Happy Birthday to Me!

My co-workers gave me one of those "Year You Were Born" birthday cards, and I have to say ... 1971 wasn't all-in-all the best of times.

To wit:

• Television ads for cigarettes are banned. (yay!)


• Charles Manson and 3 followers found guilty. (boo!)


• Nixon installs secret recording system in the White House. (boo!)


• "All in the Family" debuts. (yay!)


• George C. Scott refuses his Oscar for Patton, claiming actors should not compete. (yay!)


• The New York Times begins publishing the secret Vietnam War Pentagon Papers. (erm...)


• AT&T and Bell Labs tests the first cell phone technology. (I feel old.)


• AMTRAK begins service. (really? thought AMTRAK much older, somehow.)


• Four-day Attica riots results in 43 deaths. (boo!)


• Bretton Woods agreement collapses under weight of the U.S. deficit. (what goes around, comes around)


• Dollar goes off the gold standard and devalues by 7.9%. (boo!)


• Hunter S. Thompson writes Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (never read it, missed the movie)


• Scientists first warn of nitrogen causing serious damage to the ozone layer. (BOO!)


• The first Starbucks opens. (yay!)

Also born in 1971: Ewan McGregor and Winona Ryder (knew about them), Tupac Shakur, Jeff Gordon, Kristi Yamaguchi (thought she was younger), and Lance Armstrong (though he was way older).

(not on the card, but found easily on the Net) Also born on April 21: Robert Smith, Iggy Pop, Andie McDowell, Tony Danza, Charles Grodin, Elizabeth II, Anthony Quinn, Charlotte Bronte, Catherine the Great

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