Portal:1970s

The 1970s Portal

**Clockwise from top-left:**
U.S. President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office following the **Watergate scandal** in 1974;
The United States was still involved in the Vietnam War in the early decade. The New York Times leaked information regarding the nation's involvement in the war. Political pressure led to America's withdrawal from the war in 1973, and the **Fall of Saigon** in 1975 leading to evacuations of South Vietnamese that same year;
The **1973 oil crisis** causes a financial crisis throughout the developed world;
Both the leaders of Israel and Egypt shake hands after the signing of the **Camp David Accords** in 1978;
In 1971, the Pakistan Armed Forces commits the **1971 Bangladesh genocide** to curb independence movements in East Pakistan, killing 300,000 to 3,000,000 people; this consequently leads to the Bangladesh Liberation War;
The **1970 Bhola cyclone** kills an estimated 500,000 people in the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan in November 1970, and became the deadliest natural disaster in 40 years;
The **Iranian Revolution** of 1979 ousts Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who is later replaced by an Islamic theocracy led by Ayatollah Khomeini;
The popularity of the **disco** music genre and subculture peaks during the mid-to-late 1970s.

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.

Selected article -

"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, and Bruce Woolley in 1979. It was recorded concurrently by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards) for their debut studio album, English Garden, and by British new wave/synth-pop group the Buggles, which consisted of Horn and Downes (and initially Woolley). The Buggles' version of the track was recorded and mixed in 1979, released as their debut single on 7 September 1979 by Island Records, and included on their debut studio album, The Age of Plastic.

The song relates to concerns about and mixed attitudes toward 20th-century inventions and machines for the media arts. The song has been positively received by music critics, with its reviewers praising its unusual musical pop elements. On release, the Buggles' version topped sixteen international record charts, including those in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. It also peaked in the top 10 in Canada, Germany, New Zealand and South Africa, but only reached number 40 in the United States. It has also been certified Platinum in the United Kingdom and France, and has sold 5,000,000 copies worldwide. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that the basic tune for "As Long as You're Mine" from 2003's Wicked was written by Stephen Schwartz in the 1970s?
... that vehicles in Star Trucker still look like American semi-trucks from the 1970s, despite having technology such as warp drivers and maglocks?
... that a forest in northern Wisconsin was subject to nuclear-radiation testing in the 1970s?
... that the development team for Halloween: The Game worked with John Carpenter and designed the game as a 1970s period piece?
... that Spaceship House was originally built as a 1970s-era bachelor pad?
... that the Yerevan Children's Art Museum deliberately kept no records from the 1970s to the 1990s?

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1970s politics-related lists

1970s record charts

1970s television-related lists

Selected biography -

Official portrait, 1973

Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon (née Ryan; March 16, 1912 – June 22, 1993) was First Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974 as the wife of Richard Nixon, the 37th U.S. president. From 1953 to 1961, she had been the second lady of the United States when her husband was Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president.

Born in Ely, Nevada, she grew up with her two brothers in Artesia, California, graduating from Excelsior Union High School in Norwalk, California, in 1929. She attended Fullerton Junior College and later the University of Southern California. She paid for her schooling by working multiple jobs, including pharmacy manager, typist, radiographer, and retail clerk. In 1940, she married lawyer Richard Nixon and they had two daughters, Tricia and Julie. Dubbed the "Nixon team", Richard and Pat Nixon campaigned together in his successful congressional campaigns of 1946 and 1948. Richard Nixon was elected vice president in 1952 alongside General Dwight D. Eisenhower, whereupon Pat became second lady. Pat Nixon did much to add substance to the role, insisting on visiting schools, orphanages, hospitals, and village markets as she undertook many missions of goodwill across the world. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

General images -

The following are images from various 1970s-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Typical mid to late 1970s Ted gear, as worn by Shakin' Stevens. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 2The 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 3A young woman wearing a wrap dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 4British 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 5Bruce Lee fostered the popularity of martial arts cinema (from 1970s)
Image 6The British band The Bee Gees were one of the biggest musical acts of the 1970s leading the disco phenomenon (from 1970s in music)
Image 7Flared jeans and trousers were popular with both sexes as can be seen at this East German disco party in 1977. In the socialist part of Germany (until 1990), the government regarded western influences on cultural life of their population very critical, but factually tolerated them in many fields. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 8Home Pong console (museum recreation) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 9Punk pioneer Lene Lovich in 1979, with her trademark long plaited hair. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 10Pink Floyd, 1973 (from 1970s in music)
Image 11Apple II (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 12American First Lady Pat Nixon wears a white dress that was popular until the final years of the decade. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 13Apollo 17 Astronaut Gene Cernan becomes the last man on the Moon, December 13, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 14Loretta Lynn (from 1970s in music)
Image 151979 Iranian Revolution (from 1970s)
Image 16Margaret 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 17Kansas (from 1970s in music)
Image 18Jorge Luis Borges with admirers in 1976. (from 1970s)
Image 19Pong (1972) (from 1970s)
Image 20 Fairchild Channel F (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 21Isabel 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)
Image 22Anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 1971. (from 1970s)
Image 23Los Angeles high school students, 1973. The tousled, blond surfer hair was popular for young men in southern California. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 241976 flyer advertising the racing game Fonz (from 1970s in video games)
Image 25Public at the farewell concert of Sui Generis (1975) (from 1970s)
Image 26John Denver, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 27TRS-80 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 28Example of glam rock costume worn by Roy Wood and Wizzard, early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 29Debbie Harry of Blondie in 1977. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 30Footballer George Best wore long hair in 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 31Haile Selassie was overthrown from power in Ethiopia, ending one of the longest-lasting monarchies in world history. (from 1970s)
Image 32An artist impression of an American Apollo spacecraft and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft docking, a propaganda portrait for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project mission (from 1970s)
Image 33Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat shake hands, Camp David, 1978 (from 1970s)
Image 34Viking 1, the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars, takes this picture of the landing site in Chryse Planitia (1978) (from 1970s)
Image 35Intellivision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 36United States President Jimmy Carter and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna, Austria (from 1970s)
Image 37Fashion models in Leipzig, GDR, 1972. One of the women is modelling a "maxi" dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 38Elton John was one of the most commercially successful solo pop acts of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 39Asteroids (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 40Pong arcade machine (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 41VT100 (1978) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 42Galaxian (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 43British singer Rod Stewart, 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 44Polistil VG2 Pong clone (1978), made in Italy (from 1970s in video games)
Image 45Nixon displays the V-for-victory sign as he departs the White House after resigning (from 1970s)
Image 46Concorde landing at Farnborough in September 1974 (from 1970s)
Image 47Salah Zulfikar and Zubaida Tharwat in The Other Man (1973) (from 1970s)
Image 48Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 49Paul Anka in 1961 (from 1970s in music)
Image 50The Swedish band ABBA was one of the most commercially successful European bands of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)

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