-
US Soldiers found guilty of murder in My Lei Massacre
They created murder, not really war. Enforcement of the Geneva Convention. -
World Trade Center is Completed
The Twin Towers are completed the year that the Palestinian group hijacked five planes. This symbolized world trade. -
Computer Floppy Disks Introduced
Introduced in the 1970’s, and it revolutionized data storage in the PC. It ran strongly for some time, but faded in the 1990’s. It is rare to see a rare working machine being used in this day and age with a floppy drive in it. -
Palestinian Group Hijacks Five Planes:
February 21: A.P.F.L.P. splinter detonates altitude bombs in two airplanes, causing one to crash while the other lands safely. 47 people are killed, and both are P.F.L.P. and the other Palestinian guerrilla organizations condemn the attacks.
July 22: A couple of P.F.L.P. members go on trial to Greece, 6 others, hijacks an Olympic Airways flight from Beirut to Athens. They then threatened to blow up the plane unless they released their comrades (and 5 others that were convicted) are released. -
First Earth Day
20 million people across the United States celebrated the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970. Every day, the saying goes, is Earth Day. Why? One persistent rumor holds that April 22 was chosen because it's the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union. -
Kent State Shootings
The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent State massacre - occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. (Birth of the Environmental Movement) -
Beatles Break Up
The Beatles' break-up describes the events related to the break-up of The Beatles, one of the most popular and influential musical groups in history. The break-up has become almost as much of a legend as the band itself or the music they created while together. The Beatles were active from their formation in 1960 to the disintegration of the group in 1970.
There were numerous causes for the Beatles' break-up. It was not a single event but a long transition, including the cessation of touring in -
18 year olds given the vote
They originally had to be 21 years old to vote, and they finally lowered the age limit to 18 because they were able to fight for their country, die for their country, but couldn’t vote, so that’s when they changed the age limit. -
EPA is created
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a government agency concerned with the American environment and its impact on human health. It was founded in 1970 under Richard Nixon in response to growing environmental concerns among Americans, and often works with other agencies to achieve optimal results. The EPA is responsible for establishing and enforcing environmental standards under measures like the Clean Air Act, and employs 18,000 people all over the United States to supp -
Aswan High Dam Completed
The Aswan High Dam was completed on July 21, 1970. It is Across the Nile River in Egypt and is more than 2 miles long, and was also completed at Aswan. $1 billion dollar dam ended the cycle of flood and drought in the Nile River region, and exploded a new source of tremendous energy, but had a controversial environmental impact. -
• Bar codes introduced in the UK on retail products
Just gave them a price because they were in control so they just gave you a price. -
Apollo 13 mission suffers huge setback
One of the air tanks exploded because a meteor hit them and they lost oxygen, so the scientists on the ground had to figure out how to get their air clean because if they didn’t, the people would die in space. So the astronauts had to learn how to figure out how to use tape and tape everything together. -
• The Microprocessor is introduced
They made it tiny because they used to have equipment that took up the whole room and now they have some the size of your fingernail. -
• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Ed
After the Supreme Court's decision in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education, little progress had been made in desegregating public schools. One example was the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, system in which approximately 14,000 black students attended schools that were either totally black or more than 99 percent black. Lower courts had experimented with a number of possible solutions when the case reached the Supreme Court. -
• The Pentagon Papers Released
It showed the people that power can be abused. -
• Attica State Prison Riots
The Attica Prison riot occurred at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, United States in 1971. The riot was based in part upon prisoners' demands for better living conditions, and was led in large part by a small band of political revolutionaries. On September 9, 1971, responding to the death of prisoner George Jackson, a black radical activist prisoner who had been shot to death by corrections officers in California's San Quentin Prison on August 21, about 1,000 of the prison's -
• Amtrak created
• The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (reporting mark AMTK), is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union Station in Washington, D.C.
