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The Best Decade Ever
Me and my family moved in 1970 to Hurst Lane, Shard End. I was 4 years and 7 months old and I can vaguely remember sitting on a cooker in the back of a removal van. It was about a week before Bonfire Night. My Mom managed to get some fireworks for the day and my Dad lit what was to become the first of many bonfires at home. I used to love family occasions like this.
I started Hillstone Infants and Juniors school, Hillstone Road, Shard End in 1971.
In 1977 I started my secondary school, Byng Kenrick Central School, Gressal Lane, Tile Cross.
I have fond memories of playing with my Action Man a lot, stamp collecting, drawing comics, reading lots of comics and books, watching lots of great family entertainment on the telly, going to The Red Welly Club at All Saints Church in Shard End going to Shard End Park or Arden Hall Park with my family and many more great memories that will be discussed in my blog.
The information below was sourced from Wikipedia and is subject to change.
You can read other articles related to the 1970’s via Blog Posts below as well.
About The 1970’s
In the 21st century, historians have increasingly portrayed the 1970’s as a pivot of change in world history, focusing especially on the economic upheavals that followed the end of the postwar economic boom. In the Western world, social progressive values that began in the 1960’s, such as increasing political awareness and economic liberty of women, continued to grow. In the United Kingdom, the 1979 election resulted in the victory of its Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, the first female British Prime Minister. Industrialized countries experienced an economic recession due to an oil crisis caused by oil embargoes by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. The crisis saw the first instance of stagflation which began a political and economic trend of the replacement of Keynesian economic theory with neoliberal economic theory, with the first neoliberal governments being created in Chile, where a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet took place in 1973.
The 1970’s was also an era of great technological and scientific advances; since the appearance of the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004 in 1971, the decade was characterised by a profound transformation of computing units – by then rudimentary, spacious machines – into the realm of portability and home accessibility.
On the other hand, there were also great advances in fields such as physics, which saw the consolidation of Quantum Field Theory at the end of the decade, mainly thanks to the confirmation of the existence of quarks and the detection of the first gauge bosons in addition to the photon, the Z boson and the gluon, part of what was christened in 1975 as the Standard Model.
Novelist Tom Wolfe coined the term “ ’Me’ decade” in his essay “The ‘Me’ Decade and the Third Great Awakening”, published by New York Magazine in August 1976 referring to the 1970’s. The term describes a general new attitude of Americans towards atomized individualism and away from communitarianism, in clear contrast with the 1960’s.
In Asia, affairs regarding the People’s Republic of China changed significantly following the recognition of the PRC by the United Nations, the death of Mao Zedong and the beginning of market liberalization by Mao’s successors. Despite facing an oil crisis due to the OPEC embargo, the economy of Japan witnessed a large boom in this period, overtaking the economy of West Germany to become the second-largest in the world. The United States withdrew its military forces from their previous involvement in the Vietnam War, which had grown enormously unpopular. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which led to an ongoing war for ten years.
The 1970’s saw an initial increase in violence in the Middle East as Egypt and Syria declared war on Israel, but in the late 1970’s, the situation in the Middle East was fundamentally altered when Egypt signed the Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty. Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, was instrumental in the event and consequently became extremely unpopular in the Arab world and the wider Muslim world. Political tensions in Iran exploded with the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty and established an authoritarian Islamic republic under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Africa saw further decolonization in the decade, with Angola and Mozambique gaining their independence in 1975 from the Portuguese Empire after the restoration of democracy in Portugal. The continent was, however, plagued by endemic military coups, with the long-reigning Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie being removed, civil wars and famine.
The economies of much of the developing world continued to make steady progress in the early 1970’s because of the Green Revolution. However, their economic growth was slowed by the oil crisis, although it boomed afterwards.
Popular Culture
The most prominent events and trends in popular culture of the decade (particularly in the Anglosphere) include:
Music
During the early 1970’s, popular music continued to be dominated by musicians who had achieved fame during the 1960’s such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, and Eric Clapton. In addition, many newcomer rock groups such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin appeared. The Beatles disbanded in 1970, but each member of the band immediately released a highly successful solo album, and Paul McCartney especially would remain extremely popular throughout the decade. Singer-songwriters such as Elton John, James Taylor and Jackson Browne also came into vogue during the early 1970’s.
The 1970’s saw the rapid commercialization of rock music, and by mid-decade, there was a spate of bands derisively dubbed corporate rock due to the notion that they had been created by record labels to produce simplistic, radio-friendly songs that offered clichés rather than meaningful lyrics. Such bands included The Doobie Brothers, Bread, Styx, Kansas, and REO Speedwagon.
Funk, an offshoot of soul music with a greater emphasis on beats, and influences from rhythm and blues, jazz, and psychedelic rock, was also very popular. The mid-1970s also saw the rise of disco music, which dominated during the last half of the decade with bands like the Bee Gees, Chic, ABBA, Village People, Boney M, Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band, and others. In response to this, rock music became increasingly hard-edged, with early metal artists like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple. Minimalism also emerged, led by composers such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Michael Nyman. This was a break from the intellectual serial music in the tradition of Schoenberg, which lasted from the early 1900’s to 1960’s.
The 1970’s also saw artists from Motown records become popular across the globe. Artists like the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye dominated the record charts across the world and had a significant influence on pop culture, including breaking down racial barriers.
Experimental classical music influenced both art rock and progressive rock genres with bands such as Pink Floyd, Yes, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Supertramp, Rush, Genesis, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues and Soft Machine. Hard rock and Heavy metal also emerged among British bands Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Who, Black Sabbath, UFO, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Judas Priest. Australian band AC/DC also found its hard-rock origins in the early 1970’s and its breakthrough in 1979’s Highway to Hell, while popular American rock bands included Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd and shock rockers Alice Cooper, Blue Öyster Cult, and Kiss, and guitar-oriented Ted Nugent and Van Halen. In Europe, there was a surge of popularity in the early decade for glam rock.
After a successful return to live performing in the late 60’s with his TV special, Elvis Presley remained popular in Vegas and on concert tours throughout the United States until his death in 1977. His 1973 televised concert, Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite, aired in over 40 countries in Europe and Asia, as well as the United States, making it one of the most popular concert events of the decade.
The second half of the decade saw the rise of punk rock when a spate of fresh, young rock groups playing stripped-down hard rock came to prominence at a time when most of the artists associated with the 1960’s to early 1970’s were in creative decline. Punk bands included The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, and more.
The highest-selling album was Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). It remained on the Billboard 200 albums chart for 741 weeks. Electronic instrumental progressive rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can, and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy krautrock, along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music), would be a major influence on subsequent synth rock. The mid-1970’s saw the rise of electronic art music musicians such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Tomita, who with Brian Eno were a significant influence on the development of new-age music. Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra helped to pioneer synthpop, with their self-titled album (in 1978) setting a template with less minimalism and with a strong emphasis on melody, and drawing from a wider range of influences than had been employed by Kraftwerk. YMO also introduced the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 sequencer and TR-808 rhythm machine to popular music.
In the first half of the 1970’s, many jazz musicians from the Miles Davis school achieved cross-over success through jazz-rock fusion with bands like Weather Report, Return to Forever, The Headhunters and The Mahavishnu Orchestra who also influenced this genre and many others. In Germany, Manfred Eicher started the ECM label, which quickly made a name for chamber jazz. Towards the end of the decade, Jamaican reggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970’s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe, mostly because of reggae superstar and legend Bob Marley. The mid-1970’s saw the reemergence of acoustic jazz with the return of artists like Dexter Gordon to the US music scene, who, along with a number of other artists, such as trumpet innovators like Don Ellis and Woody Shaw, who were among the last of the decade’s traditionally-oriented acoustic jazz musicians to be signed to major record labels, to receive critical and widespread commercial recognition and multiple Grammy nominations.
