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Films: Sound Of Freedom

On the 9th of September, 2023 I went to see Sound Of Freedom at Cineworld Birmingham, Broad Street. I got to see this free thanks to the generosity of its distributor Angel Studios and their How You Can Help page. Click here to purchase tickets to give away yourself, buy tickets for yourself or claim a free ticket (like I did) from the kind people who purchased said tickets themselves to give away.

This important film was finalised in 2019 but many, including Disney (who acquired the original distributor Fox), tried to stop it from being shown at all. Thankfully Angel Studios bought back the rights to it. It is shocking and disturbing to watch as its content is about paedophilia and child sex trafficking, but not, thankfully, in a graphic way. It doesn’t need to do that. The truth sells itself here. It isn’t like most films these days, woke, it simply tells a story and does it well. A rarity these days. It is thought-provoking and leaves you feeling happy and sad at the same time. You feel happy for Tim Ballard, excellently played by Jim Caviezel, when he succeeds at what he is doing but then you feel sad for the children and the terrible things they go through. Those terrible things happen far too often and in staggering numbers.

Some people left the cinema when the credits started rolling and missed an important message by Caviezel at the end of the film. It was just as moving as the film was and the audience clapped and so did I.

This is a well-produced film with very good cinematography, very good acting, very good editing and very good music that captures the mood of the film so well.

I recommend anyone with children to watch this film and if their kids go to big school, they watch it too when it comes out on DVD (if it is allowed to that is), you won’t be sorry you did.

Sound Of Freedom was released in America on July the 4th and in the UK on September the 1st.

Official Trailer

About Sound Of Freedom

Sound of Freedom is based on an incredible true story, that shines a light on even the darkest of places. After rescuing a young boy from ruthless child traffickers, a federal agent learns the boy’s sister is still captive and decides to embark on a dangerous mission to save her. With time running out, he quits his job and journeys deep into the Colombian jungle, putting his life on the line to free her from a fate worse than death.

What Will The Movie Be Like?

Sound of Freedom is a thriller based on a pivotal extraction operation that would eventually rescue dozens of children from child traffickers in Colombia.

It has the hero energy of Hacksaw Ridge and Spotlight paired with the heart of films like Unbroken and 127 Hours.

With a star-studded cast, director, and original score, this film has gone to great lengths to bring the harrowing realities of child trafficking to life like it’s never been done before. Expertly produced and acted, Sound of Freedom has a larger-than-life mission to ignite the movement to end child trafficking for good.

Spreading global awareness about the harrowing realities of child trafficking cannot happen without telling stories like this one. Storytellers are the changemakers.

The Challenge

Distributing a film theatrically with such a global appeal is always a significant hurdle. Angel Studios has experience with global hits like The Chosen, which had a Christmas Special and Season 3 theatrical release. Most recently, another Angel Studios project, His Only Son, successfully crowdfunded $1.235 million in just a few days for their theatrical release (which premiered in over 2,000 cinemas internationally).

Angel also has experience working outside of traditional studio paths and is hopeful audiences will be excited to have an incredible film like Sound of Freedom in their local cinemas.

Deeply Rooted Values

Director Alejandro Monteverde said,

“I believe that as a society we need to be aware of the horrors of child trafficking, and my call was to use the power of cinema to bring light and poetry and hope into that darkest corner of humanity — and to wrap it all in one man’s incredible, world-changing odyssey.”

Sound Of Freedom Team

Alejandro Monteverde

Alejandro Monteverde, the Director of Sound Freedom.

Alejandro Monteverde is a Mexican filmmaker, best known for his work as a director, writer, and producer on the 2006 film Bella, which won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Heartland Film Festival.

Monteverde began his career as a film director with the short film The Last Goodbye in 2004, which won the Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Film Festival. He went on to direct and write several other films, including Little Boy in 2015, which was also well-received by audiences.

Monteverde’s work is known for its focus on family and faith, and he has been vocal about his Catholic beliefs. In addition to his film work, Monteverde has also been involved in philanthropic efforts, including the founding of the nonprofit organization Esperanza para los Ninos (Hope for Children) in 2010, which provides education and support to underprivileged children in Mexico.

Eduardo Verastegui

Eduardo Verastegui is the Producer of Sound of Freedom and plays Pablo.

Eduardo Verastegui is a Mexican actor, producer, businessman and philanthropist, born in Mexico. He began his entertainment career as a member of the Mexican pop group Kairo in the 1990’s before transitioning to acting in telenovelas.

Verastegui gained international recognition for his leading role in the 2006 film Bella, which he produced with the production company he co-founded called Metanoia Films. He is also known for his humanitarian work and began a nonprofit organization called Manto de Guadalupe that aids those who don’t have access to food, shelter, health care or education.

Verastegui is the producer of Sound of Freedom and has since toured all over Mexico and beyond in an effort to partner with local government leaders, educators, law enforcement, and foundations to prevent child exploitation.

Jim Caviezel

Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard in Sound Of Freedom.

Jim Caviezel is an American actor born in Mount Vernon, Washington. He graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Fine Arts before pursuing his acting career in Los Angeles.

Jim’s breakout role was playing Edmond in The Count of Monte Cristo, quickly followed by his portrayal of Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. He also gained recognition for his performances in The Thin Red Line and Frequency.

Caviezel is known for his strong Christian faith and has been actively involved in various charitable causes. He has been married to his wife Kerri for over 20 years and they have adopted three children together.

After meeting Tim Ballard and learning about Operation Underground Railroad, Caviezel was deeply moved and became passionate about spreading this message and helping end child trafficking.

Interview With Jordan B. Peterson

This is episode 372 of Peterson’s podcast entitled The Fight Against Worldwide Child Slavery and the Sex Trade, which features Jim Caviezel and Tim Ballard. It is an excellent interview and talks about the film, the ongoing work involved, child slavery, the child sex trade and what stopped the film from getting released a lot earlier than it has been now.

Angel Studios

You can read about the film distributor here.

Blog Posts

Films: Angel Studios.

Films: Tim Ballard.

Notes And Links

Article source: Angel Studios.

The image shown at the top of this page and the three below is the copyright of Angel Studios.

Sound Of Freedom on IMDb.

Angel Studios – Official website.

Angel Studios on Facebook.

Angel Studios on Twitter.

Angel Studios on Instagram.

Angel Studios on YouTube.

Tim Ballard – Official website.

Operation Underground Railroad – Official website. O.U.R. lead the fight against child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation around the globe. Their work has no boundaries. They go to the darkest corners of the world to assist law enforcement in rescuing children and ensure ongoing aftercare. They provide critical resources to law enforcement and preventative efforts that benefit at-risk children worldwide. Their resolve never falters, and they will faithfully persevere until every child is safe.

Operation Underground Railroad On Facebook.

Operation Underground Railroad On Twitter.

Operation Underground Railroad On YouTube.

Operation Underground On Instagram.

Operation Underground Railroad On LinkedIn.

Operation Underground Railroad On TikTok.

The SPEAR Fund – Official website. The SPEAR Fund collaborates with and funds anti-trafficking organizations to provide quick and effective action when it matters most.

Jordon B. Peterson – Official website.

Jordon B. Peterson on Facebook.

Jordon B. Peterson on YouTube.

Jordon B. Peterson on Instagram.

Films

Everyone loves watching a good film albeit at the cinema or at home on the television etc. With a collection of over 1000 DVDs that includes a LOT of films, it is clear to see that this is another big passion of mine.

I can’t remember the very first film I went to see at the pictures but it was in the mid-1970’s and it possibly could have been the Disney animation adaptation of Robin Hood. Visits to the cinema over the decades as a child and older, with family have always held special memories for me.

Watching a film on the telly is always good but nothing beats the experience and sound quality of watching it on the big screen. Having a home cinema has always been a dream of mine but that probably won’t ever happen but one day I would like to get a decent surround sound system and projector with a large screen or a large telly to watch films on. I will say never say never on that one!

