3.8
Percentage of women aged 15-49 (%) 50.2 48.8 47.1 45.3 44.4
Median age (years) 35.4 36.2 36.7 37.1 37.6
Population density (per sq. km) 15 15 16 17 18

(Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpp, 16 November 2003; 12:21:09 PM.)



Pi: 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944
Pi is both the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet and the symbol which represents the world's oldest mathematical mystery: the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The earliest known written record of the ratio comes from 1650 BCE Egypt, where a scribe calculated the value to be 3.16 (a mere 1% off the true value). Although now, we have methods to calculate the digits of pi (3.1415...) its exact value remains a mystery. To date it has been calculated to over 51 billion digits, so far with no discernible pattern emerging from its numbers. In fact, the first time that the sequence 123456789 appears, it is over 500 million digits into the ratio. The current world record for pi memorization was made in 1995, when a Japanese man recited 42,000 digits from memory in just over nine hours.
(Pi, http://www.pithemovie.com, November 16, 2003)



American consumers save [only] 3% of their incomes, and they have debts amounting to 85% of GDP; euro-area households put aside more than 10% of their incomes, and their debts are only 52% of GDP.
(The Economist, November 15, 2003)



The European Commission carried out a poll about the greatest threat to world peace. EOS Gallup asked 7,515 citizens from the 15 EU member states which countries posed the greatest threat to world peace. In the Netherlands (74 percent), Austria (69 percent) and Germany (65 percent) the largest percentage of people said Israel was a menace. Only Italy broke with the trend with less than half of those polled saying Israel was a threat (48 percent). In second place, after Israel, were Iran, North Korea and the United States, which 53 percent of the EU citizens deemed a threat.
(Deutsche Welle, http://www.dw-world.de, November 4, 2003 - http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_1022127_1_A,00.html)