The late 1970’s also saw the beginning of hip hop music with disc jockeys like DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa taking loops from funk and soul records and playing them repeatedly at block parties and dance clubs. At the end of the 1970’s, popular songs like Rapper’s Delight by Sugarhill Gang gave hip hop a wider audience. Hip hop was also influenced by the song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron.
Country music also continued to increase in popularity in the 1970’s. Between 1977 and 1979, it became more mainstream, particularly with the outlaw movement, led by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. The 70’s also saw the rise of a country music subgenre, southern rock, led by the Allman Brothers Band. Other artists; such as Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Don Williams, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, Crystal Gayle, and Barbara Mandrell; all scored hits throughout the 70’s which reached both country and pop charts. The genre also saw its golden age of vocal duos and groups in this decade; with Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius, the Bellamy Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Statler Brothers, Dave & Sugar, and The Kendalls. The genre also became more involved in Hollywood toward the end of the decade, with country-themed action films such as Smokey and the Bandit and Every Which Way But Loose, a trend that continued into the early 80’s with Urban Cowboy and BroncoBill.
A major event in music in the early 1970’s was the deaths of popular rock stars Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, all at the age of 27. Two of popular music’s most successful artists from other eras died within eight weeks of each other in 1977. Elvis Presley, the best-selling singer of all time, died on August 16th, 1977. Presley’s funeral was held at Graceland, on Thursday, August 18th, 1977. Bing Crosby, who sold about 50 million records, died on October 14th, 1977. His single, White Christmas, remains the best selling single of all time, confirmed by Guinness Records.
In addition to the deaths in the 1970’s, breakups of bands and duos; such as The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Everly Brothers, and others; occurred over the course of the decade.
Statistically, Led Zeppelin and Elton John were the most successful musical acts of the 1970’s, both having sold more than 300 million records since 1969.
Film
Oscar winners of the decade were Patton (1970), The French Connection (1971), The Godfather (1972), The Sting (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Rocky (1976), Annie Hall (1977), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
The top ten highest-grossing films of the decade are (in order from highest to lowest grossing): Star Wars, Jaws, Grease, The Exorcist, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, The Godfather, Saturday Night Fever, Rocky, and Jaws 2. Two of these movies came out on the same day: June 16th, 1978.
In 1970’s European cinema, the failure of the Prague Spring brought about nostalgic motion pictures such as István Szabó’s Szerelmesfilm (1970). German New Wave and Rainer Fassbinder’s existential movies characterized film-making in Germany. The movies of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman reached a new level of expression in motion pictures like Cries and Whispers (1973).
Car chase movies also became a popular film genre of the 1970’s with such films as Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry in 1974, and perhaps the genre’s most popular film Smokey and the Bandit in 1977.
Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising middle-class fantasies and struggles. In the Bollywood cinema of India, this was epitomized by the movies of Bollywood superhero Amitabh Bachchan. Another Asian touchstone beginning in the early 1970’s was Hong Kong martial arts film which sparked a greater interest in Chinese martial arts around the world. Martial arts film reached the peak of its popularity largely in part due to its greatest icon, Bruce Lee. During the 1970’s, Hollywood continued the New Hollywood revolution of the late-1960’s with young filmmakers. Top-grossing Jaws (1975) ushered in the blockbuster era of filmmaking, though it was eclipsed two years later by the science-fiction film Star Wars (1977). Saturday Night Fever (1977) single-handedly touched off disco mania in the U.S. The Godfather (1972) was also one of the decade’s greatest successes and its first follow-up, The Godfather Part II (1974) was also successful for a sequel.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show flopped in its 1975 debut, only to reappear as a more-popular midnight show later in the decade. Still, in limited release decades after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history.
The Exorcist (1973) was a box office success for the horror genre, inspiring many other so-called devil (Satan) films like The Omen and both of their own sequels.
All That Jazz (1979) gained high critical praise, winning four Oscars and several other awards. It was an inductee of the 2001 National Film Registry list.
Television
The decade of the 1970’s saw significant changes in television programming in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The trends included the decline of the family sitcoms and rural-oriented programs to more socially contemporary shows and young, hip and urban sitcoms in the United States and the permanent establishment of colour television in the United Kingdom.
The following is from A List Of Years In Television:
1970: The first broadcast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Josie and the Pussycats, Ashita no Joe, The Partridge Family, The Odd Couple, The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee, The Adventures of Rupert Bear and All My Children. PBS is launched.
1971: The first broadcast of All in the Family, Kamen Rider, The Old Grey Whistle Test, Chespirito, The Two Ronnies, McDonaldland, Lupin the Third, Upstairs, Downstairs, La Linea, The Generation Game and Parkinson. DIC Enterprises is founded. Chesapeake Television Corporation is founded.
1972: The first broadcast of M*A*S*H, Emmerdale, Mastermind, Kamiondžije, El Chavo, Rainbow, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, El Chapulín Colorado, The Bob Newhart Show, Mazinger Z, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Great Performances and Maude. The first appearance of Little Mikey (Quaker’s Life Cereal). HBO is launched. Warner Communications is founded.
1973: The first broadcast of Boy on the Bike (Hovis), The Ascent of Man, Moonbase 3, The Wombles, Super Friends, The Young and the Restless, Cutie Honey, Super Friends, An American Family, Ein Herz und eine Seele, Schoolhouse Rock!, Speed Buggy, The Midnight Special, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Seventeen Moments of Spring, Tetley Tea Folk, Last of the Summer Wine and The World at War. The first appearances of Quicky the Nesquik Bunny and the Duracell Bunny.
1974: The first broadcast of Chico and the Man, Derrick, Happy Days, Little House on the Prairie, Mio Mao, Police Woman, Space Battleship Yamato, Heidi, Girl of the Alps, Land of the Lost, Porridge, Smash Martians, Rhoda, Good Times, The Rockford Files, and Tiswas. The first appearance of the Kool-Aid Man. The first Daytime Emmy Awards. Richard M. Nixon announces his resignation on live television.
1975: The first broadcast of Starsky & Hutch, Baretta, Barney Miller, Fawlty Towers, Good Morning America, One Day at a Time, Saturday Night Live, Sneak Previews, Space: 1999, The Jeffersons, The Naked Civil Servant, Welcome Back, Kotter, Wheel of Fortune and Wonder Woman; Sony introduces the Betamax home videotape recorder.
1976: The first broadcast of The Muppet Show, I, Claudius, Grlom u jagode, Honey Monster (Sugar Puffs), Loriot, SCTV, Austin City Limits, Andrex Puppy, Charlie’s Angels, Family Feud, The Gong Show, Laverne and Shirley and Nuts in May. The Cookie Jar Group is founded. Completion of CN Tower. The first VHS and videocassette recorders (VCRs) go on sale.
1977: The first broadcast of Abigail’s Party, CHiPs, Eight Is Enough, ¿Qué Pasa, USA?, Roots, Soap, It’ll Be Alright on the Night, Yatterman, Lou Grant, Hungarian Folktales, Three’s Company, Top Gear and Live from the Met. The first appearance of Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny. CBN Satellite Service is launched.
1978: The first broadcast of An Ordinary Miracle, Abarembo Shogun, Battlestar Galactica, Dallas, Diff’rent Strokes, WKRP in Cincinnati, Galaxy Express 999, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Once Upon a Time…, The Incredible Hulk, The Dating Game, Ski Sunday, Fantasy Island, Grange Hill, Matador, Mork & Mindy, Jabberjaw, Pennies from Heaven, Taxi, Future Boy Conan and Deeply Regretted By…
1979: The first broadcast of Doraemon, Benson, Blue Remembered Hills, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Hart to Hart, Knots Landing, Seibu Keisatsu, Life on Earth, Anne of Green Gables, Antiques Roadshow, Los Ricos También Lloran, Mobile Suit Gundam, Real People, Worzel Gummidge, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Facts of Life, BuzzBee the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, The Rose of Versailles, You Can’t Do That on Television, The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed, The Very Same Munchhausen and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. ESPN and Nickelodeon are launched.
