The World Almanac - 2012

This is the book; accept no substitutes. When the power goes out, and the computers don’t work, this handy book is the place to be. Great for settling disagreements on almost any topic imaginable, it also contains copies of the text of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, a full color World Atlas, biographies of every President since George Washington, a complete list of every nation in the world; with vital statistics on each one; population of the world by countries, population of the United States by cities and counties, a brief overview of the world’s major religions, records of every Presidential election in our history, a full color review of the highlights from 2012, playing card and dice odds, ancient measurements such as the cubit, conversion charts for temperature, wind chill, heat index, metric system, extensive alphabetical listing of noted personalities living, noted personalities of the past, Broadway show records, economics, music, a section on aerospace, astronomy, calendars of all types, computers and telecommunications information, distances between cities, air traffic routes, median prices of existing homes by location, Income Tax information, zip codes, area codes, Morse code, marital status by households, a history of the United States, a short history of the world, a list of colleges and universities, acronyms, eponyms, foreign words and phrases, origins of names, sign language, buildings, bridges and tunnels, and about 200 pages of sports records organized by sport, date, feat accomplished, and records broken; like this one for one of the longest sentences.

This book, which is not necessary to update each year, is a good solid addition to any personal library. I even keep an old one in the car for the rare times I am caught without something to read. The biographies of the Presidents never get old, and there is always something new to be learned; even from an old almanac.