I like most film genres with my favourite being Horror and Science Fiction ones. I have favourite actors and actresses the same as anyone else does and they will be shown on this page. I am not going to list every film I have watched in my lifetime, that would be IMPOSSIBLE to remember but I will list films I have watched and enjoyed that I think are worth watching for someone else but of course, your opinions may differ from mine, that’s life.

About Film

A film, also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay, or flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. Flick is, in general, a slang term, first recorded in 1926. It originates in the verb flicker, owing to the flickering appearance of early films. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and the art form that is the result of it.

The History Of Film

Precursors

The art of film has drawn on several earlier traditions in fields such as oral storytelling, literature, theatre, and visual arts. Forms of art and entertainment that have already featured moving or projected images include shadowgraphy (probably used since prehistoric times), camera obscura (a natural phenomenon that has possibly been used as an artistic aid since prehistoric times), shadow puppetry (possibly originated around 200 BCE in Central Asia, India, Indonesia or China) and the magic lantern (developed in the 1650’s, this multi-media phantasmagoria shows that magic lanterns were popular from 1790 throughout the first half of the 19th century and could feature mechanical slides, rear projection, mobile projectors, superimposition, dissolving views, live actors, smoke that was sometimes used to project images upon, odours, sounds, and even electric shocks).

Before Celluloid

The stroboscopic animation principle was introduced in 1833 with the stroboscopic disc (better known as the phenakisticope) and later applied in the zoetrope (since 1866), the flip book (since 1868), and the praxinoscope (since 1877) before it became the basic principle for cinematography.

Prof. Stampfer’s Stroboscopische Scheibe No. X., created on the 22nd of June, 1833. This is side Nr. 10 of the reworked second series of Stampfer’s stroboscopic disc published by Trentsensky & Vieweg in the same year.

Experiments with early phenakisticope-based animation projectors were made at least as early as 1843 and publicly screened in 1847. Jules Duboscq marketed phenakisticope projection systems in France from circa 1853 until the 1890’s.

Photography was introduced in 1839, but initially, photographic emulsions needed such long exposures that the recording of moving subjects seemed impossible. At least as early as 1844, a photographic series of subjects posed in different positions was created to either suggest a motion sequence or document a range of different viewing angles. The advent of stereoscopic photography, with early experiments in the 1840’s and commercial success since the early 1850’s, raised interest in completing the photographic medium with the addition of means to capture colour and motion. In 1849, Joseph Plateau published the idea to combine his invention of the phenakisticope with the stereoscope, as suggested to him by stereoscope inventor Charles Wheatstone, and to use photographs of plaster sculptures in different positions to be animated in the combined device. In 1852, Jules Duboscq patented such an instrument as the Stereoscope-fantascope, ou Bioscope, but he only marketed it very briefly, without success. One Bioscope disc with stereoscopic photographs of a machine is in the Plateau collection of Ghent University, but no instruments or other discs have yet been found.

By the late 1850’s the first examples of instantaneous photography came about and provided hope that motion photography would soon be possible, but it took a few decades before it was successfully combined with a method to record a series of sequential images in real-time. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge eventually managed to take a series of photographs of a running horse with a battery of cameras in a line along the track and published the results as The Horse in Motion on cabinet cards. Muybridge, as well as Etienne-Jules Marey, Ottomar Anschütz, and many others, would create many more chronophotography studies. Muybridge had the contours of dozens of his chronophotographic series traced onto glass discs and projected them with his zoopraxiscope in his lectures from 1880 to 1895.

An animation of the retouched Sallie Garner card from The Horse in Motion series by Eadweard Muybridge. The series was from 1878 – 1879.

Anschutz made his first instantaneous photographs in 1881. He developed a portable camera that allowed shutter speeds as short as 1/1000 of a second in 1882. The quality of his pictures was generally regarded to be much higher than that of the chronophotography works of Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey. In 1886, Anschutz developed the Electrotachyscope, an early device that displayed short motion picture loops with 24 glass plate photographs on a 1.5-meter-wide rotating wheel that was hand-cranked to the speed of circa 30 frames per second. Different versions were shown at many international exhibitions, fairs, conventions, and arcades from 1887 until at least 1894. Starting in 1891, some 152 examples of a coin-operated peep-box Electrotachyscope model were manufactured by Siemens & Halske in Berlin and sold internationally. Nearly 34,000 people paid to see it at the Berlin Exhibition Park in the summer of 1892. Others saw it in London or at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. On the 25th of November 1894, Anschutz introduced an Electrotachyscope projector with a 6 x 8 meter screening in Berlin. Between the 22nd of February and the 30th of March 1895, a total of circa 7,000 paying customers came to view a 1.5-hour show of some 40 scenes at a 300-seat hall in the old Reichstag building in Berlin.

A picture of Ottomar’s Anschutz’s electrotachyscope, first published in Scientific American on the 16th of November, 1889.

Emile Reynaud already mentioned the possibility of projecting the images of the Praxinoscope in his 1877 patent application. He presented a praxinoscope projection device at the Societe Francaise de Photographie on the 4th of June 1880 but did not market his praxinoscope before 1882. He then further developed the device into the Theatre Optique which could project longer sequences with separate backgrounds, patented in 1888. He created several movies for the machine by painting images on hundreds of gelatin plates that were mounted into cardboard frames and attached to a cloth band. From the 28th of October 1892 to March 1900 Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500,000 visitors at the Grevin Museu in Paris.

First Motion Pictures

By the end of the 1880’s, the introduction of lengths of celluloid photographic film and the invention of motion picture cameras, which could photograph a rapid sequence of images using only one lens, allowed the action to be captured and stored on a single compact reel of film.

Movies were initially shown publicly to one person at a time through peep show devices such as the Electrotachyscope, Kinetoscope, and the Mutoscope. Not much later, exhibitors managed to project films on large screens for theatre audiences.

The first public screenings of films at which admission was charged were made in 1895 by the American Woodville Latham and his sons, using films produced by their Eidoloscope company, by the Skladanowsky brothers, and by the arguably better known French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere with ten of their own productions. Private screenings had preceded these by several months, with Latham’s slightly predating the others.

Roundhay Garden Scene is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in northern England on the 14th of October 1888.

Pauvre Pierrot or Poor Pete as it is known in English is a French short animated film directed by Charles-Emile Reynaud in 1891 and was released in 1892.

Georges Melies’ Le Voyage dans la Lune or A Trip to the Moon as it is known in English is an early narrative film and also an early science fiction film, released in 1902.

The Bond is a two-reel propaganda film created by Charlie Chaplin at his own expense for the Liberty Loan Committee to help sell U.S. Liberty Bonds during World War I, released in 1918.

Early Evolution

The earliest films were simply one static shot that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques. Typical films showed employees leaving a factory gate, people walking in the street, and the view from the front of a trolley as it traveled a city’s Main Street. According to legend, when a film showed a locomotive at high speed approaching the audience, the audience panicked and ran from the theater. Around the turn of the 20th century, films started stringing several scenes together to tell a story. The filmmakers who first put several shots or scenes discovered that, when one shot follows another, that act establishes a relationship between the content in the separate shots in the minds of the viewer. It is this relationship that makes all film storytelling possible. In a simple example, if a person is shown looking out a window, whatever the next shot shows, it will be regarded as the view the person was seeing. Each scene was a single stationary shot with the action occurring before it. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots photographed from different distances and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were developed as effective ways to tell a story with film. Until sound film became commercially practical in the late 1920’s, motion pictures were purely visual art, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Rather than leave audiences with only the noise of the projector as an accompaniment, theater owners hired a pianist or organist or, in large urban theaters, a full orchestra to play music that fit the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920’s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music to be used for this purpose, and complete film scores were composed for major productions.

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, while the film industry in the United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood, typified most prominently by the innovative work of D. W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). However, in the 1920’s, European filmmakers such as Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, in many ways inspired by the meteoric wartime progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued to further advance the medium.

Sound

In the 1920’s, the development of electronic sound recording technologies made it practical to incorporate a soundtrack of speech, music, and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. The resulting sound films were initially distinguished from the usual silent moving pictures or movies by calling them talking pictures or talkies. The revolution they wrought was swift. By 1930, silent film was practically extinct in the US and already being referred to as the old medium.

