Word: billion
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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President Truman took a long, not so happy look at the budget last week, and reported that the deficit would be a huge $5.5 billion, instead of the mere $873 million he had predicted in January. It was the second biggest in U.S. peacetime history (the biggest: 1940-41's $6 billion...
...output of goods and services-$246.7 billion in 1948-will swell to $416 billion (in today's purchasing values) and perhaps even to $550 billion...
...this round-the-world ocean, Urey thinks, life evolved a billion and a half years ago. There is no record of these ancient creatures because they were all "pelagic," living at or near the surface of the water. They did not develop heavy, easily preserved shells or skeletons because there was no land or shallow bottom for non-floating forms to live...
...Every place that is favorable for the growth of micro-organisms (and most places are) is a churning battleground of small, fierce creatures. A pinch of moist soil weighing one gram, for instance, may contain more bacteria (up to 2 billion) than there are people on earth. Among the ordinary creatures prowl savage protozoa engulfing them one by one. There is an underworld, too, made up of submicroscopic viruses, hardly more than big molecules, which often invade the larger organisms and multiply explosively...
From the bell's first ring, it was panic; by day's end an incredible 16,410,030 shares had been dumped, capping the selling that had wiped out an estimated $25 billion in stock values. Not until 2½ hours after the market's close did the tickers catch up and carry the final sale. There was no longer any attempt by bankers or anybody else to stem the collapse. In just six days the whole world of easy prosperity had been buried...