Portal:1970s

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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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Mass demonstrations of people protesting against the Shah and the Pahlavi government on the day of Hosseini's Ashura on 11 December 1978 at College Bridge, Tehran

The Iranian Revolution (Persian: انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân [ʔeɴɢeˌlɒːbe ʔiːɾɒːn]), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Imperial State of Iran, the Pahlavi dynasty and its head Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979. Pahlavi was replaced by religious cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who founded the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran, marking the end of Iran's historical monarchy.

Following the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Pahlavi aligned Iran with the Western Bloc and cultivated a close relationship with the US to consolidate his power as an authoritarian ruler. Relying heavily on American support amidst the Cold War, he remained the Shah of Iran for 26 years, keeping the country from swaying towards the influence of the Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union. Beginning in 1963, Pahlavi implemented widespread reforms aimed at modernizing Iran through an effort that came to be known as the White Revolution. Due to his opposition to this modernization, Khomeini was exiled from Iran in 1964. However, as ideological tensions persisted between Pahlavi and Khomeini, anti-government demonstrations began in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included communism, socialism, and Islamism. In August 1978, the deaths of about 400 people in the Cinema Rex fire due to arson by Islamic militants—claimed by the opposition as having been orchestrated by Pahlavi's SAVAK—served as a catalyst for a popular revolutionary movement across Iran, and large-scale strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country for the remainder of that year. (Full article...)

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... that the Fighting Vanguard waged a guerrilla war against the Syrian government in the 1970s and 1980s?
... that health economist Selma Mushkin estimated in the early 1970s that up to 50 percent of poor children in Washington, D.C., were affected by lead poisoning?
... that the gray stonecrop was little known in the 1970s but became so popular by the 1990s that demand exceeded supply?
... that the Yerevan Children's Art Museum deliberately kept no records from the 1970s to the 1990s?
... that Midwest Scientific was the only maker of microcomputers in Kansas City in the late 1970s?
... that the oldest surviving synagogue building in Wisconsin was almost razed in the 1970s?

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Portrait by Allan Warren, 1987

Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath also served for 51 years as a Member of Parliament from 1950 to 2001. Outside politics, Heath was a yachtsman, a musician, and an author.

Born in Broadstairs, Kent, Heath was the son of a chambermaid and carpenter. He attended Chatham House Grammar School in Ramsgate, Kent, and became a leader within student politics while studying at Balliol College at the University of Oxford. During World War II, Heath served as an officer in the Royal Artillery. He worked briefly in the Civil Service, but resigned in order to stand for Parliament, and was elected for Bexley at the 1950 election. He was promoted to become Chief Whip by Anthony Eden in 1955, and in 1959 was appointed to the Cabinet by Harold Macmillan as Minister of Labour. He later held the role of Lord Privy Seal and in 1963, was made President of the Board of Trade by Alec Douglas-Home. After the Conservatives were defeated at the 1964 election, Heath was elected as Leader of the Conservative Party in 1965, becoming Leader of the Opposition. Although he led the Conservatives to a landslide defeat at the 1966 election, he remained in the leadership, and at the 1970 election led his party to an unexpected victory. (Full article...)