Overall Trends
United Kingdom
In 1967, BBC Two had started trials of their new colour service, and it was gradually rolled out over the next few years. BBC One and ITV followed suit in 1969, so by 1970, the viewer had three colour channels from which to choose: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Although U.S. imports occupied a significant proportion of airtime, there was a substantial amount of high-quality in-house production too.
The BBC, supported by its licence fee and with no advertisers to placate, continued fulfilling its brief to entertain and inform. The Play for Today was a continuation of the Wednesday Play which had run from the mid-1960’s. As the title implied, it presented TV drama that had relevance to current social and economic issues, done in a way calculated to intrigue or even shock the viewer. As well as using established writers, it was effectively an apprenticeship for new ones who were trying to make a name for themselves; Dennis Potter, John Mortimer, Arthur Hopcraft and Jack Rosenthal all served time on Play for Today before going on to write their own independent series. In style, the plays could go from almost documentary realism (of which Cathy Come Home is the best-known example) to the futuristic or surrealist (The Year of the Sex Olympics, House of Character).
Potter went on to write Pennies from Heaven, one of the landmarks of 1970’s television drama. It had the now-familiar elements of Potter’s style: sexual explicitness, nostalgia, fantasy song and dance scenes, all overlaying a dark and pessimistic view of human motivation. The series was a success, but the BBC was not yet ready for Brimstone and Treacle, a story of the rape of a physically and mentally handicapped young woman. After viewing it, the BBC’s Director Of Programs Alasdair Milne, pronouncing it to be “brilliantly written … but nauseating”, withdrew it, and it would not be shown on British television until 1987.
Things had begun to change in the 1960’s, with Till Death Us Do Part, and the series continued during 1972 – 75. The rantings of Alf Garnett on race, class, religion, education and anything else at all definitely touched a nerve. Although the show was in fact poking fun at right-wing bigotry, not everyone got the joke. Some — including, notably, Mary Whitehouse — complained about the language (although the level of profanity was quite light) and resented the racial epithets like wog and coon and the attitudes underlying them. Others, completely missing the point of the show, actually adopted Alf as their hero, thinking he was uttering truths that others didn’t dare to — apparently oblivious to the fact that he never got the best of any argument and was regularly shown up to be stupid and ill-informed. The series regularly provoked controversy in the media, and for millions, it became a common gossiping point at work or in the pub.
Many popular British situation comedies (sitcoms) were gentle, innocent, not challenging portrayals of middle-class life, avoiding or only hinting at controversial issues; typical examples were Happy Ever After (later succeeded by Terry and June), Sykes and The Good Life. Set in a hotel in Torquay, Fawlty Towers was a massive success for the BBC, despite only twelve episodes being made. More nostalgic in tone was Last of the Summer Wine, about the escapades of pensioners in a Yorkshire town, Dad’s Army, about a Home Guard unit during World War II and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about a Royal Artillery Concert Party stationed in India/later Burma also during (and after) World War II.
A more diverse view of society was offered by series like Porridge, a comedy about prison life, and Rising Damp, set in a lodging house inhabited by two students, a lonely spinster and a lecherous landlord. Taking a softer approach to race than Till Death Us Do Part, ITV’s Mind Your Language (1977 – 79) represented several foreign nations personified as English language students attending an evening class. Despite LWT ending the show after its third series in objection to the undeniable stereotyping, Mind Your Language did later return for a fourth series in the 1980’s.
In police dramas, there was a move towards increasing realism. Dixon of Dock Green continued until 1976, but it was essentially a nostalgic look back to an earlier time when police officers were depicted as a mix of strict but fair law enforcers and kindly social workers. On the other hand, detective series such as Softly, Softly (a spin-off from the earlier Z-Cars) began to show police work done by fallible human beings with their own personal failings and weaknesses, constantly frustrated by the constraints under which they worked. Such series showed crime at the level of petty larceny and fraud, being tackled by ordinary coppers on the beat. Serious organised crime, on the other hand, was the province of various elite units, and one show in the 1970’s set a new standard. The Sweeney presented a hard, gritty picture of an armed police unit — members of Scotland Yard’s elite Flying Squad. Violence was routine, as were fast car chases; Regan and Carter were hard-hitting coppers, who when they weren’t catching villains were likely to be on a drunken binge or womanizing.
Although this was a truer picture of British policing, it was not always to the liking of senior police officers, who felt that the confidence of the public in the police force would be diminished as a result. In police dramas, through most of the 1970’s however, corruption was rare, the detection rate was unrealistically high, and the criminals arrested were always convicted on solid evidence. Although the officers in The Sweeney were no angels, and there were occasional hints that police who inhabited a world where informants were necessary could not completely avoid compromises, these never amounted to more than turning a blind eye to minor misdemeanours. It would not be until 1978 that a police drama (the miniseries Law and Order) would depict a police officer fabricating evidence to secure a conviction, with the collusion of his colleagues.
For the United States and more television click here and here.
Literature
The following is from A List Of Years In Literature:
1970: Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat. Judith Kerr’s Mog the Forgetful Cat. J. G. Farrell’s Troubles. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. James Dickey’s Deliverance. Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Terry Southern’s Blue Movie. Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. Ted Hughes’s Crow. Nina Bawden’s The Birds on the Trees. Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. Larry Niven’s Ringworld. Agatha Christie’s Passenger to Frankfurt. Deaths of Máirtín Ó Cadhain and Erich Maria Remarque.
1971: Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. Carlos Castaneda’s A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. Xaviera Hollander’s The Happy Hooker: My Own Story. Rosamunde Pilcher’s The End of Summer. Roger Hargreaves’s Mr. Men. Agatha Christie’s Nemesis and The Golden Ball and Other Stories.
1972: Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives. Richard Adams’s Watership Down. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic. Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves. Agatha Christie’s Elephants Can Remember. Deaths of Ezra Pound and L. P. Hartley.
1973: Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. J. G. Ballard’s Crash. J. G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur. Gore Vidal’s Burr. Peter Shaffer’s play Equus was first performed. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. John Bellairs’ The House with a Clock in Its Walls. Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. Nina Bawden’s Carrie’s War. Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. Dean Koontz’s Demon Seed. Agatha Christie’s Postern of Fate. Deaths of W. H. Auden and J. R. R. Tolkien.
1974: Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men. Stephen King’s Carrie. Peter Benchley’s Jaws. Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying. Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch. James Herbert’s The Rats. Agatha Christie’s Poirot’s Early Cases.
1975: James Clavell’s Shogun. Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot. Jorge Luis Borges’s The Book of Sand. Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren. E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime. Carlos Fuentes’ Terra Nostra. James Herbert’s The Fog. Diana Wynne Jones’ Cart and Cwidder. Agatha Christie’s Curtain. Death of P. G. Wodehouse.
1976: Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Richard Yates’s The Easter Parade. Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s The Final Days. Samuel R. Delany’s Triton. Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder. Death of Agatha Christie.
1977: Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea. Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Stephen King’s The Shining. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. Frederick Pohl’s Gateway. Diana Wynne Jones’s Charmed Life. Shirley Hughes’s Dogger. Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts. Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara. Death of Vladimir Nabokov.
1978: John Irving’s The World According to Garp. J. G. Farrell’s The Singapore Grip. Judi Barrett’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. John Cheever’s The Stories of John Cheever. Stephen King’s The Stand. Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle. Octavia Butler’s Kindred.
