1975-1980

Culture

 * Overview**- The late 70's was a time of great social changes, the Vietnam War, and equal rights issues that the 1960's began. Rock N' Roll broadened it's scope from the sugary pop music of the 1960's to a multitude of styles. We were introduced to soft rock, folk rock, hard rock, country rock, punk rock, and the dance craze that rocked the decade, DISCO! The music of this time showed off a dark side that hadn't been seen before. Pop culture took a strong hold on the youth. A hold that we still reminisce about today. Some fads popular in this time were mood rings, lava lamps, Rubik's cubes, sea monkeys, smiley face stickers, and pet rocks. Streaking nude in public was witnessed on many occasions and everyone vacationed in station wagons and wanted R.V.'s. Men still wore long hair and non-traditional clothing was a big deal. Fashions like leisure suits, platform shoes, earth shoes, clogs, t-shirt's, and gypsy dresses were very popular. Some popular movies were Annie Hall, Star Wars, Airport, Love Story, Shaft, The Fiddler on the Roof, Clockwork Orange, The Godfather, and The Poseidon Adventure. This period was full of historical changes. There was a shift from the 1960's social activism to social activities for one's pleasure such as all night disco's and drug use. Women, gays, and minorities fought for equal rights at home, in society, and in the work place. There was a growing loss of ground in the government, nuclear families, and religion.

[|Elvis Obituary]- Music in the late 70's played a major role in almost every person's life. So it was no surprise that when the world lost the 'King Of Rock and Roll" Americans were very upset. Elvis was found in his Graceland mansion on August 16th 1977 at the young age of 42. He lived a very eventful life and one could say that he changed the people look at not only Rock but all different genres of music. When Elvis died, the music died for a moment as well. He is said to have impacted the world of music more than any other artist that has ever lived.

[[image:http://employees.oneonta.edu/angellkg/slide60.jpg width="141" height="234" align="left"]]
This photo taken in 1976 shows the pantsuits, wide legs with large cuffs/ bell bottoms and hip huggers that became very popular for all occasions. Pants for women became acceptable in the work place. Many wore plaids or printed clothing shown in the lady on the left, or they wore very bright colored clothing shown on the right.




Technology

 * Overview**- The late 1970s was a time of new experiments and change. These times gave way for new hope, and concreted our fears of nuclear technology. It opened new portals of communications thanks to Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and helped those who needed it most. Technology in the late 70s was basically a bridge into the 80s, and it kicked it off with a boom.

Specific Example 1- On March 28, 1979 at about four in the morning, the cooling system for a nuclear core reactor at Three Mile Island nuclear plant shut down and caused the reactor core to overheat and become exposed. Radiation seeped out and into the surrounding area. The governor, Richard Thornburgh, evacuated the surrounding area and closed down around 20 schools. In the aftermath of this terrifying event, many nuclear power plants using the same instruments as the TMI plant were shut down, and the cleanup of the nuclear reactor core took nearly a decade to complete. Studies have shown that the result of this accident may have led to an increase of cancer in places in Pennsylvania where the radiation went downwind from the plant.

Specific Example 2- On April 4, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the computer network of the world, Microsoft.This changed the lives of people in America and around the world. this is a technology that's still prominent and powerful all over the world today. [|Read a 1975 Interview with Bill Gates]

Specific Example 3- In Great Britain on July 25, 1978, Loise Brown was born to Lesley and John Brown. She was born via cesarean(c-section) and weighed 5lb. 12 oz. and even though this happened in England, it marked a new beginning for hopeful parents around the world. Now all the women who9 were never able to conceive could now bear children through invitro-fertilization.

[|Read a Times article on the birth of the first ever test-tube baby] [|Watch a video about the first test tube baby]

Civil Rights

 * Overview**-While still around in the '70s, the African American Civil Rights Movement had achieved its main goals but lost much of its passion with the murders of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Bobby Kennedy. It was backed into the shadows, largely to make way for the feminist revolution. The seventies were seen as the "woman's turn", though many feminists incorporated civil rights ideals into their movement. A courageous feminist who had inherited the leadership position of the civil rights movement from her husband, Coretta Scott King, called for an end to all discrimination, helping and encouraging the Woman's Liberation movement, and other movements as well. At the National Women's Conference in 1977 which is a minority women's resolution that was passed to ensure racial equality in the movement's goals,women of all races joined hands and sung //"We Shall Overcome//". Similarly, the gay movement made a huge step forward in the 1970s with the election of political figures like Harvey Milk to public office and the onslaught of anti-gay discrimination legislation passed and not passed during the decade. Many celebrities, including Freddie Mercury and Andy Warhol, also "came out" during this decade, bringing gay culture further into the limelight.[[image:http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/sgallagher/milk.h1.gif align="right"]]

Harvey Milk, (Right) was a life long gay rights activist and in 1977, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in the United States. Less than one year later, on November 27, 1978, Milk was gunned down along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. The shooter was Supervisor Dan White, a conservative board member who had campaigned on a platform of law and order, civic pride, and family values. 

