Portal:1970s

The 1970s Portal

P: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.

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Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm Ltd. and released by Twentieth Century-Fox. It is the first film in the Star Wars franchise and the fourth chronological chapter of the "Skywalker Saga". Set in a fictional galaxy under the rule of the tyrannical Galactic Empire, the film follows a group of freedom fighters known as the Rebel Alliance, who aim to destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star. When the rebel leader Princess Leia is captured by the Empire, Luke Skywalker acquires stolen architectural plans of the Death Star and sets out to rescue her while learning the ways of a metaphysical power known as "the Force" from the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. The cast includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, and James Earl Jones.

Lucas had the idea for a science fiction film in the vein of Flash Gordon around the time he completed his first film, THX 1138 (1971), and he began working on a treatment after the release of American Graffiti (1973). After numerous rewrites, filming took place throughout 1975 and 1976 in locations including Tunisia and Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England. Lucas formed the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic to help create the film's visual effects. Star Wars suffered production difficulties: the cast and crew believed the film would be a failure, and it went $3 million over budget due to delays. (Full article...)

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... that the basic tune for "As Long as You're Mine" from 2003's Wicked was written by Stephen Schwartz in the 1970s?
... that ketchup chips were introduced in the 1970s along with other flavours such as grape and orange?
... that Spaceship House was originally built as a 1970s-era bachelor pad?
... that in the 1970s, the Shelton Hotel avoided demolition after seven elderly residents and a secretary refused to move out?
... 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 a Nebraska public radio station operated from a 1916-built Carnegie library in the 1970s and 1980s?

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Gaye in 1973

Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. (né Gay; April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984) was an American R&B and soul singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He helped shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of successes, which earned him the nicknames "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul", and is often considered one of the greatest singers of all time.

Gaye's Motown hits include "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" (1964), "Ain't That Peculiar" (1965), and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (1968). He also recorded duets with Mary Wells, Kim Weston, Tammi Terrell, and Diana Ross. During the 1970s, Gaye became one of the first Motown artists to break away from the reins of a production company and recorded the landmark albums What's Going On (1971) and Let's Get It On (1973). (Full article...)