1979: Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Italo Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (If on a winter’s night a traveler). V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River. Milan Kundera’s Kniha smíchu a zapomnení (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting). Angela Sommer-Bodenburg’s Der kleine Vampir (The Little Vampire). William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice. Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. Jeffrey Archer’s Kane and Abel. Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus was first performed. Flora Thompson’s Heatherley. Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise. Ken Follett’s Triple. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple’s Final Cases and Two Other Stories. Death of J. G. Farrell.
Computer And Video Games
Popular and notable video games of the 1970’s include: Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pong, and Breakout.
Golden age of video arcade games.
Gun Fight was the first video game to contain a microprocessor.
The Oregon Trail was the first publicly available educational video game made available for widespread use in schools on December 3, 1971. The game is a cult classic and is still used today, in a wide variety of formats, through emulators and on smartphones.
The first commercially available video game console, entitled Magnavox Odyssey, was released in September 1972, created by Ralph H. Baer.
1974: Both Maze War (on the Imlac PDS-1 at the NASA Ames Research Center in California) and Spasim (on PLATO) appeared, pioneering examples of early multiplayer 3D first-person shooters.
In 1976, Mattel introduced the first handheld electronic game with the release of Mattel Auto Race.
Then, in 1976, William Crowther wrote the first modern text adventure game, Colossal Cave Adventure.
Apple, Inc. ushered in the modern personal computing age with its June 1, 1977, launch of the first mass-produced personal computer, the Apple II. Although many business-focused personal workstations were available to corporations years earlier, the Apple II has the distinction of being the first to produce personal computers specifically targeted to home users, beating the Commodore PET and Atari 400 to the market by five months. Its initial price tag was US$4999.99 for the CPU only.
The Atari 2600 was released in October 1977 and was a huge commercial success. It was challenged by the Magnavox Odyssey² and Intellivision.
Fairchild Channel F from 1976 becomes the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console.
The Microvision was the very first hand-held game console using interchangeable cartridges. It was released by the Milton Bradley Company in November 1979.
Read more about Computer And Video Games from the 1970’s here.
Sports
American Football
The Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers dominated the decade in the NFL. Steelers were led by Terry Bradshaw and Chuck Noll, and the Cowboys were led by Roger Staubach and Tom Landry, while the Miami Dolphins became the only team in NFL history to go all the way, winning the Super Bowl with an undefeated record—a feat that remains unmatched to this day.
Olympics
During the 1970’s, the Olympics took place four times, with Munich hosting the games in 1972 and Montreal playing host in 1976. The 1972 Summer games became a victim of both terrorism and international controversy with ties to the ongoing Cold War situation. During the games, Palestinian terrorists killed two Israeli athletes and took nine hostages. After a failed rescue attempt, all hostages and all but three terrorists were killed. The United States-Soviet Union basketball game was also embroiled in controversy. The U.S. basketball Olympic winning streak, which started in 1936, was ended by the Soviet Union team’s close victory game.
The U.S. complained about errors in officiating but the victory by the Soviet Union was upheld. Among the 1972 Summer Olympic highlights was the performance of swimmer Mark Spitz, who set seven World Records to win a record seven gold medals in one Olympics, bringing his total to nine. Other notable athletes at the 1972 games were sixteen-year-old Olga Korbut, whose success in women’s gymnastics earned three gold medals for the Soviet Union, and British athlete Mary Peters, who took home the gold in the women’s pentathlon.
The 1976 Summer games in Montreal marked the first time the Olympic games were held in Canada. Mindful of the tragedy during the 1972 games, security was high during the Montreal games. Due to its policy on apartheid, South Africa was banned from the games. Even so, twenty-two other African countries sat out to protest. The 1976 Summer Olympics were highlighted by the legendary performance of 14-year-old Romanian female gymnast Nadia Comăneci, who scored seven perfect 10s and won 3 gold medals, including the prestigious All-Around in women’s gymnastics. The performance by Comăneci also marked the rise of legendary women’s gymnastics coach Béla Károlyi, who went on to coach the U.S. team in both the 1988 and 1992 summer Olympic games. The 1976 Summer games also featured the strong U.S. boxing team, which consisted of Sugar Ray Leonard, Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, Leo Randolph and Howard Davis Jr. The team won five gold medals and was arguably the greatest Olympic boxing team ever. In wrestling, Dan Gable won the gold medal in the 149-pound weight class without having a single point scored against him. Amazingly, this was done with a painful shoulder injury.
The Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo, Japan, in 1972 and Innsbruck, Austria, in 1976. Originally, Denver, Colorado, was supposed to host the ’76 Games, but voters rejected a plan to finance the venues needed and the IOC chose Innsbruck instead; the city had already had venues from hosting the 1964 Winter Olympics.
Baseball
The Oakland Athletics three-peated at the World Series in 1972 – 1974.
The Cincinnati Reds go to the World Series in 1970, 1972, 1975, and 1976, led by the Big Red Machine winning two out of four.
The New York Yankees won the World Series in 1977 and 1978 after losing in 1976.
Ice Hockey
The Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 1975, a team-best remembered as The Broad Street Bullies.
Disc Sports
As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternatives. They would form what would become known as the counterculture. The forms of escape and resistance would manifest in many ways including social activism, alternative lifestyles, experimental living through foods, dress, music and alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a frisbee. What started with a few players like Victor Malafronte, Z Weyand and Ken Westerfield experimenting with new ways of throwing and catching a frisbee later would become known as playing freestyle. Organized disc sports, in the 1970’s, began with promotional efforts from Wham-O and Irwin Toy (Canada), a few tournaments and professionals using frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs and sporting events. Disc sports such as freestyle, double disc court, guts, disc ultimate and disc golf became this sports first events.
For more 1970’s Sports click here.
Science And Technology
Science
The 1970’s witnessed an explosion in the understanding of solid-state physics, driven by the development of the integrated circuit, and the laser. Stephen Hawking developed his theories of black holes and the boundary condition of the universe at this period with his theory called Hawking radiation. The biological sciences greatly advanced, with molecular biology, bacteriology, virology, and genetics achieving their modern forms in this decade. Biodiversity became a cause of major concern as habitat destruction, and Stephen Jay Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium revolutionized evolutionary thought.
Space Exploration
As the 1960’s ended, the United States had made two successful crewed lunar landings. Many Americans lost interest afterwards, feeling that since the country had accomplished President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing on the Moon by the end of the 1960’s, there was no need for further missions. There was also a growing sentiment that the billions of dollars spent on the space program should be put to other uses. The Moon landings continued through 1972, but the near loss of the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970 served to further anti-NASA feelings. Plans for missions up to Apollo 20 were cancelled, and the remaining Apollo and Saturn hardware was used for the Skylab space station program in 1973 – 1974, and for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), which was carried out in July 1975. Many of the ambitious projects NASA had planned for the 1970s were cancelled amid heavy budget cutbacks, and instead, it would devote most of the decade to the development of the Space Shuttle. ASTP was the last crewed American space flight for the next five years. The year 1979 witnessed the spectacular reentry of Skylab over Australia. NASA had planned for a Shuttle mission to the space station, but the shuttles were not ready to fly until 1981, too late to save it.
Meanwhile, the Soviets, having failed in their attempt at crewed lunar landings, cancelled the program in 1972. By then, however, they had already begun Salyut, the world’s first space station program, which began in 1971. This would have problems of its own, especially the tragic loss of the Soyuz 11 crew in July 1971 and the near-loss of the Soyuz 18a crew during launch in April 1975. It eventually proved a success, with missions as long as six months being conducted by the end of the decade.
In terms of unmanned missions, a variety of lunar and planetary probes were launched by the US and Soviet programs during the decade. The most successful of these include the Soviet Lunokhod program, a series of robotic lunar missions which included the first unmanned sample return from another world, and the American Voyagers, which took advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets to visit all of them except Pluto by the end of the 1980’s.
