bluepeter Archives - Frank Parker

Blue Peter: An Advent Crown For Christmas

Blue Peter, the world’s longest-running children’s television programme, is known for its famous ‘makes’ – creative projects which transform everyday household objects into toys and gifts.

The make featured on this page is taken from “Here’s One I Made Earlier”, a book I got from The Works at a bargain price of 75p!

The collection in this book reproduces some of Blue Peter’s most memorable designs and has a foreword by Valerie Singleton and contributions from former presenters and the ‘Queen of Makes’, Margaret Parnell.

An Advent Crown For Christmas

About Blue Peter

You can read all about Blue Peter here.

Blog Posts

Books: A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens.

Christmas: A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens – Screen Versions.

Christmas: Nostalgic Christmas Adverts.

Jokes: Christmas Jokes.

Music: Christmas Music.

Poetry: A Harley Davidson Christmas Poem By Unknown.

Poetry: A Visit From St. Nicholas By Clement Clarke Moore.

Television: Blue Peter.

Notes And Links

Blue Peter – Official page on CBBC.

You can read about Valerie Singelton here.

You can read about John Noakes here.

The images on this page are copyright of the BBC and Octopus Publishing Group.

Television: Blue Peter

Although started in 1958, I associate Blue Peter in my life mainly to the 1970’s and 1980’s for it is in these decades I watched it the most. I wouldn’t say I was a fan of the show, I preferred Magpie more, but I watched it sometimes as a school kid back in the day when the mood took me.

When Jnr and Deb were kids I may have watched a few then but it was more on in the background and I never paid much attention to it as the nostalgia for it had gone for me by then.

Blue Peter Logo.

About Blue Peter

Blue Peter is a British children’s television magazine programme created by John Hunter Blair. It is the longest-running children’s TV show in the world, having been broadcast since October 1958. It was broadcast primarily from BBC Television Centre in London until September 2011, when the programme moved to dock10 studios at MediaCityUK in Salford, Greater Manchester. It is currently shown live on the CBBC television channel on Thursdays at 5 pm.

Following its original creation, the programme was developed by a BBC team led by Biddy Baxter; she became the programme editor in 1965, relinquishing the role in 1988. Throughout the show’s history, there have been 40 presenters; currently, it is hosted by Richie Driss, Mwaksy Mudenda, and Adam Beales.

The show used a nautical title and theme. Its content, which follows a magazine/entertainment format, features viewer and presenter challenges, competitions, celebrity interviews, popular culture and sections on making arts and crafts items from household items. The show has had a garden in both London and Salford, known as the Blue Peter Garden, which is used during the summer and for outdoor activities. The programme has featured a number of pets that became household names, such as dogs Petra, Shep, and Goldie, as well as other animals such as tortoises, cats, and parrots. The longevity of Blue Peter has established it as a significant part of British culture and British heritage.

Blue Peter Theme Music

Click here to hear every Blue Peter opening theme from 1958 to the present day.

Blue Peter Content

Blue Peter‘s content is wide-ranging. Most programmes are broadcast live but usually include at least one filmed report. There will also often be a demonstration of an activity in the studio, or a music or dance performance. Between the 1960s and 2011 the programme was made at BBC Television Centre, and often came from Studio 1, the fourth-largest TV studio in Britain and one of the largest in Europe. This enabled Blue Peter to include large-scale demonstrations and performances within the live programme. From the September 2007 series, the programme was broadcast from a small fixed set in Studio 2. However, from 2009 the series began to use the larger studios once more; also more programmes were broadcast in their entirety from the Blue Peter Garden. The show is also famous for its “makes”, which are demonstrations of how to construct a useful object or prepare food. These have given rise to the oft-used phrase “Here’s one I made earlier”, as presenters bring out a perfect and completed version of the object they are making – a phrase credited to Christopher Trace, though Marguerite Patten is another possibility. Trace also used the line “And now for something completely different”, which was later taken up by Monty Python. Time is also often given over to reading letters and showing pictures sent in by viewers.

Over 5,000 editions have been produced since 1958, and almost every episode from 1964 onwards still exists in the BBC archives. This is unusual for programmes of that era. Editor Biddy Baxter personally ensured that telerecordings and, from 1970, video recordings were kept of each episode.

Many items from Blue Peter‘s history have become embedded in British popular culture, especially moments when things have gone wrong, such as the much-repeated clip of Lulu the baby elephant (from a 1969 edition) who urinated and defecated on the studio floor, appeared to tread on the foot of presenter John Noakes and then proceeded to attempt an exit, dragging her keeper along behind her. Although it is often assumed to have been broadcast live, the edition featuring Lulu was one of the rare occasions when the programme was pre-recorded, as the presenters were en route to Ceylon for the summer expedition at the time of transmission. Other well-remembered and much-repeated items from this era include the Girl Guides’ campfire that got out of hand on the 1970 Christmas edition, John Noakes’s report on the cleaning of Nelson’s Column, and Simon Groom referring to a previous item on the production of a facsimile door knocker for Durham Cathedral which was displayed alongside the original, with the words ‘what a beautiful pair of knockers’.

Blue Peter History

Early Years

Blue Peter was first aired on 16 October 1958. It had been commissioned to producer John Hunter Blair by Owen Reed, the head of children’s programmes at the BBC, as there were no programmes for children aged between five and eight. Reed got his inspiration after watching Children’s Television Club, the brainchild of former radio producer, Trevor Hill, who created the latter show as a successor to his programme Out of School, broadcast on BBC Radio’s Children’s Hour; Hill networked the programme from BBC Manchester and launched it aboard the MV Royal Iris ferry on the River Mersey, Liverpool with presenter Judith Chalmers welcoming everyone aboard at the bottom of the gangplank.

It was subsequently televised about once a month. Hill relates how Reed came to stay with him and his wife, Margaret Potter, in Cheshire and was so taken with the “Blue Peter” flag on the side of the ship and the programme in general, that he asked to rename it and take it to London to be broadcast on a weekly basis (see Reed’s obituary). The “Blue Peter” is used as a maritime signal, indicating that the vessel flying it is about to leave, and Reed chose the name to represent ‘a voyage of adventure’ on which the programme would set out. Hunter Blair also pointed out that blue was a popular colour with children, and Peter was a common name of a typical child’s friend.

The first two presenters were Christopher Trace, an actor, and Leila Williams, winner of Miss Great Britain in 1957. The two presenters were responsible for activities that matched the traditional gender roles. As broadcasting historian, Asa Briggs expressed it in 1995: “Leila played with dolls; Chris played with trains”. They were supported on occasion by Tony Hart, an artist who later designed the ship logo, who told stories about an elephant called Packi (or Packie). It was broadcast every Thursday for fifteen minutes (17.00–17.15) on BBC TV (which later became BBC One). Over the first few months, more features were added, including competitions, documentaries, cartoons, and stories. Early programmes were almost entirely studio-based, with very few filmed inserts being made.

1960 – 1969

From Monday 10 October 1960, Blue Peter was switched to every Monday and extended from 15 minutes to 20 minutes (17.00–17.20). In 1961, Hunter Blair became ill and was often absent. After he produced his last edition on 12 June 1961, a series of temporary producers took up the post. Hunter Blair was replaced the following September by Clive Parkhurst. He did not get along with Leila Williams, who recalled “he could not find anything for me to do”, and in October, Williams did not appear for six editions, and was eventually fired, leaving Christopher Trace on his own or with one-off presenters. Parkhurst was replaced by John Furness, and Anita West joined Trace on 7 May 1962. She featured in just 16 editions, making her the shortest-serving presenter, and was replaced by Valerie Singleton, who presented regularly until 1972 and on special assignments until 1981. Following the departure of Furness, a new producer who was committed to Blue Peter was required, so Biddy Baxter was appointed. At the time she was contracted to schools’ programmes on the radio, and therefore unable to take up her new post immediately.

It was suggested that Edward Barnes, a production assistant, would temporarily produce the show until Baxter arrived, at which point he would become her assistant. This suggestion was turned down, and a more experienced producer, Leonard Chase, was appointed, with Barnes as his assistant. Baxter eventually joined Blue Peter at the end of October 1962.

During this period, many iconic features of Blue Peter were introduced. The first appeal took place in December 1962, replacing the practice of reviewing toys that children would ask for themselves. Blue Peter‘s first pet, a brown and white mongrel dog named Petra, was introduced on 17 December 1962. The puppy soon died of distemper, and having decided against upsetting young viewers over the news, Barnes and Baxter had to search London pet shops for a convincing clandestine replacement. Features such as “makes” (normally involving creating something such as an advent crown, out of household junk) and cooking became regular instalments on Blue Peter and continue to be used today. The Blue Peter badge was introduced in 1963, along with the programme’s new logo designed by Tony Hart. Baxter introduced a system that ensured replies sent to viewers’ letters were personal; as a girl, she had written to Enid Blyton and twice received a standard reply, which had upset her.

The next year, from 28 September 1964, Blue Peter began to be broadcast twice weekly, with Baxter becoming the editor in 1965, and Barnes and Rosemary Gill (an assistant producer who had joined as a temporary producer while Baxter was doing jury service) becoming the programme’s producers. The first Blue Peter book, an annual in all but name, was published that year, and one was produced nearly every year after that, until 2010. A third presenter, John Noakes, was introduced at the end of 1965 and became the longest-serving presenter. A complete contrast to Trace, Noakes set the scene for “daredevil” presenters that have continued through the generations of presenters. Trace left Blue Peter in July 1967, and was replaced by Peter Purves in November. The trio of Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves lasted five years, and according to Richard Marson were ‘the most famous presenting team in the show’s history. In 1965, the first Summer Expedition (a filming trip abroad) was held in Norway, and continued every year (except 1986 and 2011) until 2012, all over the world.

1970 – 1999

The first colour edition of Blue Peter aired on 14 September 1970, and the last black and white edition on 24 June 1974. A regular feature of the 1970s was the Special Assignments, which were essentially reports on interesting topics, filmed on location. Singleton took this role, and in effect became the programme’s “roving reporter”. Blue Peter also offered breaking news on occasion, such as the 1971 eruption of Mount Etna, as well as unique items such as the first appearance of Uri Geller on British television. In May 1976, presenter Lesley Judd interviewed Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, after he had agreed to bring his daughter’s diaries to Britain. From 1971 the summer expedition from the previous year was edited into special programmes broadcast under the title Blue Peter Flies The World, televised during the summer break when the team were recording the latest expedition. The first was shown in July 1971 and featured the expedition to Jamaica.

In 1974, the Blue Peter Garden was officially opened in a green space outside the Television Centre restaurant block. By this time, Blue Peter had become an established children’s programme, with regular features which have since become traditions. In 1978, the show celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a nationwide balloon launch from five regional cities during a special edition of the programme when Christopher Trace, Leila Williams, Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves returned. John Noakes contributed a message pre-recorded on film. At this time, Trace introduced the Blue Peter Outstanding Endeavour Award. Its theme music was updated by Mike Oldfield in 1979, and at the end of the decade a new presenting team was brought in, consisting of Simon Groom, Tina Heath and Christopher Wenner. They were overshadowed by the success of the previous two decades and failed to make as much of an impact. Heath decided to leave after a year when she discovered she was pregnant but agreed to have a live scan of her baby, something which had never been done on television before. Blue Peter was praised for this by the National Childbirth Trust who told the BBC that in ‘five minutes, Blue Peter had done more to educate children about birth than they’d achieved in ten years of sending out leaflets’. Wenner decided to leave along with Heath on 23 June 1980.

Sarah Greene and Peter Duncan both joined in 1980, and a new producer, Lewis Bronze, joined in 1982. The 1980s saw the Blue Peter studio become more colourful and bright, with the presenters gradually wearing more fashionable outfits, in contrast to the more formal appearance of previous decades. Several videos of Blue Peter were made available from 1982, the first being Blue Peter Makes, and an omnibus comprising the two weekly editions appeared in 1986 on Sunday mornings. Ahead of the show’s 25th anniversary in October 1983, BBC1 ran a series Blue Peter Goes Silver, revisiting previous summer expeditions. The 25th anniversary itself was commemorated by a documentary presented by Valerie Singleton shown on BBC1 on Sunday, 16 October 1983. This was followed the next day by a special edition of the programme when Christopher Trace presented the annual Outstanding Endeavour Award and Valerie Singleton, Peter Purves, Christopher Wenner, Tina Heath and Sarah Greene returned to celebrate the show’s birthday with the current presenting trio of Simon Groom, Peter Duncan and Janet Ellis who launched a national balloon treasure hunt. On 27 June 1988, Baxter took part in her final show, after nearly 26 years of involvement, and Bronze took her place as editor. Around this time, Blue Peter became distinctively environmentally aware and introduced a green badge in November 1988 for achievements related to the environment. Shortly before, in October 1988, the show celebrated its thirtieth anniversary with a competition to design the cover of a commemorative issue of the ‘Radio Times’ and Valerie Singleton presented the Outstanding Endeavour Award on the birthday show itself. The following year, the award was presented for the last time.

On 13 September 1984, Champion trampolinist and professional performer Michael Sundin presented for the first time, as a replacement for Peter Duncan. He had been talent-spotted by the Blue Peter team when they filmed an item on the set of “Return to OZ” (Sundin was playing the part of Tik-Tok.) After 77 appearances as a Blue Peter presenter, his contract was not renewed. It has since been explained by Biddy Baxter, that he attracted complaints from viewers, stating in her Autobiography that homophobia was not the reason for his departure, “he came across as a whinger….and an effeminate whinger to boot”, “… it was nothing to do with his sexual proclivities”. Sundin successfully continued his performing career but lost his life to an AIDS-related illness in 1989.

In 1989 (and again in 1992 and 1994), new arrangements of the theme tune were introduced. Due to falling ratings in BBC children’s programming, BBC1 controller Alan Yentob suggested airing a third edition of Blue Peter each week from 1995. This meant that it was sometimes pre-recorded; Joe Godwin, the director, suggested that the Friday edition should be a lighter version of Blue Peter, which would concentrate on music, celebrities and games. Helen Lederer presented a documentary on BBC2 to celebrate the show’s 35th anniversary Here’s One I Made Earlier, with a special edition of the regular programme featuring the returns of Leila Williams, John Noakes and Lesley Judd amongst many other presenters. Neither Noakes nor Judd had appeared in the studio since leaving the programme and Williams was returning for the first time in 15 years. A fourth presenter, Katy Hill, was introduced in 1995, but unlike earlier decades, there was little stability in the line-up, with resignations and new additions made almost every year of the decade. The 1990s also saw many more live broadcasts on location, with many shot entirely away from the studio. Blue Peter was also one of the first television series to launch a website. Oliver Macfarlane replaced Bronze as editor in 1996.

1998 marked the 40th anniversary of the TV show. Apart from two summer proms concerts, the most talked about event to celebrate the milestone was a trip behind LNER Peppercorn Class A2 60532 Blue Peter on an Edinburgh to London rail tour. The special train in question was Days out Limited’s “Heart of Midlothian” from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley on Sun 19 April 1998, with 60532 working the train from Edinburgh. Due to safety rules, none of the presenters was supposed to ride onboard the footplate during the trip. Peter Kirk, who was in charge onboard the train and who was presenting from the footplate, however, allowed Stuart Miles to travel onboard the footplate between Newark-on-Trent and Peterborough. This was the stretch of track which, on 3 July 1938, saw the world speed record for steam locomotives of 126 mph (203 km/h) set by LNER A4 Locomotive no. 4468 Mallard.

In October 1998, Richard Bacon was sacked, following reports in News of the World that he had taken cocaine. This incident followed shortly after the show’s 40th anniversary when previous presenters returned for a special programme. Those returning included Leila Williams, Valerie Singleton, John Noakes, Peter Purves, Diane Louise Jordan, Anthea Turner, John Leslie, Tim Vincent, Yvette Fielding, Caron Keating, Mark Curry, Janet Ellis, Peter Duncan, Sarah Greene, Tina Heath, Simon Groom and Christopher Wenner. Steve Hocking then replaced Macfarlane as editor, at what was regarded as a difficult period for the programme. He introduced a further re-arrangement of the theme tune and a new graphics package in September 1999.

2000 – 2010

The 2000s began with the opening of two previously buried time capsules. Former presenters including Singleton, Purves and Noakes were invited back to assist, and the programme also looked at life in the 1970s when the first capsule was buried. With Hill’s departure and replacement by Liz Barker in 2000, the new team of herself, Konnie Huq, Simon Thomas, and Matt Baker were consistent for the next few years. The Friday edition, as in the previous decade, featured games, competitions and celebrities, but additionally, there was a drama series, The Quest, which featured cameos of many former presenters.

It was at this time that the new Head of the BBC Children’s Department, Nigel Pickard, asked for Blue Peter to be broadcast all year round. This was achieved by having two editions per week instead of three during the summer months and using pre-recorded material. The early 2000s also introduced Christmas productions, in which the presenters took part. In 2003, Richard Marson became the new editor, and his first tasks included changing the output of Blue Peter on the digital CBBC. The first year of the channel’s launch consisted of repeated editions, plus spin-off series Blue Peter Unleashed and Blue Peter Flies the World. This new arrangement involved a complex schedule of live programmes and pre-recorded material, being broadcast on BBC One and CBBC. Marson also introduced a brand new set, graphics and music.

In September 2007, a new editor, Tim Levell, took over. At the same time, budget cuts meant that the programme came from a smaller studio. In February 2008 the BBC One programme was moved from 5 pm to 4.35 pm to accommodate The Weakest Link, and as a result, Blue Peter‘s ratings initially dropped to as low as 100,000 viewers in the age 6–12 bracket, before steadily improving.

As with the previous decade, numerous presenters joined and left the programme. This included the exits of Thomas, Baker and Barker and the additions of Zöe Salmon, Gethin Jones and Andy Akinwolere. Early 2008 saw the departure of Huq, who had become the longest-serving female presenter with over ten years on the show. Later that year, Salmon and Jones both left and the presenting team of Akinwolere with new additions Helen Skelton and Joel Defries was introduced.

On 16 October 2008, Blue Peter celebrated its 50th Anniversary with a reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Elizabeth II and featuring several former presenters. There was a special live edition of the show broadcast to celebrate the anniversary with many returning presenters and a 60-minute documentary on BBC1 featuring interviews with many previous presenters and production staff, including Edward Barnes, Biddy Baxter and Rosemary Gill.

Writing in the BBC’s in-house magazine, Ariel, in 2009, BBC Children’s Controller Richard Deverell announced plans to re-invent the show to be more like the BBC’s motoring programme Top Gear. Deverell hopes that by adding “danger and excitement”, Blue Peter will achieve the same “playground buzz” among children as Top Gear.

2011 – 2017

In January 2011 Barney Harwood was introduced to the programme as a replacement for Defries, who had departed in late 2010 after two years. Unusually, Harwood was no stranger to Blue Peter viewers, having appeared as a presenter on CBBC for many years, on shows including Prank Patrol and Bear Behaving Badly.

On 29 March 2011 Blue Peter became the first programme in the UK to broadcast an entire show in 360 degrees on the web. Viewers were able to watch the programme via their TVs and simultaneously interact with the television studio in front of and behind the cameras on the website. Viewers were also challenged to play a game where they had to find particular crew members and staff dressed up in distinctive costumes.

The final edition of Blue Peter to broadcast from the BBC’s Television Centre in London was broadcast on 28 June 2011, before a move to the BBC’s new facilities at Dock10, MediaCityUK. The set left behind at BBC Television Centre was subsequently purchased and installed at Sunderland University’s David Puttnam Media Centre in August 2013.

When the new series started on 26 September 2011, after the usual summer break, Harwood and Skelton revealed the new look Blue Peter studio along with the new music and title sequence. Departed presenter Andy Akinwolere was not initially replaced, and for the first time in 50 years, only two presenters remained on the programme. The new Blue Peter Garden, located outside the studios, was officially opened by Princess Anne in February 2012.

From 12 January 2012, Blue Peter has been broadcast all year round (with no break for summer) once a week, its original premiere being on CBBC on Thursdays at 5.45 pm, changed to 5.30 pm from April 2013 then 5:00 pm from March 2015. It was usually repeated on Fridays on BBC One, although this ceased in December 2012. A repeat airs at 9.00 am on Sundays. At this time, Levell left to work at BBC Radio 5 Live; he was replaced (initially in an acting capacity) as editor by Ewan Vinnicombe, who had worked on the programme as a producer since 2007. The reformatted Blue Peter occasionally also included specials and spin-offs such as “Helen’s Polar Adventure” or the Stargazing Live special on other days of the week.

In 2013 Lindsey Russell was voted the 36th presenter via Blue Peter – You Decide!, a series of five programmes hosted by Dick and Dom, where ten aspiring presenters were set a number of challenges to prove that they were worthy of the position. Judges Cel Spellman, Eamonn Holmes and Myleene Klass decided the final three before viewers were given the chance to vote online. Russell joined Blue Peter in September of that year, shortly before Skelton’s departure and the introduction of her replacement Radzi Chinyanganya.

From October 2013, the team consisted of Harwood, Russell and Chinyanganya. The format adapted with slightly different branding and a more classic take on the show, as well as beginning Blue Peter Bites, which are five-minute clips showing just one challenge or video from episodes broadcast on CBBC. Blue Peter guide pup Iggy joined the team in 2014 and Shelley the Tortoise continues to make occasional appearances. The Blue Peter Garden is currently maintained by child gardener George who appears throughout the year. The team made more use of the website with more quizzes and videos such as ‘Blue Peter VS…’ and ‘Ultimate Challenges’ as well as holding a fan club hour after the show where fans could leave comments as to the answers of riddles or headline suggestions and ask guests questions. A popular game on the programme, Spot Shelley was also introduced, where, in most episodes, an animated version of Shelley the tortoise is hiding somewhere/on something and viewers must leave a comment on the website during the show, the first person to spot her wins a shout-out (or some more expensive or weird prizes as Harwood would often joke, such as a house in Spain or a unicorn called Eric). From April 2017, the show reverted to 5:30 pm. In September 2017, Harwood left the show, again leaving just two presenters.

In the summerBlue Peter often challenges its viewers to earn all of their Blue Peter badges (with the exception of orange and gold) through five weeks, where the team look at each individual badge for a week, finishing with the limited time Sports badge which appears every summer with a different design. In the show before these weeks, the team show viewers how to make something to keep their badges in/on and continue the theme through the weeks, these have included the Badge Baton Relay in 2016, where badges stored within a baton tube and the Big Badge Boat Bonanza in 2017, where badges displayed on the iconic BP ship, a 2D model that can be made from paper.

Ahead of their Jubilee celebrations, Blue Peter introduced its first-ever Guest Editor to the show on 19 October 2017 which was children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Guest Editors have control for the day and plan what they what to show on their edition, as well as taking control behind the scenes.

2018 – Present

A special programme broadcast on 1 February 2018, marked Blue Peter’s 5000th edition. A brand new Diamond badge was revealed for the first time, designed by Henry Holland. This was only to be awarded within the special 60th year of 2018.

On 12 October 2017, it was revealed that outside of MediaCityUK, a Hollywood style walk of fame would be created with the names of famous people who have received a Gold Blue Peter badge. The walkway would lead up to the front of the studios and would help to mark 60 years of Blue Peter.

There were various celebrations across the UK for “The Big Birthday Year”. In January, a competition was launched to design Blue Peter‘s second birthday balloon to be flown. In May, the Millennium Time Capsule formally buried under the Millennium Dome, which was dug up accidentally in 2017 by builders went on tour with various past presenters around the country. A play, “Once Seen On Blue Peter”, ran at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, with six former presenters appearing in it.

