"Seventies", "'70s", and "The Seventies" redirect here. For decades comprising years 70–79 of other centuries, seeList of decades. For the CNN documentary miniseries, seeThe Seventies (miniseries).
The1970s (pronounced "nineteen-seventies"; commonly shortened to the "Seventies" or the "'70s") was the decade that began on January 1, 1970, and ended on December 31, 1979.
In the 21st century, historians have increasingly portrayed the 1970s as a "pivot of change" in world history, focusing especially on the economic upheavals[1] that followed the end of thepostwar economic boom.[2] On a global scale, it was characterized by frequent coups, domestic conflicts and civil wars, and various political upheavals and armed conflicts which arose from or were related todecolonization, and the global struggle betweenNATO, theWarsaw Pact, and theNon-Aligned Movement. Many regions had periods of high-intensity conflict, notablySoutheast Asia, theMiddle East,Latin America, andAfrica.
The 1970s was also an era of great technological and scientific advances; since the appearance of the first commercial microprocessor, theIntel 4004 in 1971, the decade was characterised by a profound transformation of computing units – by then rudimentary, spacious machines – into the realm of portability andhome accessibility. There were also great advances in fields such as physics, which saw the consolidation ofquantum field theory at the end of the decade, mainly thanks to the confirmation of the existence ofquarks and the detection of the firstgauge bosons in addition to thephoton, theZ boson and thegluon, part of what was christened in 1975 as theStandard Model.
In Asia, the People's Republic of China's international relations changed significantly following its recognition by the United Nations, the death ofMao Zedong and the beginning of market liberalization by Mao's successors. Despite facing an oil crisis due to theOPEC 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.[3] The United States withdrew its military forces from theVietnam War. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which led to theSoviet–Afghan War.
The economies of much of thedeveloping world continued to make steady progress in the early 1970s because of theGreen Revolution. However, their economic growth was slowed by the oil crisis, although it boomed afterwards.
The 1970s saw the world population increase from 3.7 to 4.4 billion, with approximately 1.23 billion births and 475 million deaths occurring during the decade.
TheVietnam War came to a close in 1975 with the fall of Saigon and the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. The following year, Vietnam was officially declared reunited.
Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) – Although taking place almost entirely throughout the 1980s, the war officially started on December 27, 1979.
Angolan Civil War (1975–2002) – resulting in intervention by multiple countries on the Marxist and anti-Marxist sides, with Cuba and Mozambique supporting theMarxist faction, and South Africa andZaire supporting the anti-Marxists.
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 the1967 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 atCamp David in the United States, ending outstanding disputes between the two countries. Sadat's actions would lead to hisassassination in 1981.
Ugandan–Tanzanian War (1978–1979) – the war which was fought between Uganda and Tanzania was based on anexpansionist agenda to annex territory from Tanzania. The war resulted in the overthrow ofIdi Amin's regime.
TheOgaden War (1977–1978) was another African conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia over control of theOgaden region.
The most notable International conflicts of the decade include:
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 June 1976, peaceful student protests in theSoweto township of South Africa by black students against the use of Afrikaans in schools led to theSoweto uprising which killed more than 176 people, overwhelmingly by South Africa'sSecurity Police.[4]
Rise of separatism in the province ofQuebec in Canada. In 1970, radicalQuebec nationalist andMarxist militants of theFront de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the Quebec labour ministerPierre Laporte and British Trade CommissionerJames Cross during theOctober Crisis, resulting in Laporte being killed, and the enactment ofmartial law in Canada under theWar Measures Act, resulting in a campaign by the Canadian government which arrests suspected FLQ supporters. The election of theParti Québécois led byRené Lévesque in the province ofQuebec 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 1970s, such as the controversialCharter of the French Language more commonly known in Quebec and Canada as "Bill 101".
In Cambodia, the communist leaderPol Pot led a revolution against the American-backed government ofLon Nol. On April 17, 1975, Pot's forces capturedPhnom Penh, the capital, two years after America had halted the bombings of their positions. His communist government, theKhmer 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. Vietnaminvaded the country at the start of 1979, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge and installing asatellite government. This provoked a brief, but furiousborder war with China in February of that year.
Growing internal tensions take place inYugoslavia beginning with theCroatian Spring movement in 1971 which demands greater decentralization of power to the constituent republics of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's communist rulerJoseph Broz Tito subdues the Croatian Spring movement and arrests its leaders, but does initiate major constitutional reform resulting in the1974 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 andVojvodina. 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.
1973 –Coup d'état in Chile on September 11th, Salvador Allende was overthrown and killed in a military attack on the presidential palace. Augusto Pinochet takes power backed by the military junta.
1974 – (25 April)Carnation Revolution in Portugal started as a military coup organized by the Armed Forces Movement (Portuguese: Movimento das Forças Armadas, MFA) composed of military officers who opposed the Portuguese fascist regime, but the movement was soon coupled with an unanticipated and popular campaign of civil support. It would ultimately lead to the decolonization of all its colonies, but leave power vacuums that led to civil war in newly independent Lusophone African nations.
1976 –Jorge Rafael Videla seizes control of Argentina in 1976 through acoup sponsored by the Argentine military, establishing himself as a dictator of amilitary junta government in the country.
1977 –Military coup in Pakistan. Political leaders including Zulfikar Ali Bhutto were arrested, and martial law was declared.