The evolution of sound in cinema began with the idea of combining moving images with existing phonograph sound technology. Early sound-film systems, such as Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope and the Vitaphone used by Warner Bros., laid the groundwork for synchronized sound in film. The Vitaphone system, produced alongside Bell Telephone Company and Western Electric, faced initial resistance due to expensive equipping costs, but sound in cinema gained acceptance with movies like Don Juan (1926) and The Jazz Singer (1927).

American film studios, while Europe standardized on Tobis-Klangfilm and Tri-Ergon systems. This new technology allowed for greater fluidity in film, giving rise to more complex and epic movies like King Kong (1933).

As the television threat emerged in the 1940’s and 1950’s, the film industry needed to innovate to attract audiences. In terms of sound technology, this meant the development of surround sound and more sophisticated audio systems, such as Cinerama’s seven-channel system. However, these advances required a large number of personnel to operate the equipment and maintain the sound experience in cinemas.

In 1966, Dolby Laboratories introduced the Dolby A noise reduction system, which became a standard in the recording industry and eliminated the hissing sound associated with earlier standardization efforts. Dolby Stereo, a revolutionary surround sound system, followed and allowed cinema designers to take acoustics into consideration when designing cinemas. This innovation enabled audiences in smaller venues to enjoy comparable audio experiences to those in larger city cinemas.

Today, the future of sound in film remains uncertain, with potential influences from artificial intelligence, remastered audio, and personal viewing experiences shaping its development. However, it is clear that the evolution of sound in cinema has been marked by continuous innovation and a desire to create more immersive and engaging experiences for audiences.

Colour

A significant technological advancement in the film industry was the introduction of natural colour, where colour was captured directly from nature through photography, as opposed to being manually added to black-and-white prints using techniques like hand-coloring or stencil-coloring. Early colour processes often produced colours that appeared far from natural. Unlike the rapid transition from silent films to sound films, colour’s replacement of black-and-white happened more gradually.

The crucial innovation was the three-strip version of the Technicolor process, first used in animated cartoons in 1932. The process was later applied to live-action short films, specific sequences in feature films, and finally, to an entire feature film, Becky Sharp, in 1935. Although the process was expensive, the positive public response, as evidenced by increased box office revenue, generally justified the additional cost. Consequently, the number of films made in color gradually increased year after year.

The 1950’s: The Growing Influence Of Television

In the early 1950’s, the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing North American cinema attendance. In an attempt to lure audiences back into cinemas, bigger screens were installed, widescreen processes, polarised 3D projection, and stereophonic sound were introduced, and more films were made in colour, which soon became the rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960’s, but they marked the end of an era. Colour television receivers had been available in the U.S. since the mid-1950’s, but at first, they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in colour. During the 1960’s, prices gradually came down, colour broadcasts became common, and sales boomed. The overwhelming public verdict in favour of colour was clear. After the final flurry of black-and-white films had been released in mid-decade, all Hollywood studio productions were filmed in colour, with the usual exceptions made only at the insistence of star filmmakers such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese.

The 1960’s And Later

The decades following the decline of the studio system in the 1960’s saw changes in the production and style of film. Various New Wave movements (including the French New Wave, New German Cinema wave, Indian New Wave, Japanese New Wave, New Hollywood, and Egyptian New Wave) and the rise of film-school-educated independent filmmakers contributed to the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force for change throughout the 1990’s and into the 2000’s. Digital 3D projection largely replaced earlier problem-prone 3D film systems and has become popular in the early 2010’s.

Salah Zulfikar, one of the most popular actors in the golden age of Egyptian Cinema.

Etymology And Alternative Terms

The name film originally referred to the thin layer of photochemical emulsion on the celluloid strip that used to be the actual medium for recording and displaying motion pictures.

The most common term in Europe is film while in the United States, movie is preferred.

Archaic terms include animated pictures and animated photography. Common terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the silver screen, the movies, and cinema. The last of these is commonly used, as an overarching term, in scholarly texts and critical essays. In the early years, the word sheet was sometimes used instead of screen.

Recording And Transmission Of The Film

The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of C.G.I. and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.

Before the introduction of digital production, a series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitised celluloid (photographic film stock), usually at a rate of 24 frames per second. The images are transmitted through a movie projector at the same rate as they were recorded, with a Geneva drive ensuring that each frame remains still during its short projection time. A rotating shutter causes stroboscopic intervals of darkness, but the viewer does not notice the interruptions due to flicker fusion. The apparent motion on the screen is the result of the fact that the visual sense cannot discern the individual images at high speeds, so the impressions of the images blend with the dark intervals and are thus linked together to produce the illusion of one moving image. An analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of the spoken words, music, and other sounds) runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected.

Contemporary films are usually fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition.

Film Theory

Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. The concept of film as an art-form began in 1911 with Ricciotto Canudo’s manifest The Birth of the Sixth Art. The Moscow Film School, the oldest film school in the world, was founded in 1919, in order to teach about and research film theory. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Bela Balazs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality and thus could be considered a valid fine art. Andre Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film’s artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality, not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytic film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory, and others. On the other hand, critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Wittgenstein, try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film’s vocabulary and its link to a form of life.

The Bolex H16 Reflex camera.

Language

Film is considered to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory, titled How to Read a Film, that addresses this. Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, “Andrei Tarkovsky for me is the greatest director, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.” An example of the language is a sequence of back and forth images of one speaking actor’s left profile, followed by another speaking actor’s right profile, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. This describes another theory of film, the 180-degree rule, as a visual story-telling device with an ability to place a viewer in a context of being psychologically present through the use of visual composition and editing. The Hollywood style includes this narrative theory, due to the overwhelming practice of the rule by movie studios based in Hollywood, California, during film’s classical era. Another example of cinematic language is having a shot that zooms in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection that cuts to a shot of a younger actor who vaguely resembles the first actor, indicating that the first person is remembering a past self, an edit of compositions that causes a time transition.

Montage

Film Criticism

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories, academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media. Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate their opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on the audience response and attendance at films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic’s overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film and the assessment of the director’s and screenwriters’ work that makes up the majority of most film reviews can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas and art films, the influence of reviews is important. Poor reviews from leading critics at major papers and magazines will often reduce audience interest and attendance.

The impact of a reviewer on a given film’s box office performance is a matter of debate. Some observers claim that movie marketing in the 2000’s is so intense, well-coordinated and well financed that reviewers cannot prevent a poorly written or filmed blockbuster from attaining market success. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily promoted films which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent films indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Other observers note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires, as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result. Journalist film critics are sometimes called film reviewers. Critics who take a more academic approach to films, through publishing in film journals and writing books about films using film theory or film studies approaches, study how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their reviews published in newspapers or appearing on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals or up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities as professors or instructors.

In 1986, Roger Ebert, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism said, “If a movie can illuminate the lives of other people who share this planet with us and show us not only how different they are but, how even so, they share the same dreams and hurts, then it deserves to be called great.”

Industry

Read more about Industry here. Read more about World Cinema

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumieres quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import, and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898 was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917 Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars. From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders.

In the United States, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood, California. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry’s Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world. Though the expense involved in making films has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.

Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, an example being Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as the Oscars) are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, based on their artistic merits (but it has got so woke lately that is questionable indeed). There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts. Revenue in the industry is sometimes volatile due to the reliance on blockbuster films released in movie theaters. The rise of alternative home entertainment has raised questions about the future of the cinema industry, and Hollywood employment has become less reliable, particularly for medium and low-budget films.

World Cinema

Read more about World Cinema here.

World cinema is a term in film theory that refers to films made outside of the American motion picture industry, particularly those in opposition to the aesthetics and values of commercial American cinema. The Third Cinema of Latin America and various national cinemas are commonly identified as part of world cinema. The term has been criticized for Americentrism and for ignoring the diversity of different cinematic traditions around the world.

Most productive cinemas around the world based on IMDb (as of 2009). Over 10,000 titles (green), over 5,000 (yellow), over 1,000 (blue).