All of Amtrak's preferred stock is owned by the U.S. federal government. The members of its board of directors are appointed by the President of the U -
Special Event
Mr. Elliott graduated from Highschool :) -
Direct dial between New York and London
Cost a lot of money and it had an operator which took awhile. -
• VCRs Introduced
June 7, 1975. The Sony Corporation released its videocassette recorder, the Betamax, which sold for $995. Eventually, another VCR format, VHS, proved more successful and Sony stopped making the Betamax. -
• China joins the UN
We can talk and work out our differences. It is now easier to talk to them then it was before. -
• South Vietnam and US invade Laos:
South Vietnam and US invade Laos: On April 30 President Richard Nixon announced to a national television audience that US troops were invading Cambodia, the country west of Vietnam through which the North Vietnamese military was supplying their troops in the South. In fact, the US had been conducting bombing raids in Cambodia for over a year.
The image of the President's hand resting over an abstract map of Cambodia circulated widely. It appeared not only in the New York Times but on the cover -
• First Benefit Concert organized for Bangladesh by George Harrison
The Concert for Bangladesh was the event title for two benefit concerts organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, held at noon and at 7:00 p.m. on August 1, 1971, playing to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Organized for the relief of refugees from East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and during the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities and Bangladesh Liberation War, the event was the first benefit concert of this magnitude in world -
• Cigarette ads are banned on TV
It encouraged kids to smoke -
End of Gold Standard for US Currency
Since the ‘dollar’ is changing, shouldn’t gold be changing what it is worth? So Nixon said that we don’t need gold. Our money is now ‘Fiat Money,’ which has value because the government says so. The government backs up value of money, not gold.
Were federal courts constitutionally authorized to oversee and produce remedies for state-imposed segregation?
In a unanimous decision, the Court held that once violations of previous mandates directed at desegregating schools had occurred, the scope of -
London Bridge Brought to the U.S
In the middle of nowhere and everybody has come the desert just to see it. And now they have on in Arizona as well. -
• Disney World Opens
On Friday October 1, 1971 - after seven years of planning - about 10,000 visitors converged near Orlando, Florida, to witness the grand opening of Walt Disney World. The Magic Kingdom (the only theme park at the time on Disney property) featured Adventure-land, Fantasyland, Frontier-land, Liberty Square, Tomorrow-land, a Main Street USA, and about 5,500 Cast Members. The price of admission was $4.95!
At the end of October 1971, the total attendance was around 400,000.
The day after Thanksgiving -
D.B. Cooper
D. B. Cooper Is the name popularly used to refer an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the airspace between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, USA on November 24, 1971, extorted USD $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Despite an extensive manhunt and an exhaustive (and ongoing) FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or positively identified. To date, the case remains the only unsolved airline hijacking in American aviation histor -
• First successful video game (Pong) launched
Pong (marketed as PONG) is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity. The aim is to defeat the opponent in a simulated table tennis game by earning a higher score. The game was originally manufactured by Atari Incorporated (Atari), who released it in 1972. Allan Alcorn created Pong as a trai -
• Last man in the moon
Everyone knows the name of the first man on the moon, but what about the last? Eugene Cretan left the final boot print that may ever appear on the surface of our dusty satellite. Yet Cernan has been heralded for far more than this milestone. He is not only one of the most accomplished of the astronauts—he journeyed into space three times, on Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17—but one of the most eloquent in describing his otherworldly experiences. Below, join him as he lifts off, walks in space, -
• Pocket Calculators Introduced
An electronic calculator (usually called simply a calculator) is a small, usually inexpensive electronic device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs are comparable in size to handheld calculators.
The first electronic calculator was created in the 1960s, building on the history of tools such as the abacus, developed around 2000 BC; and the mechanical calculator, developed in the 17th century. -
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI) introduced
Supplemental Security Income (or SSI) is a United States government program that provides stipends to low-income people who are either aged (65 or older), blind, or disabled. Although administered by the Social Security Administration, SSI is funded from the U.S. Treasury general funds, not the Social Security trust fund. SSI was created in 1974 to replace federal-state adult assistance programs that served the same purpose. -
NIxon Visits China
U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, who at that time considered the U.S. one of its staunchest foes. The visit has become a metaphor for an unexpected or uncharacteristic action by a politician. -
• Watergate Scandal Begins
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, on August 9, 1974, the first and only resignation of any U.S. President. It also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction and incarceration of several Nixon administratio -
• Nixon visits Soviet Union
President Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union (in May 1972) was the most epoch-making event since Soviet Premier Khrushchev's visit to the United States in 1959 in that it was the first visit ever made to the Soviet Union by an American President after the war.