1979 – an Attempted coup in Iran, backed by the United States, to overthrow theinterim government, which had come to power after theIranian Revolution.
1979 – Coup in El Salvador, President GeneralCarlos Humberto Romero, was overthrown by junior ranked officers, who formed a Junta government, which lead to the beginning of a 12-year civil war.
The most notable terrorist attacks of the decade include:
TheMunich massacre takes place at the1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, where Palestinians belonging to the terrorist groupBlack September organization kidnapped and murdered eleven Israeli athletes.
Rise in the use of terrorism by militant organizations across the world. Groups in Europe like theRed Brigades and theBaader-Meinhof Gang were responsible for a spate of bombings, kidnappings, and murders. Violence continued in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. Radical American groups existed as well, such as theWeather Underground and theSymbionese Liberation Army, but they never achieved the size or strength of their European counterparts.
On September 6, 1970, the world witnessed the beginnings of modern rebellious fighting in what is today called asSkyjack Sunday. Palestinian terrorists hijacked fourairliners and took over 300 people on board as hostage. The hostages were later released, but the planes were blown up.
The presence and rise of a significant number of women as heads of state and heads of government in a number of countries across the world, many being the first women to hold such positions, such asSoong Ching-ling continuing as the first Chairwoman of the People's Republic of China until 1972,Isabel Perón as the first woman President in Argentina in 1974 until being deposed in 1976,Elisabeth Domitien becomes the first woman Prime Minister of Central African Republic,Indira Gandhi continuing as Prime Minister of India until 1977,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, andMargaret Thatcher becoming the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979.
Argentine presidentIsabel Perón begins theDirty War, where the military and security forces hunt down left-wing political dissidents as part ofOperation Condor. She is overthrown in amilitary coup in 1976, andJorge Rafael Videla comes to power and continues the Dirty War until the military junta relinquished power in 1983.
Suriname was granted independence from the Netherlands on November 25, 1975.
In Guyana, the Rev.Jim Jones led several hundred people from his People's Temple in California to create and maintain a Utopian Marxist commune in the jungle namedJonestown. Amid allegations of corruption, mental, sexual, and physical abuse by Jones on his followers, and denying them the right to leave Jonestown, a Congressional committee and journalists visited Guyana to investigate in November 1978. The visitors (and several of those trying to leave Jonestown with them) were attacked and shot by Jones' guards at the airport while trying to depart Guyana together. CongressmanLeo Ryan was among those who were shot to death. The demented Jones then ordered everyone in the commune to kill themselves. The people drank or were forced to drink, cyanide-laced fruit punch (Flavor Aid). A total of over 900 dead were found (approximately 1/3 of which were children), including Jones, who had shot himself. Multiple units of the United States military were organized, mobilized, and sent to Guyana to recover over 900 deceased Jonestown residents. After rejections from the Guyanese Government for the United States to bury the Jonestown dead in Guyana, US military personnel were then tasked to prepare and transport the human remains from Guyana for burial in the USA. The US General Accounting Office later detailed an approximate cost of $4.4 million (in taxpayer dollars) for Jonestown's clean-up and recovery operation expenses.
Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative party rose to power in the United Kingdom in 1979, initiating aneoliberal economic policy of reducing government spending, weakening the power of trade unions, and promoting economic and trade liberalization.
Francisco Franco died after 39 years in power.Juan Carlos I was crowned king of Spain and called for thereintroduction of democracy. The dictatorship in Spain ended. The first general elections were held in 1977 andAdolfo Suárez becamePrime minister of Spain after his Centrist Democratic Union won. The Socialist and Communist parties were legalized. The current Spanish Constitution was signed in 1978.
In 1972,Erich Honecker was chosen to lead East Germany, a role he would fill for the whole of the 1970s and 1980s. The mid-1970s were a time of extreme recession for East Germany, and as a result of the country's higher debts, consumer goods became more and more scarce. If East Germans had enough money to procure a television set, a telephone, or aTrabant automobile, they were placed on waiting lists which caused them to wait as much as a decade for the item in question.
The Soviet Union under the leadership ofLeonid Brezhnev, having the largest armed forces and the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, pursued an agenda to lessen tensions with its rival superpower, the United States, for most of the seventies. That policy, known asdétente, abruptly ended with theSoviet invasion in Afghanistan at the end of 1979. While known as a "period of stagnation" in Soviet historiography, the Seventies are largely considered as a sort of agolden age of the USSR in terms of stability and relative well-being. Nevertheless, hidden inflation continued to increase for the second straight decade, and production consistently fell short of demand in agriculture and consumer goods manufacturing. By the end of the 1970s, signs of social and economic stagnation were becoming very pronounced.
Enver Hoxha's rule in Albania was characterized in the 1970s by growing isolation, first from a very public schism with the Soviet Union the decade before, and then by asplit in friendly relations with China in 1978. Albania normalized relations withYugoslavia in 1971, and attempted trade agreements with other European nations, but was met with vocal disapproval by the United Kingdom and the United States.
In 1977 theSilver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II was the international celebration marking the 25th anniversary of the accession of Elizabeth II to the thrones of seven countries.
1978 would become known as the "Year of Three Popes". In August,Paul VI, who had ruled since 1963, died. His successor was Cardinal Albino Luciano, who took the nameJohn Paul. But only 33 days later, he was found dead, and the Catholic Church had to elect another pope. On October 16, Karol Wojtyła, a Polish cardinal, was elected, becomingPope John Paul II. He was the first non-Italian pope since 1523.