China entered the space race in 1970 with the launching of its first satellite, but technological backwardness and limited funds would prevent the country from becoming a significant force in space exploration. Japan launched a satellite for the first time in 1972. The European Space Agency was founded during the decade as well.
Biology
The second generation of facelifts was first attempted in the 1970’s, popularizing the procedure for millions.
The first MRI image was published in 1973.
César Milstein and Georges Köhler reported their discovery of how to use hybridoma cells to isolate monoclonal antibodies, effectively beginning the history of monoclonal antibody use in science.
Carl Woese and George E. Fox classified archaea as a new, separate domain of life.
Lucy, a fossilized hominid of the species Australopithecus afarensis, was discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia by Donald Johanson in 1974, providing evidence for bipedalism as an early occurrence in human evolution.
After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979 after the last smallpox case in 1977.
The first organisms genetically engineered were bacteria in 1973 and then mice in 1974.
1977 The first complete DNA genome to be sequenced is that of bacteriophage φX174.
In 1978, Louise Brown became the first child to be born via in vitro fertilisation or IVF.
Social Science
Social science intersected with hard science in the works in natural language processing by Terry Winograd (1973) and the establishment of the first cognitive sciences department in the world at MIT in 1979. The fields of generative linguistics and cognitive psychology went through a renewed vigour with symbolic modelling of semantic knowledge while the final devastation of the long-standing tradition of behaviourism came about through the severe criticism of B. F. Skinner’s work in 1971 by the cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky.
Technology
Concorde makes the world’s first commercial passenger-carrying supersonic flight.
Trains
British Rail introduced high-speed trains on InterCity services. The trains consisted of British Rail Class 43 diesel-electric locomotives at either end with British Rail Mark 3 carriages. The trains were built in the United Kingdom by British Rail Engineering Limited. The high-speed trains ran at 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) speeding up journeys between towns and cities and are still known as the InterCity 125.
Amtrak was formed in the United States in 1971, assuming responsibility for intercity passenger operations throughout the country. In 1976, Conrail was formed to take over assets of six bankrupt freight railroads in the northeastern US.
Cars
The 1970’s was an era of fuel price increases, rising insurance rates, safety concerns, and emissions controls. The 1973 oil crisis caused a move towards smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles. Attempts were made to produce electric cars, but they were largely unsuccessful. In the United States, imported cars became a significant factor for the first time, and several domestic-built subcompact models entered the market. American-made cars such as the quirky AMC Gremlin, the jelly bean shaped AMC Pacer, and Pontiac Firebird’s powerful Trans Am sum up the decade. Muscle cars and convertible models faded from favour during the early-1970’s. It was believed that the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado would be the last American-built convertible; ending the open body style that once dominated the auto industry.
Cars in the U.S. from the early 1970’s are noted more for their power than their styling, but they even lost their power by the Malaise era of the late 1970s Styling on American cars became progressively more boxy and rectilinear during the 1970’s, with coupes being the most popular body style. Wood panelling and shag carpets dominated the interiors. Many automobiles began to lose their character and looked the same across brands and automakers, as well as featuring luxury enhancements such as vinyl roofs and opera windows. Only a few had real personalities such as the AMC Gremlin, which was America’s first modern subcompact, and the AMC Pacer. Thomas Hine said (in his book, The Great Funk: Styles of the Shaggy, Sexy, Shameless 1970s), “These two cars embody a sense of artful desperation that made them stand out from the crowd and epitomize at once the best and worst of the seventies.”
Automobiles in the U.S. reached the largest sizes they would ever attain, but by 1977, General Motors managed to downsize its full-size models to more manageable dimensions. Ford followed suit two years later, with Chrysler offering new small front-wheel-drive models, but was suffering from a worsening financial situation caused by various factors. By 1979, the company was near bankruptcy, and under its new president Lee Iacocca (who had been fired from Ford the year before), asked for a government bailout. American Motors beat out the U.S. Big Three to subcompact sized model (the Gremlin) in 1970, but its fortunes declined throughout the decade, forcing it into a partnership with the French automaker Renault in 1979.
European car design underwent major changes during the 1970’s due to the need for performance with high fuel efficiency—designs such as the Volkswagen Golf and Passat, BMW 3, 5, and 7 series, and Mercedes-Benz S-Class appeared at the latter half of the decade. Ford Europe, specifically Ford Germany, also eclipsed the profits of its American parent company. The designs of Giorgetto Giugiaro became dominant, along with those of Marcello Gandini in Italy. The 1970’s also saw the decline and practical failure of the British car industry—a combination of militant strikes and poor quality control effectively halted development at British Leyland, owner of all other British car companies during the 1970’s.
The Japanese automobile industry flourished during the 1970’s, compared to other major auto markets. Japanese vehicles became internationally renowned for their affordability, reliability, and fuel efficiency, which was very important to many customers after the oil crisis of 1973. Japanese car manufacturing focused on computerized robotic manufacturing techniques and lean manufacturing, contributing to high efficiency and low production costs. The Honda Civic was introduced in 1973, and sold well due to its high fuel efficiency. By 1975 Toyota overtook Volkswagen as the top-selling imported automobile brand in the U.S., with over a million cars sold per year by this point. Other popular compact cars included the Toyota Corolla and the Datsun Sunny, in addition to other cars from those companies and others such as Subaru, Mitsubishi, and Mazda.
Electronics And Communications
The birth of modern computing was in the 1970’s, which saw the development of:
Intel 4004, the world’s first general microprocessor.
The C programming language.
Rudimentary personal computers, with the launch of the Datapoint 2200.
Pocket calculators.
The Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console.
The Sony Walkman, built in 1978 by Japanese audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara.
Consumer video games, after the release of Computer Space.
The earliest floppy disks, invented at IBM, which were 8 inches wide and long, commercially available by 1971.
Email, with the first transmission in 1971.
Electronic paper, developed by Nick Sheridon at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
The Xerox Alto of 1973, the first computer to use the desktop metaphor and mouse-driven graphical user interface (GUI).
The 1970’s were also the start of:
Fiber optics, which transformed the communications industry.
Microwave ovens, which became commercially available.
The VCR and Betamax became commercially available.
The first voicemail system, known as the Speech Filing System (SFS), invented by Stephen J. Boies in 1973.
E-commerce, invented in 1979 by Michael Aldrich.
DiscoVision in 1978, the first commercial optical disc storage medium.
Positron emission tomography, invented in 1972 by Edward J. Hoffman and fellow scientist Michael Phelps.
Mobile phones. The first call was transmitted in 1973 by Martin Cooper of Motorola.
Car phone services, first available in Finland in 1971 in form of the zero-generation ARP (Autoradiopuhelin, or Car Radiophone) service.
Apple Computer Company, founded in 1976.
People
Musicians
For a list of 1970’s Musicians and information about them click here.
Bands
For a list of 1970’s Bands and information about them click here.
Filmmakers
For a list of 1970’s Filmmakers and information about them click here.
Actors / Entertainers
For a list of 1970’s Actors / Entertainers and information about them click here.
Writers
For a list of 1970’s Writers and information about them click here.
Sports Figures
For a list of 1970’s Sports Figures and information about them click here.
Fashion
Clothing styles during the 1970’s were influenced by outfits seen in popular music groups and in Hollywood films. In clothing, prints, especially from India and other parts of the world, were fashionable.
Much of the 1970’s fashion styles were influenced by the hippie movement. As well as the hippie look, the 70’s also gave way to glam rock styles, started off by David Bowie who was named the King of Glam Rock. Glam was a gender-bent and outlandish style.