Associated Fields

Read more about Film theory here, Product placement here, and Propaganda here.

Derivative academic fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism, film history, divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects (e.g., of a flashing soda can during a screening). These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and film-related toys (e.g., Star Wars figures). Sub-industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement and other advertising within films.

Terminology

The terminology used for describing motion pictures varies considerably between British and American English. In British usage, the name of the medium is film. The word movie is understood but seldom used. Additionally, the pictures (plural) is used semi-frequently to refer to the place where movies are exhibited, while in American English this may be called the movies, but it is becoming outdated. In other countries, the place where movies are exhibited may be called a cinema or movie theatre. By contrast, in the United States, movie is the predominant form. Although the words film and movie are sometimes used interchangeably, film is more often used when considering artistic, theoretical, or technical aspects. The term movies more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, such as where to go for a fun evening on a date. For example, a book titled How to Understand a Film would probably be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while a book entitled Let’s Go to the Movies would probably be about the history of entertaining movies and blockbusters.

Further terminology is used to distinguish various forms and media used in the film industry. Motion pictures and moving pictures are frequently used terms for film and movie productions specifically intended for theatrical exhibition, such as, for instance, Star Wars. DVD and videotape are video formats that can reproduce a photochemical film. A reproduction based on such is called a transfer. After the advent of theatrical film as an industry, the television industry began using videotape as a recording medium. For many decades, the tape was solely an analogue medium onto which moving images could be either recorded or transferred. Film and filming refer to the photochemical medium that chemically records a visual image and the act of recording respectively. However, the act of shooting images with other visual media, such as with a digital camera, is still called filming and the resulting works are often called films as interchangeable with movies, despite not being shot on film. Silent films need not be utterly silent but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, including those that have a musical accompaniment. The word, Talkies, refers to the earliest sound films created to have audible dialogue recorded for playback along with the film, regardless of a musical accompaniment. Cinema either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or it is roughly synonymous with film and theatrical exhibition, and both are capitalised when referring to a category of art. The silver screen refers to the projection screen used to exhibit films and, by extension, is also used as a metonym for the entire film industry.

Widescreen refers to a larger width to height in the frame, compared to earlier historic aspect ratios. A feature-length film, or feature film, is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed screening. A short is a film that is not as long as a feature-length film, often screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature-length film. An independent is a film made outside the conventional film industry.

In U.S. usage, one talks of a screening or projection of a movie or video on a screen at a public or private theatre. In British English, a film showing happens at a cinema, never a theatre, which is a different medium and place altogether. A cinema usually refers to an arena designed specifically to exhibit films, where the screen is affixed to a wall, while a theatre usually refers to a place where live, non-recorded action or combination thereof occurs from a podium or other type of stage, including the amphitheatre. Theatres can still screen movies in them, though the theatre would be retrofitted to do so. One might propose going to the cinema when referring to the activity, or sometimes to the pictures in British English, whereas the U.S. expression is usually going to the movies. A cinema usually shows a mass-marketed movie using a front-projection screen process with either a film projector or, more recently, with a digital projector. But, cinemas may also show theatrical movies from their home video transfers that include Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and videocassette when they possess sufficient projection quality or based upon need, such as movies that exist only in their transferred state, which may be due to the loss or deterioration of the film master and prints from which the movie originally existed. Due to the advent of digital film production and distribution, physical film might be absent entirely. A double feature is a screening of two independently marketed, stand-alone feature films. A viewing is a watching of a film. Sales and at the box office refer to tickets sold at a theatre, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A release is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film. A preview is a screening in advance of the main release.

Any film may also have a sequel, which portrays events following those in the film. Bride of Frankenstein is an early example. When there are more films than one with the same characters, story arcs, or subject themes, these movies become a series, such as the James Bond series. And, existing outside a specific story timeline usually, does not exclude a film from being part of a series. A film that portrays events occurring earlier in a timeline with those in another film, but is released after that film, is sometimes called a prequel, an example being Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.

The credits, or end credits, are a list that gives credit to the people involved in the production of a film. Films from before the 1970’s usually start a film with credits, often ending with only a title card, saying The End or some equivalent, often an equivalent that depends on the language of the production. From then onward, a film’s credits usually appear at the end of most films. However, films with credits that end a film often repeat some credits at or near the start of a film and therefore appear twice, such as that film’s acting leads, while less frequently some appearing near or at the beginning only appear there, not at the end, which often happens to the director’s credit. The credits appearing at or near the beginning of a film are usually called titles or beginning titles. A post-credits scene is a scene shown after the end of the credits. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has a post-credit scene in which Ferris tells the audience that the film is over and they should go home.

A film’s cast refers to a collection of the actors and actresses who appear, or star, in a film. A star is an actor or actress, often a popular one, and in many cases, a celebrity who plays a central character in a film. Occasionally the word can also be used to refer to the fame of other members of the crew, such as a director or other personality, such as Martin Scorsese. A crew is usually interpreted as the people involved in a film’s physical construction outside cast participation, and it could include directors, film editors, photographers, grips, gaffers, set decorators, prop masters, and costume designers. A person can both be part of a film’s cast and crew, such as Woody Allen, who directed and starred in Take the Money and Run.

A film goer, movie goer, or film buff is a person who likes or often attends films and movies, and any of these, though more often the latter, could also see oneself as a student of films and movies. Intense interest in films, film theory, and film criticism, is known as cinephilia. A film enthusiast is known as a cinephile or cineaste.

Preview

Trailer And Teaser

Read more about the Film trailer here.

Trailers or previews are advertisements for films that will be shown in 1 to 3 months at a cinema. Back in the early days of cinema, with cinemas that had only one or two screens, only certain trailers were shown for the films that were going to be shown there. Later, when cinemas added more screens or new cinemas were built with a lot of screens, all different trailers were shown even if they were not going to play that film in that cinema. Film studios realised that the more trailers that were shown (even if it was not going to be shown in that particular cinema) the more patrons would go to a different cinema to see the film when it came out. The term trailer comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film. That practice did not last long because patrons tended to leave the theatre after the films ended, but the name stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film, or when the first film in a double feature begins. Film trailers are also common on DVD’s and Blu-ray Discs, as well as on the Internet and mobile devices. Trailers are created to be engaging and interesting for viewers. As a result, in the Internet era, viewers often seek out trailers to watch them. Of the ten billion videos watched online annually in 2008, film trailers ranked third, after news and user-created videos. Teasers are a much shorter preview or advertisement that lasts only 10 to 30 seconds. Teasers are used to get patrons excited about a film coming out in the next six to twelve months. Teasers may be produced even before the film production is completed.

The Role Of Film In Culture

Films are cultural artefacts created by specific cultures, facilitating intercultural dialogue. It is considered to be an important art form that provides entertainment and historical value, often visually documenting a period of time. The visual basis of the medium gives it a universal power of communication, often stretched further through the use of dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialogue into other languages. Just seeing a location in a film is linked to higher tourism to that location, demonstrating how powerful the suggestive nature of the medium can be.

Education And Propaganda

Read more about Educational films here and Propaganda films here.

Film is used for a range of goals, including education and propaganda due to its ability to effectively intercultural dialogue. When the purpose is primarily educational, a film is called an educational film. Examples are recordings of academic lectures and experiments, or a film based on a classic novel. Film may be propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, U.S. war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by Sergei Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of Andrzej Wajda, or more subtly, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others as the Film is used for a range of goals, including education and propaganda due to its ability to effectively intercultural dialogue. When the purpose is primarily educational, a film is called an educational film. Examples are recordings of academic lectures and experiments, or a film based on a classic novel. Film may be propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, U.S. war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by Sergei Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of Andrzej Wajda, or more subtly, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others as the categorisation of a film can be subjective.

Production

Read more about Filmmaking here.

