The 1970s (pronounced "nineteen-seventies"; commonly shortened to the "Seventies" or the "'70s") was a 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 the
postwar 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 to decolonization, and the global struggle between
NATO, the
Warsaw Pact, and the
Non-Aligned Movement. Many regions had periods of high-intensity conflict, notably Southeast Asia, the Mideast, and Africa.
In the Western world,
social progressive values that began in the
1960s, 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 government coming to power with the
1973 Chilean coup d'état.
The 1970s 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.
In Asia, the People's Republic of China's international relations changed significantly following its recognition 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.[3] The United States withdrew its military forces from the
Vietnam War. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which led to the
Soviet–Afghan War.
The 1970s saw an initial increase in violence in the Middle East as Egypt and Syria declared war on Israel, but in the late 1970s, the situation in the Middle East was fundamentally altered when Egypt signed the
Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty. Political tensions in Iran exploded with the
Iranian Revolution in 1979, which overthrew the
Pahlavi dynasty and established an
Islamic republic under the leadership of
Ayatollah Khomeini.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American
science fiction film directed by
Robert Wise. The Motion Picture is based on and stars the cast of the 1966–1969 television series Star Trek created by
Gene Roddenberry, who serves as producer. In the film, set in the 2270s, a mysterious and powerful alien cloud known as
V'Ger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path. Admiral
James T. Kirk (
William Shatner) assumes command of the recently refitted Starship
Enterprise to lead it on a mission to determine V'Ger's origins and save the planet.
When Star Trek was canceled in 1969, Roddenberry lobbied
Paramount Pictures to continue the franchise through a feature film. The success of the series in
syndication convinced the studio to begin work on the film in 1975. A series of writers and scripts did not satisfy Paramount, and they scrapped the film project. Instead, Paramount planned on returning the franchise to its roots, with a new television series titled Star Trek: Phase II. The box office success of other science fiction films convinced the studio a Star Trek feature could do well, so the studio canceled production of Phase II and resumed production on a feature film. (Full article...)
... that the art of Irma Blank, of "drawing languages without words" and including sounds, was recognised in the 1970s but fell into obscurity until a rediscovery in the 2010s?
... that in the 1970s, residents of the Belnord in New York City had to sneak in refrigerators at night?
... that health economist Selma Mushkin estimated in the early 1970s that up to 50 percent of poor children in Washington, D.C., were affected by
lead poisoning?
... that during the 1960s and 1970s, American artist Robert Bauer painted figures that were a mixture of 20th-century avant-garde
funk and 17th-century Dutch
realism?
Image 4British rock band
Queen (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 band
Eagles and others (from 1970s)
Image 11Pink Floyd performing The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973, the highest-selling album of the decade and one of the highest-selling of all time. (from 1970s)
Image 12The early 1970s' fashions were a continuation of the
hippie look from the late 1960s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 13By the early 1970s,
miniskirts had reached an all-time popularity. This young English woman is wearing a fringed suede miniskirt, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 20The
1970 Bhola cyclone, considered the 20th century's worst cyclone disaster, kills an estimated 500,000 people in the densely populated
Ganges Delta region of
East Pakistan during November 1970. (from 1970s)
Image 41British rock band
Led 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 of
heavy metal. (from 1970s)
Image 42A couple at prom in late 1970s: Powder
Tuxedo and sleeved dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 43Apollo 17 Astronaut
Gene Cernan becomes the last man on the Moon, December 13, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 59Actress
Camille Keaton in 1972. Throughout most of the decade, women preferred light, natural-looking make-up for the daytime. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 78Los Angeles high school students, 1973. The tousled, blond
surfer hair was popular for young men in southern California. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 79Haile Selassie was overthrown from power in Ethiopia, ending one of the longest-lasting monarchies in world history. (from 1970s)
Image 80Margaret 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 to
neoliberalism. (from 1970s)
Image 119Isabel Perón becomes the first woman President of Argentina in 1974 and the first woman non-monarch head of state in the
Western hemisphere. (from 1970s)
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