His visit was realized despite the fact that the U.S.-Soviet confrontation over the Vietnam problem had deepened because of the U.S. naval blockade of North Vietnam. It produced concrete results, including the agreement on basic documents ( -
Mark Spitz Wins Seven Gold Medals
Mark Andrew Spitz (born February 10, 1950) is a retired American swimmer. He won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, an achievement surpassed only by Michael Phelps who won eight golds at the 2008 Olympics.
Between 1968 and 1972, Spitz won nine Olympic golds plus silver and a bronze, five Pan American golds, 31 US Amateur Athletic Union titles and eight US National Collegiate Athletic Association titles. During those years, he set 33 world records!* -
• Supreme Court rules against death penalty
The first known execution in the territory now known as the United States of America was of Captain George Kendall, who was shot by a firing squad in Jamestown in December 1607 (other sources say sometime in 1608), accused of sowing discord and mutiny (some sources say he was also accused of spying against the British for Spain). The next known execution, also in the Colony of Virginia, was of Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 for the crime of theft. -
• KKK riots in NYC
KKK riots in NYC and 3 people die. The KKK rioted in Central Park and 3 people died in the riot/protest. -
• The Wars Act passed
The War Measures Act was a Canadian statute that allowed the government to assume sweeping emergency powers in the event of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended". Enacted in August 1914, the act remained in force until being superseded by the Emergencies Act in 1988.
The act was invoked three times in Canadian history: during the First World War, the Second World War, and the 1970 October crisis. -
• M*A*S*H T.V. Show Premiers
MASH is a 1970 American satirical dark comedy film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner, Jr., based on the novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker. It is the only feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise. It became one of the biggest hit films of the early 1970s for Twentieth Century Fox, and especially during the Vietnam War era. The film is set during the Korean War, but mirrors the confusion of Vietnam.
The film depicts a unit of medical personnel statione -
• HBO launched
HBO, an initialism of its full (legal) name Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. As of December 2010, HBO's programming reaches 28.6 million subscribers in the United States, making it the largest premium cable network in America (in terms of the number of subscribers). In addition to its U.S. subscriber base, HBO also broadcasts in at least 151 countries worldwide.
HBO's programming consists primarily of theatrically-released motion pictures an -
• Terrorists Attack at the Olympic Games in Munich
The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria in southern West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually murdered by the Islamic terrorist group Black September. Members of Black September contended that Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization secretly endorsed the operation. Fatah, however, disputed the accusation. Black September called the operation "Ikrit and Biram", -
• George Wallace shot while campaigning
George Corley Wallace, Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S. president four times, running officially as a Democrat three times and in the American Independent Party once.
A 1972 assassination attempt left him paralyzed; he used a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He -
• Title IX signed into law by Nixon
On June 23, 1972, Title IX was signed into law by President Nixon. Title IX is best known for its applications to women’s sports, but the law is actually much broader than that:
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.
The U.S. Department of Education gives grants of financial assistance to schools and colleges. -
• UPC Barcodes come to US
: The Universal Product Code or UPC barcode was the first bar code symbology widely adopted. Its birth is usually set at April 3, 1973, when the grocery industry formally established UPC as the standard bar code symbology for product marking. Foreign interest in UPC led to the adoption of the EAN code format, similar to UPC, in December 1976. -
• Paul Getty Kidnapped
Jean Paul Getty (December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American industrialist. He founded the Getty Oil Company, and in 1957 Fortune magazine named him the richest living American. At his death, he was worth more than $2 billion. A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th richest American who ever lived, based on his wealth as a percentage of the gross national product. -
• OPEC doubles price of oil
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war; it lasted until March 1974. -
• Abortion Legalized in U.S
Abortion in the United States has been legal in every state since the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, on January 22, 1973. Prior to "Roe", there were exceptions to the abortion ban in at least 10 states; "Roe" established that a woman has a right to self-determination (often referred to as a "right to privacy") covering the decision whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, but that this right must be balanced against a state's interest in preserving fetal life. -
• U.S. Vice President Resigns
Spiro Theodore Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th Vice President of the United States (1969-1973), serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland (1967-1969). He was also the first Greek American to hold these offices. -
• Sears Tower Built
Willis Tower (formerly named, and still commonly referred to as Sears Tower) is a 108-story, 1451-foot (442 m) skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. At the time of its completion in 1973, it was the tallest building in the world, surpassing the World Trade Center towers in New York, and it held this rank for nearly 25 years. -
• Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (7 U.S.C. § 136, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. , ESA) is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."