On September 17, 1978, theCamp David Accords were signed between Israel and Egypt. The Accords led directly to the 1979Egypt–Israel peace treaty. They also resulted in Sadat and Begin sharing the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.
Major changes in the People's Republic of China. US presidentRichard Nixonvisited the country in 1972 following visits byHenry Kissinger in 1971, restoring relations between the two countries, although formal diplomatic ties were not established until 1979. In 1976,Mao Zedong andZhou Enlai both died, leading to the end of theCultural Revolution and the beginning of a new era. After the brief rule of Mao's chosen successorHua Guofeng,Deng Xiaoping emerged as China's paramount leader, and began to shift the country towards market economics and away from ideologically driven policies. In 1979, Deng Xiaopingvisited the US.
In 1971, the representatives ofChiang Kai-shek, then-President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), wereexpelled from the United Nations and replaced by the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975, and in 1978 his sonChiang Ching-kuo became president, beginning a shift towards democratization in Taiwan.
In Iraq,Saddam Hussein began to rise to power by helping to modernize the country. One major initiative was removing the Western monopoly onoil, which later during the high prices of1973 oil crisis would help Hussein's ambitious plans. On July 16, 1979, he assumed thepresidency cementing his rise to power. His presidency led to the breaking off of a Syrian-Iraqi unification, which had been sought under his predecessorAhmed Hassan al-Bakr and would lead to theIran–Iraq War starting in the 1980s.
Japan's economic growth surpassed the rest of the world in the 1970s, unseating the United States as the world's foremost industrial power.
From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge carried out theCambodian genocide that killed nearly two million.
On April 13, 1975, the Lebanese Civil War began.
In 1978, Zia ul Haq came to power
In 1979, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged in jail
Africa
Idi Amin
Idi Amin, President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, after rising to power in a coup became infamous for his brutal dictatorship in Uganda. Amin's regime persecuted opposition to his rule and pursued aracist agenda of removingAsians from Uganda (particularlyIndians who arrived in Uganda during British colonial rule). Amin initiated theUgandan–Tanzanian War in 1978 in alliance with Libya based on anexpansionist agenda to annex territory from Tanzania which resulted in Ugandan defeat and Amin's overthrow in 1979.
Francisco Macías Nguema ruled Equatorial Guinea as a brutal dictator from 1969 until his overthrow and execution in 1979.
Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who had ruled the Central African Republic since 1965, proclaimed himself Emperor Bokassa I and renamed his impoverished country the Central African Empire in 1977. He was overthrown two years later and went into exile.
The1970 Bhola cyclone, considered the 20th century's worst cyclone disaster, kills an estimated 500,000 people in the densely populatedGanges Delta region ofEast Pakistan during November 1970.
The1970 Bhola cyclone, a 120 mph (193 km/h)tropical cyclone, hit the densely populatedGanges Delta region ofEast Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on November 12 and 13, 1970, killing an estimated 500,000 people. The storm remains to date the deadliest tropical cyclone in world history.
Super Typhoon Tip affected areas in the southwestern Pacific Ocean from October 4–19, 1979. Off the coast ofGuam, 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.
On November 14, 1970,Southern Airways Flight 932 carrying the entire Marshall (West Virginia) football team and boosters crashed into a mountainside nearCeredo, West Virginia, on approach toTri-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 30, 1971,All Nippon Airways Flight 58 collided with aJASDF fighter plane, killing all 162 on board. The JASDF pilot survived.
On October 13, 1972,Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 from Uruguay to Chile crashed in theAndes mountains. Survivors suffered from freezing temperatures, exposure and starvation for 72 days until their rescue on December 23.
On December 29, 1972,Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed in the FloridaEverglades while its crew was distracted. 101 people died in the accident while 75 survived.
On January 22, 1973, anAliaBoeing 707, chartered byNigeria Airways,crashed upon landing at Nigeria'sKano Airport after one of its landing gear struts collapsed. 176 of the 202 people on board perished, leaving 26 survivors.
On March 3, 1974,Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crashed in northern France after a cargo hatch blowout, killing all 346 people aboard.
On January 1, 1978,Air India Flight 855 crashed into the sea off the coast of India, killing all 213 aboard.
On September 25, 1978,PSA Flight 182 collided with a privateCessna 172 over San Diego, California, and crashed into a local neighborhood. All 135 on the PSA aircraft, both pilots of the Cessna, and 7 people on the ground (144 total) were killed.
On May 25, 1979,American Airlines Flight 191, outbound fromO'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, lost an engine during take-off and crashed, killing all 271 on board and 2 others on the ground. It was and remains the deadliest single-plane crash on American soil.
Superpower tensions had cooled by the 1970s, with the bellicose US–Soviet confrontations of the 1950s–60s giving way to the policy ofdétente, 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 were active throughout the decade. Over half the world's population in the 1970s lived under a repressive dictatorship. In 1979, a new wrinkle appeared in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, as the Shi'a theocracy of AyatollahRuhollah 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 hierarchicalsocial structure.
TheGreen Revolution of the late 1960s 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.
Another common global ethos of the 1970s 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. TheIranian revolution also affected global attitudes toward and among those of the Muslim faith toward the end of the 1970s.