On 16 October 2018, a special one-hour live edition of the programme, entitled Blue Peter: Big 60th Birthday, was broadcast on CBBC. Guests included The Vamps, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Ed Sheeran, who was presented with a gold Blue Peter badge. Former presenters returned for the show and contributed to the broadcast, including Leila Williams, Anita West, Valerie Singleton, Peter Purves, Lesley Judd, Sarah Greene, Peter Duncan, Janet Ellis, Yvette Fielding, John Leslie, Diane-Louise Jordan, Anthea Turner, Tim Vincent, Stuart Miles, Katy Hill, Romana D’Annunzio, Richard Bacon, Konnie Huq, Simon Thomas, Liz Barker, Zöe Salmon, Andy Akinwolere, Helen Skelton, Joel Defries and Barney Harwood. Matt Baker contributed a pre-recorded message and Mark Curry was represented by a lego model as he had to cancel his contribution due to ill health. The programme was repeated on BBC Two on 20 October. The celebration was also marked by other BBC programming, including The One Show hosted by Matt Baker and former Blue Peter contributor Gabby Logan, which featured Sarah Greene, Mark Curry, Simon Thomas and Konnie Huq; ITV’s Lorraine, where Greene appeared with Leila Williams and Anthea Turner; and BBC Breakfast which featured Lesley Judd. A documentary entitled Happy Birthday Blue Peter was broadcast that evening on BBC Radio 2. It was hosted by Barney Harwood and featured interviews with past and present presenters, as well as members of the production team. As part of the birthday celebrations, a new plant species was named “Blue Peter”. In February 2019 a gritter was named and decorated “Blue Peter”, unveiled by Russell.

On 3 June 2021, the show received a refresh with a new logo, title sequence, music and studio. This was the first major refresh since the show’s move to Salford in 2011. The studio is environmentally-friendly and is composed of upcycled materials from past studios.

On 24 June 2021, Russell announced that she would be leaving the show, after eight years. Her final show aired on 15 July 2021.

Blog Posts

Blue Peter: An Advent Crown For Christmas.

Notes And Links

Max Rahubovskiy on Pexels – The image shown at the top of this page is the copyright of Max Rahubovskiy. You can find more great work from the photographer Max by clicking the link above and you can get lots more free stock photos at Pexels.

Blue Peter – Official page on CBBC. The image at top of this page is the copyright of BBC.

1990’s

The Decade I Don’t Remember Much About

My marriage ended in 1994 but, as was the birth of my Son Frank Jnr in the 80’s being the best thing out of all that heartache was the birth of my only Daughter, Debbie, in 1991. We lived in Berrowside Road, Shard End then moved to Glebe Farm Road, Stechford. After that when I became a single parent we moved briefly back into Hurst Lane, Shard End then to Shard End Crescent, Shard End and onto Hillcross Walk, Bromford.

The only thing really worth remembering from this terrible decade is Debbie’s birth.

The information below was sourced from Wikipedia and is subject to change.

You can read other articles related to the 1990’s via Blog Posts below as well.

About The 1990’s

The 1990’s saw a rise in the awareness of multiculturalism compared to the 1980’s, as well as the advance of alternative media. Music movements like grunge, the rave scene, and hip hop became popular with young people worldwide, aided by then-new technology such as cable television and the World Wide Web.

A combination of factors led to a realignment and consolidation of economic and political power across the world and within countries. Such factors include the continued mass mobilization of capital markets through neoliberalism, the thawing and end of the decades-long Cold War, the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet, increasing scepticism towards the government, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The dot-com frenzy resulted in the dot-com bubble of 1997 – 2000 that brought great wealth to some entrepreneurs before its crash between 2000 and 2001.

The 1990’s saw extreme advances in technology, with the World Wide Web, the first gene therapy trial, cloning, and the first designer babies all emerging and being improved upon throughout the decade.

New ethnic conflicts emerged in Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, the former two witnessing the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, respectively. Signs of any resolution of tensions between Israel and the Arab world remained elusive despite the progress of the Oslo Accords. The Troubles in Northern Ireland came to a standstill in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement following 30 long years of violence.

Popular Culture

Music

The 1990’s were a decade that saw marketing become more segmented, as MTV gradually shifted away from music videos beginning in 1992 and radio splintered into narrower formats aimed at various niches. However, they are perhaps best known for grunge, gangsta rap, R&B, teen pop; Eurodance, electronic dance music, the renewed popularity of punk rock mainly because of the band Green Day (which would also help create a new genre pop-punk) and for being the decade that alternative rock became mainstream. U2 was one of the most popular 1990’s bands, their groundbreaking Zoo TV and PopMart tours were the top-selling tours of 1992 and 1997. Glam metal dies out through its own accord in the music mainstream by 1991. Grunge became popular in the early 1990’s due to the success of Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten, Alice in Chains’ Dirt and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger. Pop-punk also becomes popular with such artists as Green Day, Blink-182, Weezer, Social Distortion, The Offspring, Bad Religion, NOFX and Rancid. Other successful alternative acts included Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Nickelback, Creed, Radiohead, Gin Blossoms, Soul Asylum, Third Eye Blind, Stone Temple Pilots, Faith No More, The Smashing Pumpkins, Live, Everclear, Bush, Screaming Trees and Ween.

Dr. Dre’s 1992 album The Chronic provided a template for modern gangsta rap and gave rise to other emerging artists of the genre, including Snoop Dogg. Due to the success of Death Row Records and Tupac Shakur, West Coast gangsta rap commercially dominated hip hop during the early-to-mid 1990’s, along with Bad Boy Records and the Notorious B.I.G. on the East Coast. Hip hop became the best selling music genre by the mid-1990’s.

In the United Kingdom, the uniquely British alternative rock Britpop genre emerged as part of the more general Cool Britannia culture, with Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Suede, Supergrass and Elastica. The impact of boy band pop sensation Take That led to the formation of other boy bands in the UK and Ireland such as East 17 and Boyzone. Female pop icons Spice Girls took the world by storm, becoming the most commercially successful British group since the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. Also, R&B has Des’Ree, Mark Morrison and Sade. Their global success brought about a widespread scene of teen pop acts around the world such as All Saints, Backstreet Boys, Hanson, NSYNC, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera who came to prominence into the new millennium. 1991 also saw the death of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury from AIDS-related pneumonia.

Most musicians from Canada (Snow, Celine Dion, The Barenaked Ladies, Shania Twain, Len, Sarah McLachlan, and Alanis Morissette) became known worldwide.

Contemporary R&B and quiet storm continued in popularity among adult audiences, which began during the 1980’s. Popular African-American contemporary R&B artists included Mariah Carey, D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston, Brandy, En Vogue, TLC, Destiny’s Child, Toni Braxton, Boyz II Men, Dru Hill and Vanessa L. Williams.

The Tibetan Freedom Concert brought 120,000 people together in the interest of increased human rights and autonomy for Tibet from China. Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Selena, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. are the most publicized music-related deaths of the decade, in 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 respectively.

Richey Edwards of Manic Street Preachers was publicized in the media in 1991 following an incident involving Steve Lamacq backstage after a live show, in which Edwards carved ‘4 Real’ into his arm. Edwards disappeared in 1995, which was highly publicized. He is still missing but was presumed dead in 2008.

Controversy surrounded the Prodigy with the release of the track Smack My Bitch Up. The National Organization for Women (NOW) claimed that the track was advocating violence against women due to the lyrics of that song. The music video (directed by Jonas Åkerlund) featured a first-person POV of someone going clubbing, indulging in drugs and alcohol, getting into fistfights, abusing women and picking up a prostitute. At the end of the video, the camera pans over to a mirror, revealing the subject to be a woman.

1994 became a breakthrough year for punk rock in California, with the success of bands like Bad Religion, Social Distortion, Blink-182, Green Day, The Offspring, Rancid and similar groups following. This success would continue to grow over the next decade, the 2000’s. The 1990’s also became the most important decade for ska-punk/reggae rock, with the success of many bands like Buck-O-Nine, Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Murphy’s Law, No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, Sublime and Sugar Ray.

The rave movement that emerged in the late 1980’s rose. Rave spawned genres such as Intelligent dance music and Drum and bass. The latter is an offshoot of jungle techno and breakbeat. Popular artists included Moby, Fatboy Slim, Björk, Aphex Twin, Orbital, the Orb, the Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Todd Terry, 808 State, Primal Scream, the Shamen, the KLF and the Prodigy.

The rise of industrial music, somewhat a fusion of synthpop and heavy metal, rose to worldwide popularity with bands like Godflesh, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, Ministry and Marilyn Manson. Groove metal was born through the efforts of Pantera, whose seventh studio album Far Beyond Driven (1994) was notable for going number one on Billboard 200. Another heavy metal subgenre called nu metal, which mixed metal with hip hop influences, becomes popular with bands like Korn, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit selling millions of albums worldwide. Metallica’s 1991 eponymous album Metallica is the best-selling album of the SoundScan era, while extreme metal acts such as Death, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Emperor, Cannibal Corpse and others experienced popularity throughout the decade.

In the 1990’s, country music became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to Billy Ray Cyrus, Shania Twain and Garth Brooks. The latter enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music history, breaking records for both sales and concert attendance throughout the decade. The RIAA has certified his recordings at a combined (128× platinum), denoting roughly 113 million United States shipments. Other artists that experienced success during this time included Clint Black, Sammy Kershaw, Aaron Tippin, Travis Tritt, Suzy Bogguss, Alan Jackson, Lorrie Morgan and the newly formed duo of Brooks & Dunn; George Strait, whose career began in the 1980’s, also continued to have widespread success in this decade and beyond. Female artists such as Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Deana Carter, LeAnn Rimes and Mary Chapin Carpenter all released platinum selling albums in the 1990’s. The Dixie Chicks became one of the most popular country bands in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Their 1998 debut album Wide Open Spaces went on to become certified 12x platinum while their 1999 album Fly went on to become 10x platinum.

Film

Dogme 95 becomes an important European artistic motion picture movement by the end of the decade. The first full-length CGI movie, Pixar’s Toy Story, is released, revolutionizing animated films. Titanic becomes a cultural phenomenon throughout the world, and eventually becomes the highest-grossing film of all time, grossing over $1.8 billion worldwide. It would hold this record for over a decade until 2010 when director James Cameron had another one of his films take the title, that being Avatar.

Family animated feature films began to gain popularity during the decade, though the late-1990’s (1997, 1998 and 1999) were more known. Don Bluth’s animation studio released a number of underperfoming family animated films such as Rock-a-Doodle, Thumbelina and The Pebble and the Penguin and closed down in 1995. In 1994, former Disney employee Jeffrey Katzenberg founded DreamWorks SKG which would produce its first two animated films: The Prince of Egypt and Antz which were both aimed more at adults than children and were both critical and commercially successful. Meanwhile, films by Walt Disney Feature Animation became popular once more when the studio returned to making family traditionally animated musical classic films, most notable films were Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Lion King. This era was known as the Disney Renaissance. Other significant animated films have also gained cult statuses such as The Jetsons Movie, The Princess and the Goblin, Happily Ever After, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, The Thief and the Cobbler, Once Upon a Forest, We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Felidae, The Swan Princess, Balto, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Cats Don’t Dance, Anastasia, Quest for Camelot, The Rugrats Movie, Kirikou and the Sorceress, The King and I, South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut and The Iron Giant.

Live-action films featuring computer-animated characters became popular with films such as Casper, James and the Giant Peach, 101 Dalmatians, Men in Black, Small Soldiers and Stuart Little, although live-action/traditional cel-animated films featuring traditional characters like Cool World, The Pagemaster and Space Jam were also prevalent.

Japanese anime films continued in the 1990’s as Studio Ghibli’s continued to dominate with films such as Only Yesterday, Porco Rosso, Pom Poko, Whisper of the Heart, Princess Mononoke (which became the highest-grossing anime film at the time) and My Neighbors the Yamadas. Other significant anime films which gained cult status include Roujin Z, Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, Patlabor 2: The Movie, Ninja Scroll, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Ghost in the Shell, Memories, The End of Evangelion, Perfect Blue, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, and the Pokémon film series which started with the first two entries Pokémon: The First Movie and Pokémon: The Movie 2000.

Television

TV shows, mostly sitcoms, were popular with the American audience. Series such as Roseanne, Coach, Empty Nest, Mr. Belvedere, 227, Cheers, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Night Court, The Hogan Family, A Different World, Amen, ALF, Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, Charles in Charge, Saved by the Bell, My Two Dads, Newhart, Dear John, Designing Women, The Golden Girls, Who’s the Boss?, Head of the Class, and Seinfeld, which premiered in the eighties, and Frasier, a spin-off of the 1980’s hit Cheers were viewed throughout the 1990’s. These sitcoms, along with Friends, That ’70s Show, Ellen,The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Full House, Nurses, Murphy Brown, The Wonder Years, Living Single, Step by Step, NewsRadio, Blossom, The King of Queens, Major Dad, Fired Up, Jesse, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, For Your Love, The Steve Harvey Show, The Larry Sanders Show, Sex and the City, Arliss, Dream On, Grace Under Fire, Mad About You, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Naked Truth, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, The Jamie Foxx Show, Smart Guy, The Wayans Bros., Malcolm & Eddie, Clueless, Moesha, The Parent ‘Hood, Unhappily Ever After, Roc, Martin, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, In Living Color, Sister, Sister, Boy Meets World, Ned and Stacey, Becker, Veronica’s Closet, Two Guys and a Girl, The Drew Carey Show, Wings, The John Larroquette Show, Caroline in the City, Sports Night, Home Improvement, Will & Grace, Married… with Children, Evening Shade, Cosby, Spin City, The Nanny, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Suddenly Susan, Cybill, Just Shoot Me!, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Dharma and Greg turned TV in new directions and defined the humour of the decade. Furthermore, Saturday Night Live experienced a new era of success during the 1990’s, launching the careers of popular comedians and actors such as Chris Farley, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Norm McDonald, David Spade, Cheri Oteri and others.

In early 1993, one of the last westerns ever to air on television was Walker, Texas Ranger, a crime drama which also starred Chuck Norris as the title character. Lasting for nine seasons, the show tackled a wide variety of subjects, and was one of the few shows ever to perform karate.

1993 also saw its debut of the medical–mystery drama, Diagnosis Murder, a comeback vehicle for Dick Van Dyke, who guest-starred on an episode of its sequel, Jake and The Fatman, where the show got off to a rocky start, and became one of television’s long-running mysteries, that lasted until its cancelation in 2001.

Medical dramas started to come into television in the 1990’s. One show stood out as a critical and ratings success for NBC. In 1994, ER, which starred Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and George Clooney, was a domestic and international success, lasting until 2009 and spawning series such as Grey’s Anatomy (2005 – present). It made NBC the most watched channel in the United States. This show launched the career of George Clooney. That same year, Chicago Hope, that starred Héctor Elizondo, Mandy Patinkin and Adam Arkin, was also a popular series for CBS, lasting between 1994 and 2000.

Beverly Hills, 90210 ran on Fox from 1990 to 2000. It established the teen soap genre paving the way for Dawson’s Creek, Felicity, Party of Five, and other shows airing later in the decade. The show was then remade and renamed simply 90210 and premiered in 2008. Beverly Hills, 90210 spun-off Melrose Place, a popular TV show that dominated throughout the 1990’s as well. Baywatch, a popular TV show that dominated throughout the 1990’s, became the most watched TV show in history and influenced pop culture.

Sex and the City’s straight portrayal of relationships and sexuality caused controversy and acclaim, leading to a new generation of sexually progressive television shows that would be seen in the 2000’s.

The fantasy and science fiction was popular on television, with NBC airing seaQuest DSV beginning in 1993. This series is a Steven Spielberg production and it made Jonathan Brandis a popular teen idol, but after three seasons it was canceled. Touched By an Angel, broadcast by CBS in 1994. The series was intended as the comeback vehicle of Della Reese, and also launched the career of Roma Downey. It wasn’t an immediate hit, and was cancelled the following year, but revived the following year, thanks to die-hard fans who approached a letter-writing campaign, where it ran for eight more seasons.

Crime drama and police detective shows returned after soap operas died down. After the successful debuts of Law & Order, NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street, Nash Bridges, a comeback vehicle for Don Johnson, lasting six seasons (1996 – 2001) which also dealt with escapist entertainment, rather than tackling issues.

Reality television began on MTV; this would grow in importance in the Western world into the next decade.

During the mid-1990’s, two of the biggest professional wrestling companies: World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation were in a rating battle that was called the Monday Night Wars (1995 – 2001). Each company fought to draw more viewers to their respective Monday night wrestling show. The War ended in 2001 when WWE bought WCW. In November 2001, there was a Winner Takes All match with both companies in a Pay-Per-View called Survivor Series. WWF won the match; putting a final end to WCW.

As an animated sitcom, The Simpsons premiered on Fox in December 1989, became a domestic and international success in the 1990’s. The show has aired more than 600 episodes and has become an institution of pop culture. It has spawned the adult-oriented animated sitcom genre, inspiring racier shows such as Beavis and Butt-head (1993 – 1997), Daria (1997 – 2001), along with South Park and Family Guy, the latter two of which began in 1997 and 1999 respectively and continue to air new episodes through the 2000’s and into the 2010’s.

Japanese anime was popular in the 1980’s, and expanded to a worldwide audience by the 1990’s, for its expansive spectrum of story subjects and themes not limited to comedy and superhero action found in the US, and well-produced, and well written, visual and story content that came to showcase animation’s potential for emotional and intellectual depth and integrity on par with live-action media to its viewers, and which also expanded to older and adult ages in the medium of animation. TV shows such as Sailor Moon, Digimon, Pokémon, Tenchi Muyo!, Detective Conan, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ranma ½, Yu Yu Hakusho, Slayers, Rurouni Kenshin, Initial D, Gunsmith Cats, Outlaw Star, to anime movies such as Akira, Vampire Hunter D, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, The Castle of Cagliostro, and imports by various distributors such as Viz, AnimEigo, Central Park Media, A.D. Vision, Pioneer Entertainment, Media Blasters, Manga Entertainment, and Celebrity, helped begin the mid to late 1990’s and turn of the millennium introductory anime craze in the US, and the Cartoon Network anime block Toonami in 1997.

American animated children’s programs went through a renaissance during the decade with studios producing many critically acclaimed shows. Specifically, Warner Bros-animated shows like Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Batman: The Animated Series, and Superman: The Animated Series, as well as syndicated shows like Phantom 2040. Nickelodeon’s first animated series (Doug, Rugrats, The Ren & Stimpy Show) premiered in 1991.

The late 1990’s also saw the evolution of a new TV genre: primetime game shows, popularized by the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, hosted by Regis Philbin on ABC, as well as other first-run game shows aired in primetime on the newly launched Game Show Network.

Literature

The hugely successful Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling introduced in 1997. The series, with only seven main novels, would go on to become the best-selling book series in world history and adapted into a film series in 2001.

John Grisham was the bestselling author in the United States in the 1990’s, with over 60 million copies sold of novels such as The Pelican Brief, The Client, and The Firm.

Other successful authors of the 1990’s include Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Michael Crichton, and Tom Clancy.

Goosebumps by R. L. Stine, the second highest-grossing book series in the world, introduced in 1992 and remained a dominant player in children’s literature throughout and after the decade, but became a television series which aired on Fox Kids alongside a film version that released in 2015.

Video Gaming

Video game consoles released in this decade included the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast; while portable video game consoles included Game Gear, Atari Lynx and Game Boy Color. Super Mario World was the decade’s best selling console video game, while Pokémon Red and Blue was the decade’s best-selling portable video game; Super Mario 64 was the decade’s best-selling fifth-generation video game, while Street Fighter II was the decade’s highest-grossing arcade video game.

Mario as Nintendo’s mascot finds a rival in Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1991. Sonic would go on to become on the most successful video game franchises of the decade and of all time.

Popular notable video games of the 1990’s include: Super Metroid, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario World, Doom, Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong 64, Pokémon Red and Blue Versions, Pokémon Yellow Version, GoldenEye 007, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo, Mario Kart 64, Half-Life, Super Mario Kart, Radiant Silvergun, Rayman, Gunstar Heroes, Banjo-Kazooie, Soulcalibur, Star Fox series, Tomb Raider series, Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog series, Story of Seasons series, Tony Hawk’s series, Crash Bandicoot series, Metal Slug series, Resident Evil series, Street Fighter II, Spyro the Dragon series, Commander Keen series, Test Drive series, Dance Dance Revolution series, Monkey Island series, Dune series, Mortal Kombat series, Warcraft series, Duke Nukem 3D, Tekken series, EarthBound, Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game, and StarCraft.

Sony’s PlayStation becomes the top-selling game console and changes the standard media storage type from cartridges to compact discs in consoles. Crash Bandicoot is released on September 9th, 1996, becoming one of the most successful platforming series for the Sony PlayStation. Tomb Raider‘s (PlayStation) Lara Croft became a video game sex symbol, becoming a recognizable figure in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990’s.

3-D graphics become the standard by end of decade. Although FPSs had long since seen the transition to full 3D, other genres begin to copy this trend by the end of the decade. Most notable first shooter games in the 1990’s are GoldenEye 007 and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six.

The console wars, primarily between Sega (Mega Drive, marketed as the Sega Genesis in North America, introduced in 1988) and Nintendo (Super NES, introduced in 1990), sees the entrance of Sony with the PlayStation in 1994, which becomes the first successful CD-based console (as opposed to cartridges). By the end of the decade, Sega’s hold on the market becomes tenuous after the end of the Saturn in 1999 and the Dreamcast in 2002.

Arcade games rapidly decrease in popularity, mainly due to handheld and home consoles.

Fighting games like Capcom’s Street Fighter II, Sega’s futuristic Virtua Fighter, and especially the more violent Mortal Kombat from Midway prompted the video game industry to accept a game rating system. Hundreds of knock-offs are widely popular in the mid-to-late 1990’s. Doom (1993) bursts onto the world scene, and instantly popularizes the FPS genre. Half-Life (1998) features the next evolutionary step in the genre with continual progression of the game (no levels in the traditional sense) and an entirely in-person view, and becomes one of the most popular computer games in history.

The real-time strategy (RTS) genre is introduced in 1992 with the release of Dune II. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994) popularizes the genre, with Command & Conquer and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness in 1995, setting up the first major real-time strategy competition and popularizing multiplayer capabilities in RTS games. StarCraft in 1998 becomes the second best-selling computer game of all time. It remains among the most popular multiplayer RTS games to this day, especially in South Korea. Homeworld in 1999 becomes the first successful 3D RTS game. The rise of the RTS genre is often credited with the fall of the turn-based strategy (TBS) genre, popularized with Civilization in 1991. Final Fantasy introduced (in North America) in 1990 for the NES, and remains among the most popular video game franchises, with many new titles to date and more in development, plus numerous spin-offs, sequels, films and related titles. Final Fantasy VII, released in 1997, especially popularized the series.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) see their entrance into the computer game world with Ultima Online in 1997, although they never gain widespread popularity until EverQuest and Asheron’s Call in 1999. MMORPGs go on to become among the most popular genres in the first decade of the 21st century.

Pokémon enters the world scene with the release of the original Game Boy Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green games in Japan in 1996, later changed to Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue for worldwide release in 1998. It soon becomes popular in the United States, spurring the term Pokémonia and is adapted into a popular anime series and trading card game, among other media forms.

Resident Evil is released in 1996. It becomes the most popular survival-horror series in video gaming well into the next decade and inspires several films.

Crash Bandicoot is released in September 1996, becoming an innovative platformer for the PlayStation.

The best selling games of the 1990’s were as follows (note that some sources disagree on particular years):

1990: Super Mario World.

1991: Sonic the Hedgehog.

1992: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.

1993: Super Mario All-Stars.

1994: Donkey Kong Country.

1995: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island or Mortal Kombat III.

1996: Pokémon Red and Blue or Super Mario 64^.

1997: Gran Turismo or Mario Kart 64.

1998: Pokémon Yellow or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time^.

1999: Pokémon Gold and Silver or Donkey Kong 64.

Sports

Association Football

Manchester United won an unprecedented treble of the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League after defeating Bayern Munich 2–1 in May 1999.