Significant fashion trends of the 1970’s include:
Bell-bottomed pants remained popular throughout the decade. These combined with turtle necked shirts and flower-prints to form the characteristic 1970’s look. In the later part of the decade, this gave way to three-piece suits, in large part because of the movie Saturday Night Fever.
Sideburns were popular for men, as were beards and moustaches which had been out of fashion since the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Women’s hairstyles went from long and straight in the first half of the decade to the feathery cut of Farrah Fawcett.
Miniskirts and minidresses were still fashionable in the first half of the decade but were quickly phased out by the mid-70s in favour of hot pants. However, miniskirts and minidresses never totally went away, and they made a return to mainstream fashion in the mid-1980’s and has remained a fashion staple in the decades since.
Platform shoes.
Leisure suits.
Mohawk hairstyle, associated with the punk subculture.
Flokati rugs.
Lava lamps.
Papasan chairs.
Read more about 1970’s Fashion here.
Economics
The 1970’s were perhaps the worst decade of most industrialized countries economic performance since the Great Depression. Although there was no severe economic depression as witnessed in the 1930’s, economic growth rates were considerably lower than in previous decades. As a result, the 1970’s adversely distinguished itself from the prosperous postwar period between 1945 and 1973. The oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 added to the existing ailments and conjured high inflation throughout much of the world for the rest of the decade. U.S. manufacturing industries began to decline as a result, with the United States running its last trade surplus (as of 2009) in 1975. In contrast, Japan and West Germany experienced economic booms and started overtaking the U.S. as the world’s leading manufacturers. In 1970, Japan overtook West Germany to become the world’s second-largest economy. Japan would rank as the world’s second-largest economy until 1994 when the European Economic Area (18 countries under a single market) came into effect.
In the US, the average annual inflation rate from 1900 to 1970 was approximately 2.5%. From 1970 to 1979, however, the average rate was 7.06% and topped out at 13.29% in December 1979. This period is also known for stagflation, a phenomenon in which inflation and unemployment steadily increased. It led to double-digit interest rates that rose to unprecedented levels (above 12% per year). The prime rate hit 21.5 in December 1980, the highest in history. A rising cost of housing was reflected in the average price of a new home in the U.S. The average price of a new home in the U.S. was $23,450 in 1970 up to $68,700 by 1980. By the time of 1980, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter was running for re-election against Ronald Reagan, the misery index (the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate) had reached an all-time high of 21.98%. The economic problems of the 1970’s would result in a sluggish cynicism replacing the optimistic attitudes of the 1950’s and 1960’s and a distrust of government and technology. Faith in government was at an all-time low in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, as exemplified by the low voter turnout in the 1976 United States presidential election. There was also the 1973 – 74 stock market crash.
Great Britain also experienced considerable economic turmoil during the decade as outdated industries proved unable to compete with Japanese and German wares. Labour strikes happened with such frequency as to almost paralyze the country’s infrastructure. Following the Winter of Discontent, Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979 with the purpose of implementing extreme economic reforms.
In Eastern Europe, Soviet-style command economies began showing signs of stagnation, in which successes were persistently dogged by setbacks. The oil shock increased East European, particularly Soviet, exports, but a growing inability to increase agricultural output caused growing concern to the governments of the COMECON block, and a growing dependence on food imported from democratic nations.
On the other hand, export-driven economic development in Asia, especially by the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan), resulted in rapid economic transformation and industrialization. Their abundance of cheap labour, combined with educational and other policy reforms, set the foundation for development in the region during the 1970’s and beyond.
Oil Crisis
Economically, the 1970’s were marked by the energy crisis which peaked in 1973 and 1979. After the first oil shock in 1973, petrol was rationed in many countries. Europe particularly depended on the Middle East for oil; the United States was also affected even though it had its own oil reserves. Many European countries introduced car-free days and weekends. In the United States, customers with a license plate ending in an odd number were only allowed to buy petrol on odd-numbered days, while even-numbered plate-holders could only purchase petrol on even-numbered days. The realization that oil reserves were not endless and technological development was not sustainable without potentially harming the environment ended the belief in limitless progress that had existed since the 19th century. As a result, ecological awareness rose substantially, which had a major effect on the economy.
Disasters
Natural
On January 5th, 1970, the 7.1 Mw Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 10,000 and 14,621 were killed and 26,783 were injured.
On May 31st, 1970, the 1970 Ancash earthquake caused a landslide that buried the town of Yungay, Peru; more than 47,000 people were killed.
On October 29th 1999, a super cyclonic storm hit the coastal districts of Orissa like Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Bhadrak, some parts of Puri and Khurda and adjacent areas along the Bay of Bengal with a velocity of more than 300 kmph.
The 1970 Bhola cyclone, a 120-mph (193 km/h) tropical cyclone, hit the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on November 12th and 13th, 1970, killing an estimated 500,000 people. The storm remains to date the deadliest tropical cyclone in world history.
On October 29th, 1971, the 1971 Odisha cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, in the Indian state of Odisha, killed 10,000 people.
June, 1972, Hurricane Agnes hit the east coast of the United States, resulting in 128 deaths and causing over $2.1 Billion in damage.
On April 3rd, 1974, the 1974 Super Outbreak occurred in the U.S. producing 148 tornadoes and killing a total of 330 people.
On December 24th, 1974, Cyclone Tracy devastated the Australian city of Darwin.
Bangladesh famine of 1974 — Official records claim a death toll of 26,000. However, various sources claim about 1,000,000.
On August 8th, 1975, the Banqiao Dam, in China’s Henan Province, failed after a freak typhoon; over 200,000 people perished.
On February 4th, 1976, a major earthquake in Guatemala and Honduras killed more than 22,000.
On July 28th, 1976, a 7.5 earthquake flattened Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 people and injuring 164,851.
On August 17th, 1976, a magnitude 8 earthquake struck Moro Gulf near the island of Sulu in Mindanao, the Philippines causing a tsunami killing 5,000 to 8,000 people.
Super Typhoon Tip affected areas in the southwestern Pacific Ocean from October 4–19, 1979. Off the coast of Guam, Tip became the largest and most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded, with a gale diameter of almost 1,400 miles, 190-mph winds, and a record intensity of 870 millibars.
Non-Natural
October 2nd, 1970, Plane Crash involving the Wichita State University Football Team.
On November 14th, 1970, Southern Airways Flight 932 carrying the entire Marshall (West Virginia) football team and boosters crashed into a mountainside near Ceredo, West Virginia, on approach to Tri-State Airport in heavy rain and fog. They were returning from a road game loss at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. There were no survivors.
On July 30th, 1971, All Nippon Airways Flight 58 collided with a JASDF fighter plane, killing all 162 onboard. The JASDF pilot survived.
On December 29th, 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed in the Florida Everglades while its crew was distracted. 101 people died in the accident while 75 survived.
On January 22nd, 1973, an Alia Boeing 707, chartered by Nigeria Airways, crashed upon landing at Nigeria’s Kano Airport after one of its landing gear struts collapsed. 176 of the 202 people on board perished, leaving 26 survivors.
On March 3rd, 1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crashed in northern France after a cargo hatch blowout, killing all 346 people aboard.
On April 4th, 1975, the rear loading ramp on a USAF Lockheed C-5 Galaxy blew open mid-flight, causing explosive decompression that crippled the aircraft. 153 were killed in the incident while 175 survived.
On November 10th, 1975, the U.S. Great Lakes bulk freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald foundered on Lake Superior with the loss of all 29 crewmen.
On September 10th, 1976, in the Zagreb mid-air collision, a British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex-Adria Aviopromet Douglas DC-9 collided near Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), killing all 176 aboard both planes and another person on the ground.
On March 27th, 1977, two Boeing 747s (a KLM and a Pan Am) collided on the runway in heavy fog at Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, killing 583 people – the worst aviation disaster on record.