The global experience of the cultural transition of the 1970s and an experience of a globalzeitgeist revealed the interdependence of economies since World War II, in a world increasingly polarized between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States, survives two attempts on his life in September 1975 when two separate women open fire on him at two different events. Thefirst occurring in Sacramento, and thesecond occurring in San Francisco.[12][13]
The 1970s were perhaps the worst decade of most industrialized countries' economic performance since theGreat Depression.[18] Although there was no severeeconomic depression as witnessed in the 1930s, economic growth rates were considerably lower than previous decades. As a result, the 1970s adversely distinguished itself from the prosperous postwar period between 1945 and 1973. The oil shocksof 1973 and1979 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[update]) 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.[3] Japan would rank as the world's second-largest economy until 1994 when theEuropean 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.[19] 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.[18] 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. PresidentJimmy Carter was running forre-election againstRonald Reagan, themisery index (the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate) had reached an all-time high of 21.98%.[20] The economic problems of the 1970s would result in a sluggish cynicism replacing the optimistic attitudes of the 1950s and 1960s 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 the1973–74 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. Labor strikes happened with such frequency as to almost paralyze the country's infrastructure. Following theWinter 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 theCOMECON block, and a growing dependence on food imported from democratic nations.
Line at a gas station in Maryland, June 15, 1979.
On the other hand, export-driven economic development in Asia, especially by theFour Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan), resulted in rapid economic transformation and industrialization. Their abundance ofcheap labor, combined with educational and other policy reforms, set the foundation for development in the region during the 1970s and beyond.
Economically, the 1970s were marked by theenergy crisis which peaked in 1973 and 1979 (see1973 oil crisis and1979 oil crisis). After the first oil shock in 1973, gasoline 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 gasoline on odd-numbered days, while even-numbered plate-holders could only purchase gasoline on even-numbered days. The realization that oil reserves were not endless and technological development was notsustainable[citation needed] without potentially harming the environment ended the belief in limitless progress that had existed since the 19th century.[citation needed] As a result,ecological awareness rose substantially, which had a major effect on the economy.
The 1970s witnessed an explosion in the understanding of solid-state physics, driven by the development of theintegrated circuit, and thelaser.Stephen Hawking developed his theories ofblack holes and the boundary-condition of the universe at this period with his theory calledHawking 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, andStephen Jay Gould's theory ofpunctuated equilibrium revolutionized evolutionary thought.
As the 1960s ended, the United States had made two successful crewedlunar landings. Many Americans lost interest afterward, feeling that since the country had accomplished PresidentJohn F. Kennedy's goal of landing on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, there was no need for further missions. There was also a growing sentiment that the billions of dollars spent on thespace program should be put to other uses. The Moon landings continued through 1972, but the near loss of theApollo 13 mission in April 1970 served to further anti-NASA feelings. Plans for missions up toApollo 20 were canceled, and the remaining Apollo andSaturn hardware was used for theSkylab space station program in 1973–1974, and for theApollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), which was carried out in July 1975. Many of the ambitious projects NASA had planned for the 1970s were canceled amid heavy budget cutbacks, and instead it would devote most of the decade to the development of theSpace 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, canceled the program in 1972. By then, however, they had already begunSalyut, the world's firstspace station program, which began in 1971. This would have problems of its own, especially the tragic loss of theSoyuz 11 crew in July 1971 and the near-loss of theSoyuz 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 uncrewed missions, a variety of lunar andplanetary probes were launched by the US and Soviet programs during the decade. The most successful of these include the SovietLunokhod program, a series of robotic lunar missions which included the first uncrewedsample return from another world, and the AmericanVoyagers, which took advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets to visit all of them exceptPluto by the end of the 1980s.
China entered the space race in 1970 with the launching of its firstsatellite, 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. TheEuropean Space Agency was founded during the decade as well.
Apollo 17 AstronautGene Cernan becomes the last man on the Moon, December 13, 1972
César Milstein and Georges Köhler reported their discovery of how to use hybridoma cells to isolatemonoclonal antibodies, effectively beginning the history of monoclonal antibody use in science.
After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication ofsmallpox in December 1979 after the last smallpox case in 1977.
Amtrak was formed in the United States in 1971, assuming responsibility for inter-city passenger operations throughout the country. In 1976,Conrail was formed to take over the assets of six bankrupt freight railroads in the northeastern US.
1970Dodge Challenger Trans Am, an example of a muscle car in the earlier part of the decade.
The 1970s was an era of fuel price increases, rising insurance rates, safety concerns, and emissions controls. The1973 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, thejelly bean shapedAMC Pacer, andPontiac Firebird's powerful Trans Am "sum up" the decade.[22]Muscle cars andconvertible models faded from favor during the early-1970s. It was believed that the 1976Cadillac Eldorado would be the last American-built convertible; ending the open body style that once dominated the auto industry.[23]
Cars in the U.S. from the early 1970s are noted more for their power than their styling, but they even lost their power byMalaise era of the late-1970s.[24][25] Styling on American cars became progressively more boxy and rectilinear during the 1970s,[26] withcoupes being the most popular body style. Wood paneling 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 asvinyl roofs andopera windows.[24] Only a few had "real personalities" such as the AMC Gremlin, which was America's first modernsubcompact, and the AMC Pacer.[24] "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."[24]
Automobiles in the U.S. reached the largest sizes they would ever attain, but by 1977,General Motors managed todownsize its full-size models to more manageable dimensions.Ford followed suit two years later, withChrysler 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 presidentLee 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 (theGremlin) in 1970, but its fortunes declined throughout the decade, forcing it into a partnership with the French automakerRenault in 1979.
