Half of the world's countries now have smaller populations than the state of Massachusetts. When the late Princess Diana married Prince Charles in 1981, the television audience for the event was estimated at nearly one in five of the world's population. The Economist's Big Mac Index is the world's most reliable currency indicator to be based on a fast-food item. Limits to Growth predicted that reserves of natural gas, silver, tin, uranium, copper, lead and zinc would shortly decline.
Surveys show that smokers are bad at gauging the risks of succumbing to tobacco-induced diseases.
In the whole of the 17th century fewer than 600 students attended Harvard, which was then one of only two universities in the United States. Graduation rates have increased in all developed countries since then. Japan's shinkansen high-speed railway line between Tokyo and Osaka has been in operation for 34 years and carries 368,000 passengers each day, with an average deviation from schedule of 36 seconds per train. President Fidel Ramos of the Philippines declared the week beginning April 12th 1997 to be National Consciousness Week of the Imperative for Punctuality and Respect for the Rights of Others . From California's Silicone Valley to Kiel's Eros Centre, the sex industry is booming.