Congress passed a law in September 1978 that disestablished the WAC as a separate Corps of the Army effective 20 October 1978. Disestablishment of the WAC signaled an increasingly important role for women within the Army. In September 1977, men and women began training in the same basic training units at Fort McClellan and Fort Jackson and in October 1978 at Fort Dix and Fort Leonard Wood. Enlistment qualifications became the same for men and women by order of the Secretary of the Army on 1 October 1979. An act of Congress passed in October 1975 directing the Academy to accept women into its training program in 1976. The first women cadets graduated form the United States Military Academy, West Point New York in 1980.

Cold War

 * Overview**- As Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, Kissinger told him that his foreign-policy achievements would assure him a positive place in history. The achievements seemed substantial: détente with the Soviet Union; the opening to China; withdrawal from Vietnam; a brokered peace in the Middle East. Already, however, Nixon's foreign policy had come under considerable fire, and by the end of the 1970s his policies appeared repudiated. Southeast Asia fell to communism, and détente with the Soviet Union was abandoned. Triangular diplomacy was dead, and the Cold War returned.

On June 18th 1979, in Vienna, Austria President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signed the [|Salt ii Agreement]. SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides.In the late 1970s the USSR's missile design bureaus had developed experimental versions of these missiles equipped with anywhere from 10 to 38 thermonuclear warheads each. Additionally, the Soviets secretly agreed to reduce Tu-22M production to thirty aircraft per year and not to give them an intercontinental range. It was particularly important for the US to limit Soviet efforts in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Trident and cruise missles, which President Carter wished to use as his main defensive weapon as they were too slow to have first strike capability. In return, the USSR could exclusively retain 308 of its so-called "heavy ICBM" launchers of the SS-18 type. (INF) rearmament area. The SALT II Treaty banned new missile programs (a new missile defined as one with any key parameter 5% better than in currently deployed missiles), so both sides were forced to limit their new strategic missile types development although US preserved their most essential programs like

[|Helsinki Accords]- The Helsinki Accords were primarily an effort to reduce tension between the Soviet and Western blocs by securing their common acceptance of the post-World War II status quo in Europe. The accords were signed by all the countries of Europe (except Albania) and by the United States and Canada. The agreement recognized the inviolability of the post-World War II frontiers in Europe and pledged the 35 signatory nations to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to cooperate in economic, scientific, humanitarian, and other areas. The Helsinki Accords are nonbinding and do not have treaty status.


 **Overview**- From 1975 to 1980 the United States economy went through an economic condition of both continuing inflation and stagnant business activit with increasing unemployment rates, which came to be known as "Stagflation". Inflation seemed to feed on itself. People began to expect continuous increases in the price of goods, so they bought more. This increased demand and raised prices, leading to demands for higher wages, which pushed prices even higer. The government's ever-rising need for funds swelled the budget deficit and led to greater government borrowing, which in turn pushed up interest rates and increased costs for businesses and consumers even further. With energy costs and interest rates high, business investments weakened and unemployment rates rose to uncomfortable levels.

[|Bad Things Come In]This article from A 1977 Time magazine is intended to inform readers of the horrible downfalls that the U.S. economy was facing. America was heading towards it's second recession within just five years, but according to the author, most people thought that recession was the only solution. The Carter Administration seemed fresh out of ideas for fighting the economic problems, with all other attempts failing. One high Administration official said "The goddam economy is coming aprt at the seams. And look at our program!" refering to governments wage and price guidelines that almost everyone completely ignored.

A major source of the instability and change of the economy during the 1970s was energy. In the early 70's the United States faced shortages of electricity, gasoline, and heating oil, leading to the shutdown of factories and schools, the cancellation of some commercial airline flights, electrical brownouts, and lines at gasoline service stations. Blackouts plagued cities and industries, most spectacularly in New York City on July 13th and 14th of 1977 as shown on the left. High fuel prices reduced the productivity of American industry. Heavy imports of fuel harmed the U.S. balance of payments and destabilized the international monetary system.

[|Check out prices from the 70s]