The United States hosted the 15th staging of the World Cup in 1994. To this day, it holds the record for largest attendance per game during the World Cup finals (even after the tournament’s expansion to 32 teams and 64 matches). Additionally, this led to the creation of the MLS.

American Football

In the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers and the Washington Redskins showed promise of continuing their 80’s glory by each team winning another Super Bowl at the beginning of the decade; but it was the Dallas Cowboys who made a gradual return to dynasty status, winning three Super Bowls (1992, 1993 and 1995) in a four-year span after a 14-year NFL championship drought. The Denver Broncos also won their first two Super Bowls after having lost four, winning consecutive championships of the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

Florida State, 1987 – 2000 – At the height of Bobby Bowden’s dominance, the Florida State Seminoles went 152–19–1, won nine ACC championships (1992–2000), two national championships (1993 and 1999), played for three more national championships (1996, 1998 and 2000), were ranked #1 in the pre-season AP poll 5 times (1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, and 1999), never lost the #1 AP ranking during 1999, produced 20 1st round NFL draft picks (including the 1997 offensive and defensive rookies of the year), won at least 10 games every year, and never finished a season ranked lower than fourth in the AP poll. Quarterbacks Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke won Heisman Trophies.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers led by head coach Tom Osborne won three national championships in college football in a four-year span (1994, 1995, 1997)

Led by head coach Jim Tressel, The Youngstown State Penguins claimed to be the team of the ’90s by winning four national championships (1991, 1993, 1994, 1997) in division I-AA college football.

Ultimate Fighting

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (1993) and Pride Fighting Championship (1997) debut and evolve into the modern sport of Mixed Martial Arts.

Wrestling

In professional wrestling, the boom period of the WWF from the late 1980’s continued until 1993, led by such stars as Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. A second boom period of the decade was introduced during the Monday Night Wars between the WWF and WCW from the middle of the decade to spawn the WWF’s Attitude Era, home to some of the biggest names in Wrestling history such as The Undertaker, who would go on to have an undefeated streak at WrestleMania that would go on until WrestleMania XXX in April 2014, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock and the highly popular nWo group, along with Sting and Goldberg who brought WCW major success.

Olympics

The 1992 Summer Olympics are held in Barcelona, Spain.

In the 1996 Summer Olympics, the Women’s Gymnastics team won the first team Gold Medal for the US in Olympic Gymnastics history.

Baseball

Major League Baseball players went on strike on August 12th, 1994, thus ending the season and canceling the World Series for the first time in 90 years. The players’ strike ended on March 29th, 1995 when players and team owners came to an agreement.

The 1991 World Series pitted the Atlanta Braves and the Minnesota Twins, two teams who finished last place in their respective divisions the previous season. The series would go all seven games won by the home teams that concluded in dramatic fashion with the Minnesota Twins claiming their second World Series title.

Major League Baseball added four teams, Miami Marlins (as Florida Marlins), Colorado Rockies, Tampa Bay Rays (as Tampa Bay Devil Rays), and the Arizona Diamondbacks, and moved one (Milwaukee Brewers) into the National League. The Florida Marlins would win the World Series in 1997 and 2003; the Arizona Diamondbacks would win the World Series in 2001, becoming the fastest expansion team to win a major championship for any major sport; the Colorado Rockies and Tampa Bay Rays would appear in the World Series in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Basketball

American NBA basketball player Michael Jordan became a major sports and pop culture icon idolized by millions worldwide. He revolutionized sports marketing through deals with companies such as Gatorade, Hanes, McDonald’s and Nike. His Chicago Bulls team won six NBA titles during the decade (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998). He was loved outside basketball thanks to his self-portrayal in the film Space Jam with the Looney Tune characters.

Ice Hockey

The National Hockey League would expand from 21 to 30 teams. During the expansion years, several teams would relocate to new cities: the Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix, Arizona and became the Phoenix Coyotes, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche, the Hartford Whalers moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and became the Carolina Hurricanes, and the Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas and became the Dallas Stars.

The NHL’s 1990’s expansion saw new teams in cities that previously never had NHL hockey: San Jose (San Jose Sharks), Anaheim (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim), Nashville (Nashville Predators), Miami (Florida Panthers), and Tampa (Tampa Bay Lightning). The NHL also returned to Atlanta with the expansion Atlanta Thrashers.

Two of the NHL’s Original Six teams, the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings would end long Stanley Cup championship droughts; the Rangers in 1994 after 54 years, and the Red Wings would win back to back Cups in 1997 and 1998 after 42 years.

Canadian hockey star Mario Lemieux led the Pittsburgh Penguins, one of the original NHL expansion teams, to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992.

In addition to the Pittsburgh Penguins, three other NHL expansion teams went on to earn their first Stanley Cup championships: the New Jersey Devils in 1995, the Colorado Avalanche in 1996, and the Dallas Stars in 1999.

Canadian hockey star Wayne Gretzky announced his retirement from the NHL in 1999. Upon his final game on April 18th, he held 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, and six All-Star records. He is the leading point-scorer in NHL history, as well as the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season – a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, he tallied over 100 points in 16 professional seasons, 14 of them consecutive. He played for four teams during his NHL career: the Edmonton Oilers, the Los Angeles Kings, the St. Louis Blues, and the New York Rangers.

Disc Sports

In 1998, Canada wins gold metals for the first time in Disc ultimate at the WFDF World Ultimate Championship in Open, Mixed and Masters.

Cycling

American cyclist Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France in 1999, less than two years after battling testicular cancer.

Racing

In motor racing, triple Formula One World Champion Ayrton Senna is fatally injured in a crash at San Marino in 1994. Michael Schumacher enters into the sport – winning his first two championships in 1994 and 1995. Dale Earnhardt wins the 1998 Daytona 500 and the NASCAR Winston Cup championship in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994. Indy Car racing delves into an organizational Split.

Science And Technology

Science

Physicists develop M-theory.

Detection of extrasolar planets orbiting stars other than the sun.

In the United Kingdom, the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep was confirmed by the Roslin Institute, and was reported by global media on 26th February 1997. Dolly would trigger a raging controversy on cloning and bioethical concerns regarding possible human cloning continue to this day.

Human Genome Project begins under the lead of Francis Collins.

DNA identification of individuals finds wide application in criminal law.

Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and revolutionized astronomy. Unfortunately, a flaw in its main mirror caused it to produce fuzzy, distorted images. This was corrected by a shuttle repair mission in 1993.

Protease inhibitors introduced allowing HAART therapy against HIV; drastically reduces AIDS mortality.

NASA’s spacecraft Pathfinder lands on Mars and deploys a small roving vehicle, Sojourner, which analyzes the planet’s geology and atmosphere.

The Hale–Bopp comet swings past the sun for the first time in 4,200 years in April 1997.

Development of biodegradable products, replacing products made from styrofoam; advances in methods for recycling of waste products (such as paper, glass, and aluminum).

Genetically engineered crops are developed for commercial use.

Discovery of dark matter, dark energy, brown dwarfs, and first confirmation of black holes.

The Galileo probe orbits Jupiter, studying the planet and its moons extensively.

Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (formally designated D/1993 F2, nicknamed String of Pearls for its appearance) was a comet that broke apart and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of solar system objects..

The Global Positioning System (GPS) becomes fully operational.

Proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem is discovered by Andrew Wiles.

Construction started in 1998 on the International Space Station.

Technology

The 1990’s were a revolutionary decade for digital technology. Between 1990 and 1997, individual personal computer ownership in the US rose from 15% to 35%. Mobile phones of the early-1990’s and earlier ones were very large, lacked extra features, and were used by only a few percent of the population of even the wealthiest nations. Only a few million people used online services in 1990, and the World Wide Web, which would have a significant impact on technology for many decades, had only just been invented. The first web browser went online in 1993 and by 2001, more than 50% of some Western countries had Internet access, and more than 25% had mobile phone access.

Trains

The opening of the Channel Tunnel between France and the United Kingdom saw the commencement by the three national railway companies of Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, respectively SNCB/NMBS, SNCF and British Rail of the joint Eurostar service.

On 14th November 1994 Eurostar services began between Waterloo International station in London, Gare du Nord in Paris and Brussels South in Brussels. In 1995 Eurostar was achieving an average end-to-end speed of 171.5 km/h (106.6 mph) between London and Paris. On 8th January 1996 Eurostar launched services from a second railway station in the UK when Ashford International was opened. Journey times between London and Brussels were reduced by the opening of the High Speed 1 line on 14th December 1997.

Cars

The 1990’s began with another recession that dampened car sales. General Motors suffered huge losses thanks to an inefficient structure, stale designs, and poor quality. Sales improved with the economy by the mid-1990’s, but GM’s US market share gradually declined to less than 40% (from a peak of 50% in the 1970’s). While the new Saturn division fared well, Oldsmobile fell sharply and attempts to remake the division as a European-style luxury car were unsuccessful.

Cars in the 1990’s had a rounder, more streamlined shape than those from the 1970’s and 1980’s; this style would continue early into the 2000’s and to a lesser extent later on.

Chrysler ran into financial troubles again as the 1990’s started. Like GM, the company too had a stale model lineup (except for the best-selling minivans) that was largely based on the aging K-car platform. In 1992, chairman Lee Iacocca retired, and the company began a remarkable revival, introducing the new LH platform and Cab-Forward styling, along with a highly successful redesign of the full-sized Dodge Ram in 1994. Chrysler’s minivans continued to dominate the market despite increasing competition. In 1998, Daimler-Benz (the parent company of Mercedes-Benz) merged with Chrysler. The following year, it was decided to retire Plymouth, which had been on a long decline since the 1970’s. Ford continued to fare well in the 1990’s, with the second and third generations of the Ford Taurus being named the best selling car in the United States from 1992 to 1996. However, the Taurus would be outsold and dethroned by the Toyota Camry starting in 1997, which became the best-selling car in the United States for the rest of the decade and into the 2000’s. Ford also introduced the Ford Explorer, 1991 being the first model year. Fords Explorer became the best-selling SUV on the market; outselling both the Chevy Blazer and Jeep Cherokee.

Japanese cars continued to be highly successful during the decade. The Honda Accord vied with the Taurus most years for being the best-selling car in the United States during the early part of the decade. Although launched in 1989, the luxury brands Lexus and Infiniti began car sales of 1990 model year vehicles and saw great success. Lexus would go on to outsell Mercedes-Benz and BMW in the United States by 1991, and would outsell Cadillac and Lincoln by the end of the decade. SUVs and trucks became hugely popular during the economic boom in the second half of the decade. Many makes that had never built a truck before started selling SUVs. Car styling during the 1990’s became gradually more round and ovoid, the third-generation Taurus and Mercury Sable being some of the more extreme examples. Safety features such as airbags and shoulder belts became mandatory equipment on new cars.

Electronics And Communications

On 6th August 1991, CERN, a pan European organization for particle research, publicized the new World Wide Web project. Although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost two decades, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990’s.

Driven by mass adoption, consumer personal computer specifications increased dramatically during the 1990’s, from 512 KB RAM 12 MHz Turbo XTs in 1990, to 25–66 MHz 80486-class processor at the start of the popularization of the World Wide Web mid-decade, to over 1 GHz CPUs with close to a gigabyte of RAM by 2000.

Y2K spread fear throughout the United States and eventually the world in the last half of the decade, particularly in 1999, about possible massive computer malfunctions on 1st January 2000. As a result, many people stocked up on supplies for fear of a worldwide disaster. After significant effort to upgrade systems on the part of software engineers, no failures occurred when the clocks rolled over into 2000.

Advancements in computer modems, ISDN, cable modems, and DSL lead to faster connections to the Internet.

The first Pentium microprocessor is introduced and developed by the Intel Corporation.

Email becomes popular; as a result, Microsoft acquires the popular Hotmail webmail service.

Instant messaging and the buddy list feature becomes popular. AIM and ICQ are two early protocols.

Businesses start to build e-commerce websites; e-commerce-only companies such as Amazon.com, eBay, AOL, and Yahoo! grow rapidly.

The introduction of affordable, smaller satellite dishes and the DVB-S standard in the mid-1990’s expanded satellite television services that carried up to 500 television channels.

The first MP3 player, the MPMan, is released in late spring of 1998. It came with 32 MB of flash memory expandable to 64 MB. By the mid-2000’s, the MP3 player would overtake the CD player in popularity.

The first GSM network is launched in Finland in 1991.

Digital single-lens reflex cameras and regular digital cameras become commercially available. They would replace film cameras by the mid-2000’s.

IBM introduces the 1-inch (25 mm) wide Microdrive hard drive in 170 MB and 340 MB capacities.

Apple in 1998 introduces the iMac all-in-one computer, initiating a trend in computer design towards translucent plastics and multicolor case design, discontinuing many legacy technologies like serial ports, and beginning a resurgence in the company’s fortunes that continues to this day.

CD burner drives are introduced.

The CD-ROM drive became standard for most personal computers during the decade.

The DVD media format is developed and popularized along with a plethora of Flash memory card standards in 1994.

Pagers are initially popular but ultimately are replaced by mobile phones by the early-2000’s.

Hand-held satellite phones are introduced towards the end of the decade.

The 24-hour news cycle becomes popular with the Gulf War between late 1990 and early 1991 and CNN’s coverage of Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Though CNN had been running 24-hour newscasts since 1980, it was not until the Gulf War that the general public took large notice and others imitated CNN’s non-stop news approach.

Portable CD players, introduced during the late 1980’s, became very popular and had a profound impact on the music industry and youth culture during the 1990’s.

Software

Microsoft Windows operating systems become virtually ubiquitous on IBM PC compatibles.

Microsoft introduces Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Windows 98 to the market, which gain immediate popularity.

Macintosh System 7 was released in 1991. For much of the decade, Apple would struggle to develop a next-generation graphical operating system, starting with Copland and culminating in its December 1996 buyout of NeXT and the 1999 release of Mac OS X Server 1.0.

The development of web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer makes surfing the World Wide Web easier and more user friendly.

The Java programming language is developed by Sun Microsystems (Acquired by Oracle in 2009-2010).

In 1991, development of the free Linux kernel is started by 21 year old Linus Torvalds in Finland.

People

Musicians

For a list of 1990’s Musicians and information about them click here.

Actors / Entertainers

For a list of 1990’s Actors / Entertainers and information about them click here.

Sports Figures

For a list of 1990’s Sports Figures and information about them click here.

Fashion

Significant fashion trends of the 1990’s include:

Earth and jewel tones, as well as an array of minimalistic style and design influences, characterize the 1990’s, a stark contrast to the camp and bombast seen in the brightly colored fashion and design trends of the 1980’s.

The Rachel, Jennifer Aniston’s hairstyle on the hit TV show Friends, became a cultural phenomenon with millions of women copying it worldwide.

The Hi-top fade was very popular among African-Americans in the early 1990’s.

The Curtained Haircut increased in popularity in fashion and culture among teenage boys and young men in the 1990’s, mainly after it was popularized in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day by the actor Edward Furlong.

The model 1300 Wonderbra style has a resurgence of popularity in Europe in 1992 which kicks off a multinational media sensation, the 1994 return of The Wonderbra brand, and a spike in push-up, plunge bras around the world.

Additional fashion trends of the 1990’s include the Tamagotchi, Rollerblades, Pogs and Dr. Martens shoes.

Bleached blond hair became very popular in the late 1990’s, as was men with short hair with the bangs flipped up.

The 1990’s also saw the return of the 1970’s teenage female fashion with long, straight hair and denim hot pants.

Beverly Hills, 90210 sideburns also became popular in the early and mid-1990’s.

Slap bracelets were a popular fad among children, preteens and teenagers in the early 1990’s and were available in a wide variety of patterns and colors. Also, popular among children were light-up trainers, jelly shoes, and shoelace hairclips.

The Grunge hype at the beginning of the decade popularized flannel shirts among both genders during the 1990’s.

Grunge and hip-hop inspired anti-fashion saw an expansion of the slouchy, casual styles of past decades, mostly seen in baggy and/or distressed jeans, cargo shorts and pants, baseball caps (often worn backwards), chunky trainers, oversized sweatshirts, and loose-fitting tees with grandiloquent graphics and logos.

Y2K fashion became popular in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, as the new millennium began. This was marked by darker, slinkier, and more futuristic-looking clothing in the late 1990’s.

Economics

Many countries, institutions, companies, and organizations were prosperous during the 1990’s. High-income countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and those in Western Europe experienced steady economic growth for much of the decade. However, in the former Soviet Union GDP decreased as their economies restructured to produce goods they needed and some capital flight occurred.

GATT update and creation of the World Trade Organization and other global economic institutions, but opposition by anti-globalization activists showed up in nearly every GATT summit, like the demonstrations in Seattle in December 1999.

The anti-globalization protests at the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 in Seattle began on 30th November 1999. This marked the beginning of a steady increase in anti-globalization protests that occurred in the first decade of the 21st century as well as increasing hostility to neoliberalism.

U.S. inflation moderated, beginning in 1990 at 5.39%, falling to a low of 1.55% in 1998 and rising slightly to 2.19% in 1999.

North America

The decade is seen as a time of great prosperity in the United States and Canada, largely due to the unexpected advent of the Internet and the explosion of technology industries that came with it. The U.S. and Canadian economies experienced their longest period of peacetime economic expansion beginning in 1991. Personal incomes doubled from the recession in 1990, and there was higher productivity overall. The Wall Street stock exchange stayed over the 10,500 mark from 1999 to 2001.

After the 1992 booming of the US stock market, Alan Greenspan coined the phrase irrational exuberance.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, which phases out trade barriers between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Asia

The government of the People’s Republic of China announced major privatization of state-owned industries in September 1997.

China entered the 1990’s in a turbulent period, shunned by much of the world after the Tiananmen Square Massacre and controlled by hard line politicians who reigned in private enterprise and attempted to revive old-fashioned propaganda campaigns. Relations with the United States deteriorated sharply, and the Chinese leadership was further embarrassed by the disintegration of communism in Europe. In 1992, Deng Xiaoping travelled to southern China in his last major public appearance to revitalize faith in market economics and stop the country’s slide back into Maoism. Afterwards, China recovered, and would experience explosive economic growth during the rest of the decade. In spite of this, dissent continued to be suppressed, and CPC General Secretary Jiang Zemin launched a brutal crackdown against the Falun Gong religious sect in 1999. Deng Xiaoping himself died in 1997 at the age of 93. Relations with the US deteriorated again in 1999 after the bombing of the Chinese embassy during the bombing of Serbia by NATO forces, which caused three deaths, and allegations of Chinese espionage at the Los Alamos Nuclear Facility.

Financial crisis hits East and Southeast Asia in 1997 and 1998 after a long period of phenomenal economic development, which continues by 1999. This crisis begins to be felt by the end of the decade.

In Japan, after three decades of economic growth put them in second place in the world’s economies, the situation worsened after 1993. The recession went on into the early first decade of the 21st century, bringing an end to the seemingly unlimited prosperity that the country had before enjoyed.

Less affluent nations such as India, Malaysia, and Vietnam also saw tremendous improvements in economic prosperity and quality of life during the 1990’s. Restructuring following the end of the Cold War was beginning. However, there was also the continuation of terrorism in Third World regions that were once the frontlines for American and Soviet foreign politics, particularly in Asia.

Europe

By 1990, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms were causing major inflation and economic chaos. A coup attempt by hard-liners in August 1991 failed, marking the effective end of the Soviet Union. All its constituent republics declared their independence in 1991, and on Christmas, Gorbachev resigned from office. After 73 years, the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The new Russian Federation was headed by Boris Yeltsin and would face severe economic difficulty. Oligarchs took over Russia’s energy and industrial sectors, reducing almost half the country to poverty. With a 3% approval rating, Yeltsin had to buy the support of the oligarchs to win reelection in 1996. Economic turmoil and devaluation of the ruble continued, and with heart and alcohol troubles, Yeltsin stepped down from office on the last day of 1999, handing power to Vladimir Putin.

Russian financial crisis in the 1990’s results in mass hyperinflation and prompts economic intervention from the International Monetary Fund and western countries to help Russia’s economy recover.

The first McDonald’s restaurant opens in Moscow in 1990 with then-President of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR and future Russian President Boris Yeltsin attending, symbolizing Russia’s transition towards a capitalist free market economy and a move towards adopting elements of western culture.

Oil and gas were discovered in many countries in the former Soviet bloc, leading to economic growth and wider adoption of trade between nations. These trends were also fueled by inexpensive fossil energy, with low petroleum prices caused by increased production of oil. Political stability and decreased militarization due to the winding down of the Cold War led to economic development and higher standards of living for many citizens.

Most of Europe enjoyed growing prosperity during the 1990’s. However, problems including the massive 1995 general strikes in France following a recession and the difficulties associated with German reunification lead to sluggish growth in these countries. However, both the French and German economies improve in the latter half of the decade. Meanwhile, the economies of particularly Spain, Scandinavia and former Eastern Bloc countries accelerate at rapid speed during the decade although unemployment being mild due to many having experienced a deep recession for the start of the decade.

After the early 1990’s recession, the United Kingdom and Ireland experience rapid economic growth and falling unemployment that continues throughout the decade. Economic growth would continue until the Late 2000’s recession marking the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in history.

Some Eastern European economies struggled after the fall of communism, but Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania saw economic growth rates in the late 1990’s.

With the creation of the EU there is freedom of movement between member states, such as the 1992 and 1995 free trade agreements.

The euro is adopted by the European Union on 1st January 1999, which begins a process of phasing out national currencies of EU countries.

South America

The sluggish economies of Brazil, by a new emphasis on free markets for all their citizens, and Mexico, under economist president Ernesto Zedillo elected in 1994, were in their best shape by the late 1990’s.

Disasters

Natural

The 1990’s saw a trend in increasingly frequent and more devastating natural disasters, breaking many previous records. Although the 1990’s was designated by the United Nations as an International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction as part of its program to prevent losses due to the disasters, its disasters would go on to cause a record-breaking US$608 billion worth of damage—more than four past decades combined.

The most prominent natural disasters of the decade include:

Hurricane Andrew striking South Florida in August 1992, the crippling super storm of March 1993 along the Eastern Seaboard, the devastating 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, the Great Hanshin earthquake in Kobe, Japan in January 1995, the Blizzard of 1996 in the eastern United States, the US drought of 1999, the deadly Hurricane Mitch which struck Central America in October 1998, and the destructive Oklahoma tornado outbreak in May 1999, the August 1999 İzmit earthquake in Turkey, and the September 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit the Philippines on 16th July 1990 and killed around 1000 people in Baguio.

After 600 years of inactivity the Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted and devastated Zambales and Pampanga in June 1991.

July 1995 – Midwestern United States heat wave – An unprecedented heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures peak at 106 °F (41 °C), and remain above 94 °F (34 °C) in the afternoon for 5 straight days. At least 739 people died in Chicago alone.

Hurricane Georges made landfall in at least seven different countries (Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the United States) and Puerto Rico, a Commonwealth of the United States – more than any other hurricane since Hurricane Inez of the 1966 season. The total estimated costs were in the $60 billion (present day $100 billion).

September 1996 – Hurricane Fran made landfall in North Carolina causing significant damage throughout the entire state.

Hurricane Iniki hits the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands on 11th September 1992, making it one of the costliest hurricanes on record in the eastern Pacific.

A flood hits the Red River Valley in 1997 becoming the most severe flood since 1826.

In December 1999, torrential rains and flash floods killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans living in the state of Vargas, in a natural disaster known as the Vargas tragedy.

Non-Natural

Gulf War oil spill: Resulting from actions taken during the Gulf War in 1991 by the Iraq military, the oil spill caused considerable damage to wildlife in the Persian Gulf especially in areas surrounding Kuwait and Iraq.

July 11th, 1991: A Nationair Douglas DC-8, chartered by Nigeria Airways, caught fire and crashed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 261 people.