The Act is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) -
• The War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541-1548) is a U.S. federal law intended to restrict the power of the President to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of Congress. The law was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution; this provides that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States. -
• Girls allowed to play in Little League Baseball
Little League Baseball and Softball (officially, Little League Baseball, Incorporated) is a non-profit organization in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States which organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues throughout the U.S. and the rest of the world. -
• National speed limit 55
The National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL) in the United States was a provision of the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that prohibited speed limits higher than 55 mph (90 km/h). It was drafted in response to oil price spikes and supply disruptions during the 1973 oil crisis. While gasoline consumption was expected to fall by 2.2%, the United States Department of Transportation calculated actual savings at 1%. Independent studies suggest savings as low as a half percent. -
• Patty Hearst Kidnapped
Patricia Campbell Hearst (born February 20, 1954), now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber. -
• Freedom of Information Act passed over Ford’s veto
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a federal law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States Government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures and grants nine exemptions to the statute. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 4, 1966 (Public Law 89-554, 80 Stat. 383; Amended 1996, 2002, 2007), -
• U.S. President Nixon Resigns
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, in office from 1969 to 1974. He served as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency. A member of the Republican Party, he was the only President to resign the office. -
• Gerald Ford pardons Nixon
On September 8, 1974, one month after President Richard Nixon resigned the presidency amid the Watergate scandal, his successor, President Gerald R. Ford, announced his decision to grant Nixon a full pardon for any crimes he may have committed while in office.
The Watergate scandal stemmed from a break-in that occurred on the night of June 17, 1972, when five burglars entered the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. -
Microsoft Founded
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, NYSE: MSFT) is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. -
Catalytic converters introduced on cars
A catalytic converter (colloquially, "cat" or "catcon") is a device used to reduce the array of emissions from an internal combustion engine. A catalytic converter works by using a catalyst to stimulate a chemical reaction in which the by-products of combustion are converted to produce less harmful and/or inert substances, such as the very poisonous carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide. -
Saigon falls to communism
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the start of a transition period leading to the formal reunification of Vietnam under communist rule. -
Arthur Ashe First Black Man to Win Wimbledon
American tennis player Arthur Ashe has become the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles' championship.
New Yorker Althea Gibson was the first black woman to take the Wimbledon title in 1958.
Ashe beat defending champion Jimmy Connors three sets to one on Centre Court.
Speaking after the game Ashe said: "I always thought I would win because I was playing so well and was so confident." -
Jimmy Hoffa Disappears
James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa (born February 14, 1913 – disappeared July 30, 1975, declared legally dead July 30, 1982) was an American labor union leader and author.
Hoffa was involved with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, as an organizer from 1932 to 1975. He served as the union's General President from 1958 to 1971. -
President Ford assassination attempts (2)
Gerald Ford - Ford escaped two assassination attempts, both by women. First on September 5, 1975, Lynette Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, pointed a gun at him but did not fire. She was convicted of attempting to assassinate the president and sentenced to life in prison. The second attempt on Ford's life occurred on September 22, 1975 when Sara Jane Moore fired one shot that was deflected by a bystander. -
Computerized Supermarket checkouts begin to appear
· A supermarket checkout
- allows the operator to scan the barcodes of a basket of
items, and
- produces an itemised bill for the customer
· The behaviour of the checkout is specified by a computer
program
· The input to the checkout program is a sequence of the
barcodes from the scanned items
· The output from the checkout program is a bill that gives
- the name and price of each scanned item,
- the total cost of the basket of items, and
- possibly other details of the transaction -
Francisco Franco Dies
Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde (4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975), known simply as Francisco Franco (Spanish pronunciation: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko]), was a Spanish military general and head of state of Spain from October 1936 (whole nation from 1939 onwards), and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November 1975. -
Legionnaire's disease strikes 182, kills 29
Legionnaire's disease strikes 182, kills 29
The first appearance of the flu like disease struck at an American Legion convention in Philadelphi -
Apple Computer Launched
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. -
Betamax VCR's Released
Betamax (sometimes called Beta) is a home videocassette tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain 1/2-inch (12.7mm)-wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional 3/4-inch (19.05mm) U-matic format. The format is generally considered obsolete, though it is still used in specialist applications by a small minority of people. -
Karen Ann Quinlan
Karen Ann Quinlan (March 29, 1954 – June 11, 1985) was an important person in the history of the right to die controversy in the United States.