At its core, the means to produce a film depend on the content the filmmaker wishes to show, and the apparatus for displaying it e.g. the zoetrope merely requires a series of images on a strip of paper. Film production can, therefore, take as little as one person with a camera, or even without a camera, as in Stan Brakhage’s 1963 film Mothlight, or thousands of actors, extras, and crew members for a live-action, feature-length epic. The necessary steps for almost any film can be boiled down to conception, planning, execution, revision, and distribution. The more involved the production, the more significant each of the steps becomes. In a typical production cycle of a Hollywood-style film, these main stages are defined as development, pre-production, production, post-production and distribution.

This production cycle usually takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution. The bigger the production, the more resources it takes, and the more important financing becomes. Most feature films are artistic works from the creators’ perspective, e.g., film directors, cinematographers, screenwriters and for-profit business entities for the production companies.

Crew

Technology

Independent

Read more about Independent film here.

Independent filmmaking often takes place outside Hollywood or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major film studio. Creative, business and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century. On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also lead to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987). A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.

Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film. The advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990’s, have lowered the technology barrier to film production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered. In the 2000’s, the hardware and software for post-production could be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVD’s, FireWire connections and a wide variety of professional and consumer-grade video editing software make film-making relatively affordable.

Since the introduction of digital video D.V. technology, the means of production have become more democratised. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot a film with a digital video camera and edit the film, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a high-end home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratised, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video websites such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the filmmaking landscape, enabling indie filmmakers to make their films available to the public.

The Lumiere Brothers were among the first filmmakers.

Open Content Film

Read more about Open content film here.

An open-content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations. Its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside Hollywood or other major studio systems. For example, the film Balloon was based on a real event during the Cold War.

Fan Film

Read more about Fan films here.

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source’s copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the most notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.

Distribution

Read more about Film distribution here and Film release here.

Film distribution is the process through which a film is made available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing strategy of the film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing, and may set the release date and other matters. The film may be exhibited directly to the public either through a cinema (historically the main way films were distributed) or television for personal home viewing including on DVD-Video or Blu-ray Disc, video-on-demand, online downloading, television programs through broadcast syndication etc. Other ways of distributing a film include rental or personal purchase of the film in a variety of media and formats, such as VHS tape or DVD, or Internet downloading or streaming using a computer.

Animation

Read more about Animation here.

Animation is a technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic (by photographing a drawn image), or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the phi phenomenon). Generating such a film is very labour-intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process. Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for television and films comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950’s, with animation being produced by independent studios and sometimes by a single person. Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing the costs of animation by using shortcuts in the animation process. This method was pioneered by U.P.A. and popularized by Hanna-Barbera in the United States, and by Osamu Tezuka in Japan, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theatres to television. Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Camera-less animation, made famous by filmmakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye, and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.

Further Information

Click on the links below to read more about the subject matter.

Bibliography of film by genre.

Docufiction (hybrid genre).

Filmmaking.

Filmophile.

Glossary of motion picture terms.

Index of video-related articles.

List of books on films.

List of film awards.

List of film festivals.

Lists of films.

List of film periodicals.

List of years in film.

Lost film.

Outline of film.

Television film.

The Movies, a simulation game about the film industry, taking place at the dawn of cinema.

Web film.

Read more about Film here.

Blog Posts

Films: Angel Studios.

Films: Sound Of Freedom.

Films: Tim Ballard.

Notes And Links

Article source: Wikipedia and is subject to change.

Bence Szemerey on Pexels – The image shown at the top of this page is the copyright of Bence Szemerey. You can find more great work from the photographer Bence and lots more free stock photos at Pexels.

The Prof. Stampfer’s Stroboscopische Scheibe No. X animation above is the copyright of Simon Ritter von Stampfer and is in the public domain.

The Horse In Motion animation above is the copyright of Eadweard Muybridge and is in the public domain.

The image above of a picture of Ottomar’s Anschutz’s electrotachyscope is copyright unknown as is in the public domain.

The video above of Roundhay Garden Scene is in the public domain. You can read more about the film by clicking here.

The video above of Pauvre Pierrot is in the public domain. You can read more about the film by clicking here.

The video above of Le voyage dans la lune is in the public domain. You can read more about the film by clicking here.

The video above of The Bond is in the public domain. You can read more about the film by clicking here.

The image above of a picture of Salah Zulfikar, is copyright unknown as is in the public domain.

The image above of The Bolex H16 Reflex camera is the copyright of Wikipedia user Janke and is in the public domain.

The image above of The Most Productive Cinemas Around The World is copyright unknown via Wikipedia. It comes with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 3.0).

The image above of The Lumiere Brothers is copyright unknown as is in the public domain.

The image above of an Animated Horse is the copyright of Wikipedia user Janke and is in the public domain. It comes with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.5).

Creative Commons – Official website. They offer better sharing, advancing universal access to knowledge and culture, and fostering creativity, innovation, and collaboration.

IMDb – Official website. IMDb is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online, including cast, production crew and personal biographies, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and fan and critical reviews.

IMDb on Facebook.

IMDb on Twitter.

IMDb on YouTube.

Wikipedia – Official website. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit in good faith. Its purpose is to benefit readers by containing information on all branches of knowledge. Hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, it consists of freely editable content, whose articles also have numerous links to guide readers to more information.

Christmas: A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens – Screen Versions

I LOVE A CHRISTMAS CAROL!

Obviously, the original book is the best version of any format because it is the original source material but as long as other versions stick close to that source then I will more than likely enjoy it.

Below are just some of the MANY film and TV versions out there for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

1900’s

I haven’t watched this version but I have included it as it is a silent movie piece of history and the earliest screen version that was made.

Read more about Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost (1901), starring Daniel Smith, here.

1910’s

Another version I haven’t watched but again I have included it as it is a silent movie piece of history. This one was made in America by the Edison Film Company and is the second earliest screen version after Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost (1901)

Read more about A Christmas Carol (1910), starring Marc McDermott, here.

1930’s

Another version I haven’t watched but I have included it as it is a very early screen version.

Read more about Scrooge (1935), starring Seymour Hicks, here.

1950’s

This is a great screen version.

Read more about Scrooge (1951), starring Alastair Sim, here.

1970’s

This is my all-time favourite screen version and always brings fond memories of my Mom as we watched this every year together.

Read more about Scrooge (1970, starring Albert Finney, here.

This is a good screen-animated version.

Read more about A Christmas Carol (1971), starring Alastair Sim, here.

1980’s

This is a great screen version.

Read more about A Christmas Carol (1984), starring George C. Scott, here.

1990’s

This is a great screen version.

Read more about A Christmas Carol (1999), starring Patrick Stewart, here.

Blog Posts

Blue Peter: An Advent Crown For Christmas.

Books: A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens.

Jokes: Christmas Jokes.

Music: Christmas Music.

Poetry: A Harley Davidson Christmas Poem By Unknown.

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

Notes And Links

Liliboas on iStock. The image shown at the top of this page of a Christmas tree and presents is the copyright of Liliboas. You can find more great work from the photographer Lili and lots more free stock photos at iStock.

Charles Dickens Museum – Official website. The museum is situated at 48 Doughty Street, Dickens’s London home from 1837-1839. He moved there with his wife Catherine and their eldest son Charlie. After the Dickenses left Doughty Street, the property was largely used as a boarding house until the Dickens Fellowship purchased it as their headquarters in 1923. The house opened to the public in 1925 and houses a significant collection linked to Dickens and his works.

Today the Charles Dickens Museum is set up as though Dickens himself had just left. It appears as a fairly typical middle-class Victorian home, complete with furnishings, portraits and decorations which are known to have belonged to Dickens. A visit to the museum allows you to step back into 1837 and to see a world which is at once both intimately familiar, yet astonishingly different. A world in which one of the greatest writers in the English language, found his inspiration.

Charles Dickens Museum official Facebook page.

Charles Dickens Museum official Twitter page.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books. Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

All videos are via YouTube and their copyright belongs to whoever.

Universal Classic Monsters

Ever since I was little I have loved Universal classic monsters, for it is they that started my love of Horror off, even if they scared the hell out of me at first and I hid under my Mom’s arm or behind the settee at first watching them, ha ha. That changed the older I got.

When Halloween comes around you can be sure someone is wearing an Halloween costume that relates to one of the classic monsters mentioned below.