December 15th, 1991: The Egyptian ferry Salem Express sinks in the Red Sea, killing more than 450 people.

October 4th, 1992: El Al Flight 1862, a Boeing 747 cargo airplane heading to Tel Aviv, suffered physical engine separation of both right-wing engines (#3 and #4) just after taking off from Schiphol and crashed into an apartment building in the Bijlmer neighbourhood of Amsterdam while attempting to return to the airport. A total of 43 people were killed, including the plane’s crew of three and a non-revenue passenger. Several others were injured.

July 26th, 1993: Asiana Airlines Flight 733 crashed into Mt. Ungeo in Haenam, South Korea killing 68 people.

April 26th, 1994: China Airlines Flight 140, an Airbus A300, crashed just as it was about to land at Nagoya Airfield, Japan, killing 264 and leaving only seven survivors.

September 8th, 1994: USAir Flight 427 crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing 132 people.

September 28th, 1994: The car ferry MS Estonia sinks in the Baltic Sea, killing 852 people.

June 29th, 1995: The Sampoong Department Store collapses in Seoul, South Korea, killing 502 people.

December 20th, 1995: American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757, hit a mountain in Colombia at night, killing 159 people.

July 17th, 1996: Trans World Airlines Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, killing 230.

November 12th, 1996: A Saudia Boeing 747 and a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 collided over the town of Charkhi Dadri, outside New Delhi, India, killing 349.

August 6th, 1997: Korean Air Flight 801, a Boeing 747-300, crashed into a hill on the island of Guam, killing 228 people.

September 26th, 1997: Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 crashed in bad weather, killing 234.

September 2nd, 1998: Swissair Flight 111, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Nova Scotia near the towns of Peggys Cove and Bayswater, killing 229.

October 31st, 1999: EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767, crashed off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing 217.

Society

The 1990’s represented continuing social liberalization in most countries, though coupled with an increase in the influence of capitalism, which would continue until the Great Recession of the late 2000’s/early 2010’s.

Youth culture in the 1990’s responded to this by embracing both environmentalism and entrepreneurship. Western world fashions reflected this by often turning highly individualistic and/or counter-cultural, which was influenced by Generation X and early millennials: tattoos and body piercing gained popularity, and retro styles inspired by fashions of the 1960’s and 1970’s were also prevalent. Some young people became increasingly involved in extreme sports and outdoor activities that combined embracing athletics with the appreciation of nature.

Those born from 1990 to 1996 are generally considered part of the Millennial Generation, along with those born in the 1980’s, while those born from 1997 onward are often considered part of Generation Z, the post-Millennial generation.

In 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of diseases. Increasing acceptance of homosexuality occurred in the western world, slowly starting in the early 1990’s.

Social Movements

Environment

At the beginning of the decade, sustainable development and environmental protection became serious issues for governments and the international community. In 1987, the publication of the Brundtland Report by the United Nations had paved the way to establish an environmental governance. In 1992 the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, in which several countries committed to protect the environment, signing a Convention on Biological Diversity.

The prevention of the destruction of the tropical rainforests of the world is a major environmental cause that first came into wide public concern in the early 1990’s, and has continued and accelerated.

The Chernobyl disaster had significant impact on public opinion at the end of the 1980’s, and the fallout was still causing cancer deaths well into the 1990’s and possibly even into the 21st century. All along the 1990’s, several environmental NGOs helped improve environmental awareness among public opinion and governments. The most famous of these organizations during this decade was Greenpeace, which did not hesitate to lead illegal actions in the name of environmental preservation. These organizations also drew attention on the large deforestion of the Amazon Rainforest during the period.

Global warming as an aspect of climate change also became a major concern, and the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) after the Earth Summit helped coordinate efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere. From 1995, the UNFCCC held annual summits on climate change, leading to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997, a binding agreement signed by several developed countries.

Third-Wave Feminism

Anita Hill and other women testify before the United States Congress on being sexually harassed by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Thomas was narrowly confirmed by the United States Senate, but Hill’s testimony, and the testimony of other harassed women, begins a national debate on the issue.

Record numbers of women are elected to high office in the United States in 1992, the Year of the Woman.

Violence against women takes center stage as an important issue internationally. In the United States the Violence Against Women Act was passed, which greatly affected the world community through the United Nations. The law’s author, Joe Biden, and UN Ambassador and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Hillary Clinton become vocal advocates of action against violence against women.

Women reach great heights of power in the United States government. Hillary Clinton, leading policy proposals, traveling abroad as a State Department representative to 82 nations, advising her husband, and being elected a Senator (in 2000), is the most openly empowered and politically powerful First Lady in American history; Madeleine Albright and Janet Reno take two of the cabinet’s top jobs as United States Secretary of State (#1), and United States Attorney General (#4), respectively. Sheila Widnall becomes head and Secretary of the Air Force and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joins Sandra Day O’Connor as the second woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.

More nations than ever before are led by elected women Presidents and Prime Ministers. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s 1988 victory in Pakistan makes women leaders in Muslim states unextraordinary. In Turkey, Tansu Çiller became the first female prime minister in 1993 (till 1996).

In popular culture, British pop group the Spice Girls also played a part in the feminist movement, boosting popularity with their slogan Girl Power! Country music superstar Shania Twain declared female supremacy in her 1995 hit song Any Man of Mine.

Assassinations And Attempts

Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:

September 9th, 1990: Samuel Doe, the President of Liberia, is captured by rebels and is tortured and murdered. The spectacle was videotaped and seen on news reports around the world.

September 19th, 1990: The Provisional Irish Republican Army tries to assassinate Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry at his home near Stafford, England. Hit by at least nine bullets, the former Governor of Gibraltar survives.

May 21st, 1991: In Sriperumbudur, India, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated.

August 7th, 1991: Shapour Bakhtiar, former prime minister of Iran, is assassinated.

May 23rd, 1992: A remote car bomb causes the death of Italian Judge Giovanni Falcone, a hero in the fight against organized crime. Less than two months later, on July 19th, Falcone’s co-worker and friend, magistrate Paolo Borsellino was killed by a car bomb in via D’Amelio, Palermo, in front of his mother’s house.

June 29th, 1992: A bodyguard assassinates President Mohamed Boudiaf of Algeria.

1992: Eduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian head of state, survives an assassination attempt. He escaped a car bomb in Abkhazia.

April 1993: The Kuwaiti government claims to uncover an Iraqi assassination plot against former United States President George H. W. Bush shortly after his visit to Kuwait. Two Iraqi nationals confess to driving a car-bomb into Kuwait on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

May 1st, 1993: A Tamil Tigers suicide bomber assassinates President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka.

October 21st, 1993: Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye is killed during an attempted military coup.

December 2nd, 1993: Pablo Escobar also known as The King of Cocaine was killed by Members of Colonel Hugo Martínez’s Search Bloc in Medellín, Colombia

March 23rd, 1994: Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta was assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana during the Mexican Presidential campaign of 1994.

April 6th, 1994: The airplane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda, sparking the Rwandan genocide and eventually, the First Congo War. The perpetrators have never been identified.

July 2nd, 1994: Colombian football player Andrés Escobar was shot by Humberto Castro Muñoz in Medellín, Colombia

August 29th, 1995: Eduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian head of state, survives an assassination attempt. He survived a car bomb in Tbilisi.

November 4th, 1995: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv by a radical Jewish militant who opposed the Oslo Accords.

March 31st, 1995: Tejano pop singer Selena is shot by fan club president Yolanda Saldívar over financial issues and missing records. Two weeks after death, her birthday is named Selena Day in Texas.

April 21st, 1996: Dzhokhar Dudayev, the President of Chechnya, is killed by two laser-guided missiles, after his location was detected by a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, which intercepted his phone call.

September 13th, 1996: Popular rap artist Tupac Shakur was shot dead in Las Vegas. The culprit for his murder has still not been identified.

October 2nd, 1996: The former prime minister of Bulgaria, Andrei Lukanov, is assassinated.

March 9th, 1997: Popular rap artist The Notorious B.I.G. was shot dead in Los Angeles. The culprit for his murder has still not been identified.

July 15th, 1997: Gianni Versace was shot dead, aged 50, on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion as he returned from a morning walk on Ocean Drive. He was murdered by Andrew Cunanan, who was also liable in murdering four others including Lee Miglin, a real estate developer and Chicago tycoon two months prior, and used the same gun to commit suicide on a houseboat several days later.

1998: Eduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian head of state, survives an assassination attempt. His motorcade was ambushed by 10 to 15 armed men; two bodyguards were killed.

February 16th, 1999: In Uzbekistan, an apparent assassination attempt against President Islam Karimov takes place at government headquarters.

March 23rd, 1999: Gunmen assassinate Paraguay’s Vice President Luis María Argaña.

April 9th, 1999: Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, president of Niger, is assassinated.

Politics And Wars

Wars

The most prominent armed conflicts of the decade include the following:

International Wars

The Congo Wars broke out in the late 1990’s. The First Congo War (1996 – 1997) took place in Zaire from October 1996 to May 1997, resulting in Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko being overthrown from power, ending 32 years of his rule. Zaire was renamed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Second Congo War (1998 – 2003) started in August 1998 in central Africa and involved multiple nearby nations. It continued until July 2003.

The Gulf War (1991) in Iraq was left in severe debt after the 1980’s war with Iran. President Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of flooding the market with oil and driving down prices. As a result, on 2nd August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and conquered Kuwait. The UN (United Nations) immediately condemned the action, and a coalition force led by the United States was sent to the Persian Gulf. Aerial bombing of Iraq began in January 1991, and a month later, the UN forces drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait in just four days. In the aftermath of the war, the Kurds in the north of Iraq and the Shiites in the south rose up in revolt, and Saddam Hussein barely managed to hold onto power. Until the US invasion in 2003, Iraq was cut off from much of the world.

The Chechen Wars break out in the 1990’s. The First Chechen War (1994 – 1996) was fought between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. After the initial campaign of 1994 – 1995, culminating in the devastating Battle of Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya but were set back by Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids on the flat-lands despite Russia’s overwhelming manpower, weaponry, and air support. The resulting widespread demoralization of federal forces, and the almost universal opposition of the Russian public to the conflict, led Boris Yeltsin’s government to declare a ceasefire in 1996 and sign a peace treaty a year later. The Second Chechen War (1999 – 2009) was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan and the Russian apartment bombings which were blamed on the Chechens. During the war Russian forces largely recaptured the separatist region of Chechnya. The campaign largely reversed the outcome of the First Chechen War, in which the region gained de facto independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

Eritrean–Ethiopian War (1998 – 2000).

The Kargil War (1999). In May 1999, Pakistan sent troops covertly to occupy strategic peaks in Kashmir. A month later, the Kargil War with India resulted in a political fiasco for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, followed by a Pakistani military withdrawal to the Line of Control. The incident leads to a military coup in October, in which Sharif is ousted by Army Chief Pervez Musharraf. This conflict remains the only war fought between two declared nuclear powers.

The Yugoslav Wars (1991 – 1995). The breakup of Yugoslavia, beginning on 25th June 1991 after the republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia, was followed by the subsequent Yugoslav Wars. These wars would become notorious for numerous war crimes and human rights violations such as ethnic cleansing and genocide, with the overwhelming majority of casualties being Muslim Bosniaks.

Ten-Day War (1991) was a brief military conflict between Slovenian TO (Slovenian Territorial Defence) and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) following Slovenia’s declaration of independence.

The Croatian War of Independence (1991 – 1995) was fought in modern day Croatia between the Croatian government, having declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and both the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and Serb forces, who established the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) within Croatia.

Bosnian War (1992 – 1995). This war involved several ethnically defined factions within Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats as well as a smaller Bosniak faction led by Fikret Abdić. The Siege of Sarajevo (1992 – 1995) marked the most violent urban warfare in Europe since World War II at that time as Serb forces bombard and attack Bosniak-controlled and -populated areas of the city. War crimes occur including ethnic cleansing and destruction of civilian property.

The final fighting in Croatian and Bosnian wars ends in 1995 with the success of Croatian military offensives against Serb forces and the mass exodus of Serbs from Croatia in 1995; Serb losses to Croat and Bosniak forces; and finally, the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which internally partitioned Bosnia and Herzegovina into a Republika Srpska and a Bosniak-Croat federation.

The Kosovo War (1998 – 1999) between the Albanian separatists and Yugoslav military and Serb paramilitary forces in Kosovo began in 1996 and escalated in 1998 with increasing reports of atrocities taking place.

In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led by the United States launched air attacks against Yugoslavia (then composed of only Serbia and Montenegro) to pressure the Yugoslav government to end its military operations against Albanian separatists in Kosovo. The intervention lacked UN approval, yet was justified by NATO based on accusations of war crimes being committed by Yugoslav military forces working alongside nationalist Serb paramilitary groups. After months of bombing, Yugoslavia accepted NATO’s demands and NATO forces (later UN peacekeeping forces) occupied Kosovo.

End of the South African Border War (1990) between Zambia, Angola, and Namibia.

Civil Wars And Guerrilla Wars

End of the Ethiopian Civil War (1991) ending over twenty years of internal conflict. The end of the war coincides with the establishment of a coalition government of various factions.

The Algerian Civil War (1991 – 2002) was caused by a group of high-ranking army officers cancelling the first multi-party elections in Algeria.

The Somali Civil War (1991 – present) includes the Battle of Mogadishu.

The 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted in 53 deaths and 5,500 property fires in a 100-square-mile (260 km²) riot zone. The riots were a result of the state court acquittal of three white and one Hispanic L.A. police officers by an all-white jury in a police brutality case involving motorist Rodney King. In 1993, all four officers were convicted in a federal civil rights case.

The Rwandan genocide (1994)was from 6th April to mid-July 1994. Hundreds of thousands of Rwanda’s Tutsis and Hutu political moderates are killed by the Hutu-dominated government under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately 100 days, at least 500,000 people were killed, with estimates of the death toll ranging between this number and 1,000,000, or as much as 20% of the total population of the country. It resulted in serious criticism of the United Nations and major countries for failing to stop the genocide.

1993 Russian constitutional crisis. Severe political deadlock between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet (Russia’s parliament at this time) result in Yeltsin ordering the controversial shelling of the Russian parliament building by tanks.

Tajikistani Civil War (1992 – 1997). The Tajikistan government is pitted against the United Tajik Opposition, resulting in the death of 50,000 to 100,000 people.

Zapatista uprising (1994). A large number of the Zapatista indigenous people of Mexico join the Zapatista Army of National Liberation that began armed conflict with the Mexican government in 1994 and cont’inued through the 1990s.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996 – 2001). The Taliban seize control of Afghanistan, lasing for half a decade.

End of The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1998). After 30 years of fighting, The Troubles ended on 10 April 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

1999 East Timorese crisis.

To read more about 1990’s Politics And Wars click here.

Additional Significant Worldwide Events

Worldwide New Year’s Eve celebrations on December 31st, 1999 welcoming the new millennium.

Europe

January 1991 Events (Lithuania). Soviet Union military troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius, killing 14 people and wounding 1000.

In Paris, Diana, Princess of Wales and her friend, Dodi Al-Fayed, were killed in a car accident in August 1997, when their chauffeured, hired Mercedes-Benz S-Class crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. The chauffeur, Henri Paul died at the scene, as did Al-Fayed. Diana and an Al-Fayed bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived the accident. The Princess of Wales died at a Paris hospital hours later. The bodyguard, Rees-Jones, is the sole survivor of the now infamous accident.

Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who won the Nobel Peace Prize, dies at age 87.

The birth of the Second Republic in Italy, with the Mani Pulite investigations of 1994.

The Channel Tunnel across the English Channel opens in 1994, connecting France and England. As of 2021 it is the third-longest rail tunnel in the world, but with the undersea section of 37.9 km (23.5 mi) being the longest undersea tunnel in the world.

The resignation of President Boris Yeltsin on 31st December 1999 resulting in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s succession to the position.

North America

O. J. Simpson murder case. O. J. Simpson’s trial, described in the American media as the trial of the century and enormous United States media attention is focused on the trial. On October 3rd, 1995, Simpson was found not guilty of double-murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

With help from clinical fertility drugs, an Iowa mother, Bobbie McCaughey, gave birth to the first surviving septuplets in 1997. There followed a media frenzy and widespread support for the family.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are killed when Kennedy’s private plane crashes off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in July 1999.

Debate on assisted suicide highly publicized by Michigan doctor Jack Kevorkian, charged with multiple counts of homicide of his terminally ill patients through the decade.

Beer keg registration becomes popular public policy in United States.

The 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1992 was popularly observed in the United States, despite controversy and protests against the victimization of Native Americans by Columbus’ expeditions. The holiday was labeled by some as racist, in view of Native American experiences of colonialism, slavery, genocide, and cultural destruction.

Matthew Shepard is murdered near the University of Wyoming for being gay. This sparks intense national and international media attention and outrage. He becomes a major symbol in the LGBT rights movement and the fight against homophobia.

Shanda Sharer was murdered on January 11th, 1992. She was lured away from her house and held captive by a group of teenage girls. She was tortured for hours and burned alive. She died from smoke inhalation. Those that were found guilty and sentenced to prison were Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence. According to Melinda, she was jealous of the relationship that her former partner Amanda Heavrin had with Shanda Sharer.

Karla Homolka was arrested with her husband, Paul Bernardo in 1993. Both sexually tortured and killed their victims. Their first victim was Karla Homolka’s 15-year-old sister Tammy. The second and third victims were Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. Homolka told the investigators that she reluctantly did what Bernardo told her to do because he was abusive and was given a deal. She was sentenced to only 12 years in prison (10 years for Mahaffy and French but only two years for Tammy Homolka). Later, investigators discovered videotapes of the crimes which proved that Homolka was a willing participant. But by that time the deal had already been made. In 1995, Bernardo was sentenced to life in prison. Homolka was released from prison in 2005.

Polly Klaas (January 3rd, 1981 – October 1993) was kidnapped by Richard Allen Davis from her home during a slumber party. She was later strangled to death. After her death, her father, Marc Klaas, established the KlaasKids Foundation.

Jonbenet Ramsey (August 6th, 1990 – December 25th, 1996) was a child beauty pageant contestant who was missing and found dead in her Boulder, Colorado, home. The crime terrified the nation and the world. Her parents were initially considered to be suspects in her death but were cleared in 2003 when DNA from her clothes were tested. To this day, her murderer has not been found and brought to justice.

Lorena Bobbitt was charged with malicious wounding for severing husband John Bobbitt’s penis after she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Bobbitt, for which he was charged. Both parties were acquitted of their respective charges.

American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor John Denver died in a plane crash in Monterey Bay near Pacific Grove on October 12th 1997.

Scandal rocked the sport of figure skating when skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked during practice by an assailant hired by Jeff Gillooly, former husband of skater Tonya Harding. The attack was carried out in an attempt to injure Kerrigan’s leg to the point of being unable to compete in the upcoming 1994 Winter Olympics, thereby securing Harding a better spot to win a gold medal.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people then themselves in the Columbine High School shooting in April 1999, which would lead to inspiring many future school shooters, which have become a uniquely American phenomenon, with more than 230 school shootings occurring since Columbine.

Blog Posts

Blue Peter.

1980’s

The Decade My Mental Health Started To Go Downhill

I left my secondary school, Byng Kenrick Central School, Gressal Lane, Tile Cross, in 1982 and started my Youth Training Scheme for 13 weeks at Eastwic, Bordesley Green. I can’t remember the road it was on but it was near Third Avenue, Bordesley Green, Birmingham. After that, I started my first job in a factory at Britax, Muntz Street, Small Heath, which was where Birmingham City used to play when they were Small Heath Alliance. Suffice to say both my training scheme and job were not happy times for me at all. I got married in 1987 and we lived in Pithall Road, Shard End. The best thing to come out of that was my only Son, Frank Jnr who was born in 1988.

My most memorable memories of this decade would be going to The Red Welly Club at All Saints Church in Shard End, going on my C. B. Radio, the music and Jnr’s birth.

The information below was sourced from Wikipedia and is subject to change.

You can read other articles related to the 1980’s via Blog Posts below as well.

About The 1980’s

The decade saw major socioeconomic change due to advances in technology and a worldwide move away from planned economies and towards laissez-faire capitalism.

As economic deconstruction increased in the developed world, multiple multinational corporations associated with the manufacturing industry relocated into Thailand, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. Japan and West Germany saw large economic growth during this decade. The AIDS epidemic became recognized in the 1980’s and has since killed an estimated 39 million people (as of 2013). Global warming became well known to the scientific and political community in the 1980’s.

The United Kingdom and the United States moved closer to supply-side economic policies beginning a trend towards global instability of international trade that would pick up more steam in the following decade as the fall of the USSR made right-wing economic policy more powerful.

The final decade of the Cold War opened with the US-Soviet confrontation continuing largely without any interruption. Superpower tensions escalated rapidly as President Reagan scrapped the policy of détente and adopted a new, much more aggressive stance on the Soviet Union. The world came perilously close to nuclear war for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, but the second half of the decade saw a dramatic easing of superpower tensions and ultimately the total collapse of Soviet communism.

Developing countries across the world faced economic and social difficulties as they suffered from multiple debt crises in the 1980’s, requiring many of these countries to apply for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Ethiopia witnessed widespread famine in the mid-1980’s during the corrupt rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam, resulting in the country having to depend on foreign aid to provide food to its population and worldwide efforts to address and raise money to help Ethiopians, such as the Live Aid concert in 1985.

Major civil discontent and violence occurred, including the Iran–Iraq War, the Soviet-Afghan War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Bombing of Libya in 1986, and the First Intifada in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Islamism became a powerful political force in the 1980’s and many terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, started.

By 1986, nationalism was making a comeback in the Eastern Bloc and the desire for democracy in communist-led socialist states combined with economic recession resulted in Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika, which reduced Communist Party power, legalized dissent and sanctioned limited forms of capitalism such as joint ventures with Western firms. After newly heated tension for most of the decade, by 1988 relations between the West and East had improved significantly and the Soviet Union was increasingly unwilling to defend its governments in satellite states.

1989 brought the overthrow and attempted overthrow of a number of governments led by communist parties, such as in Hungary, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in China, the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution, Erich Honecker’s East German regime, Poland’s Soviet-backed government, and the violent overthrow of the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime in Romania. Destruction of the 155-km Berlin Wall, at the end of the decade, signalled a seismic geopolitical shift. The Cold War ended in the early 1990’s with the successful Reunification of Germany and the USSR’s demise after the August Coup of 1991.

The 1980’s saw great advances in genetic and digital technology. After years of animal experimentation since 1985, the first genetic modification of 10 adult human beings took place in May 1989, a gene tagging experiment which led to the first true gene therapy implementation in September 1990. The first designer babies, a pair of female twins were created in a laboratory in late 1989 and born in July 1990 after being sex-selected via the controversial assisted reproductive technology procedure preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Gestational surrogacy was first performed in 1985 with the first birth in 1986, making it possible for a woman to become a biological mother without experiencing pregnancy for the first time in history.

The 1980’s was also an era of tremendous population growth around the world, surpassing even the 1970’s and 1990’s, thus arguably being the largest in human history. Population growth was particularly rapid in a number of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian countries during this decade, with rates of natural increase close to or exceeding 4% annually.

The 1980’s saw the advent of the ongoing practice of sex-selective abortion in China and India as ultrasound technology permitted parents to selectively abort baby girls.

The global Internet took shape in academia by the second half of the 1980’s as well as many other computer networks of both academic and commercial use such as USENET, Fidonet and the Bulletin Board System. By 1989 the Internet and the networks linked to it were a global system with extensive transoceanic satellite links and nodes in most rich countries. Based on earlier work from 1980 onwards Tim Berners Lee formalized the concept of the World Wide Web by 1989 and performed its earliest demonstrations in December 1990 and 1991. Television viewing became commonplace in the Third World, with the number of TV sets in China and India increasing by 15 and 10 times respectively.