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

Image 1Elton John was one of the most commercially successful solo pop acts of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 2Bruce Lee fostered the popularity of martial arts cinema (from 1970s)
Image 3Jose Jose (from 1970s in music)
Image 4Death Race (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 5Isabel 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 6Led Zeppelin, 1977 (from 1970s in music)
Image 7In 1971 hotpants and bell-bottomed trousers were popular fashion trends (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 8Mao Zedong wearing gray Zhongshan suit, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 9Aerosmith had seven studio albums chart on the Billboard 200 in the 1970s. Their success in the decade, particularly of their albums Toys in the Attic (1975) and Rocks (1976), helped inspire future rock artists such as Slash and Kurt Cobain (from 1970s in music)
Image 10The British band The Bee Gees were one of the biggest musical acts of the 1970s leading the disco phenomenon (from 1970s in music)
Image 11Frisbee player Ken Westerfield wearing draw string bell bottoms in the late 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 12Nixon and Zhou toast, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 13Iranian prince Reza Pahlavi wearing Peacock Revolution-inspired velvet Nehru jacket and geometric print tunic, 1973. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 14Debbie Harry of Blondie in 1977. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 15Concorde landing at Farnborough in September 1974 (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 17British girls in 1975 in flared jeans (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 18Line at a gas station in Maryland, June 15, 1979. (from 1970s)
Image 19Three Los Angeles Chicanos in 1974. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 20An 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 21British 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 22Willie Nelson became one of the most popular country music artists during the 1970s. (from 1970s in music)
Image 23Egyptian military vehicles crossing the Suez Canal on October 7, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. (from 1970s)
Image 241974 Ford Mustang interior (from 1970s)
Image 25The Vietnam War (1955–1975) (from 1970s)
Image 26John Denver, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 27Viking 1, the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars, takes this picture of the landing site in Chryse Planitia (1978) (from 1970s)
Image 28Los Angeles high school students, 1973. The tousled, blond surfer hair was popular for young men in southern California. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 29Mid-70s Western-inspired outifts worn by country music group Asleep at the Wheel. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 30Magnavox Odyssey (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 31British rock band Killing Floor, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 32Paul Anka in 1961 (from 1970s in music)
Image 33Rigo Tovar (from 1970s in music)
Image 34Pong arcade machine (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 35Singer Barry Manilow wears his hair longish in the soft, layered style favoured by men in the 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 36Haile Selassie was overthrown from power in Ethiopia, ending one of the longest-lasting monarchies in world history. (from 1970s)
Image 37American casual attire, 1974. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 38A West German school girl with Schultüte in 1970, with a 'hippyish' outfit on. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 39American First Lady Pat Nixon wears a shirt with the wide collar that was popular until the final years of the decade. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 40Two punks from the late 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 41Intellivision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 42British 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 43Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson from Sanford and Son (from 1970s)
Image 441979 Iranian Revolution (from 1970s)
Image 45Mario Kempes scores the first goal in the 1978 World Cup Final for Argentina (from 1970s)
Image 46Asteroids (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 47TRS-80 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 48Alan Bennett in 1973, wearing a wide necktie (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 49Park Chung Hee (from 1970s)
Image 50Loretta Lynn (from 1970s in music)
Image 51The first Military Junta after the 1976 Coup d'Etat in Argentina, integrated by Jorge Videla, Emilio Massera and Orlando Agosti (from 1970s)
Image 52Galaxian (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 53United States President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna, Austria (from 1970s)
Image 54Swedish model Ulla Jones dressed in a lurex halter top and matching flared trousers (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 55Girl in 1973 with a "flicked" hairstyle. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 56Nixon displays the V-for-victory sign as he departs the White House after resigning (from 1970s)
Image 57Diane von Fürstenberg's wrap dress, designed in the 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 58Salah Zulfikar and Zubaida Tharwat in The Other Man (1973) (from 1970s)
Image 59The 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 60Singer Billy Preston in 1974 wearing an Afro hairstyle. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 61AC/DC, August 1979 (from 1970s in music)
Image 62Punk pioneer Lene Lovich in 1979, with her trademark long plaited hair. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 63Aldo Moro (from 1970s)
Image 641973 Volvo P1800 sportwagon. (from 1970s)
Image 65Clockwise 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 66Honda Civic sold well throughout the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 67Anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 1971. (from 1970s)
Image 68Two women in 1979 wear the trendy tube tops, while the woman on the far left is wearing a rayon strapless dress (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 69Singer Cher in 1971. In the 1970s, women's hair was usually worn long with a centre parting (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 70Flared 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 71Fashion models in Leipzig, GDR, 1972. One of the girls is modelling a "maxi" dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 72The Bee Gees, in 1968 (from 1970s in music)
Image 73Henry Mancini (from 1970s in music)
Image 74Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shake hands, Camp David, 1978 (from 1970s)
Image 75Public at the farewell concert of Sui Generis (1975) (from 1970s)
Image 76African American couple, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, July 1975 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 77Bob Marley, 1980 (from 1970s in music)
Image 78The Swedish band ABBA was one of the most commercially successful European bands of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 79VT100 (1978) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 80Swedish model Efva Attling in a "midi" dress, Kings Road, London, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 81British singer Rod Stewart, 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 82Linda Ronstadt in 1976 (from 1970s in music)
Image 83Susana Giménez wearing hotpants, 1977 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 84Idi Amin (from 1970s)
Image 85Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 86Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 87Apollo 17 Astronaut Gene Cernan becomes the last man on the Moon, December 13, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 88Charlie Rich (from 1970s in music)
Image 89The world map of military alliances in 1970s: Western allies (blue), Non-aligned countries (green) and Soviet allies (red) (from 1970s)
Image 90By 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 91Siouxsie Sioux of the English punk group Siouxsie and the Banshees. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 92Color TV-Game (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 93A Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from 1970s)
Image 94Ramones's lead guitarist Johnny Ramone performing in Toronto, 1977 (from 1970s in music)
Image 95Example of glam rock costume worn by Roy Wood and Wizzard, early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 96Microvision (1979) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges. (from 1970s)
Image 97Home Pong console (museum recreation) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 98Pong (1972) (from 1970s)
Image 991976 flyer advertising the racing game Fonz (from 1970s in video games)
Image 100English girl in the mid-1970s wearing a wide-sleeved shirt, belted at the waist. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 101David Bowie in the early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 102Pink Floyd, 1973 (from 1970s in music)
Image 103King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (from 1970s)
Image 104Queen, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 105The Eagles (from 1970s in music)
Image 106Kansas (from 1970s in music)
Image 107 Fairchild Channel F (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 108Typical mid to late 1970s Ted gear, as worn by Shakin' Stevens. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 109The CN Tower was completed in 1976, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure. (from 1970s)
Image 110Silk scarves were popular fashion accessories for women in the 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 111Pink 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 112Dave Schultz won Stanley Cup two times (from 1970s)
Image 113Singer Rod Stewart performing in 1976. He was one of the major British soft rock artists of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 114Apple II (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 115A young woman wearing a wrap dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 116Actress Raquel Welch in 1979, wearing the shoulder pads and "retro"-look tilted hat favored by designers at the time (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 1171970 Dodge Challenger Trans Am, an example of a muscle car in the earlier part of the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 118Woman in miniskirt, 1970 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 119Commodore PET (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 120Microvision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 121Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (from 1970s)
Image 122A couple at prom in late 1970s: Powder Tuxedo and sleeved dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 123Pakistan Army General A. A. K. Niazi signing surrender agreement before Sh. Jagjit Singh Aurora of Indian Army after getting defeated in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War against East Pakistan, which eventually liberated as Bangladesh later. (from 1970s)
Image 124Polistil VG2 Pong clone (1978), made in Italy (from 1970s in video games)
Image 125Footballer George Best wore long hair in 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 126The early 1970s' fashions were a continuation of the hippie look from the late 1960s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 127Hank Williams (from 1970s in music)
Image 128Pescado Rabioso's Artaud's album cover (1973) (from 1970s)
Image 129Actress Camille Keaton in 1972. Throughout most of the decade, women preferred light, natural-looking make-up for the daytime. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 130America's first space station Skylab in orbit February 8, 1974 (from 1970s)
Image 131Jorge Luis Borges with admirers in 1976. (from 1970s)
Image 132Steve McQueen with sideburns, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 133Debby Boone song "You Light Up My Life" had the most weeks at number one (from 1970s in music)
Image 134El Tri Band founder Alex Lora, on stage with the band in 2006 (from 1970s in music)
Image 135Voyager 1 passing by Jupiter's Great Red Spot February 25, 1979 (from 1970s)

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