On January 1st, 1978, Air India Flight 855 crashed into the sea off the coast of India, killing all 213 aboard.
On September 25th, 1978, PSA Flight 182 collided with a private Cessna 172 over San Diego, California, and crashed into a local neighbourhood. All 135 on the PSA aircraft, both pilots of the Cessna, and 7 people on the ground (144 total) were killed.
On May 25th, 1979, American Airlines Flight 191, outbound from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, lost an engine during take-off and crashed, killing all 271 onboard and 2 others on the ground. It was and remains the deadliest single-plane crash on American soil.
On November 28th, 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed on the flanks of Mount Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 people on board.
On March 28th, 1979, a Three Mile Island accident occurred.
Society
Role Of Women In Society
The role of women in society was profoundly altered with growing feminism across the world and with the presence and rise of a significant number of women as heads of state outside monarchies and heads of government in a number of countries across the world during the 1970’s, many being the first women to hold such positions. Non-monarch women heads of state and heads of government in this period included Isabel Perón as the first woman President in Argentina and the first woman non-monarch head of state in the Western hemisphere in 1974 until being deposed in 1976, Elisabeth Domitien becomes the first woman Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, Indira Gandhi continuing as Prime Minister of India until 1977 (and taking office again in 1980), Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Prime minister of Sri Lanka (Former Ceylon) and first female head of government in the world, re-elected in 1970, Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel and acting Chairman Soong Ching-ling of the People’s Republic of China continuing their leadership from the sixties, Lidia Gueiler Tejada becoming the interim President of Bolivia beginning from 1979 to 1980, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo becoming the first woman Prime Minister of Portugal in 1979, and Margaret Thatcher becoming the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979. Both Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher would remain important political figures in the following decade in the 1980’s.
Social Movements
Anti-War Protests
The opposition to the War in Vietnam that began in the 1960’s grew exponentially during the early 1970’s. One of the best-known anti-war demonstrations was the Kent State shootings. In 1970, university students were protesting the war and the draft. Riots ensued during the weekend and the National Guard was called in to maintain the peace. However, by 4th May 1970, tensions arose again, and as the crowd grew larger, the National Guard started shooting. Four students were killed and nine injured. This event caused disbelief and shock throughout the country and became a staple of anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
Environment
The 1970’s started a mainstream affirmation of the environmental issues early activists from the 1960’s, such as Rachel Carson and Murray Bookchin, had warned of. The Apollo 11 mission, which had occurred at the end of the previous decade, had transmitted back concrete images of the Earth as an integrated, life-supporting system and shaped a public willingness to preserve nature. On April 22nd, 1970, the United States celebrated its first Earth Day, in which over two thousand colleges and universities and roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools participated.
Sexual Revolution
The 1960’s counterculture movement had rapidly undone many existing social taboos, and divorce, extramarital sex, and homosexuality were increasingly accepted in the Western world. The event of legalized abortion and over-the-counter birth control pills also played a major factor. Western Europe was in some ways more progressive on sexual liberation than the United States, as nudity in film and on TV had been gradually accepted there from the mid-1960’s, and many European countries during this time began allowing women to go topless in public places. The nudist culture was also popular during the decade, especially in Germany and Scandinavia. Child erotica found a niche market, but would eventually be banned under child pornography laws in the 1980’s to 1990’s.
The market for adult entertainment in the 1970’s was large, and driven in part by the sizable baby boomer population, and the 1972 movie Behind the Green Door, an X-rated feature, became one of the top-grossing films of the year. Playboy Magazine appeared increasingly dull and old-fashioned next to new, more explicit sex-themed magazines such as Penthouse Magazine and Hustler Magazine.
By the end of the decade, there was an increasing backlash against libertine sexual attitudes, and the event of the AIDS epidemic helped bring about an end to the Sexual Revolution. Adult movie theatres, which had exploded in numbers during the 1970’s and were widely seen as a symptom of urban decay in the US, declined as pornographic movies would largely shift to VHS tapes during the succeeding decade.
Crime And Urban Decay
Crime rates in the US had been low from the 1940’s until the mid-1960’s, but began to escalate after 1965 due to a complex of social, economic, and demographic factors. By the 1970’s, crime and blighted urban areas were a serious cause of concern, New York City being particularly affected. In 1972, the US Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional, then reversed the ruling only four years later.
Feminism
The Second-Wave Feminist Movement in the United States, which had begun in the 1960’s, carried over to the 1970’s, and took a prominent role within society. The fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which legalized female suffrage) in 1970 was commemorated by the Women’s Strike for Equality and other protests.
1971 saw Erin Pizzey establish the world’s first domestic violence shelter in Chiswick, London and Pizzey and her colleagues opened further facilities throughout the next few years. This work inspired similar networks of safe houses for female victims of abuse in other countries, with the first shelter in continental Europe opening in Amsterdam in 1974.
With the anthology Sisterhood is Powerful and other works, such as Sexual Politics, being published at the start of the decade, feminism started to reach a larger audience than ever before. In addition, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, which constitutionalized the right to an abortion, brought the women’s rights movement into the national political spotlight.
Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Betty Ford, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, Robin Morgan, Kate Millet and Elizabeth Holtzman, among many others, led the movement for women’s equality.
Even musically, the women’s movement had its shining moment. Australian-American singer Helen Reddy, recorded the song I Am Woman, which became an anthem for the women’s liberation movement. I Am Woman reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and even won Helen her one and only Grammy Award.
Another movement to arise was the 1970’s Goddess movement, which took place to combat patriarchal ideas of religion.
Most efforts of the movement especially aims at social equality and repeal of the remaining oppressive, sexist laws, were successful. Doors of opportunity were more numerous and much further open than before as women gained unheard-of success in business, politics, education, science, the law, and even the home. Although most aims of the movement were successful, however, there were some significant failures, most notably the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution with only three more states needed to ratify it (efforts to ratify ERA in the unratified states continues to this day and twenty-two states have adopted state ERAs). Also, the wage gap failed to close, but it did become smaller.
The second-wave feminist movement in the United States largely ended in 1982 with the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment, and with new conservative leadership in Washington, D.C. American women created a brief, but powerful, third-wave in the early 1990’s which addressed sexual harassment (inspired by the Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of 1991). The results of the movement included a new awareness of such issues among women, and unprecedented numbers of women elected to public office, particularly the United States Senate.
Civil Rights
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s began to fracture in the 1970’s, as social groups began defining themselves more by their differences than by their universalities. The Black Nationalist movement grew out of frustrations with the non-violent strategies of earlier Civil Rights Activists. With the April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, many Black people were compelled to reject ideas of negotiation and instead embrace isolation. The feminist movement also splintered from a larger push for Civil Rights in the 1970’s. The seventies were seen as the woman’s turn, though many feminists incorporated civil rights ideals into their movement. A feminist who had inherited the leadership position of the civil rights movement from her husband, Coretta Scott King, as leader of the black movement, called for an end to all discrimination, helping and encouraging the Woman’s Liberation Movement, and other movements as well. At the National Women’s Conference in 1977 a minority women’s resolution, promoted by King and others, passed to ensure racial equality in the movement’s goals. Similarly, the gay movement made a huge step forward in the 1970’s with the election of political figures such as Harvey Milk to public office and the advocating of anti-gay discrimination legislation passed and not passed during the decade. Many celebrities, including Freddie Mercury and Andy Warhol, also came out during this decade, bringing gay culture further into the limelight.
Youth Suffrage
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on July 1st, 1971, lowering the voting age for all federal and state elections from 21 years to 18 years. The primary impetus for this change was the fact that young men were being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War before they were old enough to vote.
Assassinations And Attempts
Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:
King of Saudi Arabia Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is assassinated on March 25th, 1975, by his half-brother’s son, Faisal bin Musaid.