When she was 21, Quinlan became unconscious after arriving home from a party. She had consumed diazepam, dextropropoxyphene, and alcohol. After she collapsed and stopped breathing twice for 15 minutes or more, the paramedics arrived and took her to hospital, where she lapsed into a persistent vegetative state. -
Entebbe Air Raid
Operation Entebbe was a hostage-rescue mission carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976.[1] A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists and supporters and flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Shortly after landing, all non-Jewish passengers were released. -
North and South Vietnam Join to Form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" (1949–55) and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" (1955–75). Its capital was Saigon. The terms "South Vietnam" and "North Vietnam" became common usage in 1954 at the time of the Geneva Conference, which partitioned Vietnam into communist and non-communist zones at the 17th parallel. -
Nadia Comaneci Given Seven Perfect Tens
Before 1976, no male or female had ever received a perfect score in any Olympic gymnastics event. And then came Nadia Comaneci, all 4-foot-11, 86 pounds of her. The 14-year-old Romanian dazzled the judges in Montreal to the point where they couldn't help but give her a perfect 10. And they didn't stop there, for not only did Comaneci receive the first perfect score, she then proceeded to get six more! -
Mao Tse-tung Dies
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung listen (help·info), and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, poet, political theorist, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held authoritarian control over the nation until his death in 1976. -
West Point Admits Women
The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, 50 miles (80 km) north of New York City. The entire central campus is a national landmark and home to scores of historic sites, buildings, and monuments. The majority of the campus's neogothic buildings are constructed from gray and black granite. The campus is a popular tourist destination complete with a large visitor center and the oldest museum in the United States Army. -
President Carter pardons Vietnam Draft Dodgers
Just a day after Jimmy Carter's inaguration, he followed through on a contentious campaign promise, granting a presidential pardon to those who had avoided the draft during the Vietnam war by either not registering or traveling abroad.
The pardon meant the government was giving up forever the right to prosecute what the administration said were hundreds of thousands of draft-dodgers. -
Miniseries Roots Airs
Roots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's work Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations, winning nine; it also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still standing as the third-highest rated U.S. television program ever. It was shot on a budget of $6 million. -
Red Dye #2 is Banned
Without it, instant chocolate pudding would be greenish, artificially flavored grape soda would look blue, and cake mixes would have a lemony-green tinge. The substance is Red Dye No. 2, which has been used for decades to brighten up innumerable products, including frankfurter casings, pet foods, ice cream, gravies, makeup and myriad red pills. About 1 million pounds of the coal-tar-based stuff—a $5 million industry in itself—have ended up annually in more than $10 billion worth of foods. -
Star Wars Movie Released
Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy's final film, the first in a new prequel trilogy of films was released, again at three-year intervals, with the final film released on May 19, 2005 -
Alaskan Pipeline Completed
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), includes the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems. It is commonly called the Alaska Pipeline, Trans-Alaska Pipeline, or Alyeska Pipeline, (or the Pipeline as referred to in Alaska), but those terms technically apply only to the 800 miles (1,287 km) of the pipeline with the diameter of 48 inches (122 cm) that conveys oil. -
First Black Miss Universe
Miss Universe is an annual international beauty contest run by the Miss Universe Organization. The pageant is the most publicized beauty contest in the world with 600 million viewers.