Video game consoles released in this decade included the continuing popularity of Atari 2600, Intellivision, Vectrex, Colecovision, SG-1000, NES/Famicom, Sega Master System, PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16, Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Boy. Super Mario Bros. and Tetris were the decade’s two best selling and most popular video games. 1980’s Atari VCS port of Space Invaders was the first killer app. Pac-Man was the decade’s highest-grossing arcade game. Home computers in that decade include the Commodore 64, VIC-20, the Apple II series, the Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Amiga, ZX Spectrum and MSX. Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and IBM PC compatible were also introduced in that decade and helped popularize personal computers.

Popular Culture

The most prominent events and trends in popular culture of the decade (particularly in the Anglosphere) include:

Music

In the United States, MTV was launched and music videos began to have a larger effect on the record industry. Pop artists such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran, Prince, Cyndi Lauper and Madonna mastered the format and helped turn this new product into a profitable business. New wave and synthpop were developed by many British and American artists, and became popular phenomena throughout the decade, especially in the early and mid-1980s’. The music grew fragmented and combined into subgenres such as house, goth, and rap metal.

The advent of numerous new technologies had a significant impact on 1980’s music and led to a distinct production aesthetic that included synthesizer sounds, drum machines and drum reverb.

Michael Jackson was one of the icons of the 1980’s and his leather jacket, glove, and Moonwalk dance were often imitated. Jackson’s 1982 album Thriller became—and currently remains—the best-selling album of all time, with sales estimated by various sources as somewhere between 65 and 110 million copies worldwide. His 1987 album Bad sold over 45 million copies and became the first album to have five number-one singles chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Jackson had the most number-one singles throughout the decade and spent the most weeks at number one (27 weeks). His 1987 Bad World Tour grossed over $125 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing world tour by a solo artist during the decade. Jackson earned numerous awards and titles during the 1980’s, the most notable of which was a record eight Grammy Awards and eight American Music Awards in 1984, and the honour of Artist of the Decade by U.S. President George H.W. Bush. Jackson was arguably the biggest star during this time, and would eventually sell more than one billion records around the world.

Prince was a popular star of the 1980’s and the most successful chart act of the decade. His breakthrough album 1999, released in 1982, produced three top-ten hits and the album itself charted at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. His sixth studio album Purple Rain was an international success, boosting Prince to superstardom and selling over 25 million copies worldwide. The album produced the US number-one singles, When Doves Cry and Let’s Go Crazy and sold 13 million copies in the U.S. as of 1996. Prince released an album every year for the rest of the decade, all charting within the top ten, with the exception of Lovesexy. In the 1990’s, he infamously changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in response to a record dispute with Warner Brothers. He went on to sell over 120 million records worldwide and win seven Grammy Awards.

Madonna and Whitney Houston were groundbreaking female artists of the decade. The keyboard synthesizer and drum machine were among the most popular instruments in music during the 1980’s, especially in new wave music. After the 1980’s, electronic instruments continued to be the main component of mainstream pop.

Hard rock, heavy metal, and glam metal became some of the most dominant music genres of the decade, peaking with the arrival of such bands as Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Poison, Europe, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, and virtuoso guitarists such as Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen. The scene also helped 1970’s hard rock artists such as AC/DC, Heart, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Blue Öyster Cult, Deep Purple, Queen, Van Halen, KISS, Ronnie James Dio, Rush and Judas Priest reach a new generation of fans.

The 1980’s were also known for song parodies becoming more mainstream, a trend-led by parodic musician Weird Al Yankovic. He was best known for his Michael Jackson parodies Eat It and Fat as well as other parodies like Another One Rides The Bus (parody of Another One Bites The Dust by Queen).

By 1989, the hip hop scene had evolved, gaining recognition and exhibiting a stronger influence on the music industry. This time period is also considered part of the golden age of hip hop. The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C., Grandmaster Flash, the Furious Five, Boogie Down Productions, N.W.A, LL Cool J, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, EPMD, Eric B. & Rakim, Ice-T, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, 2 Live Crew, Tone Lōc, Biz Markie, the Jungle Brothers, The Sugar Hill Gang and others experienced success in this genre.

Country music catapulted into a new realm of popularity with youth appeal and record-breaking marks. Groundbreaking artists such as Alabama, Hank Williams, Jr., Reba McEntire, George Strait, Ricky Skaggs, Janie Fricke, The Judds, and Randy Travis achieved multiple platinum and award status, foreshadowing the genre’s popularity explosion in the 1990’s. Country legends from past decades, however; such as George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Conway Twitty, the Oak Ridge Boys, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Don Williams, Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap, Barbara Mandrell, and the Statler Brothers; also continued to score hits throughout the decade.

The techno style of electronic dance music emerged in Detroit, Michigan, during the mid-to late 1980’s. The house music style, another form of electronic dance music, emerged in Chicago, Illinois, in the early 1980’s. It was initially popularized in the mid-1980’s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino and gay communities, first in Chicago, then in New York City and Detroit. It eventually reached Europe before becoming infused in mainstream pop and dance music worldwide.

Punk rock continued to make strides in the musical community. With bands leading the significance of this period such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Suicidal Tendencies, D.O.A., Bad Religion, Minutemen, Social Distortion, and Dead Kennedys, it gave birth to many subgenres like hardcore, which has continued to be moderately successful, giving birth in turn to a few counterculture movements, most notably the Straight Edge movement which began in the early era of this decade. College rock caught on in the underground scene of the 1980’s in a nationwide movement with a distinct D.I.Y approach. Bands like the Pixies, R.E.M., The Replacements, Sonic Youth, XTC, The Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, Hüsker Dü, The Stone Roses, The Jesus and Mary Chain etc. experienced success in this genre. The 1980’s also saw the birth of the grunge genre, with the arrival of such bands as Soundgarden, Green River, Melvins, Screaming Trees, Malfunkshun, Skin Yard, The U-Men, Blood Circus, Nirvana, Tad, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone and Alice in Chains (who formed in 1987, but did not release their first album until three years later).

Several notable musical artists died of unnatural causes in the 1980’s: Bon Scott, at the time lead singer of rock band AC/DC, died of acute alcohol poisoning on February 19th, 1980; English drummer John Bonham of the rock band Led Zeppelin also died that year in a similar manner; The Beatles member John Lennon was fatally shot outside his home in New York City on the night of December 8th, 1980; Tim Hardin died of a heroin overdose on December 29th, 1980; Reggae musician Bob Marley died from a lentiginous skin melanoma on May 11th, 1981; Harry Chapin died of a car accident on July 16th, 1981; Motown singer Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father at his home in Los Angeles on April 1st, 1984, one day before what would’ve been his 45th birthday; Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist Randy Rhoads died in an airplane crash on March 19, 1982; Karen Carpenter died from heart failure caused by her anorexia condition on February 4th, 1983; Metallica bassist Cliff Burton was killed in a bus accident in Sweden on September 27th, 1986; and lastly, Andy Gibb died in 1988 as a result of myocarditis.

In 1984, the British supergroup Band Aid was formed to raise aid and awareness of the economic plight of Ethiopia. In 1985’s Live Aid concert, featuring many artists, promoted attention and action to send food aid to Ethiopia whose people were suffering from a major famine.

Film

Oscar winners for Best Picture: Ordinary People (1980),Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982), Terms of Endearment (1983), Amadeus (1984), Out of Africa(1985), Platoon (1986), The Last Emperor (1987), Rain Man (1988), Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

The highest-grossing films of the decade are (in order from highest to lowest domestic grossing): E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Return of the Jedi, The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, Rain Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Top Gun, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Back to the Future Part II, Crocodile Dundee, Fatal Attraction and Beverly Hills Cop.

The 1980’s saw the return of studio-driven films, coming from the filmmaker-driven New Hollywood era of the 1970’s. The period was when high concept films gained popularity, where movies were to be easily marketable and understandable, and, therefore, they had short cinematic plots that could be summarized in one or two sentences. The modern Hollywood blockbuster is the most popular film format from the 1980’s. Producer Don Simpson is usually credited with the creation of the high-concept picture of the modern Hollywood blockbuster. In the mid-1980’s, a wave of British directors, including Ridley Scott, Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne and Tony Scott (with the latter directing a number of Don Simpson films) ushered in a new era of blockbusters using the crowd-pleasing skills they had honed in UK television commercials.

The 1980’s also saw the golden age of teen flicks and also spawned the Brat Pack films, many of which were directed by John Hughes. Films such as Class, The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Mannequin, Porky’s, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, St. Elmo’s Fire, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, and Valley Girl were popular teen comedies of the era and launched the careers of several major celebrities such as Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and Michael J. Fox. Other popular films included About Last Night…, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, Footloose, Raging Bull and St. Elmo’s Fire which also launched the careers of high-profile celebrities like Demi Moore, Joe Pesci, Keanu Reeves, Kevin Bacon, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, and River Phoenix.

Horror films were a popular genre during the decade, with several notable horror franchises being born during the 1980’s. Among the most popular were the Child’s Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, and Poltergeist franchises. Aside from these films, the concept of the B horror film gave rise to a plethora of horror films that went on to earn a cult status. An example of such is the 1981 film The Evil Dead, which marked the directorial debut of Sam Raimi. Comedy horror films such as Beetlejuice and Gremlins also gained cult status.

Several action film franchises were also introduced during the 1980’s. The most popular of these were the Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Rambo franchises. Other action films from the decade which are of notable status include The Terminator, Aliens, Escape from New York, Red Dawn, Predator, and RoboCop. These films propelled the careers of modern celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Sigourney Weaver, Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, and Charlie Sheen to international recognition. On the other side of the globe, Hong Kong action cinema and martial arts films were being revolutionized by a new wave of inventive filmmakers that include Jackie Chan, Tsui Hark, and John Woo, while the American martial arts film movement was being led by actors like Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal.

Five more James bond films were released, with Roger Moore continuing in the role in For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and A View To A Kill, before handing over the role to Timothy Dalton who starred in The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill.

A significant development in the home media business is the establishment of The Criterion Collection in 1984, an American company dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality. Through their releases, they were able to introduce what is now a standard to home video: letterboxing to retain the original aspect ratio, film commentaries and supplements/special features.

Although animated feature films did not gain mainstream popularity until the mid to late-1990’s due to public preference of television animation, some important films were produced during the decade. After leaving Disney in 1979, Don Bluth formed his own studio and went on direct The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven. At the same time, the Disney studio wasn’t having good times and almost bankrupted after The Black Cauldron bombed at the box office. However, in later years, they slowly recovered with the modest success of Ron Clements and John Musker directed The Great Mouse Detective and eventually regained public confidence following the release of The Little Mermaid. Other animated films from the decade also gained notable status: Films based on popular works include Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!), Heavy Metal, The Adventures of Mark Twain, The Care Bears Movie, The Transformers: The Movie, The Chipmunk Adventure and Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters; while original films include The Last Unicorn, The Plague Dogs, Rock & Rule, Fire and Ice, The Brave Little Toaster and The BFG.

The 1980’s also saw a surge of Japanese anime films: Hayao Miyazaki’s The Castle of Cagliostro and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind were extremely successful enough to lead the foundation of Studio Ghibli which would then produce several successful films of the decade including Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Other well-known anime films of that decade include Golgo 13: The Professional, Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Lensman, Vampire Hunter D, Akira, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland and the Urusei Yatsura film series. Additionally, the first-ever theatrical animated franchise: the Doraemon film series (based on the anime and manga series of the same name) began in 1980 with the release of Doraemon: Nobita’s Dinosaur.

Television

Music video channel MTV was launched in the United States in 1981 and had a profound impact on the music industry and popular culture further ahead, especially during its early run in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.

The 1980’s was a decade of transformation in television. Cable television became more accessible and therefore, more popular. By the middle of the decade, almost 70% of the U.S. population had cable television and over 85% were paying for cable services such as HBO or Showtime. People who lived in rural areas where cable TV service was not available could still access cable channels through a large (and expensive) satellite dish, which, by the mid-1990’s, was phased out in favour of the small rooftop dishes that offer DirecTV and Dish Network services.

The 1980’s also saw the debut of prime-time soap operas such as Dallas, its spin-off Knots Landing, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, EastEnders and Neighbours.

During the 1980’s, sitcoms were also coming popular, including Bosom Buddies, Too Close for Comfort, Family Ties, Cheers, Newhart, Night Court and Married… With Children, which was the first show to hit the Fox airwaves on launch in 1987.

In 1985, two sitcoms premiered on the same day: The Golden Girls, starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, which lasted for seven seasons and was also the first comedy ever to feature four older women in title TV roles, and 227, which was originally the sitcom vehicle for Marla Gibbs, who previously starred in The Jeffersons, and which also launched Jackée Harry’s career. Sketch comedy and variety show Saturday Night Live experienced turbulence for much of the 1980’s, however, it propelled the successful careers of cast members like Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Martin Short, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

The year 1986 marked the debut of the legal drama Matlock, which was the comeback vehicle for Andy Griffith, as the title character, which also launched the careers of Nancy Stafford, Clarence Gilyard Jr. and Daniel Roebuck.

TV talk shows expanded in popularity; The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson remained popular into its third decade, and some of the most viewed newer shows were hosted by Geraldo Rivera, Arsenio Hall and David Letterman.

TV documentary shows of the 1980’s as popular that included Frontline, Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days, Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack, and Rescue 911 with William Shatner.

The 1980’s also was prominent for spawning several popular animated shows such as The Smurfs, ThunderCats, Voltron, The Transformers, Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Fist of the North Star, Inspector Gadget, Muppet Babies, Dragon Ball, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, DuckTales, Garfield and Friends, as well as the earliest Simpsons shorts which aired on The Tracey Ullman Show.

Video Gaming

Popular video games include Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Digger, Tetris, and Golden Axe. Pac-Man (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right. Handheld electronic LCD games were introduced into the youth market segment. The primary gaming computers of the 1980’s emerged in 1982: the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. Nintendo finally decided in 1985 to release its Famicom (released in 1983 in Japan) in the United States under the name Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was bundled with Super Mario Bros. and it suddenly became a success. The NES dominated the American and Japanese market until the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990’s, causing some to call this time the Nintendo era. Sega released its 16-bit console, Mega Drive/Genesis, in 1988 in Japan and in North America in 1989. In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, a monochrome handheld console.

Sports

Association Football

Liverpool F.C. were the most successful club side of the era, becoming English champions on six occasions (1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, and 1988) and winning two European Cups (1981, 1984). They also won the FA Cup in 1986, completing the first double in their history, and four consecutive League Cup titles from 1981 to 1984.

Other highly successful club sides of the 1980’s include Juventus (7 major honours won), Real Madrid (ten major honours won), Bayern Munich (nine titles won) PSV Eindhoven (four times Dutch champions and European Cup winners in 1988), and Flamengo (four times Brazilian champions, South American and International Cup winners in 1981).

West Germany won the 1980 UEFA championship.

Italy won the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain.

France hosted and won the 1984 UEFA championship.

Argentina won the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Diego Maradona produces the Goal of the Century.

The Netherlands won the 1988 UEFA championship.

American Football

In the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers became the dynasty of the decade, winning four Super Bowls under the leadership of Joe Montana; the Chicago Bears won Super Bowl XX in January 1986, in which the team has been widely remembered for their defence; the Washington Redskins also enjoyed success throughout the decade, winning two of their three Super Bowls under the leadership of head coach Joe Gibbs.

Canadian Football

The Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League win the first three Grey Cup championships of the decade (having won the last two of the previous decade), adding one more in 1987.

Australian Football

Hawthorn Football Club dominated Australian football, reaching seven successive VFL Grand Finals and winning the premiership in 1983, 1986, 1988, and 1989.

Boxing

On November 26th, 1986, Mike Tyson became the youngest boxing Heavyweight Champion in history at age 20.

Wrestling

On March 31st, 1985, the WWF presented the first WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden in New York City with an attendance of 19,121.

On March 29th, 1987, WrestleMania III had a record attendance of 93,173; the largest recorded attendance for a live indoor sporting event in North America until 2010. This also remained the WrestleMania attendance record until WrestleMania 32 at AT&T Stadium on April 3, 2016, in Arlington, Texas.

Olympics

The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were disrupted by a boycott led by the United States and 64 other countries in protest of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles were boycotted by the Soviet Union and most of the Communist world (China, Romania, and Yugoslavia participated in the games) in retaliation for the boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow.

The 1988 Summer Olympics were held in Seoul, South Korea. Attempts to include North Korea in the games were unsuccessful and it boycotted along with six other countries, but with 160 nations participating, it had the highest attendance of any Olympics to date.

The 1980 Winter Olympics were well remembered for the Miracle on Ice, where a young United States hockey team defeated the heavily favoured Soviet Red Army team and went on to win the gold medal.

The 1984 Winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Yugoslavia became the second communist country to host the Olympic Games, but unlike the Soviet Union in 1980, there were no boycotts of the Games by Western countries.

The Jamaica national bobsled team received major media attention and stunned the world at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for its unexpected good performance. The events surrounding the Jamaica bobsled team in 1988 would lead to the creation of the Disney movie Cool Runnings five years later.

Cricket

The 1983 Cricket World Cup was won by India while 1987 Cricket World Cup was won by Australia.

Baseball

Major League Baseball experienced parity and tense championship moments during the decade as the Philadelphia Phillies won their first World Series championship in 1980, the Kansas City Royals win their first World Series championship in a dramatic manner in 1985, the New York Mets win their second World Series championship in 1986 in a dramatic manner, the Minnesota Twins win their first World Series in 1987, and both the 1988 and 1989 World Series be remembered as Kirk Gibson’s 1988 World Series home run, and the Loma Prieta Earthquake taking place occurring at 5:04 respectively.

Basketball

American basketball player Michael Jordan burst onto the scene in the NBA during the 1980’s, bringing a surge in popularity for the sport and becoming one of the most beloved sports icons in the United States.

On June 8th, 1986, the Boston Celtics defeat the Houston Rockets in Game 6 of the 1986 NBA Finals to capture a record 16th championship. Larry Bird is named Finals MVP.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird became the two most popular NBA players during the decade while even facing against each other in three NBA Finals (1984, 1985, and 1987) continuing the storied Celtics-Lakers rivalry.

Ice Hockey

The New York Islanders won the Stanley Cup for 4 straight years in 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1983. The Islanders also became the second NHL expansion team after the Philadelphia Flyers to win the Cup. Since their last Cup win in 1983, they were the third NHL team to win 4 consecutive championships and hold the NHL record for most consecutive playoff series wins at 19 (stretching from the 1980 Playoffs to the 1984 Playoffs).

Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky’s rise to fame in the NHL coincided with the Edmonton Oilers’ first four Stanley Cup championships (1984, 1985, 1987, and 1988) and becoming the second NHL dynasty team of the 1980s.

On August 9th, 1988, in what became the biggest trade in NHL history (also known as The Trade Of The Century), Wayne Gretzky was traded along with teammates Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski from Edmonton to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Martin Gélinas, Jimmy Carson, three first-round draft picks, and US$15 million cash (approximately $18 million CAD in 1988).

Disc Sports

Disc ultimate league play is introduced to Canada in 1980 by Ken Westerfield starting the first disc ultimate league (TUC), in Toronto.

Rallying

FIA bans Group B rallying after a series of deaths and injuries take place in the 1986 season.

Science And Technology

Science

Space Exploration

American interplanetary probes continued in the 1980’s, the Voyager duo being the most known. After making a flyby of Jupiter in 1979, they went near Saturn in 1980–1981. Voyager 2 reached Uranus in 1986 (just a few days before the Challenger disaster), and Neptune in 1989 before the probes exited the solar system.

No American probes were launched to Mars in the 1980’s, and the Viking probes, launched there in 1975, completed their operations by 1982. The Soviets launched two Mars probes in 1988, but they failed.

The arrival of Halley’s Comet in 1986 was met by a series of Soviet, Japanese and European Space Agency (ESA) probes, namely Halley Armada.

After a six-year hiatus, American space flights with astronauts resumed with the launch of the space shuttle Columbia in April 1981. The shuttle program progressed smoothly from there, with three more orbiters entering service in 1983 – 1985. But that all came to an end with the tragic loss of the Challenger (STS-51-L) on January 28th, 1986, taking with it seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, who was to have been the first teacher in space. In full view of the world, a faulty O-ring on the right solid rocket booster allowed hot gases to burn through the external fuel tank and cause it to explode, destroying the shuttle in the process. Extensive efforts were made to improve NASA’s increasingly careless management practices and to make the shuttle safer. Flights resumed with the launch of Discovery in September 1988.

The Soviet program with cosmonauts went well during the decade, experiencing only minor setbacks. The Salyut 6 space station, launched in 1977, was replaced by Salyut 7 in 1982. Then came Mir in 1986, which ended up operating for more than a decade, and was destined to be the last in the line of Soviet space stations that had begun in 1971. One of the Soviet Union’s last super projects was the Buran space shuttle; it was only used once, in 1988.

Medicine And Biology

The 1980’s had many fundamental advances in medicine and biology. The first surrogate pregnancy of an unrelated child took place on April 13th, 1986, in Michigan. The first genetically modified crops, tobacco (Nicotiana) plants were grown in China in 1988.

Gene therapy techniques became established by the end of the 1980’s, allowing gene tagging and gene therapy to become a possibility, both of which were first performed in human beings in May 1989 and September 1990, respectively.

Technology

Cars

The American auto industry began in the 1980’s in a thoroughly grim situation, faced with poor quality control, rising import competition, and a severe economic downturn. Chrysler and American Motors (AMC) were near bankruptcy, and Ford was little better off. Only GM continued with business as usual. But the automakers recovered with the economy by 1983, and in 1985 auto sales in the United States hit a new record. However, the Japanese were now a major presence and would begin manufacturing cars in the US to get around tariffs. In 1986, Hyundai became the first Korean automaker to enter the American market. In the same year, the Yugoslavian-built Yugo was brought to the US, but the car was so small and cheap, that it became the subject of jokes. It was sold up to 1991, when economic sanctions against Yugoslavia forced its withdrawal from the American market.

As the decade progressed, cars became smaller and more efficient in design. In 1983, Ford design teams began to incorporate aerodynamic styling to decrease drag while in motion. The Thunderbird was one of the first cars to receive these design changes. In 1985, Ford released the Taurus with a design that was revolutionary among domestic mass-market automobiles.

General Motors began suffering significant losses in the late 1980’s, partially the result of chairman Roger Smith’s restructuring attempts, and partially because of increasingly dated cars. An example was customers who increasingly purchased European luxury cars rather than Cadillacs. In 1985, GM started Saturn (the first new American make since the Edsel), with the goal of producing high-quality import fighters. Production would not begin until 1990.

Chrysler introduced its new compact, front-wheel drive K-cars in 1981. Under the leadership of Lee Iacocca, the company turned a profit again the following year, and by 1983 paid off its government loans. A succession of models using this automobile platform followed. The most significant were the minivans in 1984. These proved to be popular and they would dominate the van market for more than a decade. In 1987, Chrysler purchased the Italian makes of Lamborghini and Maserati. In the same year, Chrysler bought AMC from Renault laying to rest the last significant independent U.S. automaker, but acquiring the hugely profitable Jeep line and continuing the Eagle brand until the late 1990’s.

The DMC DeLorean was the brainchild of John DeLorean, a flamboyant former GM executive. Production of the gull-winged sports car began in Northern Ireland in 1981. John DeLorean was arrested in October 1982 in a sting operation where he was attempting to sell cocaine to save his struggling company. He was acquitted of all charges in 1984, but too late for the DeLorean Motor Company, which closed down in 1983. The DeLorean gained renewed fame afterwards as the time machine in the Back to the Future film trilogy.

The imposition of CAFE fuel-mileage standards in 1979 spelt the end of big-block engines, but performance cars and convertibles reemerged in the 1980’s. Turbochargers were widely used to boost the performance of small cars, and technology from fuel injection began to take over from the widely used application of carburettors by the late 1980’s. Front-wheel drive also became dominant.

