1970s History Timeline

1970s History Timeline

1974

1972

1976

1970

1978

• The world's first test-tube baby is born.
• Blizzard of '78

• Five men are caught breaking in to the Watergate Complex where the Democratic Party offices are – the start of the Watergate Scandal.
• Eleven Israeli athletes are killed at the Munich Olympic Games. Five terrorists and one policeman are also killed.
• U.S. planes bomb North Vietnam on Christmas Day.
• The Godfather is released

• U.S. President Richard Nixon orders an invasion of Cambodia, widening the war in Vietnam. In protest, millions march across the U.S. University campuses are shut down by student strikes. Four protestors at Kent State University in Ohio are killed by National Guard troops.

• The Beatles break up.

• The United States celebrates the Bicentennial marking 200 years as a nation.
• Jimmy Carter is elected the 39th President.
• The Supreme Court rules that the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual punishment, so it's a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment.
• Apple Computer is founded by Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak.

• The House Judiciary Committee indicts President Richard Nixon for impeachment over the Watergate Scandal. In August, Nixon resigns his office, the first president to do so. Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as 38th president. In September, Ford grants Nixon a "full, free and absolute pardon."
• Patricia Hearst, the 19-year-old daughter of publisher Randolph Herst, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Later she is photographed robbing a bank with her captors.
• All the President's Men is published by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein detailing events of Watergate.
• Beverly Johnson becomes the first black model on the cover of Vogue or any other major fashion magazine.

1977

1979

1975

1973

1971

• U.S. signs peace pact and troops pull out of Vietnam. Bombing of Cambodia stops, ending 12 years of U.S. combat in Southeast Asia.
• Supreme Court rules on Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion.
• The mobile phone is invented.

• Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq.
• Margaret Thatcher, a conservative, becomes the first woman prime minister of Britain.
• At Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, a nuclear power plant comes close to melting down and releases some radiation into the atmosphere.
• In November, Iranian militants seize the U.S. embassy in Tehran and hold hostages.

• Scientists report genetic engineering techniques to make insulin.
• Elvis Presley is found dead.
• President Carter pardons Vietnam era draft evaders.
• Nuclear proliferation pact that curbs the spread of nuclear weapons is signed by 15 countries, including the U.S. and USSR.
• The movie Star Wars is released to great acclaim and box office.

• U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that busing students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation of schools.
• The Pentagon Papers are published detailing the military's secret, negative assessment of the Vietnam War.
• Apollo 15 lands on the moon and uses the Lunar Rover vehicle for the first time.
• The microprocessor – the foundation of today's computers – is introduced.
• The environmentalist group Greenpeace is founded.

• North Vietnamese enter Saigon. The last group of Americans are evacuated by helicopter at the last minute from the roof of the embassy. The War in Vietnam is over.
• Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge take over in Cambodia and begin a blood bath.
• Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft link up in space, marking the cooperation between the U.S. and Soviets.
• Bill Gates and Paul Allen found the Microsoft corporation. The Altair becomes the first widely available personal computer running Microsoft's BASIC software.