There will be more references to Universal Classic Monsters in the appropriate Decades sections and articles via the Horror index below.

Universal Classic Monsters

Universal Classic Monsters (also known as Universal Monsters and Universal Studios Monsters) is a media franchise based on a series of horror films primarily produced by Universal Pictures from the 1930s to the 1950s. Although not initially conceived as a franchise, the enduring popularity and legacy of the films and the characters featured in them have led the studio to market them under the collective brand name of Universal Studios Monsters. Steve Jones of USA Today described Universal’s most famous monsters as pop culture icons, specifically Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Wolf Man.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula.

This is a screenshot from the Internet Archive of the classic 1931 film Dracula. You can see the trailer it came from here.

Boris Karloff as The Mummy.

This is a screenshot from the Internet Archive of the classic 1932 film The Mummy. You can see the trailer it came from here.

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster.

Directed by James Whale.

You can see the trailer for the classic Frankenstein film from 1931 via The Internet Archive here.

Lon Chaney Jnr. as The Wolf Man.

This promotional photo is from the classic1941 film The Wolf Man.

You can see the trailer for The Wolf Man via The Internet Archive here.

See more photos and relevant information further down below.

Universal Monsters Films

For an extensive list of Universal Monsters Films click here.

Universal Monsters Films Free To Watch

Below are just some of the great Universal Monsters films for you to enjoy.

They are not all classic films to me but if I have watched one and I think it is I will say so.

The Phantom Of The Opera 1925 Silent Film In Full

Watch the classic 1925 silent film The Phantom Of The Opera starring Lon Chaney via The Internet Archive here.

See information about this classic film further down at the top of the page.

Dracula 1931 In Full

Watch the classic 1931 film Dracula starring Bela Lugosi via The Internet Archive here.

See information about this classic film at the top of the page.

Frankenstein 1931 In Full

Watch the classic 1931 film Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff via The Internet Archive here.

See information about this classic film at the top of the page.

The Mummy 1932 In Full

Watch the classic 1932 film The Mummy starring Boris Karloff via The Internet Archive here.

See information about this classic film at the top of the page.

The Invisible Man 1933 In Full

Watch the classic 1933 film The Invisible Man starring Claude Rains via The Internet Archive here.

See information about this classic film further down at the bottom of the page.

The Bride Of Frankenstein 1935 In Full

Watch the 1935 film The Bride Of Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff via The Internet Archive here.

See information about this film further down at the bottom of the page.

Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man 1942 In Full

Watch the 1942 film Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man starring Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jnr via The Internet Archive here.

See information about this film further down at the bottom of the page.

Universal Classic Monsters Home Video

Universal Classic Monsters logo.

This is the official franchise logo as displayed on home video releases

Louis Feola was the head of Worldwide Home Video for Universal Studios and said in 1999 that “a couple of years ago” he decided to “reinvigorate and re-market” Universal’s Classic Monsters catalogue which included the series Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Phantom of the Opera, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy. In 1992, in an interview with Billboard, Feola stated that to market and sell home video, the most important thing was the packaging of their sales which was “probably our single biggest priority and has been for a number of years”, and that it was key to make the series of films “look like a line”.

In 1995, MCA/Universal released a collection of the film on home video under the title The Universal Studios Monsters Classic Collection. This series included Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and The Creature From the Black Lagoon series. A collection of stamps featuring Universal Classic Monsters was also released in September 1997 titled the Universal Classic Movie Monsters series. Other characters included in the series included the Mummy and Frankenstein’s monster, both played by Boris Karloff), the Phantom of the Opera played by Lon Chaney and the Wolf Man played by Lon Chaney Jnr.

Universal Classic Monsters Merchandising

After the Universal horror films were syndicated to television, this led to a rise in the popularity of merchandise based on Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula. Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, the Universal monsters were promoted via merchandising which included: Halloween costumes, Aurora model kits, paperback novelizations, makeup how-to manuals, T-shirt iron-ons, posters, trading cards, and more. Since 1991, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Parks & Resorts have featured characters from the Universal Classic Monsters franchise. From 2006 to 2014, the characters also appeared in the year-round walk-through attraction, Universal’s House of Horrors, at Universal Studios Hollywood. The franchise is also the central theme of Universal’s Horror Make-Up Show. The live show opened in 1990 at Universal Studios Florida and is still in operation. Merchandising of the characters in formats such as clothing and board games has continued into the 21st century.

Universal Monsters Comics

Dark Horse Comics

You can read more about Dark Horse Comics here.

Dark Horse Comics released comic adaptions of several of the films, featuring four one-shots and one collected edition, in 1993 and 2006, respectively.

You can see which comics Dark Horse Comics produced here.

Skybound Entertainment

You can read more about Skybound Entertainment here.

Skybound Entertainment, an Image Comics company, will publish a new series of Universal Monsters comic books.

You can read more about Image Comics here.

You can see which comics Skybound Entertainment produced here.

Universal Monsters Photos

Below are just some of the great Universal Monsters films photos for you to enjoy. They are not all classic films to me but if I have watched one and I think it is I will say so.

Lon Chaney as The Phantom Of The Opera.

This photo is from the classic 1925 silent film The Phantom Of The Opera.

You can see the trailer for The Phantom Of The Opera via the Internet Archive here.

The Phantom Of The Opera 1925 film poster.

Dracula 1931 film poster.

See information about this classic film at the top of the page.

Frankenstein 1931 film poster.

See information about this classic film at the top of the page.

The EXCELLENT Frankenstein mask from Trick Or Treat Studios.

This is a very cool Universal Classic Monsters mask I purchased for Halloween 2023. It is officially licenced by Universal Studios and made for Trick Or Treat Studios. It is, to date, the favourite mask I have in my mask collection and what I have worn for Halloween parties. To see me in this and many more masks click here.

The Mummy 1932 film poster.

See information about this classic film at the top of the page.

Claude Rains as The Invisible Man.

This photo is from the classic 1933 film The Invisible Man.

Directed by James Whale.

You can see the trailer for The Invisible Man via YouTube here.

The Invisible Man 1933 film poster.

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster.

This promotional photo is from the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein.

Directed by James Whale.

You can see the trailer for The Bride Of Frankenstein via the Internet Archive here.

The Wolf Man 1942 film poster.

See information about this classic film at the top of the page.

Nelson Eddy as The Phantom Of The Opera.

This photo is from the 1943 film Phantom Of The Opera.

You can see the trailer for Phantom Of The Opera via YouTube here.

Phantom Of The Opera 1943 film poster.

Creature From The Black Lagoon 1945 film poster.

Ben Chapman as The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

There were two men playing the creature in the film, Ricou Browning in the water and Ben Chapman out of the water (shown here). None of them were credited which was unfair in my opinion considering they were both playing the actual monster in the film title and for that reason, I have rightly acknowledged them both here.

This photo is from the 1954 film Creature From The Black Lagoon.

You can see the trailer for Creature From The Black Lagoon via the Internet Archive here.

You can see references and sources to the above articles here. The above was sourced from a page on Wikipedia and is subject to change.

Blog Posts

Horror: Halloween.

Horror: Halloween Photos (Part 1).

Horror: Halloween Photos (Part 2).

Horror: Halloween Photos (Part 3).

Horror: Halloween Photos (Part 4).

Links

Universal Pictures – Official website. The image shown at the top of this page, and elsewhere, of the Universal Classic Monsters logo is the copyright of Universal Pictures and was taken from Wikipedia.

The image above of Bela Lugosi as Dracula is from the Internet Archive via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image above of Boris Karloff as The Mummy is from the Internet Archive via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image above of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster is via Wikipedia and in the public domain.

The image above of Lon Chaney Jnr. as The Wolf Man is via Wikipedia.

The image above of Lon Chaney as The Phantom Of The Opera is via IMDb.

The image above of The Phantom Of The Opera 1925 film poster by unknown is via Wikipedia and in the public domain.

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Horror

What is there not to like about horror? It is an escapism from the real world and so damn cool. I love so much about it. This page concentrates on the Horror genre and anything I post about that can be seen in Blog Posts below.

