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 that followed the end of the postwar economic boom. 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. 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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Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American late-night live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and streams next day (along with a full catalogue) on Peacock. The show's premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer “featured” cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, has a musical guest, and is broadcast live with a studio audience.

The host usually delivers a comedic monologue toward the start of the show and then performs in sketches with the cast, and introduces featured performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that is usually based on current political or pop cultural events and ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", before moving to credits and introduction of the guest host. (Full article...)

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... that ketchup chips were introduced in the 1970s along with other flavours such as grape and orange?
... that the gray stonecrop was little known in the 1970s but became so popular by the 1990s that demand exceeded supply?
... that the 4,000-year-old Ravenswood standing stone now lies in a cul-de-sac in a 1970s Scottish housing estate?
... 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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UPI press photo, 1975

Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian politician, lawyer, jurist, academic, author, and journalist who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. He served as leader of the Official Opposition from 1979 to 1980. He led the Liberal Party from 1968 until 1984 and was the member of Parliament (MP) for Mount Royal from 1965 to 1984.

Born and raised in Outremont, Quebec, Trudeau studied law and political economy. He co-founded Cité Libre in 1950 and rose to prominence in Quebec politics by opposing the conservative Union Nationale government. He was also an associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal. Trudeau was initially part of the New Democratic Party (NDP), but then joined the Liberal Party in 1965 because he believed the NDP could not attain power. In the election held that year, he was elected to the House of Commons and afterwards was appointed as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's parliamentary secretary. Trudeau served as minister of justice and attorney general from 1967 to 1968, during which time he liberalized divorce and abortion laws and decriminalized homosexuality. His outgoing personality and charisma caused a sensation, termed "Trudeaumania", which helped him win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968. He then succeeded Pearson and became prime minister of Canada. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Two punks from the late 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 2Bruce Lee fostered the popularity of martial arts cinema (from 1970s)
Image 3Henry Mancini (from 1970s in music)
Image 4King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (from 1970s)
Image 5A Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from 1970s)
Image 6Singer Cher in 1971. In the 1970s, women's hair was usually worn long with a centre parting (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 7Jose Jose (from 1970s in music)
Image 8British girls in 1975 in flared jeans (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 9A young woman wearing a wrap dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 10Commodore PET (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 11Magnavox Odyssey (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 12Kansas (from 1970s in music)
Image 13The Eagles (from 1970s in music)
Image 14Apple II (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 15Microvision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 16Fashion models in Leipzig, GDR, 1972. One of the women is modelling a "maxi" dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 17Clockwise 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 18Footballer George Best wore long hair in 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 191976 flyer advertising the racing game Fonz (from 1970s in video games)
Image 20Line at a gas station in Maryland, June 15, 1979. (from 1970s)
Image 21David Bowie in the early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 22Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson from Sanford and Son (from 1970s)
Image 23Pong arcade machine (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 24Woman in miniskirt, 1970 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 25Swedish model Ulla Jones dressed in a lurex halter top and matching flared trousers (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 26Dave Schultz won Stanley Cup two times (from 1970s)
Image 27John Denver, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 28Honda Civic sold well throughout the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 29The first Military Junta after the 1976 Coup d'État in Argentina, integrated by Jorge Videla, Emilio Massera and Orlando Agosti (from 1970s)
Image 30Two Swedish models in Kings Road, London, 1971; Efva Attling in a "midi" dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 31Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (from 1970s)
Image 32Asteroids (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 33Bob Marley, 1980 (from 1970s in music)
Image 34Charlie Rich (from 1970s in music)
Image 35British 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 36Mao Zedong wearing gray Zhongshan suit, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 37Actress Raquel Welch in 1979, wearing the shoulder pads and "retro"-look tilted hat favored by designers at the time (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 38Egyptian military vehicles crossing the Suez Canal on October 7, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. (from 1970s)
Image 39Loretta Lynn (from 1970s in music)
Image 40Public at the farewell concert of Sui Generis (1975) (from 1970s)
Image 41Debby Boone song "You Light Up My Life" had the most weeks at number one in the US Billboard chart (from 1970s in music)
Image 42Singer Rod Stewart performing in 1976. He was one of the major British soft rock artists of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 431973 Volvo P1800 sportwagon. (from 1970s)
Image 44Voyager 1 passing by Jupiter's Great Red Spot February 25, 1979 (from 1970s)
Image 45Led Zeppelin, 1977 (from 1970s in music)
Image 46Silk scarves were popular fashion accessories for women in the 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 47Elton John was one of the most commercially successful solo pop acts of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 48Alan Bennett in 1973, wearing a wide necktie (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 49English girl in the mid-1970s wearing a wide-sleeved shirt, belted at the waist. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 50Polistil VG2 Pong clone (1978), made in Italy (from 1970s in video games)

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