European car design underwent major changes during the 1970s due to the need for performance with highfuel efficiency—designs such as theVolkswagen Golf and Passat,BMW 3, 5, and 7 series, andMercedes-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 ofGiorgetto Giugiaro became dominant, along with those of Marcello Gandini in Italy. The 1970s also saw the decline and practical failure of the British car industry—a combination of militant strikes and poor quality control effectively halted development atBritish Leyland, owner of all other British car companies during the 1970s.
TheJapanese automobile industry flourished during the 1970s, 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 andlean manufacturing, contributing to high-efficiency and low production costs. TheHonda Civic was introduced in 1973, and sold well due to its high fuel-efficiency. By 1975Toyota overtookVolkswagen as the top-selling imported automobile brand in the U.S., with over a million cars sold per year by this point.[27] Other popular compact cars included theToyota Corolla and theDatsun Sunny, in addition to other cars from those companies and others such asSubaru,Mitsubishi, andMazda.
Isabel Perón becomes the first woman President of Argentina in 1974 and the first woman non-monarch head of state in theWestern hemisphere.Margaret Thatcher shortly before becoming the United Kingdom's first woman Prime Minister in 1979. Thatcher's political and economic agenda began the first government committed toneoliberalism.
The role of women in society was profoundly altered with growingfeminism 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 1970s, many being the first women to hold such positions. Non-monarch women heads of state and heads of government in this period includedIsabel Perón as the first woman President in Argentina and the first woman non-monarch head of state in theWestern 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 (FormerCeylon) and first female head of government in the world, re-elected in 1970, Prime MinisterGolda Meir of Israel and acting chairmanSoong 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, andMargaret 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 1980s.
Pope Paul VI recognized the popularity ofCatholic feminists, but ultimately held to tradition when it came to leaving bishops, priests, and deacons a male-only position.[28]
Theopposition to theWar in Vietnam that began in the 1960s grew exponentially during the early 1970s. One of the best-known anti-war demonstrations was theKent 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 4 May 1970, tensions arose again, and as the crowd grew larger, the National Guard started shooting. Four students were killed and nine were injured. This event caused disbelief and shock throughout the country and became a staple of anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
The 1970s started a mainstream affirmation of theenvironmental issues early activists from the 1960s, such asRachel Carson andMurray Bookchin, had warned of. TheApollo 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 22, 1970, the United States celebrated its firstEarth Day, in which over two thousand colleges and universities and roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools participated.
The 1960s 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, asnudity in film and on TV had been gradually accepted there from the mid-1960s, and many European countries during this time began allowing women to go topless in public places. 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 1980s to 1990s.
The market for adult entertainment in the 1970s was large, and driven in part by the sizable baby boomer population, and the 1972 movieBehind 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 asPenthouse Magazine andHustler Magazine.
By the end of the decade, there was an increasing backlash against libertine sexual attitudes, and the event of theAIDS epidemic helped bring about an end to the Sexual Revolution. Adult movie theaters, which had exploded in numbers during the 1970s and were widely seen as a symptom ofurban decay in the US, declined as pornographic movies would largely shift to VHS tapes during the succeeding decade.
Crime rates in the US had been low from the 1940s until the mid-1960s, but began to escalate after 1965 due to a complex of social, economic, and demographic factors. By the 1970s, 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.
A Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970
The Second-Wave Feminist Movement in the United States, which had begun in the 1960s, carried over to the 1970s, and took a prominent role within society. The fiftieth anniversary of the passage of theNineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which legalized femalesuffrage) in 1970 was commemorated by the Women's Strike for Equality and other protests.
1971 sawErin Pizzey establish the world's first domestic violence shelter inChiswick, 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 inAmsterdam in 1974.[29][30]
With the anthologySisterhood is Powerful and other works, such asSexual Politics, being published at the start of the decade, feminism started to reach a larger audience than ever before. In addition, theSupreme Court's 1973 decision ofRoe v. Wade, which constitutionalized the right to an abortion, brought the women's rights movement into the national political spotlight.
Even musically, the women's movement had its shining moment. Australian-American singerHelen Reddy, recorded the song "I Am Woman", which became an anthem for thewomen'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 1970sGoddess movement, which took place to combat patriarchal ideas of religion.[31][32]
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 eventhe home. Although most aims of the movement were successful, however, there were some significant failures, most notably the failure to ratify theEqual Rights Amendment to theU.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, thewage 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 1990s which addressedsexual harassment (inspired by theAnita Hill–Clarence ThomasSenate 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.
TheCivil Rights Movement of the 1960s began to fracture in the 1970s, as social groups began defining themselves more by their differences than by their universalities. TheBlack Nationalist movement grew out of frustrations with the "non-violent" strategies of earlier Civil Rights Activists. With the April 1968assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and June 1968assassination 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 1970s. 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 theWoman's Liberation movement, and other movements as well. At theNational 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 1970s with the election of political figures such asHarvey Milk to public office and the advocating of anti-gay discrimination legislation passed and not passed during the decade. Many celebrities, includingFreddie Mercury andAndy Warhol, also "came out" during this decade, bringing gay culture further into the limelight.
TheTwenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on July 1, 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 theVietnam War before they were old enough to vote.[33]
The 1970s saw the rapid commercialization of rock music, and by mid-decade there were 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 includedThe Doobie Brothers,Bread,Styx,Kansas, andREO Speedwagon.
The 1970s also saw artists fromMotown records become popular across the globe. Artists like theJackson 5,Stevie Wonder andMarvin Gaye dominated the record charts across the world and had a significant influence on pop culture, including breaking down racial barriers.[34]
British rock bandLed Zeppelin was one of the most popular and influential bands of the 1970s. The band's heavy, guitar-driven sound has led them to be cited as one of the progenitors ofheavy metal.
After a successful return to live performing in the late 60s with hisTV special,Elvis Presley regained his popularity throughVegas performance engagements and concert tours throughout the United States until his death in 1977, which helped him acquire a new generation of fans. 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 ofpunk 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 1960s to early 1970s were in creative decline. Punk bands includedThe Sex Pistols,The Clash,The Ramones,Talking Heads, and more.
In the first half of the 1970s, many jazz musicians from theMiles Davis school achieved cross-over success throughjazz-rock fusion with bands likeWeather Report,Return to Forever,The Headhunters andThe Mahavishnu Orchestra who also influenced this genre and many others. In Germany,Manfred Eicher started theECM label, which quickly made a name for "chamber jazz". Towards the end of the decade, Jamaicanreggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe, mostly because of reggae superstar and legendBob Marley. The mid-1970s saw the reemergence of acoustic jazz with the return of artists likeDexter Gordon to the US music scene, who, along with a number of other artists, such as trumpet innovators likeDon Ellis andWoody 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.
British rock bandQueen (pictured here in 1977) was considered to be one of the most influential bands of the '70s (as well as the '80s), along with American rock bandEagles and others
A major event in music in the early 1970s was the deaths of popular rock starsJimi Hendrix,Janis Joplin, andJim 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 16, 1977.[36] Presley's funeral was held atGraceland, on Thursday, August 18, 1977.Bing Crosby, who sold about 50 million records, died on October 14, 1977. His single,White Christmas, remains the best-selling single of all time, confirmed by theGuinness Records.[37]
Statistically, Led Zeppelin and Elton John were the most successful musical acts of the 1970s, both having sold more than 300 million records since 1969.[38][39]
Luis Alberto Spinetta reaches national acclaim withAlmendra, perhaps the first successful progressive rock band in Latin America, their greatest hit wasMuchacha (Ojos de papel). Later in 1973, Pescado Rabioso (Spinetta's second band) launchedArtaud, for many the magnus opus of Argentine rock.
Airport was released in 1970, spawning theair disaster film genre. Throughout the decade, the film spawned three sequels:Airport 1975,Airport '77, andThe Concorde... Airport '79. The genre also inspired a spoof film (Airplane!) along with its two sequels in the early 1980s. A slew of other air disaster films followed suit throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s, primarily in made-for-TV movies.
Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising middle class fantasies and struggles. In theBollywood cinema of India, this was epitomized by the movies of Bollywood superheroAmitabh Bachchan. Another Asian touchstone beginning in the early 1970s wasHong 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 1970s, Hollywood continued theNew Hollywood movement of the late-1960s with young filmmakers likeFrancis Ford Coppola,George Lucas,Martin Scorsese andSteven Spielberg, as well as films likeApocalypse Now,The Godfather,Star Wars,Taxi Driver,Jaws, andClose Encounters of the Third Kind. Top-grossingJaws (1975) ushered in theblockbuster era of filmmaking, though it was eclipsed two years later by the science-fiction filmStar 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 likeThe Omen and both of their own sequels. The release of the movie followed a general mood of paranoia on satanic themes in the United States; also the counterculture of the 1970s saw an increasing interest inoccultism.[42]
All That Jazz (1979) gained high critical praise, winning four Oscars and several other awards. It was an inductee of the 2001National Film Registry list.[43]
TheGolden Age of Porn continued its reign throughout the 1970s, with one of its most popular films of the decade beingDebbie Does Dallas in 1978.
In the United Kingdom, colour channels were now available; three stations had begun broadcasting in colour between 1967 and 1969. However, many viewers continued to watch black-and-white television sets for most of the decade, which meant for example that televisedsnooker (in which the colour of balls is important) did not reach the heights of its popularity until the 1980s.
The television information retrieval serviceTeletext was initially introduced when the BBCCeefax system went live on 23 September 1974.
In the late 1970s, BBC2's unveiled a new identity, a twin-striped "2", which was the first electronically generated symbol and scrolled on and off the screen.
As the 1970s began, the Big Three TV networks were rapidly re-engineering their lineups, noting that existing programs were not attracting the youth audience. Most existing programs still operated on paradigms established in the 1950s, and some shows had literally been on the air since the dawn of TV broadcasting in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Shows that had low ratings or insufficient youth appeal were cancelled as networks scrambled to attract the largebaby boomer audience.