Arthur Bremer plotted to assassinate Governor of Alabama, George Wallace on May 15th, 1972, while Wallace was making a campaign trip in Laurel, Maryland. Wallace would later be paralyzed from the waist down. Arthur Bremer was sentenced to the Maryland Correctional Institute, and would later be released in 2007.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, President of Bangladesh, and almost his entire family was assassinated in the early hours of August 15th, 1975, when a group of Bangladesh Army personnel went to his residence and killed him, during a coup d’état.
U.S. President Gerald Ford was nearly assassinated twice in September 1975 in Sacramento and San Francisco, California.
Christian Democratic leader and former Prime Minister of Italy Aldo Moro was kidnapped and later killed by the Red Brigades on May 9th, 1978.
Raymond Lee Harvey and his confidant Osvaldo Ortiz plotted to assassinate President Jimmy Carter while Carter was to give a speech at the Civic Center Mall in Los Angeles, California, on May 5th, 1979.
Politics And Wars
Wars
The most notable wars and / or other conflicts of the decade include:
The Cold War (1945 – 1991)
The Vietnam War came to a close in 1975 with the fall of Saigon and the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30th, 1975. The following year, Vietnam was officially declared reunited.
Soviet–Afghan War (1979 – 1989). Although taking place almost entirely throughout the 1980’s, the war officially started on December 27th, 1979.
Angolan Civil War (1975 – 2002). Resulting in intervention by multiple countries on the Marxist and anti-Marxist sides, with Cuba and Mozambique supporting the Marxist faction while South Africa and Zaire support the anti-Marxists.
Ethiopian Civil War (1974 – 1991).
The Portuguese Colonial War (1961 – 1974).
The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 in South Asia, engaging East Pakistan, West Pakistan, and India.
1971 Bangladesh genocide.
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Arab–Israeli conflict (Early 20th century – present).
Yom Kippur War (1973) – the war was launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel in October 1973 to recover territories lost by the Arabs in the 1967 conflict. The Israelis were taken by surprise and suffered heavy losses before they rallied. In the end, they managed to repel the Egyptians (and a simultaneous attack by Syria in the Golan Heights) and crossed the Suez Canal into Egypt proper. In 1978, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel at Camp David in the United States, ending outstanding disputes between the two countries. Sadat’s actions would lead to his assassination in 1981.
Indian emergency (1975 – 1977).
Lebanese Civil War (1975 – 1990). A civil war in the Middle East at times also involved the PLO and Israel during the early 1980’s.
Western Sahara War (1975 – 1991). A regional war pinning the rebel Polisario Front against Morocco and Mauritania.
Ugandan–Tanzanian War (1978 – 1979). This war which was fought between Uganda and Tanzania was based on an expansionist agenda to annex territory from Tanzania. The war resulted in the overthrow of Idi Amin’s regime.
The Ogaden War (1977 – 1978) was another African conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia over control of the Ogaden region.
The Rhodesian Bush War (1964 – 1979).
International Conflicts
The most notable international conflicts of the decade include:
A major conflict between capitalist and communist forces in multiple countries, while attempts are made by the Soviet Union and the United States to lessen the chance for conflict, such as both countries endorsing nuclear nonproliferation.
In 1976, peaceful student protests in the Soweto township of South Africa led to the Soweto Uprising when more than 700 black school children were killed by South Africa’s Security Police.
Rise of separatism in the province of Quebec in Canada. In 1970, radical Quebec nationalist and Marxist militants of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte and British Trade Commissioner James Cross during the October Crisis, resulting in Laporte being killed, and the enactment of martial law in Canada under the War Measures Act, resulting in a campaign by the Canadian government which arrests suspected FLQ supporters. The election of the Parti Québécois led by René Lévesque in the province of Quebec in Canada brings the first political party committed to Quebec independence into power in Quebec. Lévesque’s government pursues an agenda to secede Quebec from Canada by democratic means and strengthen Francophone Québécois culture in the late 1970’s, such as the controversial Charter of the French Language more commonly known in Quebec and Canada as Bill 101.
Martial law was declared in the Philippines on September 21, 1972, by dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
In Cambodia, the communist leader Pol Pot led a revolution against the American-backed government of Lon Nol. On April 17th, 1975, Pot’s forces captured Phnom Penh, the capital, two years after America had halted the bombings of their positions. His communist government, the Khmer Rouge, forced people out of the cities to clear jungles and establish a radical, Marxist agrarian society. Buddhist priests and monks, along with anyone who spoke foreign languages, had any sort of education, or even wore glasses were tortured or killed. As many as 3 million people may have died. Vietnam invaded the country at the start of 1979, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge and installing a satellite government. This provoked a brief, but furious border war with China in February of that year.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 transformed Iran from an autocratic pro-Western monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to a theocratic Islamist government under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Distrust between the revolutionaries and Western powers led to the Iran hostage crisis on November 4th, 1979, where 66 diplomats, mainly from the United States, were held captive for 444 days.
Growing internal tensions take place in Yugoslavia beginning with the Croatian Spring movement in 1971 which demands greater decentralization of power to the constituent republics of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia’s communist ruler Joseph Broz Tito subdues the Croatian Spring movement and arrests its leaders, but does initiate major constitutional reform resulting in the 1974 Constitution which decentralized powers to the republics, gave them the official right to separate from Yugoslavia, and weakened the influence of Serbia (Yugoslavia’s largest and most populous constituent republic) in the federation by granting significant powers to the Serbian autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. In addition, the 1974 Constitution consolidated Tito’s dictatorship by proclaiming him president-for-life. The 1974 Constitution would become resented by Serbs and began a gradual escalation of ethnic tensions.
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Worldwide Trends
Superpower tensions had cooled by the 1970’s, with the bellicose US-Soviet confrontations of the 1950’s – 60’s giving way to the policy of détente, which promoted the idea that the world’s problems could be resolved at the negotiating table. Détente was partially a reaction against the policies of the previous 25 years, which had brought the world dangerously close to nuclear war on several occasions, and because the US was in a weakened position following the failure of the Vietnam War. As part of détente, the US also restored ties with the People’s Republic of China, partially as a counterweight against Soviet expansionism.
The US-Soviet geopolitical rivalry nonetheless continued through the decade, although in a more indirect faction as the two superpowers jockeyed relentlessly for control of smaller countries. American and Soviet intelligence agencies gave funding, training, and material support to insurgent groups, governments, and armies across the globe, each seeking to gain a geopolitical advantage and install friendly governments. Coups, civil wars, and terrorism went on across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and also in Europe where a spate of Soviet-backed Marxist terrorist groups was active throughout the decade. Over half the world’s population in the 1970’s lived under a repressive dictatorship. In 1979, a new wrinkle appeared in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, as the Shia theocracy of Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran and declared itself hostile to both Western democracy and godless communism.
People were deeply influenced by the rapid pace of societal change and the aspiration for a more egalitarian society in cultures that were long colonized and have an even longer history of hierarchical social structure.
The Green Revolution of the late 1960’s brought about self-sufficiency in food in many developing economies. At the same time, an increasing number of people began to seek urban prosperity over agrarian life. This consequently saw the duality of transition of diverse interaction across social communities amid increasing information blockade across social class.
Other common global ethos of the 1970’s world included increasingly flexible and varied gender roles for women in industrialized societies. More women could enter the workforce. However, the gender role of men remained as that of a breadwinner. The period also saw the socioeconomic effect of an ever-increasing number of women entering the non-agrarian economic workforce. The Iranian revolution also affected global attitudes to and among those of the Muslim faith toward the end of the 1970’s.
The global experience of the cultural transition of the 1970’s and an experience of a global zeitgeist revealed the interdependence of economies since World War II, in a world increasingly polarized between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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