Portal:1970s

The 1970s Portal

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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.

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An upright cabinet of Pong on display at the Neville Public Museum of Brown County

Pong is a 1972 sports video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. It was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were so surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work that they decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included on the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console; in response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.

Pong was the first commercially successful video game, helping to establish the video game industry along with the Magnavox Odyssey. Soon after its release, several companies began producing games that closely mimicked its gameplay. Eventually, Atari's competitors released new types of video games that deviated from Pong's original format to varying degrees; this, in turn, led Atari to encourage its staff to move beyond Pong and produce more innovative games themselves. (Full article...)

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... that Diego García Miravete and his college football team's games were closely monitored by the Mexican government in the early 1970s?
... that the construction of Tennessee State Route 155 in Nashville facilitated the development of an entertainment district anchored by the relocated Grand Ole Opry in the 1970s?
... that Rodger Bumpass, before becoming the voice of Squidward, was an announcer, film processor, and cameraman at an Arkansas TV station in the 1970s?
... that Spaceship House was originally built as a 1970s-era bachelor pad?
... that Michael Lippman had his breakthrough in the music business in the 1970s by working as an attorney and manager for David Bowie?
... that the basic tune for "As Long as You're Mine" from 2003's Wicked was written by Stephen Schwartz in the 1970s?

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Simmons in 2024

Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz; Hebrew: חיים ויץ [χaˈim ˈvits]; August 25, 1949), also known by his stage persona "the Demon", is an Israeli and American musician and songwriter. He was the bassist and co-lead singer of the hard rock band Kiss, which he co-founded with Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss in 1973. Simmons, alongside Stanley, remained a constant member of the band until their dissolution in 2023. Simmons is also known for his long tongue and for his reality television show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, which aired from 2006 to 2012. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of Kiss. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Singer Cher in 1971. In the 1970s, women's hair was usually worn long with a centre parting (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 2Pink Floyd, 1973 (from 1970s in music)
Image 3Microvision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 4African American couple, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, July 1975 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 5Swedish model Ulla Jones dressed in a lurex halter top and matching flared trousers (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 6Home Pong console (museum recreation) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 7Mario Kempes scores the first goal in the 1978 World Cup Final for Argentina (from 1970s)
Image 8Haile Selassie was overthrown from power in Ethiopia, ending one of the longest-lasting monarchies in world history. (from 1970s)
Image 9British rock band Killing Floor, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 10Anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 1971. (from 1970s)
Image 11Commodore PET (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 12Three Los Angeles Chicanos in 1974. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 13Apple II (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 14Park Chung Hee (from 1970s)
Image 15Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 16Diane von Fürstenberg's wrap dress, designed in the 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 17British 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 181976 flyer advertising the racing game Fonz (from 1970s in video games)
Image 19 Fairchild Channel F (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 20Pong arcade machine (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 211979 Iranian Revolution (from 1970s)
Image 22Asteroids (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 23Singer Billy Preston in 1974 wearing an Afro hairstyle. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 24Loretta Lynn (from 1970s in music)
Image 25Siouxsie Sioux of the English punk group Siouxsie and the Banshees. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 26Steve McQueen with sideburns, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 27Color TV-Game (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 28America's first space station Skylab in orbit February 8, 1974 (from 1970s)
Image 29Hank Williams (from 1970s in music)
Image 30Clockwise 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.
(from 1970s)
Image 31A West German schoolgirl with Schultüte in 1970, with a 'hippyish' outfit on. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 32AC/DC, August 1979 (from 1970s in music)
Image 33Example of glam rock costume worn by Roy Wood and Wizzard, early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
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 35Linda Ronstadt in 1976 (from 1970s in music)
Image 361974 Ford Mustang interior (from 1970s)
Image 37Egyptian military vehicles crossing the Suez Canal on October 7, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. (from 1970s)
Image 38Singer Barry Manilow wears his hair longish in the soft, layered style favoured by men in the 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 39Actress Camille Keaton in 1972. Throughout most of the decade, women preferred light, natural-looking make-up for the daytime. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 40British singer Rod Stewart, 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 41King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (from 1970s)
Image 42Elton John was one of the most commercially successful solo pop acts of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 43Salah Zulfikar and Zubaida Tharwat in The Other Man (1973) (from 1970s)
Image 44Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (from 1970s)
Image 45The early 1970s' fashions were a continuation of the hippie look from the late 1960s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 46Pong (1972) (from 1970s)
Image 47A young woman wearing a wrap dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 48British girls in 1975 in flared jeans (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 49Jose Jose (from 1970s in music)
Image 501973 Volvo P1800 sportwagon. (from 1970s)

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