The contest was founded in 1952 by California clothing company Pacific Mills. The pageant became part of Kayser-Roth and then Gulf and Western Industries, before being acquired by Donald Trump in 1996. -
New York City blackout
The New York City Blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout that affected most of New York City from July 13, 1977 to July 14, 1977. The only neighborhoods in New York City that were not affected were in southern Queens, and neighborhoods of the Rockaways, which are part of the Long Island Lighting Company System.
Unlike other blackouts that affected the region, namely the Northeast Blackout of 1965 and the Northeast Blackout of 2003, the 1977 blackout was localized to New York City. -
Neutron bomb funding began
A wave of Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers rolls across the northern German plain. Unable to stem the tide, NATO generals request permission to use tactical nuclear weapons. According to an alliance agreement, the President of the U.S. must give his assent before battlefield nukes can be fired. He does. Scores of heavy artillery pieces are aimed at the invaders. Nuclear devices, each packing the equivalent of ten kilotons (10,000 tons) worth of TNT, halt the aggressors. -
Elvis Found Dead
Man is mortal. And for every life there has to be an end. This is the rule of Nature. So the death of Elvis was imminent from that point of view. Then what makes people react so much about Elvis's death? Why has his death been called intrigue?
The closest possible explanation is perhaps the time and the weird nature of his death. It all happened so suddenly that people were could hardly believe it. -
First Test-Tube Baby Born
First Test-Tube Baby Born (1978): Since 1966, Dr. Patrick Steptoe, a gynecologist at Oldham General Hospital, and Dr. Robert Edwards, a physiologist at Cambridge University, had been actively working on finding an alternative solution for conception for women with blocked Fallopian tubes. However, even after they found a way to fertilize an egg outside a human body, they continued to have problems replacing the fertilized egg back into a uterus. -
Love Canal in New York declared federal disaster
Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, which became the subject of national and international attention, controversy, and eventual environmental notoriety following the discovery of 21,000 tons of toxic waste that had been buried beneath the neighborhood by Hooker Chemical. Love Canal officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. -
Camp David accords for Middle East Peace
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter. -
Atlantic City permits gambling
Atlantic City, New Jersey is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2008, the city has a population of 35,770, with 266,268 people living in the Atlantic City–Hammonton metropolitan statistical area. -
John Paul ll Becomes Pope
Blessed Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛf vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005), known as Blessed John Paul II since his beatification on May 1, 2011, reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of The Holy See from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005. -
Jonestown Massacre
Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple, a cult led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown, Guyana's capital. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations. -
Ayatollah Khomeini Returns as Leader of Iran
Religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini has made a triumphant return to Iran after 14 years in exile. -
Nuclear Accident at Three Mile Island
The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear power plant near Middletown, PA, on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. But it brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. -
Margaret Thatcher First Woman Prime Minister of Great Britain
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925) is a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who served from 1979 to 1990.
Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford before qualifying as a barrister. In the 1959 general election she became MP for Finchley. Edward Heath appointed Thatcher Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. -
Sony introduces the Walkman
Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The original Walkman introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones. -
Jerry Falwell begins Moral Majority
LYNCHBURG, VA - Rev. Jerry Falwell, the larger than life televangelist who launched the so called moral majority movement, is dead. He was found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a conservative Christian university in this southern town. He was rushed to the hospital in "grave" condition, and was later pronounced dead. -
ESPN starts broadcasting
The Entertainment Sports Programming Network, usually referred to by its acronym ESPN, is an American cable television network focusing on sports-related programming.
Founded by Bill Rasmussen, his son Scott Rasmussen and Getty Oil executive Stuart Evey, it launched on September 7, 1979, under the direction of Chet Simmons, the network's President and CEO (and later the United States Football League's first commissioner). Getty Oil Company provided the funding to begin the new venture. -
The Greensboro Massacre
The Greensboro massacre occurred on November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. Five protest marchers were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. The protest was the culmination of attempts by the Communist Workers Party to organize mostly black industrial workers in the area. -
Iran takes American Hostages in Tehran
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. Fifty-two US citizens were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamic students and militants took over the Embassy of the United States in support of the Iranian Revolution.