The Eighties marked the decline of European brands in North America by the end of the decade. Renault, Citroen, and Peugeot ceased importation by the end of the decade. Alfa Romeo would continue until 1993. Fiat also ceased imports to North America in the Eighties.

Electronics And Communications

Arcade and video games had been growing in popularity since the late 1970’s, and by 1982 were a major industry. But a variety of factors, including a glut of low-quality games and the rise of home computers, caused a tremendous crash in late 1983. For the next three years, the video game market practically ceased to exist in the US. But in the second half of the decade, it would be revived by Nintendo, whose Famicom console and mascot Mario had been enjoying considerable success in Japan since 1983. Renamed the Nintendo Entertainment System, it would claim 90% of the American video game market by 1989. The 1980’s are considered to be the decade when video games achieved massive popularity. In 1980, Pac-Man was introduced to the arcades and became one of the most popular video games of all time. Also in 1980, Game & Watch was created; it was not one of the most well-known game systems, but it facilitated mini-games and was concurrent with the NES. Donkey Kong, released in 1981, was a smash arcade hit and market breakthrough for Nintendo. Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda, and the Mega Man series would become major hits for the console.

The personal computer experienced explosive growth in the 1980’s, transitioning from a hobbyist’s toy to a full-fledged consumer product. The IBM PC, launched in 1981, became the dominant computer for professional users. Commodore created the most popular home computers of both 8-bit and 16-bit generations. MSX standard was the dominant computer platform in Japan and in most parts of Asia. Apple superseded its Apple II and Lisa models by introducing the first Macintosh computer in 1984. It was the first commercially successful personal computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse, which started to become general features in computers after the middle of the decade. Electronics and computers were also at the forefront of the advertising industry, with many commercials like 1984 from Apple achieving acclaim and pop-culture relevance.

Walkman and boomboxes, invented during the late 1970’s, became very popular as they were introduced to various countries in the early 1980’s, and had a profound impact on the music industry and youth culture. Consumer VCR’s and video rental stores became commonplace as VHS won out over the competing Betamax standard. In addition, in the early 1980’s various companies began selling compact, modestly priced synthesizers to the public. This, along with the development of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), made it easier to integrate and synchronize synthesizers and other electronic instruments, like drum machines, for use in musical composition.

High definition television (HDTV) of both the analogue and digital variety was first developed in the 1980’s through their use did not become widespread until the mid-2000s.

In 1981, Hayes Microcomputer Products started selling the Smartmodem. The Smartmodem paved the way for the modern modems that exist today, mainly because it was the first modem to transform what had previously required a two-stage process into a process involving only one stage. The Smartmodem contributed to the rise in popularity of BBS systems in the 80’s and early 90’s, which were the main way to connect to remote computers and perform various social and entertainment activities before the Internet and the World Wide Web finally became popular in the mid-1990’s.

Information Technology

During the decade Microsoft released the operating systems MS-DOS (1981), Windows 1.0 (1985), and Windows 2.0 (1987).

The CD – the most basic CD (Digital Audio Compact Disc) was released in October 1982 for distribution and listening to digital audio, and at the time contained up to 74 minutes of music.

TCP/IP: ARPANET officially changed its main protocol from NCP to TCP/IP on January 1st, 1983, when the new protocols were activated. The TCP/IP protocol will become the dominant communications protocol from then onwards and would be used as the foundation on which the Internet would be based.

The GNU Project (1983). The Free Software Foundation (1985).

FidoNet: In 1984, FidoNet was launched, enabling BBS users to send private messages (e-mails) and public messages (in the forum) between all BBS systems that were connected to the FidoNet network, in addition to sending files to each other. The rise in popularity and availability of the Internet around the world around the mid-1990’s eventually contributed to the irrelevance of FidoNet.

World Wide Web: In 1989, the British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee first proposed a project to his employer CERN, based on the concept of hypertext, to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers. In mid-November 1989 he would develop the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the internet. In the coming years, Berners-Lee developed the system which would later become the foundation of the World Wide Web.

People

Musicians

For a list of 1980’s Musicians and information about them click here.

Actors / Entertainers

For a list of 1980’s Actors / Entertainers and information about them click here.

Sports Figures

For a list of 1980’s Sports Figures and information about them click here.

Fashion

The beginning of the decade saw the continuation of the clothing styles of the late 1970’s and evolved into heavy metal fashion by the end. However, fashion became more extravagant during the 1980’s. The 1980’s included teased and colourfully-dyed hair, ripped jeans, neon clothing and many colours and different designs which at first were not accepted.

Significant hairstyle trends of the 1980’s include the perm, the mullet, the Jheri curl, the hi-top fade, and big hair.

Significant clothing trends of the 1980;s include shoulder pads, jean jackets, leather pants, leather aviator jackets, jumpsuits, Members Only jackets, skin-tight acid-washed jeans, Izod Lacoste and preppy polo shirts, leggings and leg warmers (popularized in the film Flashdance), off-the-shoulder shirts, and cut sweatshirts (popularized in the same film). Miniskirts made a dramatic comeback in the mid-1980’s after a ten-year absence. Makeup in the 1980’s was aggressive, shining and colourful. Women emphasized their lips, eyebrows and cheeks with makeup. They used a lot of blush and eyeliner.

Additional trends of the 1980’s include athletic headbands, Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses (popularized in the film Top Gun), Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses (popularized in the films Risky Business and The Blues Brothers and the TV series Miami Vice), Swatch watches, and the Rubik’s Cube (became a popular fad throughout the decade). Girls and women also wore jelly shoes, large crucifix necklaces, and brassieres all inspired by Madonna’s Like a Virgin music video.

Economics

The early 1980’s was marked by a severe global economic recession that affected much of the developed world.

Inflation peaked in the U.S. in April 1980 at 14.76% and subsequently fell to a low of 1.10% in December 1986 but then rebounded to 4.65% at the end of the decade.

Finland’s economy grew by almost the fastest pace in the world, which eventually culminated in the recession of the 1990’s Finnish economy. In Finland, the 1980’s were called the Nousukausi, or economic upswing.

International debt crisis in developing countries, reliance of these countries on aid from the International Monetary Fund.

Revival of laissez faire/neoliberal economics in the developed world led by the UK and US governments emphasising reduced government intervention, lower taxes and deregulation of the stock markets associated with an economic revival in the mid-to late 80’s. Consumers became more sophisticated in their tastes (a trend begun in the 1960’s), and things such as European cars and designer clothing became fashionable in the US.

Mexico suffers from a debt crisis starting in 1982. Economic problems worsened in 1985 by the resignation of most officials of the Mexican government after a failed response of emergency aid in the Mexico City earthquake (September 19th) just after the 175th anniversary of the Independence holiday (September 16th). In 1988, Carlos Salinas de Gortari won a controversial presidential election amid charges of voter fraud, bribery, corruption and other abuses of power.

Enactment of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1989 to further establish a strong economic bond between the two prosperous neighbouring countries of North America.

In the Soviet Union, the eleventh Five-Year Plan was initiated in 1981 during a period of economic stagnation that began in the late 1970’s. The Plan was a near failure, as most of the targets were not met. With the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party, the twelfth Five-Year Plan sought to accelerate and restructure the Soviet economy through reforms to decentralize production and distribution systems.

Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China embarked on extensive reforms in the 1980’s, opening the country’s economy to the West and allowing capitalist enterprises to operate in a market socialist system. The corruption of Communist Party leadership was met by dissent from students and workers in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 which were suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army.

The Solidarity movement began in Poland in 1980, involving workers demanding political liberalization and democracy in Poland. Attempts by the Communist government to prevent the rise of the Solidarity movement failed and negotiations between the movement and the government took place. Solidarity would be instrumental in encouraging people in other communist states to demand political reform.

The financial world and the stock market were glamorized in a way they had not been since the 1920’s, and figures like Donald Trump and Michael Milken were widely seen as symbols of the decade. Widespread fear of Japanese economic strength would grip the United States in the 80’s.

The Black Monday stock market crash on October 19th, 1987, decreased the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average by more than 22%, causing widespread secondary drops in world markets.

During the 1980’s, for the first time in world history, transpacific trade (with East Asia, such as China, and Latin America, primarily with Mexico) equalled that of transatlantic trade (with Western Europe or with neighbouring Canada), solidifying American economic power.

The Savings and Loan Scandal.

The phrase Big Bang, used in reference to the sudden deregulation of financial markets, was coined to describe measures, including the abolition of fixed commission charges and of the distinction between stockjobbers and stockbrokers on the London Stock Exchange and change from open-outcry to electronic, screen-based trading, effected by Margaret Thatcher in 1986.

Disasters

Natural

Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, U.S. on May 18th, 1980, killing 57 people.

On October 17th, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area during Game 3 of the 1989 World Series, gaining worldwide attention. Sixty-five people were killed and thousands injured, with major structural damage on freeways and buildings and broken gas-line fires in San Francisco, California. The cost of the damage totalled $13 billion (1989 USD).

The 1988 – 89 North American drought decimated the US with many parts of the country affected. This was the worst drought to hit the United States in many years. The drought caused $60 billion in damage (between $80 billion and $120 billion for 2008 USD). The concurrent heat waves killed 5,800 to 17,000 people in the United States.

Hurricane Allen (1980), Hurricane Alicia (1983), Hurricane Gilbert (1988), Hurricane Joan (1988), and Hurricane Hugo (1989) were some notably destructive Atlantic hurricanes of the 1980’s.

Other natural disasters of the 1980’s include the 1982 – 1983 El Niño which brought destructive weather to most of the world; the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which registered 8.0 on the moment magnitude scale and devastated Mexico City and other areas throughout central Mexico; the 1985 Nevado del Ruiz lahar in Colombia; the 1986 Lake Nyos limnic eruption in Cameroon; and the 1988 Armenian earthquake, which rocked the Caucasus region of the USSR.

Non-Natural

On April 25th, 1980, Dan-Air Flight 1008 crashed on approach to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. All 146 people on board were killed.

On August 19th, 1980, Saudia Flight 163 caught fire moments after takeoff from the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. The flight quickly returned to the airport, but the evacuation of the plane was delayed and all 301 people aboard died.

On July 9th, 1982, Pan Am Flight 759 was forced down by a wind shear microburst, killing 153 people.

In 1984, the Bhopal disaster resulted from a toxic MIC gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing 3,000 immediately and ultimately claiming 15,000–20,000 lives.

On September 1st, 1983, Soviet Union fighter jets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which was carrying 269 people, none of whom survived.

On August 2nd, 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashed on approach to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. 137 people were killed while 27 survived.

On June 21st, 1985, Air India Flight 182, flying from Montreal Canada is blown up over Irish waters by a bomb placed in the luggage compartment. This was the greatest act of terrorism until the September 11th attacks of 2001.

Japan Airlines Flight 123, carrying 524 people, crashed on August 12th, 1985, while on a flight from Tokyo to Osaka killing 520 of the people on board, leaving four survivors. This was and still is, the worst single-plane crash ever.

On December 12th, 1985, Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashed seconds after lifting off from Gander, Newfoundland. All 256 people on board, many of them U.S. servicemen returning home from duty overseas, perished.

On January 28th, 1986, the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch, killing all of the crew on board. This was the first disaster involving the destruction of a NASA space shuttle. A faulty O-ring was the cause of the accident.

On April 26th, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster, a large-scale nuclear meltdown in the Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, spread a large amount of radioactive material across Europe, killing 47 people, dooming countless others to future radiation-related cancer, and causing the displacement of 300,000 people.

On June 14th, 1986, Fantasyland’s Mindbender inside West Edmonton Mall, derails and kills 3 people, injuring one, and slams into a concrete post.

On August 31st, 1986, Aeroméxico Flight 498 crashed after colliding with a private Piper Cherokee over Cerritos, California, killing everyone on both aeroplanes and several others on the ground. On the same day, the Soviet passenger ship Admiral Nakhimov sank after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev in the Black Sea, killing 423 people.

On September 27th, 1986 Cliff Burton died in a bus crash while on tour with his band, Metallica.

On May 9th, 1987, an uncontained engine failure on LOT Flight 5055 caused an in-flight fire on board the airliner, which subsequently crashed, killing all 183 passengers and crew.

On August 16th, 1987, Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed almost immediately after takeoff from Detroit Wayne Airport in Michigan, killing 156 people.

On November 28th, 1987, a fire broke out on South African Airways Flight 295, eventually causing the aircraft to crash into the Indian Ocean. All 159 aboard were killed.

On December 7th, 1987, 43 people were killed when an irate former USAir employee went on a rampage aboard PSA Flight 1771.

On December 20th, 1987, the Philippine passenger ferry MV Doña Paz burned and sank after colliding with the oil tanker MT Vector. With an estimated death toll of over 4,000, this was and remains the world’s deadliest peacetime maritime disaster.

On July 3rd, 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the U.S. missile cruiser USS Vincennes over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 people on the plane. The event is one of the most controversial aviation occurrences of all time, with the true cause disputed between the Americans and the Iranians.

On December 21st, 1988, an American passenger 747 airliner en route from Frankfurt to Detroit (via London and New York) Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb while it was flying over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing the 259 passengers and crew members on board and 11 people on the ground. This was the worst terrorist attack to have occurred on British soil.

On March 24th, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound spilling an estimated equivalent of 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil. Although not among the largest oil spills in history, its remote and sensitive location made it one of the most devastating ecological disasters ever. The after-effects of the spill continue to be felt to this day.

On April 15th, 1989, The Hillsborough disaster occurs during a FA Cup Semi-Final in Sheffield, England fatally crushing 96 football fans and injuring nearly 1,000 more.

On July 19th, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, carrying 296 people, suffered an in-flight engine failure and was forced to crash-land at Sioux City, Iowa. 185 survived, while 111 were killed when the plane burst into flames upon touchdown.

Assassinations And Attempts

Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:

On April 12th, 1980, William R. Tolbert, Jr., the President of Liberia, is killed during a military coup. His death marks the end of Americo-Liberian rule in Liberia.

Musician and former member of the Beatles John Lennon was assassinated in New York City on December 8th, 1980.

Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington, D.C. on March 30th, 1981, by John Hinckley, a mentally disturbed young man who also stalked actress Jodie Foster. Reagan’s press secretary James Brady was also shot, along with a police officer and a U.S. Secret Service agent. The latter two recovered, along with Reagan himself, but Brady used a wheelchair as a result of brain damage thereafter and would become an advocate of gun control.

On May 13th, 1981, there was an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter’s Square. The would-be assassin was a Turkish man named Mehmet Ali Agca, who was subsequently sentenced to life in prison but would be pardoned in 2000. At the time, it was widely believed that he was an agent of the Soviet Union or Bulgaria, due to the Pope’s vocal anti-communist stance. Agca himself told dozens of conflicting stories over the years, and his motive remains unclear.

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was assassinated at a military parade in Cairo on October 6th, 1981.

Philippine Opposition Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated in Manila on August 21st, 1983.

American singer-songwriter and musician Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father at his home in Los Angeles on April 1st, 1984.

Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31st, 1984, by her own bodyguards in response to the Indian Army’s attack on Golden Temple to destroy Sikh Militant stronghold in Amritsar earlier in the decade.

In 1984, there was an assassination attempt on the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Government by the IRA.

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated in February 1986. The assassin has never been identified.

On October 15th, 1987, the President of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, was killed during a coup d’état organised by his former colleague, Blaise Compaoré.

Politics And Wars

Wars

The most prominent armed conflicts of the decade include:

International Wars

The Cold War (1947 –1991)

Soviet–Afghan War (1979 – 1989). A war fought between the Soviet Union and the Islamist Mujahideen Resistance in Afghanistan. The mujahideen found other support from a variety of sources including the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States (see Operation Cyclone), as well as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim nations through the context of the Cold War and the regional India–Pakistan conflict.

Invasion of Grenada (1983). A 1983 U.S.-led invasion of Grenada, triggered by a military coup that ousted a brief revolutionary government. The successful invasion led to a change of government but was controversial due to charges of American imperialism, Cold War politics, the involvement of Cuba, the unstable state of the Grenadian government, and Grenada’s status as a Commonwealth realm.

Salvadoran Civil War (1980 – 1992). Part of the cold war conflicts reached their peak in the 1980’s, 70,000 Salvadorans died.

Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War. It occurred from April 2nd to July 14th, 1982, between the United Kingdom and Argentina as British forces fought to recover the islands. Britain emerged victoriously and its stance in international affairs and its long-decaying reputation as a colonial power received an unexpected boost. The military junta of Argentina, on the other hand, was left humiliated by the defeat; and its leader Leopoldo Galtieri was deposed three days after the end of the war. A military investigation known as the Rattenbach report even recommended his execution.

Arab–Israeli conflict (early 20th century – present).

1982 Lebanon War. The Government of Israel ordered the invasion as a response to the assassination attempt against Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, by the Abu Nidal Organization and due to the constant terror attacks on northern Israel made by the terrorist organizations which resided in Lebanon. After attacking the PLO, as well as Syrian, leftist and Muslim Lebanese forces, Israel occupied southern Lebanon and eventually surrounded the PLO in West Beirut and subjected to heavy bombardment, they negotiated passage from Lebanon.

In October 1985 eight Israeli F-15 Eagles carried out Operation Wooden Leg intending to bomb the PLO’s new headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia, more than 2,000 km from Israel. The attack cost 270 lives, most of them Tunisian civilians. The attack was later condemned by the United Nations Security Council. The United States is thought to have assisted or known of the attack.

The Iran–Iraq War took place from 1980 to 1988. Iraq was accused of using illegal chemical weapons to kill Iranian forces and against its own dissident Kurdish populations. Both sides suffered enormous casualties, but the poorly equipped Iranian armies suffered worse for it, being forced to use soldiers as young as 15 in human-wave attacks. Iran finally agreed to an armistice in 1988.

The United States launched an aerial bombardment of Libya in 1986 in retaliation for Libyan support of terrorism and attacks on US personnel in Germany and Turkey.

The South African Border War between South Africa and the alliance of Angola, Namibia and Zambia ended in 1989, ending over thirty years of conflict.

The United States engaged in significant direct and indirect conflict in the decade via alliances with various groups in a number of Central and South American countries claiming that the U.S. was acting to oppose the spread of communism and end illicit drug trade. The U.S. government supported the government of Colombia’s attempts to destroy its large illicit cocaine-trafficking industry and provided support for the right-wing military government in the Salvadoran civil war which became controversial after the El Mozote massacre on December 11th, 1981, in which U.S.-trained Salvadoran paramilitaries killed 1000 Salvadoran civilians. The United States, along with members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, invaded Grenada in 1983. The Iran–Contra affair erupted which involved U.S. interventionism in Nicaragua, resulting in members of the U.S. government being indicted in 1986. U.S. military action began against Panama in December 1989 to overthrow its dictator, Manuel Noriega resulting in 3,500 civilian casualties and the restoration of democratic rule.

Battle of Cuito Cuanavale took place as part of the Angolan civil war and South African Border War from 1987 to 1988. The battle involved the largest fighting in Africa since World War II between military forces from Angola, Cuba (expeditionary forces) and Namibia versus military forces from South Africa and the dissident Angolan UNITA organization.

The First Nagorno-Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and Armenia started in 1988 and lasted six years.

Civil Wars And Guerrilla Wars

The most notable internal conflicts of the decade include:

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 occurred in the People’s Republic of China in 1989, in which pro-democracy protesters demanded political reform. The protests were crushed by the People’s Liberation Army.

The First Intifada (First Uprising) in the Gaza Strip and West Bank began in 1987 when Palestinian Arabs mounted large-scale protests against the Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, largely inhabited by Palestinians. The First Intifada would continue until peace negotiations began between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Israeli government in 1993.

Lebanese Civil War (1975 – 1990). Throughout the decade, Lebanon was engulfed in a civil war between Islamic and Christian factions.

The Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front began a violent campaign for independence in New Caledonia.

Greenpeace’s attempts to monitor French nuclear testing on Mururoa were halted by the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.

The Second Sudanese Civil War erupts in 1983 between the Muslim government of Sudan in the north and non-Muslim rebel secessionists in Southern Sudan. The conflict continues through the present day Darfur genocide.

Internal conflict in Peru. The communist Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement starts its fight against the Peruvian state in 1980, which would continue until the end of the 1990’s.

Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier was overthrown by a popular uprising on February 6th, 1986.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland continued.

To read more about 1980’s Politics And Wars and the 1980’s click here.

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Blue Peter.

1970’s

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.

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 M_w 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.

To read more about 1970’s Politics And Wars click here.

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.

Blog Posts

Blue Peter.

1960’s

The Decade I Was Born In

I was born at Sorrento Maternity Hospital, Anderton Park Road, Moseley, Birmingham in 1966. I am the youngest of one brother, Bill, and 4 sisters, Yvonne, Cathy, Janet and Julie. During the 60’s we all lived at Dollman Street, Vauxhall, Nechells, Birmingham. It was a back to back house that had a cellar, outside toilet, brewhouse and was old and run down which led to it being demolished less than a decade later.

My Dad proudly remembered his darting days for The Railway Club in pubs like The Rocket. My Mom fondly remembered the happy times despite us not having much, times when neighbours were friendly and you could leave your front door open without any fear. Hard times but pretty much everyone else was in the same boat but never complained and got on with it.

I don’t really have any memories from this decade as I was only a baby except that I do vaguely remember playing in what we called the train park nearby in Newdegate Street.

The information below was sourced from Wikipedia and is subject to change.

You can read other articles related to the 1960’s via Blog Posts below as well.

About The 1960’s

The cultural decade of the 1960’s is more loosely defined than the actual decade. It begins around 1963–1964 with the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Beatles’ arrival in the United States and their meeting with Bob Dylan, and ends around 1969 – 1970 with the Altamont Free Concert, the Beatles’ breakup and the Kent State shootings, or with the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1974.

The term the Sixties is used by historians, journalists, and other academics in scholarship and popular culture to denote the complexity of inter-related cultural and political trends around the globe during this era. Some use the term to describe the decade’s counterculture and revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and schooling; others use it to denounce the decade as one of irresponsible excess, flamboyance, and decay of social order. The decade was also labelled the Swinging Sixties because of the fall or relaxation of social taboos that occurred during this time, but also because of the emergence of a wide range of music; from the Beatles-inspired British Invasion and the folk music revival to the poetic lyrics of Bob Dylan. Norms of all kinds were broken down, especially in regards to civil rights and precepts of military duty.

By the end of the 1950’s, war-ravaged Europe had largely finished reconstruction and began a tremendous economic boom. World War II had brought about a huge levelling of social classes in which the remnants of the old feudal gentry disappeared. There was a major expansion of the middle class in western European countries and by the 1960’s, many working-class people in Western Europe could afford a radio, television, refrigerator, and motor vehicle. Meanwhile, the East such as the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries were improving quickly after rebuilding from WWII. Real GDP growth averaged 6% a year during the second half of the decade. Thus, the overall worldwide economic trend in the 1960’s was one of prosperity, expansion of the middle class, and the proliferation of new domestic technology.

The confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union dominated geopolitics during the ’60s, with the struggle expanding into developing nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as the Soviet Union moved from being a regional to a truly global superpower and began vying for influence in the developing world. After President Kennedy’s assassination, direct tensions between the US and Soviet Union cooled and the superpower confrontation moved into a contest for control of the Third World, a battle characterized by proxy wars, funding of insurgencies, and puppet governments.

In response to nonviolent direct action campaigns from groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), U.S. President John F. Kennedy, a Keynesian and staunch anti-communist pushed for social reforms. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 was a shock. Liberal reforms were finally passed under Lyndon B. Johnson including civil rights for African Americans and healthcare for the elderly and the poor. Despite his large-scale Great Society programs, Johnson was increasingly reviled by the New Left at home and abroad. The heavy-handed American role in the Vietnam War outraged student protestors around the globe. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. while working with underpaid Tennessee garbage collectors and the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the police response towards protesters of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, defined politics of violence in the United States.