I have been a fan of Horror, particularly Horror films since I was little. I have loved Universal classic monsters, for it is they that started my love of Horror off, even if they scared the hell out of me at first and I hid under my Mom’s arm or behind the settee at first watching them., ha ha. That changed the older I got.

If you mention anything to do with horror then it is inevitable Halloween is mentioned.

Growing up in England from a child to a teenager in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, Halloween was an American thing you saw on the telly. There was no dressing up and trick-or-treating, not in my family home anyway. Even when my kids were younger I never really bothered much about Halloween. It was just all too American for me and just liked the English traditions I was brought up with. They had fun wearing masks, bobbing for apples etc. but we never went out dressed up knocking on people’s doors. in fact, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone else do it either.

Nowadays all of the above is a common sight. I am no killjoy and I don’t knock anyone who really enjoys it. I admit it’s a fun thing for kids to do and a good excuse for a party for the adults which I have enjoyed going to in the past few years. When you have suffered from depression and anxiety for as long as I have, just to be included can be a lifesaver.

The main thing I like about Halloween is dressing up and the Horror theme to it. I have never celebrated Halloween in my life in the past because, since I was a kid, I have loved horror. Every day is Halloween for me, ha ha.

About Horror

Horror is a genre of fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten or scare. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which are in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as “a piece of fiction in prose of variable length… which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing”. Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.

Prevalent elements include ghosts, demons, vampires, monsters, zombies, werewolves, the Devil, serial killers, extraterrestrial life, killer toys, psychopaths, gore, torture, evil clowns, cults, cannibalism, vicious animals, the apocalypse, evil witches, dystopia and man-made or natural disasters.

The Raven by Gustave Dore.

This is an illustration of the 1884 edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. It is referring to the illustration “Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

The History Of Horror

Before 1000

The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic and the principle of the thing embodied in the person. These manifested in stories of beings such as demons, witches, vampires, werewolves and ghosts. European horror fiction became established through the works of the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans. Mary Shelley’s well-known 1818 novel about Frankenstein was greatly influenced by the story of Hippolytus, whom Asclepius revives from death. Euripides wrote plays based on the story, Hippolytos Kalyptomenos and Hippolytus. In Plutarch’s The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans in the account of Cimon, the author describes the spirit of a murderer, Damon, who himself was murdered in a bathhouse in Chaeronea.

Pliny the Younger (61 to circa 113) tells the tale of Athenodorus Cananites, who bought a haunted house in Athens. Athenodorus was cautious since the house seemed inexpensive. While writing a book on philosophy, he was visited by a ghostly figure bound in chains. The figure disappeared in the courtyard and the following day, the magistrates dug in the courtyard and found an unmarked grave.

Elements of the horror genre also occur in Biblical texts, notably in the Book of Revelation.

After 1000

The Witch of Berkeley by William of Malmesbury has been viewed as an early horror story. Werewolf stories were popular in medieval French literature. One of Marie de France’s twelve lais is a werewolf story titled Bisclavret.

The Countess Yolande commissioned a werewolf story titled Guillaume de Palerme. Anonymous writers penned two werewolf stories, Biclarel and Melion.

Much horror fiction derives from the cruellest personages of the 15th century. Dracula can be traced to the Prince of Wallachia Vlad III, whose alleged war crimes were published in German pamphlets. A 1499 pamphlet was published by Markus Ayrer, which is most notable for its woodcut imagery. The alleged serial killer sprees of Gilles de Rais have been seen as the inspiration for Bluebeard. The motif of the vampiress is most notably derived from the real-life noblewoman and murderer, Elizabeth Bathory, and helped usher in the emergence of horror fiction in the 18th century, such as through Laszlo Turoczi’s 1729 book Tragica Historia.

Vlad The Impaler.

This is a portrait of Vlad Tzepesh (Vlad III). He was the inspiration for Count Dracula. Tzepesh ruled from 1455 – 1462 and 1483 – 1496.

18th Century

The 18th century saw the gradual development of Romanticism and the Gothic horror genre. It drew on the written and material heritage of the Late Middle Ages, finding its form with Horace Walpole’s seminal and controversial 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto. In fact, the first edition was published disguised as an actual medieval romance from Italy, discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. Once revealed as modern, many found it anachronistic, reactionary, or simply in poor taste but it proved immediately popular. Otranto inspired Vathek (1786) by William Beckford, A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1796) by Ann Radcliffe and The Monk (1797) by Matthew Lewis. A significant amount of horror fiction of this era was written by women and marketed towards a female audience, a typical scenario of the novels being a resourceful female menaced in a gloomy castle.

Horace Walpole by Joshua Reynolds.

Athenodorus by Henry Justice Ford.

Here Athenodorus confronts the Spectre. It is from The Strange Story Book by Leonora Blanche Lang and Andrew Lang.

19th Century

The Gothic tradition blossomed into the genre that modern readers today call horror literature in the 19th century. Influential works and characters that continue resonating in fiction and film today saw their genesis in the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel (1812), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), Jane C. Loudon’s The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827), Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), Thomas Peckett Prest’s Varney the Vampire (1847), the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the works of Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man (1897), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Each of these works created an enduring icon of horror seen in later re-imaginings on the page, stage and screen.

Mary Shelley By Richard Rothwell.

20th Century

A proliferation of cheap periodicals around the turn of the century led to a boom in horror writing. For example, Gaston Leroux serialised his Le Fantome de l’Opera (The Phantom Of The Opera) before it became a novel in 1910. One writer who specialised in horror fiction for mainstream pulps, such as All-Story Magazine, was Tod Robbins, whose fiction deals with themes of madness and cruelty. In Russia, the writer Alexander Belyaev popularised these themes in his story Professor Dowell’s Head (1925), in which a mad doctor performs experimental head transplants and reanimations on bodies stolen from the morgue, and which was first published as a magazine serial before being turned into a novel. Later, specialist publications emerged to give horror writers an outlet, prominent among them were Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds.

Influential horror writers of the early 20th century made inroads into these mediums. Particularly, the venerated horror author H. P. Lovecraft, and his enduring Cthulhu Mythos transformed and popularised the genre of cosmic horror, and M. R. James is credited with redefining the ghost story in that era.

The serial murderer became a recurring theme. Yellow journalism and sensationalism of various murderers, such as Jack the Ripper, and lesser so, Carl Panzram, Fritz Haarman, and Albert Fish, all perpetuated this phenomenon. The trend continued in the postwar era, partly renewed after the murders committed by Ed Gein. In 1959, Robert Bloch, inspired by the murders, wrote Psycho. The crimes committed in 1969 by the Manson Family influenced the slasher theme in horror fiction of the 1970’s. In 1981, Thomas Harris wrote Red Dragon, introducing Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In 1988, the sequel to that novel, The Silence of the Lambs, was published.

Early cinema was inspired by many aspects of horror literature and started a strong tradition of horror films and subgenres that continues to this day. Up until the graphic depictions of violence and gore on the screen commonly associated with 1960’s and 1970’s slasher films and splatter films, comic books such as those published by EC Comics (most notably Tales From The Crypt) in the 1950’s satisfied readers’ quests for horror imagery that the silver screen could not provide. This imagery made these comics controversial, and as a consequence, they were frequently censored.

The modern zombie tale dealing with the motif of the living dead harks back to works including H. P. Lovecraft’s stories Cool Air (1925), In The Vault (1926), and The Outsider (1926), and Dennis Wheatley’s Strange Conflict (1941). Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend (1954) influenced an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematized by the films of George A. Romero.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the enormous commercial success of three books – Rosemary’s Baby (1967) by Ira Levin, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and The Other by Thomas Tryon encouraged publishers to begin releasing numerous other horror novels, thus creating a horror boom.

One of the best-known late-20th-century horror writers is Stephen King, known for Carrie, The Shining, It, Misery and several dozen other novels and about 200 short stories. Beginning in the 1970’s, King’s stories have attracted a large audience, for which he was awarded by the U.S. National Book Foundation in 2003. Other popular horror authors of the period included Anne Rice, Brian Lumley, Graham Masterton, James Herbert, Dean Koontz, Richard Laymon, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, and Peter Straub.