To reflect the new social trends, television changed dramatically with more urban and edgy settings, and replaced the popular rural/country wholesome look of the 1950s and 1960s, seen as outmoded and unable to connect with young, educated urban audiences. This particular trend was known as therural purge. Television was transformed by what became termed as "social consciousness" programming, such asAll in the Family andSoap, which broke down television barriers. Many advertising trends of the 1970s also reflected this growing social consciousness trend, such as with Coca-Cola's "Give the World a Coke" and Mcdonalds' "You Deserve a Break" campaigns.[44]
The women's movement ushered in a slew of programming featuring strong, independent females as central characters. Most notable wasThe Mary Tyler Moore Show, which spawned the successful spin-offsRhoda andPhyllis, and also resulted in Mary Tyler Moore becoming the first female to head a television production company of her own,MTM Enterprises, which churned out groundbreaking programming in the late 1970s throughout the 1990s. Women were also established portraying action characters in programs likePolice Woman,Wonder Woman,The Bionic Woman, and others.
Minority-centric television programming also featured prominently during the 1970s. Shows featuring African-Americans as main characters, such asSanford and Son,Maude,The Jeffersons,Good Times,Roots andWhat's Happening!! broke down barriers and became very popular. In addition,Soul Train, the brainchild ofDon Cornelius, premiered in 1971 as the African-American counterpart toAmerican Bandstand, giving a forum forsoul,funk,jazz,R&B,disco, and futurerap andhip hop artists to gain exposure to American audiences, consumers, music lovers, enthusiasts, and those keen on learning new dance moves.
The televisionwestern, which had been very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, all but died out during the 1970s, withBonanza,The Virginian, andGunsmoke ending their runs. Replacing westerns were police and detective shows, a trend that would last through the 1980s.
Television still had its medical shows of the 1970s, however,Emergency! was the first popularmedical drama ever to feature both the paramedic program as well as the hospital emergency department, which also encouraged future people in the United States to develop their own paramedic program or hospital emergency department, and acted as an inspiration for many individuals.Marcus Welby, M.D. andMedical Center were other long-running medical dramas popular during the 1970s.
The Dukes of Hazzard began its six-year run in 1979. The series was inspired by the car-chase film genre, particularly the 1975 filmMoonrunners, on which the series was based, with similar characters and scenes; and both were directed byGy Waldron and voice-over narrated by country music artistWaylon Jennings.
As cable television became more affordable and accessible by U.S. consumers, the race to bring the silver screen to the small screen commenced with the launch ofpay television services showing premium content.
HBO launched on November 8, 1972, becoming the nation's first pay-television channel. On September 30, 1975, HBO became the first television network to continuously deliver signals via satellite when it showed the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match betweenMuhammad Ali andJoe Frazier.
Star Channel launched its service offerings nationally in 1973 through the delivery of movies on videotapes for cable providers to broadcast. This proved problematic since the videotapes were often riddled with technical difficulties. Star Channel eventually was linked up to satellite in January 1978. Shortly after, Warner Communications acquired the channel and relaunched it on December 1, 1979, in its current form asThe Movie Channel.
Media giantViacom launched their premium service,Showtime, nationally on July 1, 1976, after a brief, wildly successful test launch on their cable system inDublin, California.[45]
South Africa saw nationwide television service for the first time on January 5, 1976, although limited-view, locally available television began on May 5, 1975.
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, entitledMagnavox Odyssey, was released in September 1972, created byRalph H. Baer.
Apple, Inc. ushered in the modern personal computing age with its June 1, 1977, launch of the first mass-produced personal computer, theApple 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 theCommodore PET andAtari 400 to the market by five months. The original retail price of the computer was US$1298[46][47](with 4 KB of RAM) and US$2638 (with the maximum 48 KB of RAM).
As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternatives. They would form what would become known as thecounterculture. 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 afrisbee.[48] What started with a few players like Victor Malafronte, Z Weyand andKen Westerfield experimenting with new ways of throwing and catching a frisbee, later would become known as playingfreestyle.[49] Organized disc sports, in the 1970s, began with promotional efforts fromWham-O andIrwin Toy (Canada), a few tournaments and professionals using frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs and sporting events.[50] Disc sports such as freestyle,double disc court,guts,disc ultimate anddisc golf became this sports first events.[51][52]
Fiction in the early 1970s brought a return to old-fashioned storytelling, especially withErich Segal'sLove Story. The seventies also saw the decline of previously well-respected writers, such asSaul Bellow andPeter De Vries, who both released poorly received novels at the start of the decade. Racism remained a key literary subject.John Updike emerged as a major literary figure. Reflections on the 1960s experience also found roots in the literature of the decade through the works ofJoyce Carol Oates andWright Morris. With the rising cost of hard-cover books and the increasing readership of "genre fiction", the paperback became a popular medium. Criminal non-fiction also became a popular topic. Irreverence and satire, typified inKurt Vonnegut'sBreakfast of Champions, were common literary elements. The horror genre also emerged, and by the late 1970sStephen King had become one of the most populargenre novelists. Thepostmodern authorThomas Pynchon published his most famous work,Gravity's Rainbow, in 1973.
Thefake memoirGo Ask Alice was released in 1971. Upon its initial release the book was marketed as a real diary of a teenage girl who overdosed in the 1960s. However, it was later revealed that the book was actually written byBeatrice Sparks.