In Western Europe and Japan, organizations such as those present in May 1968, the Red Army Faction, and the Zengakuren tested liberal democracy’s ability to satisfy its marginalized or alienated citizenry amidst post-industrial age hybrid capitalist economies. In Britain, the Labour Party gained power in 1964. In France, the protests of 1968 led to President Charles de Gaulle temporarily fleeing the country. For some, May 1968 meant the end of traditional collective action and the beginning of a new era to be dominated mainly by the so-called new social movements. Italy formed its first left-of-centre government in March 1962 with a coalition of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and moderate Republicans. When Aldo Moro became Prime Minister in 1963, Socialists joined the ruling block too. In Brazil, João Goulart became president after Jânio Quadros resigned. In Africa, the 1960s was a period of radical political change as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers.

Popular Culture

The counterculture movement dominated the second half of the 1960’s, its most famous moments being the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967, and the Woodstock Festival in upstate New York in 1969. Psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, were widely used medicinally, spiritually and recreationally throughout the late 1960’s, and were popularized by Timothy Leary with his slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out”. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters also played a part in the role of “turning heads on”. Psychedelic influenced the music, artwork and films of the decade, and a number of prominent musicians died of drug overdoses (the 27 Club). There was a growing interest in Eastern religions and philosophy, and many attempts were made to found communes, which varied from supporting free love to religious puritanism.

Music

The rock ‘n’ roll movement of the 1950’s quickly came to an end in 1959 with the day the music died (as explained in the song American Pie), the scandal of Jerry Lee Lewis’s marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, and the induction of Elvis Presley into the U.S. Army. As the 1960’s began, the major rock ‘n’ roll stars of the ’50s such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard had dropped off the charts and popular music in the U.S. came to be dominated by girl groups, surf music, novelty pop songs, clean-cut teen idols, and Motown music. Another important change in music during the early 1960’s was the American folk music revival which introduced Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, The Kingston Trio, Harry Belafonte, Odetta, Phil Ochs, and many other singer-songwriters to the public.

Girl groups and female singers, such as the Shirelles, Betty Everett, Little Eva, the Dixie Cups, the Ronettes, Martha and the Vandellas and the Supremes dominated the charts in the early 1960’s. This style consisted typically of light pop themes about teenage romance and lifestyles, backed by vocal harmonies and a strong rhythm. Most girl groups were African-American, but white girl groups and singers, such as Lesley Gore, the Angels, and the Shangri-Las also emerged during this period.

Around the same time, record producer Phil Spector began producing girl groups and created a new kind of pop music production that came to be known as the Wall of Sound. This style emphasized higher budgets and more elaborate arrangements, and more melodramatic musical themes in place of a simple, light-hearted pop sound. Spector’s innovations became integral to the growing sophistication of popular music from 1965 onward.

Also during the early 60’s, surf rock emerged as a rock subgenre that was centred in Southern California and based on beach and surfing themes, in addition to the usual songs about teenage romance and innocent fun. The Beach Boys quickly became the premier surf rock band and almost completely and single-handedly overshadowed the many lesser-known artists in the subgenre. Surf rock reached its peak in 1963 – 1965 before gradually being overtaken by bands influenced by the British Invasion and the counterculture movement.

The car song also emerged as a rock subgenre in the early 60’s, which focused on teenagers’ fascination with car culture. The Beach Boys also dominated this subgenre, along with the duo Jan and Dean. Such notable songs include Little Deuce Coupe, 409, and Shut Down, all by the Beach Boys; Jan and Dean’s Little Old Lady from Pasadena and Drag City, Ronny and the Daytonas’ Little GTO, and many others. Like girl groups and surf rock, car songs also became overshadowed by the British Invasion and the counterculture movement.

The early 1960’s also saw the golden age of another rock subgenre, the teen tragedy song, which focused on lost teen romance caused by sudden death, mainly in traffic accidents. Such songs included Mark Dinning’s Teen Angel, Ray Peterson’s Tell Laura I Love Her, Jan and Dean’s Dead Man’s Curve, the Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack, and perhaps the subgenre’s most popular, Last Kiss by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers.

In the early 1960’s, Britain became a hotbed of rock ‘n’ roll activity during this time. In late 1963, the Beatles embarked on their first US tour and cult singer Dusty Springfield released her first solo single. A few months later, rock ‘n’ roll founding father Chuck Berry emerged from a 30-month prison stint and resumed recording and touring. The stage was set for the spectacular revival of rock music.

In the UK, the Beatles played raucous rock ‘n’ roll – as well as doo-wop, girl-group songs, show tunes – and wore leather jackets. Their manager Brian Epstein encouraged the group to wear suits. Beatlemania abruptly exploded after the group’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Late in 1965, the Beatles released the album Rubber Soul which marked the beginning of their transition to a sophisticated power-pop group with elaborate studio arrangements and production, and a year after that, they gave up touring entirely to focus only on albums. A host of imitators followed the Beatles in the so-called British Invasion, including groups like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks who would become legends in their own right.

As the counterculture movement developed, artists began making new kinds of music influenced by the use of psychedelic drugs. Guitarist Jimi Hendrix emerged onto the scene in 1967 with a radically new approach to the electric guitar that replaced Chuck Berry, previously seen as the gold standard of rock guitar. Rock artists began to take on serious themes and social commentary/protest instead of simplistic pop themes.

A major development in popular music during the mid-1960’s was the movement away from singles and towards albums. Previously, popular music was based around the 45 single (or even earlier, the 78 single) and albums such as they existed were little more than a hit single or two backed with filler tracks, instrumentals, and covers. The development of the AOR (album-oriented rock) format was complicated and involved several concurrent events such as Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, the introduction by Bob Dylan of serious lyrics to rock music, and the Beatles’ new studio-based approach. In any case, after 1965 the vinyl LP had definitively taken over as the primary format for all popular music styles.

Blues also continued to develop strongly during the 60’s, but after 1965, it increasingly shifted to the young white rock audience and away from its traditional black audience, which moved on to other styles such as soul and funk.

Jazz music and pop standards during the first half of the 60’s was largely a continuation of 50’s styles, retaining its core audience of young, urban, college-educated whites. By 1967, the death of several important jazz figures such as John Coltrane and Nat King Cole precipitated a decline in the genre. The takeover of rock in the late 60’s largely spelt the end of jazz and standards as mainstream forms of music, after they had dominated much of the first half of the 20th century.

Country music gained popularity on the West Coast, due in large part to the Bakersfield sound, led by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Female country artists were also becoming more mainstream (in a genre dominated by men in previous decades), with such acts as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and Tammy Wynette.

Significant Events In Music In The 1960’s

Elvis Presley returned to civilian life in the U.S. after two years away in the U.S. Army. He resumes his musical career by recording It’s Now or Never and Are You Lonesome Tonight? in March 1960.

Country music stars Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins were killed when their plane crashed in Camden, TN while returning home from a Kansas City benefit show in March 1963.

In July 1964, a plane crash claimed the life of another country music legend, Jim Reeves, when the plane he was piloting crashed in a turbulent thunderstorm while on final approach to Nashville International Airport.

Sam Cooke was shot and killed at a motel in Los Angeles, California (11th December 1964 at age 33) under suspicious circumstances.

Motown Record Corporation was founded in 1960. Its first Top Ten hit was Shop Around by the Miracles in 1960. Shop Around peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, and was Motown’s first million-selling record.

Newcastle born Eric Burdon and his Band The Animals hit the No. 1 in charts in the U.S. with their hit single, The House of the Rising Sun in 1964.

Folksinger and activist Joan Baez released her debut album on Vanguard Records in December 1960.

The Marvelettes scored Motown Record Corporation’s first US number one pop hit, Please Mr. Postman in 1961. Motown would score 110 Billboard Top-Ten hits during its run.

The Four Seasons released three straight number one hits.

In a widely anticipated and publicized event, The Beatles arrive in America in February 1964, spearheading the British Invasion.

The Mary Poppins Original Soundtrack tops record charts.

Sherman Brothers receive Grammys and double Oscars.

Lesley Gore at age 17 hits number one on Billboard with It’s My Party and number two with You Don’t Own Me behind the Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand.

The Supremes scored twelve number-one hit singles between 1964 and 1969, beginning with Where Did Our Love Go.

The Kinks release You Really Got Me in August 1964, which tops the British charts; it is regarded as the first hard rock hit and a blueprint for related genres, such as heavy metal.

John Coltrane released A Love Supreme in late 1964, considered among the most acclaimed jazz albums of the era.

The Grateful Dead was formed in 1965 (originally The Warlocks) thus paving the way for the emergence of acid rock.

Bob Dylan went electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

Cilla Black’s number-one hit Anyone Who Had a Heart still remains the top-selling single by a female artist in the UK from 1964.

The Rolling Stones had a huge No. 1 hit with their song (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in the summer of 1965.

The Byrds released a cover of Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man, which reached No. 1 on the U.S. charts and repeated the feat in the U.K. shortly thereafter. The extremely influential track effectively creates the musical subgenre of folk-rock.

Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone is a top-five hit on both sides of the Atlantic during the summer of 1965.

Bob Dylan’s 1965 albums Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited ushered in album-focused rock and the folk rock genre.

Simon and Garfunkel released The Sound of Silence single in 1965.

The Beach Boys released Pet Sounds in 1966, which significantly influenced the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album released the following year.

Bob Dylan was called Judas by an audience member during the Manchester Free Trade Hall concert, the start of the bootleg recording industry follows, with recordings of this concert circulating for 30 years – wrongly labelled as The Royal Albert Hall Concert – before a legitimate release in 1998 as The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The Royal Albert Hall Concert.

In February 1966, Nancy Sinatra’s song These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ became very popular.

In 1966, The Supremes A’ Go-Go was the first album by a female group to reach the top position of the Billboard magazine pop albums chart in the United States.

The Seekers were the first Australian Group to have a number one with Georgy Girl in 1966.

Jefferson Airplane released the influential Surrealistic Pillow in 1967.

The Velvet Underground released its self-titled debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967.

The Doors released its self-titled debut album The Doors in January 1967.

Love released Forever Changes in 1967.

The Procol Harum released A Whiter Shade of Pale in 1967.

Cream released Disraeli Gears in 1967.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience released two successful albums during 1967, Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love, that innovate both guitar, trio and recording techniques.

The Moody Blues released the album Days of Future Passed in November 1967.

R & B legend Otis Redding has his first No. 1 hit with Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. He also played at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 just before he died in a plane crash.

Pink Floyd released its debut record The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Bob Dylan released the Country rock album John Wesley Harding in December 1967.

The Bee Gees released their international debut album Bee Gees 1st in July 1967 which included the pop standard To Love Somebody.

The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 was the beginning of the Summer of Love.

The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. It was nicknamed The Soundtrack of the Summer of Love.

Johnny Cash released At Folsom Prison in 1968.

1968 (after The Yardbirds fold) Led Zeppelin was formed by Jimmy Page and manager Peter Grant, with Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones; and, released their debut album Led Zeppelin.

Big Brother and the Holding Company, with Janis Joplin as lead singer, became an overnight sensation after their performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and released their second album Cheap Thrills in 1968.

Gram Parsons with The Byrds released the influential LP Sweetheart of the Rodeo in late 1968, forming the basis for country rock.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience released the influential double-LP Electric Ladyland in 1968 that furthered the guitar and studio innovations of his previous two albums.

Simon and Garfunkel released the single Mrs. Robinson in 1968; featured in the film The Graduate.

Country music newcomer Jeannie C. Riley released the country and pop hit Harper Valley PTA in 1968, which is about a miniskirt-wearing mother of a teenage girl who was criticized by the local PTA for supposedly setting a bad example for her daughter, but turns the tables by exposing some of the PTA members’ wrongdoings. The song, along with Riley’s mod persona in connection with it, apparently gave country music a sexual revolution of its own, as hemlines of other female country artists’ stage dresses began rising in the years that followed.

Sly & the Family Stone revolutionized black music with their 1968 hit single Dance to the Music and by 1969 became international sensations with the release of their hit record Stand! The band cemented their position as a vital counterculture band when they performed at the Woodstock Festival.

The Gun released Race with the Devil in October 1968.

After a long performance drought, Elvis Presley made a successful return to TV and live performances after spending most of the decade making movies, beginning with his ’68 Comeback Special in December 1968 on NBC, followed in 1969 by a summer engagement in Las Vegas. Presley’s return to live performing set the stage for his many concert tours and continued Vegas engagements throughout the 1970’s until his death in 1977.

The Foundations released Build Me Up Buttercup in December 1968

The Rolling Stones filmed the TV special The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in December 1968 but the film was not released for transmission. Considered for decades as a fabled lost performance until released in North America on Laserdisc and VHS in 1996. Features performances from The Who; The Dirty Mac featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell; Jethro Tull and Taj Mahal.

Spooky Tooth released their second album Spooky Two in March 1969. The album was an important hard rock milestone.

The Woodstock Festival, and four months later, the Altamont Free Concert were in 1969.

The Who released and toured the first rock opera Tommy in 1969.

Proto-punk band MC5 released the live album Kick Out the Jams in 1969.

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band released the avant-garde Trout Mask Replica in 1969.

Creedence Clearwater Revival released Fortunate Son in 1969. The song amassed popularity with the Anti-War movement at the time and would later be used in films, TV shows, and video games depicting the Vietnam War or the U.S during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

The Stooges released their debut album in 1969.

The Beatles released Abbey Road in 1969.

King Crimson released their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King in 1969.

Led Zeppelin released two of their self-titled debut albums Led Zeppelin I and Led Zeppelin II in 1969.

Film

The highest-grossing film of the decade was 20th Century Fox’s The Sound of Music (1965).

Some of Hollywood’s most notable blockbuster films of the 1960’s include:

2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Birds.

Bonnie and Clyde.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Bullitt.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Cleopatra.

Cool Hand Luke.

The Dirty Dozen.

Doctor Zhivago.

Dr. Strangelove.

Easy Rider.

Funny Girl.

Goldfinger.

The Graduate.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

How the West Was Won.

The Hustler.

In the Heat of the Night.

The Italian Job.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Jason and the Argonauts.

The Jungle Book.

Lawrence of Arabia.

The Love Bug.

Mary Poppins.

Midnight Cowboy.

My Fair Lady.

Night of the Living Dead.

The Pink Panther.

The Odd Couple.

Oliver!

One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

One Million Years B.C.

Planet of the Apes.

Psycho.

Rosemary’s Baby.

The Sound of Music.

Spartacus.

Swiss Family Robinson.

To Kill a Mockingbird.

Valley of the Dolls.

West Side Story.

The counterculture movement had a significant effect on cinema. Movies began to break social taboos such as sex and violence causing both controversy and fascination. They turned increasingly dramatic, unbalanced, and hectic as the cultural revolution was starting. This was the beginning of the New Hollywood era that dominated the next decade in theatres and revolutionized the film industry. Films of this time also focused on the changes happening in the world. Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969) focused on the drug culture of the time. Movies also became more sexually explicit, such as Roger Vadim’sBarbarella (1968) as the counterculture progressed.

In Europe, Art Cinema gains wider distribution and sees movements like la Nouvelle Vague (The French New Wave) featuring French filmmakers such as Roger Vadim, François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, and Jean-Luc Godard; Cinéma vérité documentary movement in Canada, France and the United States; Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, Chilean filmmaker Alexandro Jodorowsky and Polish filmmakers Roman Polanski and Wojciech Jerzy Has produced original and offbeat masterpieces and the high-point of Italian filmmaking with Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini making some of their most known films during this period. Notable films from this period include La Dolce Vita, 8½; La Notte; L’Eclisse, The Red Desert; Blowup; Fellini Satyricon; Accattone; The Gospel According to St. Matthew; Theorem; Winter Light; The Silence; Persona; Shame; A Passion; Au Hasard Balthazar; Mouchette; Last Year at Marienbad; Chronique d’un été; Titicut Follies; High School; Salesman; La jetée; Warrendale; Knife in the Water; Repulsion; The Saragossa Manuscript; El Topo; A Hard Day’s Night; and the cinema verite Don’t Look Back.

In Japan, a film version of the story of the forty-seven ronin entitled Chushingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki directed by Hiroshi Inagaki was released in 1962, the legendary story was also remade as a television series in Japan. Academy Award-winning Japanese director Akira Kurosawa produced Yojimbo (1961), and Sanjuro (1962), which both starred Toshiro Mifune as a mysterious Samurai swordsman for hire. Like his previous films both had a profound influence around the world. The Spaghetti Western genre was a direct outgrowth of the Kurosawa films. The influence of these films is most apparent in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964) starring Clint Eastwood and Walter Hill’s Last Man Standing (1996). Yojimbo was also the origin of the “Man with No Name” trend which included Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly both also starring Clint Eastwood, and arguably continued through his 1968 opus Once Upon a Time in the West, starring Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, and Jason Robards. The Magnificent Seven a 1960 American western film directed by John Sturges was a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, Seven Samurai.

The 1960’s were also about experimentation. With the explosion of lightweight and affordable cameras, the underground avant-garde film movement thrived. Canada’s Michael Snow, Americans Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, and Jack Smith. Notable films in this genre are Dog Star Man; Scorpio Rising; Wavelength; Chelsea Girls; Blow Job; Vinyl; Flaming Creatures.

Aside from Walt Disney’s most important blockbusters One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book, Animated feature films that are of notable status include Gay Purr-ee, Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!, The Man Called Flintstone, Mad Monster Party?, Yellow Submarine and A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

Significant Events In The Film Industry In The 1960’s

Removal of the Motion Picture Association of America’s Production Code in 1967.

The decline and end of the Studio System.

The rise of art-house films and theatres.

The end of the classical Hollywood cinema era.

The beginning of the New Hollywood Era due to the counterculture.

The rise of independent producers that worked outside the Studio System.

Move to all-colour production in Hollywood films.

The invention of the Nagra 1/4″, sync-sound, portable open-reel tape deck.

Expo 67 where new film formats like Imax were invented and new ways of displaying film were tested.

Flat-bed film editing tables appear, like the Steenbeck, they eventually replace the Moviola editing platform.

The French New Wave.

Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité documentaries.

The beginning of the Golden Age of Porn in 1969, continued throughout the 1970’s and into the first half of the 1980’s.

Walt Disney, the founder of the Walt Disney Co. died on 15th December 1966, from a major tumour in his left lung.

Television

The most prominent American TV series of the 1960’s include: The Ed Sullivan Show, Star Trek, Peyton Place, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Andy Williams Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Wonderful World of Disney, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, Batman, McHale’s Navy, Laugh-In, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Fugitive, The Tonight Show, Gunsmoke, The Andy Griffith Show, Gilligan’s Island, Mission: Impossible, The Flintstones, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Lassie, The Danny Thomas Show, The Lucy Show, My Three Sons, The Red Skelton Show, Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. The Flintstones was a favoured show, receiving 40 million views an episode with an average of 3 million views a day. Some programming such as The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour became controversial by challenging the foundations of America’s corporate and governmental controls; making fun of world leaders, and questioning U.S. involvement in and escalation of the Vietnam War.

The following is from A List Of Years In Television:

1960: First broadcast of The Andy Griffith Show, The Flintstones, Coronation Street and Tales of the Riverbank; Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. is founded (as Videocraft International, Ltd.). American presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon debate live on television.

1961: The first broadcast of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Yogi Bear Show, The Avengers, The Defenders, The Morecambe and Wise Show and Car 54, Where Are You?; First appearance of The Milky Bar Kid

1962: The first broadcast of The Beverly Hillbillies, Steptoe and Son, The Jetsons, University Challenge, Elgar, That Was The Week That Was, The Late Late Show (Ireland) and Sábado Gigante; first airing of Everyone Loves a Slinky; first satellite television relayed by Telstar.

1963: The first broadcast of Doctor Who, General Hospital, The Fugitive, Astro Boy, We Try Harder (Avis) and The Outer Limits; American Cable Systems is founded; Martin Luther King Jr. addresses his famous I Have a Dream speech to the world; The world watches in horror over the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

1964: The first broadcast of Gilligan’s Island, The Munsters, Bewitched, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, The Addams Family, Top of the Pops, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Match of the Day, Jeopardy!, Jonny Quest and the Up series; First appearance of Lucky the Leprechaun (Lucky Charms); The controversial political advertisement Daisy airs only once, but is later considered to be an important factor in Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election, and an important turning point in political and advertising history; Broadcast of U.S. president Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act Of 1964; The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1965: The first broadcast of I Dream of Jeannie, Days of Our Lives, Get Smart, Thunderbirds, The Dean Martin Show, Hogan’s Heroes, Lost in Space, Till Death Us Do Part, Kimba the White Lion, Peanuts, Des chiffres et des lettres, Tomorrow’s World, The Magic Roundabout and The War Game; Tom and Jerry cartoons begin to be aired on television after previously only being theatrical short films; the first appearance of the Pillsbury Doughboy; Nigeria is the first African country to receive TV.

1966: First broadcast of Star Trek, Batman (the live-action TV series starring Adam West), Space Ghost, The Monkees, Dark Shadows, Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet, Ultra Series, Osomatsu-kun, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, That Girl, Cathy Come Home and Mission: Impossible; England win the World Cup Final, seen by tens of millions.

1967: First broadcast of The Carol Burnett Show, The Prisoner, The Flying Nun, News at Ten, Captain Birdseye, Speed Racer, Spider-Man, Princess Knight, The Phil Donahue Show and Ambassador Magma; PAL and SECAM colour standards introduced in Europe, with BBC2 making their first colour broadcasts.

1968: First broadcast of 60 Minutes, One Life to Live, Dad’s Army, Julia, Columbo, Elvis, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, The Archie Show, The Banana Splits, Hawaii Five-O, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and Adam-12; first appearance of the Keebler Elves and Cadbury’s Milk Tray Man

1969: The first broadcast of Sesame Street, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The Pink Panther Show, Sazae-san, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, On the Buses, The Brady Bunch, Marine Boy; completion of Fernsehturm Berlin; The Apollo 11 Moon landing is broadcast live worldwide.

Literature

The following is from A List Of Years In Literature:

1960: William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Dr. Seuss’ One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Green Eggs and Ham. Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls. John Updike’s Rabbit, Run. Agatha Christie’s The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. Deaths of Albert Camus, Boris Pasternak, Nevil Shute and Richard Wright. Lady Chatterley trial.

1961: Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas; Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris. J. D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. Jean Genet’s The Screens. Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach. Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse and Double Sin and Other Stories. Deaths of Ernest Hemingway, Frantz Fanon, Dashiell Hammett and James Thurber.

1962: Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. Jorge Luis Borges’s Labyrinths. Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Carlos Fuentes’s The Death of Artemio Cruz. Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time; Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Stan and Jan Berenstain’s The Big Honey Hunt (first Berenstain Bears book). Mercè Rodoreda’s The Time of the Doves. Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. Deaths of Hermann Hesse, William Faulkner and E. E. Cummings

1963: Thomas Pynchon’s V. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Pierre Boulle’s La Planete des Singes (Planet of the Apes). Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Václav Havel’s The Garden Party. Norman Bridwell’s Clifford the Big Red Dog. Agatha Christie’s The Clocks. Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch. Deaths of Aldous Huxley, Robert Frost, Clifford Odets, Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, C. S. Lewis and John Cowper Powys.

1964: Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man. Leonard Cohen’s Flowers for Hitler. Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hubert Selby, Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn. Brian Friel’s play Philadelphia, Here I Come! was first performed. Philip Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings. Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. Gore Vidal’s Julian. Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. Agatha Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery. Deaths of Brendan Behan, Ian Fleming and Seán O’Casey. Refusal of Nobel Prize by Jean-Paul Sartre.