Stephen King.

This photo of King was taken at the 2007 New York Comicon in America.

21st Century

Best-selling book series of contemporary times exist in genres related to horror fiction, such as the werewolf fiction urban fantasy Kitty Norville books by Carrie Vaughn (2005 onward). Horror elements continue to expand outside the genre. The alternate history of more traditional historical horror in Dan Simmons’s 2007 novel The Terror sits on bookstore shelves next to genre mash-ups such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), and historical fantasy and horror comics such as Hellblazer (1993 onward) and Mike Mignola’s Hellboy (1993 onward). Horror also serves as one of the central genres in more complex modern works such as Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000), a finalist for the National Book Award. There are many horror novels for children and teens, such as R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps series or The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey. Additionally, many movies for young audiences, particularly animated ones, use horror aesthetics and conventions, for example, ParaNorman. These are what can be collectively referred to as children’s horror. Although it is unknown for sure why children enjoy these movies (as it seems counter-intuitive), it is theorised that it is, in part, grotesque monsters that fascinate kids. Tangential to this, the internalised impact of horror television programs and films on children is rather under-researched, especially when compared to the research done on the similar subject of violence in TV and film’s impact on the young mind. What little research there is tends to be inconclusive on the impact that viewing such media has.

Related Genres

History of horror films.

List of horror fiction writers.

List of horror podcasts.

List of horror television programmes.

Horror Characteristics

One defining trait of the horror genre is that it provokes an emotional, psychological, or physical response within readers that causes them to react with fear. One of H. P. Lovecraft’s most famous quotes about the genre is “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”. This is the first sentence from his seminal essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature. Science fiction historian Darrell Schweitzer has stated, “In the simplest sense, a horror story is one that scares us” and “the true horror story requires a sense of evil, not in necessarily in a theological sense, but the menaces must be truly menacing, life-destroying, and antithetical to happiness.”

In her essay Elements of Aversion, Elizabeth Barrette articulates the need by some for horror tales in a modern world. She says, “The old fight or flight reaction of our evolutionary heritage once played a major role in the life of every human. Our ancestors lived and died by it. Then someone invented the fascinating game of civilization, and things began to calm down. Development pushed wilderness back from settled lands. War, crime, and other forms of social violence came with civilization and humans started preying on each other, but by and large daily life calmed down. We began to feel restless, to feel something missing, the excitement of living on the edge, the tension between hunter and hunted. So we told each other stories through the long, dark nights. when the fires burned low, we did our best to scare the daylights out of each other. The rush of adrenaline feels good. Our hearts pound, our breath quickens, and we can imagine ourselves on the edge. Yet we also appreciate the insightful aspects of horror. Sometimes a story intends to shock and disgust, but the best horror intends to rattle our cages and shake us out of our complacency. It makes us think, forces us to confront ideas we might rather ignore, and challenges preconceptions of all kinds. Horror reminds us that the world is not always as safe as it seems, which exercises our mental muscles and reminds us to keep a little healthy caution close at hand.”

In a sense similar to the reason a person seeks out the controlled thrill of a roller coaster, readers in the modern era seek out feelings of horror and terror to feel a sense of excitement. However, Barrette adds that horror fiction is one of the few mediums where readers seek out a form of art that forces themselves to confront ideas and images they “might rather ignore to challenge preconceptions of all kinds.”

One can see the confrontation of ideas that readers and characters would rather ignore throughout literature in famous moments such as Hamlet’s musings about the skull of Yorick, its implications of the mortality of humanity, and the gruesome end that bodies inevitably come to. In horror fiction, the confrontation with the gruesome is often a metaphor for the problems facing the current generation of the author.

There are many theories as to why people enjoy being scared. For example, people who like horror films are more likely to score highly for openness to experience, a personality trait linked to intellect and imagination.

It is a now commonly accepted view that the horror elements of Dracula’s portrayal of vampirism are metaphors for sexuality in a repressed Victorian era. But this is merely one of many interpretations of the metaphor of Dracula. Jack Halberstam postulates many of these in his essay Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He writes, “[The] image of dusty and unused gold, coins from many nations and old unworn jewels, immediately connects Dracula to the old money of a corrupt class, to a kind of piracy of nations and to the worst excesses of the aristocracy.”

Halberstram articulates a view of Dracula as manifesting the growing perception of the aristocracy as an evil and outdated notion to be defeated. The depiction of a multinational band of protagonists using the latest technologies (such as a telegraph) to quickly share, collate, and act upon new information is what leads to the destruction of the vampire. This is one of many interpretations of the metaphor of only one central figure of the canon of horror fiction, as over a dozen possible metaphors are referenced in the analysis, from the religious to the antisemitic.

Noel Carroll’s Philosophy of Horror postulates that a modern piece of horror fiction’s monster, villain, or a more inclusive menace must exhibit the following two traits which is a menace that is threatening (either physically, psychologically, socially, morally, spiritually, or some combination of the aforementioned) and a menace that is impure (that violates the generally accepted schemes of cultural categorisation.

The Irish Frankenstein by John Tenniel.

This illustration is from an 1882 issue of Punch and is anti-Irish propaganda. Tenniel conceives the Irish Fenian movement as akin to Frankenstein’s monster, in the wake of the Phoenix Park killings. Menacing villains and monsters in horror literature can often be seen as metaphors for the fears incarnate of a society.

Scholarship And Criticism

In addition to those essays and articles shown above, scholarship on horror fiction is almost as old as horror fiction itself. In 1826, the gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe published an essay distinguishing two elements of horror fiction, terror and horror. Whereas terror is a feeling of dread that takes place before an event happens, horror is a feeling of revulsion or disgust after an event has happened. Radcliffe describes terror as that which expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life, whereas horror is described as that which freezes and nearly annihilates them.

Modern scholarship on horror fiction draws upon a range of sources. In their historical studies of the gothic novel, both Devandra Varma and S.L. Varnado make reference to the theologian Rudolf Otto, whose concept of the numinous was originally used to describe religious experience.

Awards And Associations

Achievements in horror fiction are recognised by numerous awards. The Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement, named in honour of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror novel Dracula. The Australian Horror Writers Association presents the annual Australian Shadows Awards. The International Horror Guild Award was presented annually to works of horror and dark fantasy from 1995 to 2008. The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and dark fantastic works. Other important awards for horror literature are included as subcategories within general awards for fantasy and science fiction in such awards as the Aurealis Award.

Alternative Terms

Some writers of fiction normally classified as horror tend to dislike the term, considering it too lurid. They instead use the terms dark fantasy or Gothic fantasy for supernatural horror, or psychological thriller for non-supernatural horror.

Horror Films Since The 1890’s

Horror films of the 1890’s.

Horror films of the 1900’s.

Horror films of the 1910’s.

Horror films of the 1920’s.

Horror films of the 1930’s.

Horror films of the 1940’s.

Horror films of the 1950’s.

Horror films of the 1960’s.

Horror films of the 1970’s.

Horror films of the 1980’s.

Horror films of the 1990’s.

Horror films of the 2000’s.

Horror films of the 2010’s.

Horror films of the 2020’s.

For more Horror film lists click here.

Read more about Horror and notes etc. regarding the above post here.

The above articles and the rest of the images on this page were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.

Blog Posts

Halloween Photos (Part 1).

Halloween Photos (Part 2).

Halloween Photos (Part 3).

Halloween Photos (Part 4).

Links

Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay – The image shown at the top of this page is the copyright of Alexas_Fotos. You can find more great work from the photographer Alexa and lots more free stock photos at Pixabay.

The image above of The Raven by Gustave Dore is via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image above of Vlad the Impaler is unknown via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image above of Horace Walpole by Joshua Reynolds is via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image above of Athenodorus by Henry Justice Ford is via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image above of Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell is via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image shown above of Stephen King is the copyright of Wikipedia user Pinguino Kolb. It comes with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.0 ).

The image above of The Irish Frankenstein by John Tenniel is via Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

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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.

Blog Posts

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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