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

Image 11974 Ford Mustang interior (from 1970s)
Image 2Flared 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 3Singer Billy Preston in 1974 wearing an Afro hairstyle. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 4Pescado Rabioso's Artaud's album cover (1973) (from 1970s)
Image 5African American couple, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, July 1975 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 6Idi Amin (from 1970s)
Image 7Nixon displays the V-for-victory sign as he departs the White House after resigning (from 1970s)
Image 8The Vietnam War (1955–1975) (from 1970s)
Image 9El Tri Band founder Alex Lora, on stage with the band in 2006 (from 1970s in music)
Image 10Paul Anka in 1961 (from 1970s in music)
Image 11Microvision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 12Pong arcade machine (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 13Led Zeppelin, 1977 (from 1970s in music)
Image 14Iranian prince Reza Pahlavi wearing Peacock Revolution-inspired velvet Nehru jacket and geometric print tunic, 1973. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 15Isabel 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 16A couple at prom in late 1970s: Powder Tuxedo and sleeved dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 17American casual attire, 1974. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 18Nixon and Zhou toast, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 19Silk scarves were popular fashion accessories for women in the 1970s. (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 21Home Pong console (museum recreation) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 22Two punks from the late 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 23British 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 24Aldo Moro (from 1970s)
Image 25Asteroids (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 26Pink 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 271979 Iranian Revolution (from 1970s)
Image 28Singer Cher in 1971. In the 1970s, women's hair was usually worn long with a centre parting (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 29Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 30Park Chung Hee (from 1970s)
Image 31Pong (1972) (from 1970s)
Image 32Alan Bennett in 1973, wearing a wide necktie (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 33Fashion models in Leipzig, GDR, 1972. One of the girls is modelling a "maxi" dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 34Pink Floyd, 1973 (from 1970s in music)
Image 35Siouxsie Sioux of the English punk group Siouxsie and the Banshees. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 36Salah Zulfikar and Zubaida Tharwat in The Other Man (1973) (from 1970s)
Image 37Haile Selassie was overthrown from power in Ethiopia, ending one of the longest-lasting monarchies in world history. (from 1970s)
Image 38Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 39Mid-70s Western-inspired outifts worn by country music group Asleep at the Wheel. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 40Mao Zedong wearing gray Zhongshan suit, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 41Charlie Rich (from 1970s in music)
Image 42Jose Jose (from 1970s in music)
Image 43Ramones's lead guitarist Johnny Ramone performing in Toronto, 1977 (from 1970s in music)
Image 44The first Military Junta after the 1976 Coup d'Etat in Argentina, integrated by Jorge Videla, Emilio Massera and Orlando Agosti (from 1970s)
Image 45Hank Williams (from 1970s in music)
Image 46Bob Marley, 1980 (from 1970s in music)
Image 47Intellivision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 48John Denver, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 49Frisbee player Ken Westerfield wearing draw string bell bottoms in the late 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 50Los Angeles high school students, 1973. The tousled, blond surfer hair was popular for young men in southern California. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 51The Bee Gees, in 1968 (from 1970s in music)
Image 52Margaret 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 53Commodore PET (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 54Footballer George Best wore long hair in 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 551970 Dodge Challenger Trans Am, an example of a muscle car in the earlier part of the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 56Queen, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 57Diane von Fürstenberg's wrap dress, designed in the 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 58Viking 1, the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars, takes this picture of the landing site in Chryse Planitia (1978) (from 1970s)
Image 59Apple II (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 60British singer Rod Stewart, 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 61By 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 62Debby Boone song "You Light Up My Life" had the most weeks at number one (from 1970s in music)
Image 63Line at a gas station in Maryland, June 15, 1979. (from 1970s)
Image 64A West German school girl with Schultüte in 1970, with a 'hippyish' outfit on. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 65Susana Giménez wearing hotpants, 1977 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 66The Swedish band ABBA was one of the most commercially successful European bands of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 67The CN Tower was completed in 1976, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure. (from 1970s)
Image 68 Fairchild Channel F (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 69Loretta Lynn (from 1970s in music)
Image 70The early 1970s' fashions were a continuation of the hippie look from the late 1960s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 71Linda Ronstadt in 1976 (from 1970s in music)
Image 72Debbie Harry of Blondie in 1977. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 73The British band The Bee Gees were one of the biggest musical acts of the 1970s leading the disco phenomenon (from 1970s in music)
Image 74Concorde landing at Farnborough in September 1974 (from 1970s)
Image 751976 flyer advertising the racing game Fonz (from 1970s in video games)
Image 76Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shake hands, Camp David, 1978 (from 1970s)
Image 77VT100 (1978) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 78The 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 79A Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from 1970s)
Image 80Galaxian (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 81Honda Civic sold well throughout the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 82United States President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna, Austria (from 1970s)
Image 83Three Los Angeles Chicanos in 1974. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 84Pakistan 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 85Jorge Luis Borges with admirers in 1976. (from 1970s)
Image 86Anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 1971. (from 1970s)
Image 87The world map of military alliances in 1970s: Western allies (blue), Non-aligned countries (green) and Soviet allies (red) (from 1970s)
Image 88Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson from Sanford and Son (from 1970s)
Image 89American 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 90Punk pioneer Lene Lovich in 1979, with her trademark long plaited hair. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 91Actress Raquel Welch in 1979, wearing the shoulder pads and "retro"-look tilted hat favored by designers at the time (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 92Apollo 17 Astronaut Gene Cernan becomes the last man on the Moon, December 13, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 93Two 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 94Swedish model Ulla Jones dressed in a lurex halter top and matching flared trousers (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 95AC/DC, August 1979 (from 1970s in music)
Image 96Voyager 1 passing by Jupiter's Great Red Spot February 25, 1979 (from 1970s)
Image 97British 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 98Bruce Lee fostered the popularity of martial arts cinema (from 1970s)
Image 99Elton John was one of the most commercially successful solo pop acts of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 100English girl in the mid-1970s wearing a wide-sleeved shirt, belted at the waist. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 101Color TV-Game (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 102Actress Camille Keaton in 1972. Throughout most of the decade, women preferred light, natural-looking make-up for the daytime. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 103Aerosmith 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 104Egyptian military vehicles crossing the Suez Canal on October 7, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. (from 1970s)
Image 105Clockwise 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 106Magnavox Odyssey (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 107TRS-80 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 108Girl in 1973 with a "flicked" hairstyle. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 109King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (from 1970s)
Image 110Death Race (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 111A young woman wearing a wrap dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 112Woman in miniskirt, 1970 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 113Mario Kempes scores the first goal in the 1978 World Cup Final for Argentina (from 1970s)
Image 114America's first space station Skylab in orbit February 8, 1974 (from 1970s)
Image 115Public at the farewell concert of Sui Generis (1975) (from 1970s)
Image 116Typical mid to late 1970s Ted gear, as worn by Shakin' Stevens. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 117The Eagles (from 1970s in music)
Image 1181973 Volvo P1800 sportwagon. (from 1970s)
Image 119Singer Barry Manilow wears his hair longish in the soft, layered style favoured by men in the 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 120In 1971 hotpants and bell-bottomed trousers were popular fashion trends (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 121Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (from 1970s)
Image 122Willie Nelson became one of the most popular country music artists during the 1970s. (from 1970s in music)
Image 123Henry Mancini (from 1970s in music)
Image 124Singer Rod Stewart performing in 1976. He was one of the major British soft rock artists of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 125David Bowie in the early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 126British rock band Killing Floor, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 127Steve McQueen with sideburns, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 128Example of glam rock costume worn by Roy Wood and Wizzard, early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 129Kansas (from 1970s in music)
Image 130Rigo Tovar (from 1970s in music)
Image 131Microvision (1979) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges. (from 1970s)
Image 132British girls in 1975 in flared jeans (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 133Dave Schultz won Stanley Cup two times (from 1970s)
Image 134Swedish model Efva Attling in a "midi" dress, Kings Road, London, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 135Polistil VG2 Pong clone (1978), made in Italy (from 1970s in video games)

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