1965: Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Saul Bellow’s Herzog. Norman Mailer’s An American Dream. John Fowles’s The Magus. John McGahern’s The Dark. Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird. Frank Herbert’s Dune. Harlan Ellison’s “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman. Václav Havel’s The Memorandum. Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel and Surprise! Surprise! Deaths of T. S. Eliot and W. Somerset Maugham.

1966: Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers. Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show. Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was first performed. Basil Buntings’ Briggflatts. The Witch’s Daughter by Nina Bawden. Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. Agatha Christie’s Third Girl. Deaths of Frank O’Connor, Brian O’Nolan and Evelyn Waugh.

1967: Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude). Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer. Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. Milan Kundera’s Žert (The Joke). Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore’s The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. William Manchester’s The Death of a President. Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra. Allan W. Eckert’s Wild Season. Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light. Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions. Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. Agatha Christie’s Endless Night. Deaths of Victor Gollancz, Langston Hughes, Carson McCullers, John Masefield, Dorothy Parker, Siegfried Sassoon, Alice B. Toklas and Jean Toomer.

1968: Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Arthur Hailey’s Airport. Albert Cohen’s Belle du Seigneur. Judith Kerr’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. Samuel R. Delany’s Nova. Agatha Christie’s By the Pricking of My Thumbs. Marguerite Yourcenar’s The Abyss. Haddis Alemayehu’s Love to the Grave. Deaths of John Steinbeck, Edna Ferber, Upton Sinclair, Enid Blyton and Mervyn Peake.

1969: Inaugural Booker Prize awarded to P. H. Newby’s Something to Answer For. Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog. Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party. Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat By the Door. Deaths of Jack Kerouac, B. Traven and Leonard Woolf.

Sports

Association Football

There were two FIFA World Cups during the decade:

1962 FIFA World Cup – hosted in Chile, won by Brazil.

1966 FIFA World Cup – hosted and won by England.

Olympics

There were six Olympic Games held during the decade. These were:

1960 Summer Olympics – 25th August – 11th September 1960, in Rome, Italy.

1960 Winter Olympics – 18th – 28th February 1960, in Squaw Valley, California, United States.

1964 Summer Olympics – 10th – 24th October 1964, in Tokyo, Japan.

1964 Winter Olympics – 29th January – 9th February 1964, in Innsbruck, Austria.

1968 Summer Olympics – 12th – 27th October 1968, in Mexico City, Mexico.

1968 Winter Olympics – 6th –18th February 1968, in Grenoble, France.

Baseball

The first wave of Major League Baseball expansion in 1961 included the formation of the Los Angeles Angels, the move to Minnesota to become the Minnesota Twins by the former Washington Senators and the formation of a new franchise called the Washington Senators. Major League Baseball sanctioned both the Houston Colt .45s and the New York Mets as new National League franchises in 1962.

In 1969, the American League expanded when the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots, were admitted to the league prompting the expansion of the post-season (in the form of the League Championship Series) for the first time since the creation of the World Series. The Pilots stayed just one season in Seattle before moving and becoming the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970. The National League also added two teams in 1969, the Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres. By 1969, the New York Mets won the World Series in only the 8th year of the team’s existence.

Basketball

The NBA tournaments during the 1960’s were dominated by the Boston Celtics, who won eight straight titles from 1959 to 1966 and added two more consecutive championships in 1968 and 1969, aided by such players as Bob Cousy, Bill Russell and John Havlicek. Other notable NBA players included Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Oscar Robertson.

At the NCAA level, the UCLA Bruins also proved dominant. Coached by John Wooden, they were helped by Lew Alcindor and by Bill Walton to win championships and dominate the American college basketball landscape during the decade.

Disc Sports

Alternative sports, using the flying disc, began in the mid-sixties. 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. Starting 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 these sports first events. Two sports, the team sport of disc ultimate and disc golf are very popular worldwide and are now being played semi-professionally. The World Flying Disc Federation, Professional Disc Golf Association and the Freestyle Players Association are the official rules and sanctioning organizations for flying disc sports worldwide. Major League Ultimate (MLU) and the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) are the first semi-professional ultimate leagues.

Racing

In motorsports, the Can-Am and Trans-Am series were both established in 1966. The Ford GT40 won outright in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Graham Hill edged out Jackie Stewart and Denny Hulme for the World Championship in Formula One.

Science And Technology

Science

Space Exploration

The Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union dominated the 1960’s. The Soviets sent the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into outer space during the Vostok 1 mission on 12th April 1961 and scored a host of other successes, but by the middle of the decade, the U.S. was taking the lead. In May 1961, President Kennedy set the goal for the United States of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960’s.

In June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space during the Vostok 6 mission. In 1965, the Soviets launched the first probe to hit another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 3, and the first probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the Moon, Luna 9. In March 1966, the Soviet Union launched Luna 10, which became the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon, and in September 1968, Zond 5 flew the first terrestrial beings, including two tortoises, to circumnavigate the Moon.

The deaths of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire on 27th January 1967 put a temporary hold on the U.S. space program, but afterwards, progress was steady, with the Apollo 8 crew (Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders) being the first manned mission to orbit another celestial body (the Moon) during Christmas of 1968.

On 20th July 1969, Apollo 11, the first human spaceflight landed on the Moon. Launched on 16 July 1969, it carried Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and the Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin. Apollo 11 fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s goal of reaching the Moon by the end of the 1960s, which he had expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on 25th May 1961: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

The Soviet program lost its sense of direction with the death of chief designer Sergey Korolyov in 1966. Political pressure, conflicts between different design bureaus, and engineering problems caused by an inadequate budget would doom the Soviet attempt to land men on the Moon.

A succession of unmanned American and Soviet probes travelled to the Moon, Venus, and Mars during the 1960’s, and commercial satellites also came into use.

Other Scientific Developments

In 1960 the female birth-control contraceptive, the pill, was released in the United States after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

In 1963 the measles vaccine was released after being approved by the FDA

In 1964 the discovery and confirmation of the Cosmic microwave background in 1964 secured the Big Bang as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the universe.

In 1965 AstroTurf was introduced.

In 1967 was the first heart transplantation operation by Professor Christiaan Barnard in South Africa.

In 1967 was the discovery of the first known pulsar (a rapidly spinning neutron star).

During the late 1960’s, the Green Revolution took a major leap in agricultural production.

Technology

Shinkansen the world’s first high-speed rail service began in 1964.

Cars

As the 1960’s began, American cars showed a rapid rejection of 1950’s styling excess and would remain relatively clean and boxy for the entire decade. The horsepower race reached its climax in the late 1960’s, with muscle cars sold by most makes. The compact Ford Mustang, launched in 1964, was one of the decade’s greatest successes. The Big Three American automakers enjoyed their highest ever sales and profitability in the 1960’s, but the demise of Studebaker in 1966 left American Motors Corporation as the last significant independent. The decade would see the car market split into different size classes for the first time, and model lineups now included compact and mid-sized cars in addition to full-sized ones.

The popular modern hatchback, with front-wheel-drive and a two-box configuration, was born in 1965 with the introduction of the Renault 16, many of this car’s design principles live on in its modern counterparts: a large rear opening incorporating the rear window, foldable rear seats to extend boot space. The Mini, released in 1959, had first popularised the front-wheel-drive two-box configuration, but technically was not a hatchback as it had a fold-down boot lid.

Japanese cars also began to gain acceptance in the Western market, and popular economy models such as the Toyota Corolla, Datsun 510, and the first popular Japanese sports car, the Datsun 240Z, were released in the mid-to-late-1960’s.

Electronics And Communications

In 1960 the first working laser was demonstrated in May by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories.

In 1960 Tony Hoare announces the Quicksort algorithm, the most common sorter on computers.

In 1961 Unimate, the first industrial robot was introduced.

In 1962 the first transatlantic satellite was broadcast via the Telstar satellite.

In 1962 the first computer video game, Spacewar!, was invented.

In 1962 red LED’s were developed.

In 1963 the first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom 2, is launched.

In 1963 the first transpacific satellite broadcast via the Relay 1 satellite.

In 1963 Touch-Tone telephones were introduced.

In 1963 Sketchpad was the first touch interactive computer graphics program.

In 1963 the Nottingham Electronic Valve company produced the first home video recorder called the Telcan.

In 1964 the 8-track tape audio format was developed.

In 1964 the Compact Cassette was introduced.

In 1964 the first successful Minicomputer, Digital Equipment Corporation’s 12-bit PDP-8, was marketed.

In 1964 the programming language BASIC was created.

In 1964 the world’s first supercomputer, the CDC 6600, was introduced.

In 1964 Fairchild Semiconductor released ICs with dual in-line packaging.

In 1967 PAL and SECAM broadcast colour television systems started publicly transmitting in Europe.

In 1967 the first Automatic Teller Machine was opened in Barclays Bank, London.

In 1968 Ralph Baer developed his Brown Box (a working prototype of the Magnavox Odyssey).

In 1968 the first public demonstration of the computer mouse, the paper paradigm Graphical user interface, video conferencing, teleconferencing, email, and hypertext.

In 1969 ARPANET, the research-oriented prototype of the Internet was introduced.

In 1969 CCD was invented at AT&T Bell Labs, used as the electronic imager in still and video cameras.

People

Musicians

For a list of 1960’s Musicians and information about them click here.

Bands

For a list of 1960’s Bands and information about them click here.

Filmmakers

For a list of 1960’s Filmmakers and information about them click here.

Actors / Entertainers

For a list of 1960’s Actors / Entertainers and information about them click here.

Writers

For a list of 1960’s Writers and information about them click here.

Sports Figures

For a list of 1960’s Sports Figures and information about them click here.

Activists

For a list of 1960’s Activists and information about them click here.

Fashion

Significant fashion trends of the 1960’s include:

The Beatles exerted an enormous influence on young men’s fashions and hairstyles in the 1960’s which included most notably the mop-top haircut, the Beatle boots and the Nehru jacket.

The hippie movement late in the decade also had a strong influence on clothing styles, including bell-bottom jeans, tie-dye and batik fabrics, as well as paisley prints.

The bikini came into fashion in 1963 after being featured in the film Beach Party.

Mary Quant popularised the miniskirt, which became one of the most popular fashion rages in the late 1960’s among young women and teenage girls. Its popularity continued throughout the first half of the 1970’s and then disappeared temporarily from mainstream fashion before making a comeback in the mid-1980’s.

Men’s mainstream hairstyles ranged from the pompadour, the crew cut, the flattop hairstyle, the tapered hairstyle, and short, parted hair in the early part of the decade, to longer parted hairstyles with sideburns towards the latter half of the decade.

Women’s mainstream hairstyles ranged from beehive hairdos, the bird’s nest hairstyle, and the chignon hairstyle in the early part of the decade, to very short styles popularized by Twiggy and Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby towards the latter half of the decade.

African-American hairstyles for men and women included the afro.

Economics

The decade began with a recession from 1960 to 1961, at that time unemployment was considered high at around 7%. In his campaign, John F. Kennedy promised to “get America moving again.” His goal was economic growth of 4–6% per year and unemployment below 4%. To do this, he instituted a 7% tax credit for businesses that invest in new plants and equipment. By the end of the decade, the median family income had risen from $8,540 in 1963 to $10,770 by 1969.

Although the first half of the decade had low inflation, by 1966 Kennedy’s tax credit had reduced unemployment to 3.7% and inflation remained below 2%. With the economy booming Johnson began his “Great Society” which vastly expanded social programs. By the end of the decade under Nixon, the combined inflation and the unemployment rate is known as the misery index (economics) had exploded to nearly 10% with inflation at 6.2% and unemployment at 3.5% and by 1975 the misery index was almost 20%.

Disasters

Natural

The 1960 Valdivia earthquake, also known as the Great Chilean earthquake, is to date the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, rating 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale. It caused localized tsunamis that severely battered the Chilean coast, with waves up to 25 meters (82 ft). The main tsunami raced across the Pacific Ocean and devastated Hilo, Hawaii.

The 1963 Skopje earthquake was a 6.1-moment magnitude earthquake that occurred in Skopje, SR Macedonia (present-day Republic of Macedonia) on 26 July 1963 which killed over 1,070 people, injured between 3,000 and 4,000 and left more than 200,000 people homeless. About 80% of the city was destroyed.

The 1963 Vajont dam disaster in Italy was caused by a mountain sliding in the dam and causing a flood wave that killed approximately 2,000 people in the towns in its path.

The 1964 Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in the U.S. and North America, struck Alaska and killed 143 people.

The 1965 Hurricane Betsy caused severe damage to the U.S. Gulf Coast, especially in the state of Louisiana.

In 1969 the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Ohio. Fires had erupted on the river many times, including 22 June 1969, when a river fire captured the attention of Time magazine, which described the Cuyahoga as the river that “oozes rather than flows” and in which a person “does not drown but decays.” This helped spur legislative action on water pollution control resulting in the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The 1969 Hurricane Camille hit the U.S. Gulf Coast at Category 5 Status. It peaked and made landfall with 175 mph (280 km/h) winds and caused $1.42 billion (1969 USD) in damages.

Non-Natural

On 16th December 1960, a United Airlines DC-8 and a Trans World Airlines Lockheed Constellation collided over New York City and crashed, killing 134 people.

On 15th February 1961, Sabena Flight 548 crashed on its way to Brussels, Belgium, killing all 72 passengers on board and 1 person on the ground. Among those killed were all 18 members of the US figure skating team, on their way to the World Championships.

On 16th March 1962, Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a Lockheed Super Constellation, inexplicably disappeared over the Western Pacific, leaving all 107 onboard presumed dead. Since the wreckage of the aircraft is lost to this day, the cause of the crash remains a mystery.

On 3rd June 1962, Air France Flight 007, a Boeing 707, crashed on takeoff from Paris. 130 people were killed in the crash while 2 survived.

On 20th May 1965, PIA Flight 705 crashed on approach to Cairo, Egypt. 121 died while 6 survived.

On 4th February 1966, All Nippon Airways Flight 60, a Boeing 727, plunged into Tokyo Bay for reasons unknown. All 133 people on board died.

On 5th March 1966, BOAC Flight 911 broke up in mid-air and crashed on the slopes of Mount Fuji. All 124 aboard died.

On 8th December 1966, the car ferry SS Heraklion sank in the Aegean Sea during a storm, killing 217 people.

On 16th March 1969, a DC-9 operating Viasa Flight 742 crashed in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo. A total of 155 people died in the crash.

Social And Political Movements

Counterculture And Social Revolution

In the second half of the decade, young people began to revolt against the conservative norms of the time, as well as remove themselves from mainstream liberalism, in particular the high level of materialism that was so common during the era. This created a counterculture that sparked a social revolution throughout much of the Western world. It began in the United States as a reaction against the conservatism and social conformity of the 1950’s, and the U.S. government’s extensive military intervention in Vietnam. The youth involved in the popular social aspects of the movement became known as hippies. These groups created a movement toward liberation in society, including the sexual revolution, questioning authority and government, and demanding more freedoms and rights for women and minorities. The Underground Press, a widespread, eclectic collection of newspapers served as a unifying medium for the counterculture. The movement was also marked by the first widespread, socially accepted drug use (including LSD and marijuana) and psychedelic music.

Anti-War Movement

The war in Vietnam would eventually lead to a commitment of over half a million American troops, resulting in over 58,500 American deaths and producing a large-scale antiwar movement in the United States. As late as the end of 1965, few Americans protested the American involvement in Vietnam, but as the war dragged on and the body count continued to climb, civil unrest escalated. Students became a powerful and disruptive force and university campuses sparked a national debate over the war. As the movement’s ideals spread beyond college campuses, doubts about the war also began to appear within the administration itself. A mass movement began rising in opposition to the Vietnam War, ending in the massive Moratorium protests in 1969, as well as the movement of resistance to the conscription for the war.

The antiwar movement was initially based on the older 1950’s Peace movement, heavily influenced by the American Communist Party, but by the mid-1960s it outgrew this and became a broad-based mass movement centred in universities and churches: one kind of protest was called a sit-in. Other terms heard in the United States included the draft, draft dodger, conscientious objector, and Vietnam vet. Voter age limits were challenged by the phrase: “If you’re old enough to die for your country, you’re old enough to vote.”

Civil Rights Movement

Beginning in the mid-1950’s and continuing into the late 1960’s, African-Americans in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against black Americans and voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South. The emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1975, enlarged the aims of the civil rights movement to include racial dignity, economic and political self-sufficiency, and anti-imperialism.

The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of civil disobedience and nonviolent protest produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful Montgomery bus boycott (1955 – 1956) in Alabama; sit-ins such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina; marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.

Noted legislative achievements during this phase of the civil rights movement were passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination based on race, colour, religion, or national origin in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.

To read more about Social And Political Movements click here.

Assassinations And Attempts

Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:

12th October 1960: Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the Japan Socialist Party

17th January 1961: Patrice Lumumba, the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Maurice Mpolo, Minister of Youth and Sports; Joseph Okito, vice-president of the Senate. Assassinated by a Belgian and Congolese firing squad outside Lubumbashi.

20th February 1961: Alphonse Songolo, former Minister of Communications of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Gilbert Pongo, intelligence officer and communications official. Shot in Kisangani.

30th May 1961: Rafael Trujillo Dictator of the Dominican Republic for 31 years, by a number of plotters including a general in his army.

13th January 1963: Sylvanus Olympio, the Prime Minister of Togo, is killed during the 1963 Togolese coup d’état. His body is dumped in front of the U.S. embassy in Lomé.

27th May 1963: Grigoris Lambrakis, Greek left-wing MP by far-right extremists with connections to the police and the army in Thessaloniki.

12th June 1963: Medgar Evers, an NAACP field secretary. Assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the Ku Klux Klan in Jackson, Mississippi.

2nd November 1963: Ngô Đình Diệm, President of South Vietnam, along with his brother and chief political adviser, Ngô Đình Nhu. are assassinated by Dương Hiếu Nghĩa and Nguyễn Văn Nhung in the back of an armoured personnel carrier.

22nd November 1963: John F. Kennedy, President of the United States was assassinated allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

24th November 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspected assassin of President of the United States John F. Kennedy and Dallas Police Department officer J. D. Tippit was assassinated by Jack Ruby on live television in the basement of the Dallas Police Department headquarters.

19th July 1964: Jason Sendwe, President of North Katanga Province, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was executed by Simba rebels in Albertville.

11th December 1964: Sam Cooke, American singer-songwriter and civil rights activist, was shot at the age of 33 in the Hacienda Motel, in Los Angeles, California.

13th February 1965: Humberto Delgado. Assassinated by Portuguese dictator Salazar’s political police PIDE in Spain, near the Portuguese border.

21st February 1965: Malcolm X was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam in New York City. There is a dispute about which members killed Malcolm X.

6th September 1966: Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa and architect of apartheid was stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas, a parliamentary messenger. He survived a previous attempt on his life in 1960.

25th August 1967: George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party was assassinated by John Patler in Arlington, Virginia.

9th October 1967: Che Guevara was assassinated by the CIA and Bolivian army.

4th April 1968: Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee.

3rd June 1968: Andy Warhol, American pop artist, film director, and producer was shot by radical feminist Valerie Solanas at his New York City Studio, The Factory; he survives after a 5-hour operation.

5th June 1968: Robert F. Kennedy, United States Senator was ssassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles, after taking California in the presidential national primaries.

4th December 1969: Fred Hampton was assassinated in Chicago by the Chicago Police Department.

Politics And Wars

Wars

The Cold War (1947 – 1991).

The Vietnam War (1955 – 1975).

1961: Substantial (approximately 700) American advisory forces first arrive in Vietnam.

1962: By mid-1962, the number of U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam had risen from 900 to 12,000.

1963: By the time of U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s death there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower’s 900 advisors to cope with rising guerrilla activity in Vietnam.

1964: In direct response to the minor naval engagement known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident which occurred on 2 August 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress, was passed on 10 August 1964. The resolution gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military force in Southeast Asia. The Johnson administration subsequently cited the resolution as legal authority for its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.

1966: After 1966, with the draft in place more than 500,000 troops were sent to Vietnam by the Johnson administration and college attendance soars.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961): An unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from U.S. government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

Portuguese Colonial War (1961 – 1974): The war was fought between Portugal’s military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal’s African colonies. It was a decisive ideological struggle and armed conflict of the cold war in African (Portuguese Africa and surrounding nations) and European (mainland Portugal) scenarios. Unlike other European nations, the Portuguese regime did not leave its African colonies, or the overseas provinces, during the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1960s, various armed independence movements, most prominently led by communist-led parties who cooperated under the CONCP umbrella and pro-U.S. groups, became active in these areas, most notably in Angola, Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea. During the war, several atrocities were committed by all forces involved in the conflict.

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 began in September: Arab–Israeli conflict (early-20th century-present)

Six-Day War (June 1967): A war between Israel and the neighbouring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Arab states of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria also contributed troops and arms. At the war’s end, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.

The Algerian War came to a close in 1962.

The Nigeria Civil War began in 1967.

Civil wars in Laos and Sudan rage on throughout the decade.

The Al-Wadiah War was a military conflict that broke out on 27th November 1969 between Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of South Yemen.

Internal Conflicts

The massive 1960 Anpo protests in Japan against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty were the largest and longest protests in Japan’s history. Although they ultimately failed to stop the treaty, they forced the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and the cancellation of a planned visit to Japan by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Cultural Revolution in China (1966 – 1976): A period of widespread social and political upheaval in the People’s Republic of China which was launched by Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Communist Party of China. Mao alleged that “liberal bourgeois” elements were permeating the party and society at large and that they wanted to restore capitalism. Mao insisted that these elements be removed through post-revolutionary class struggle by mobilizing the thoughts and actions of China’s youth, who formed Red Guards groups around the country. The movement subsequently spread into the military, urban workers, and the party leadership itself. Although Mao himself officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, the power struggles and political instability between 1969 and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976 are now also widely regarded as part of the Revolution.

The Naxalite movement in India began in 1967 with an armed uprising of tribals against local landlords in the village of Naxalbari, West Bengal, led by certain leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The movement was influenced by Mao Zedong’s ideology and spread to many tribal districts in Eastern India, gaining strong support among the radical urban youth. After counter-insurgency operations by the police, military and paramilitary forces, the movement fragmented but is still active in many districts.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland began with the rise of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement in the mid-1960’s, the conflict continued into the later 1990’s.

The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. This incident was one of the first recorded transgender riots in United States history, preceding the more famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City by three years.

The Stonewall riots occurred in June 1969 in New York City. The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

In 1967, the National Farmers Organization withheld milk supplies for 15 days as part of an effort to induce a quota system to stabilize prices.

The May 1968 student and worker uprisings in France.

Mass socialist or Communist movement in most European countries (particularly France and Italy), with which the student-based new left was able to forge a connection. The most spectacular manifestation of this was the May student revolt of 1968 in Paris that linked up with a general strike of ten million workers called by the trade unions, and for a few days seemed capable of overthrowing the government of Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle went off to visit French troops in Germany to check on their loyalty. Major concessions were won for trade union rights, higher minimum wages and better working conditions.

University students protested in the hundreds of thousands against the Vietnam War in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.

In Eastern Europe students also drew inspiration from the protests in the West. In Poland and Yugoslavia, they protested against restrictions on free speech by communist regimes.

The Tlatelolco massacre was a government massacre of student and civilian protesters and bystanders that took place during the afternoon and night of 2 October 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City.

To read more about 1960’s Politics And Wars click here.

Additional Notable Worldwide Events

The Manson Murders occurred between 8th – 10th August 1969, when actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and several others were brutally murdered in the Tate residence by Charles Manson’s “family.” Rosemary LaBianca and Leno LaBianca were also murdered by the Manson family the following night.

Canada celebrated its 100th anniversary of Confederation in 1967 by hosting Expo 67, the World’s Fair, in Montreal, Quebec. During the anniversary celebrations, French president Charles De Gaulle visited Canada and caused a considerable uproar by declaring his support for Québécois independence.

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