Despite the number of live birds used in the course of filming The Birds, there is no sign of bird droppings; neither on cars, structures, people, or the ground.
Per Wiki: “People [magazine]'s website, People.com, focuses on celebrity and crime news, royal updates, fashion and lifestyle recommendations and human interest stories. By 2025, the site attracted approximately 187 million monthly visits across desktop and mobile platforms.”
People Magazine was launched by Time Inc. in March of 1974; the core of the magazine’s original editorial staff was veterans from Life Magazine, which had ceased publication a little over a year earlier. The cover of People’s first issue featured actress Mia Farrow, who was then starring in the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby.
Mia Farrow, born in 1945, was for a very brief time married to Frank Sinatra, when she was 21 and he was some 30 years older than she.
For the role of Rosemary Woodhouse in the movie Rosemary’s Baby, director Roman Polanski set out to find an “All-American” actress. His choice was Tuesday Weld, then known for her work in films like The Cincinnati Kid. Producer Robert Evans had a different idea: Mia Farrow, then best-known for the TV series Peyton Place. After auditioning a few actresses, Polanski ended up agreeing that Farrow was right for the role.
Rose Mary Woods was Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, first hired by him when he was elected to the Senate in the early 1950s. Woods remained as Nixon’s secretary for over 20 years, including during his presidency, and was famously loyal to him; during the Watergate investigation in 1974, she claimed responsibility for inadvertently causing the infamous “18 1/2 minute gap” in a 1972 recording of conversations in the White House.
Sinatra’s friend Dean Martin joked at the time, “I’ve got Scotch that’s older than Mia Farrow.”
In play:
Per Wiki, “An expert analysis of the [Rose Mary Woods] tapes conducted in January 1974 revealed that there were four or five separate erasures, and perhaps as many as nine. The contents of the gaps remain unknown.”
Pretty funny!
Rose Mary Woods died in 2005. She was 87. Richard Nixon died in 1994. He was 81. We’ll likely never know what was on those recording gaps.
Two U.S. Presidents have been members of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly called the Quakers: Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.
Quaker Oats was established back in 1877. It was the first breakfast cereal to be trademarked in the US. Known for pioneering marketing tactics like trial-size samples and recipes on boxes, Quaker Oats operates the world’s largest oat mill in Cedar Rapids IA, processing over 2 million pounds of oats per day.
Though beer is traditionally made with barley, it can be made from just about any grain: wheat, rice, oats, etc. In fact, some oat-based beers have won awards, including Voided, by Counter Weight Brewing Company, which took the Gold Medal at the World Beer Cup in 2026. Oat beers are known for their silky smooth Stouts.
Gold Medal Flour began in 1866 as “Superlative Flour” and sold by the Washburn-Crosby Company, which would later rename itself as “General Mills.” The flour took first place in an exposition in 1880, which prompted the name to be changed to “Gold Medal Flour.”
In 1878 the A Mill building (where flour was processed) was destroyed and nearly 20 people died when a dust explosion occurred. A new, larger building was erected, with safety measures in place to avoid such accidents, which often happened in smaller mills. In fact, flour dust is more explosive than gunpowder and 35 times more combustible than coal dust.
Not in play:
I worked for Quaker Oats for four years in the late '90s (at their Chicago headquarters), just before they were purchased by Pepsico. I toured the Cedar Rapids mill several times, and it was a really impressive sight. That was also the one and only time I’ve ever ridden on a “manlift,” a frightening bit of technology which undoubtedly makes OSHA cry.
In play:
American swimmer Michael Phelps holds the record for most Olympic gold medals, with 23. In second place is Norwegian cross-country skiier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, with 11; six athletes are tied for third place, with 9 gold medals: soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, American swimmers Katie Ledecky, Mark Spitz, and Caeleb Dressel, Finnish track and field runner Paavo Nurmi, and American track and field athlete Carl Lewis.
A typical Olympic gold medal weighs approximately 500 grams (1.1 pounds), and is actually made of sterling silver (92.5% pure) plated with a minimum of six grams of gold.
If the medals were made of pure gold, their precious-metal value would be roughly $75,000 - $80,000 each.
-“BB”-
The 1972 Olympic gold medal game for basketball was contested between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The Americans led by a point, 50-49, with 3 seconds to play. The Soviets inbounded the ball and missed a shot at the buzzer, which seemingly gave the Americans the win. But the referees ruled that the final play should be replayed, and so it was. The outcome was the same, and the Americans again celebrated. But, once again, the officials ruled that the final 3 seconds should be played again. This time, the USSR scored the game-winning basket and won the game, 51-50.
The Americans refused to accept their silver medals, and today the 12 medals are stored at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Swimmer Mark Spitz won a record seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics while on the way to setting a new world record for each of his seven gold medals. Spitz’s record stood until 2008, when American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals.
Richard Nixon, Republican of California, was reelected President of the United States in Nov. 1972, but resigned less than two years later due to the Watergate scandal and other official misconduct. Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, was elected President in Nov. 2008, and went on to serve two full terms.
In 1974 when Nixon resigned, I was 13 years old and working my first job delivering the morning paper for the Hartford Courant. I remember making about $8 a week delivering to my block in West Hartford.
The Hartford Courant, pronounced “current”, claims to be America’s Oldest Newspaper. Per wiki the Hartford Courant is advertised as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States and was first published on 29 Oct 1764.
On the morning of 09 Aug 1974, the largest headlines I ever saw and delivered stated simply, NIXON RESIGNS.
It’s been over 50 years and I’ll always remember seeing this
Currants are a big and popular fruit flavor in candies and other products in Europe (such as watermelon and grape are big flavors here in the US). Specifically, the black currant, which has been described as having a taste like “a grape on steroids.” So why aren’t currants popular in the US? Mainly because their cultivation was banned in the US for decades because they host a fungus that can destroy logging industries. The federal ban was lifted in 1966 but state-level bans still exist today.
The name for currants originates from the Greek city of Corinth, where the small dried grapes were originally grown and traded as “raisins of Corinth”.