Design trends in the 1970s were marked by a backlash against the bright colors and futurism of the 1950s and 1960s and a rise in popularity of dark, earthy tones with extensive use of brown, green, purple, and orange. Wood decor and paneling was integral to 1970s interior design as well, replacing the obsession of the 1950s and 1960s with chrome and aluminum. Darker colors not only reflected the back-to-nature mindset of the decade, but the sluggish world economy with its lowered optimism and expectations for the future.
In 1974,Louis Kahn's last and arguably most famous building, the National Assembly Building ofDhaka, Bangladesh, was completed. The building's use of open spaces and groundbreaking geometry brought rare attention to the small South Asian country.Hugh Stubbins'sCiticorp Center revolutionized the incorporation of solar panels in office buildings. The seventies brought further experimentation in glass and steel construction and geometric design. Chinese architectI. M. Pei'sJohn Hancock Tower inBoston, Massachusetts, is an example, although like many buildings of the time, the experimentation was flawed and glass panes fell from the façade. In 1976, the completedCN Tower in Toronto became the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, an honor it held until 2007. The fact that no taller tower had been built between the construction of the CN Tower and theBurj Khalifa shows how innovative the architecture and engineering of the structure truly were.
Modern architecture was increasingly criticized as the decade went on from the point of view of postmodern architects, such asPhilip Johnson, Charles Moore, andMichael Graves, who advocated a return to pre-modern styles of architecture and the incorporation of pop elements as a means of communicating with a broader public. Other architects, such asPeter Eisenman of theNew York Five, advocated the pursuit of form for the sake of form and drew on semiotics theory for support.
"High Tech" architecture moved forward asBuckminster Fuller continued his experiments ingeodesic domes, while theGeorges Pompidou Center, designed byRenzo Piano andRichard Rogers, which opened in 1977, was a prominent example. As the decade drew to a close,Frank Gehry broke out in a new direction with his own house in Santa Monica, a highly complex structure, half excavated out of an existing bungalow and half cheaply built construction using materials such as chicken wire fencing.
Terracotta Army figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China, near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (Chinese: 秦始皇陵; pinyin: Qín Shǐhuáng Ling). In 1978, electrical workers inMexico City found the remains of theGreat Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in the middle of the city.
Clothing styles during the 1970s were influenced by outfits seen in popular music groups and in Hollywood films.[53] In clothing, prints, especially from India and other parts of the world, were fashionable.[53]
Much of the 1970s fashion styles were influenced by thehippie movement. As well as the hippie look, the 70s also gave way toglam rock styles, started off byDavid Bowie who was named the King of Glam Rock. Glam was agenderbent and outlandish style.
Significant fashion trends of the 1970s include:
Bell-bottomed pants remained popular throughout the decade. These combined withturtle necked shirts and flower-prints to form the characteristic 1970s look. In the later part of the decade, this gave way to three-piece suits, in large part because of the movieSaturday Night Fever.
Sideburns were popular for men, particularly mutton chops; as werebeards andmustaches which had been out of fashion since the 19th and early 20th century.
Women's hairstyles went from long and straight in the first half of the decade to the feathery cut ofFarrah Fawcett, a trend that continued through the first half of the 1980s.
Miniskirts andminidresses were still popular in the first half of the decade, particularly with pleated "rah-rah" skirts with higher hemlines; but they were quickly phased out by the mid-70s in favor ofhot pants. However, miniskirts and minidresses never totally went away, and they made a return to mainstream fashion in the mid-1980s and has remained a fashion staple in the decades since.
Crop tops andhot pants became popular summer outfits among young women and teenage girls in the second half of the decade.
Borstelmann, Thomas.The 1970s: A New Global History From Civil Rights to Economic Inequality (Princeton University Press; 2012) 401 pages; looks at new right movements, and the global impact of economic deregulation.excerpt; alsoonline review
Ferguson, Niall, and Charles S. Maier, eds.The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (2011) essays by leading scholars; 448 pp
La Barca, Giuseppe.International Trade in the 1970s: The U.S., the EC, and the Growing Pressure of Protectionism (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 224 pp.
Padva, Gilad. Sexing the Past: Communal Exposure and Self-Examination inGay Sex in the 70s. In Padva, Gilad,Queer Nostalgia in Cinema and Pop Culture, pp. 58–71 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014,ISBN978-1-137-26633-0).
Wheen, Francis.Strange Days Indeed: The 1970s: The Golden Days of Paranoia (2010) 352pp; looks at general irrationalism (such as UFOs, psychic phenomena, mad cults), and terror (IRA bombings; Black September massacre at the Munich Olympics; Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany; Symbionese Liberation Army.)
Berkowitz, Edward D.Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies (Columbia University Press, 2006). 283 pp., liberal perspective
Carroll, Peter.It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: The Tragedy and Promise of America in the 1970s (1982)
Cowie, Jefferson R.Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) excerpt, on U.S.
Frum, David.How We Got Here: The 70s (2000), conservative perspectiveexcerpt and text search
Haberman, Clyde, ed.The New York Times: The Times of the Seventies The Culture, Politics, and Personalities that Shaped the Decade (2013)
Kalman, Laura.Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974–1980 (2010) 473pp;excerpt and text search
Lehman, Katherine J. Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture (University Press of Kansas, 2011). 280 pp.online review
Sandbrook, Dominic.Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right (2012)excerpt and text search
Schulman, Bruce.The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (2001)excerpt and text search
Stein, Judith.Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies (2010) 384ppexcerpt and text search
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