Portal:1970s

The 1970s Portal

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.

Selected article -

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.

The agency is led by its administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. Since January 29, 2025, the administrator is Lee Zeldin. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. There are regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions, as well as 27 laboratories around the country. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that the gray stonecrop was little known in the 1970s but became so popular by the 1990s that demand exceeded supply?
... that the oldest surviving synagogue building in Wisconsin was almost razed in the 1970s?
... that Spaceship House was originally built as a 1970s-era bachelor pad?
... that Michael Lippman had his breakthrough in the music business in the 1970s by working as an attorney and manager for David Bowie?
... that a forest in northern Wisconsin was subject to nuclear-radiation testing in the 1970s?
... that the Yerevan Children's Art Museum deliberately kept no records from the 1970s to the 1990s?

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Selected biography -

Gates in 2025

William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Following Microsoft's initial public offering in 1986 and the subsequent increase in its stock price, Gates became the world's then-youngest billionaire in 1987, at age 31. Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's wealthiest person for 18 out of 24 years between 1995 and 2017, including 13 years consecutively from 1995 to 2007. Gates became the first centibillionaire in 1999, when his net worth briefly surpassed US$100 billion. According to Forbes, as of February 2026, his net worth stood at US$107.7 billion, making him the 18th-wealthiest individual in the world.

Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Gates was privately educated at Lakeside School, where he befriended Allen and developed his computing interests. In 1973, he enrolled at Harvard University, where he took classes including Math 55 and graduate-level computer science courses, but he dropped out in 1975 to co-found and lead Microsoft. He served as its CEO for the next 25 years and also became president and chairman of the board when the company was incorporated in 1981. Succeeded as CEO by Steve Ballmer in 2000, he transitioned to chief software architect, a position he held until 2008. He stepped down as chairman of the board in 2014 and became technology adviser to CEO Satya Nadella and other Microsoft leaders, a position he still holds. He resigned from the board in 2020. (Full article...)

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General images -

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

Image 1The Bee Gees, in 1968 (from 1970s in music)
Image 2British 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 3Swedish model Efva Attling in a "midi" dress, Kings Road, London, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 4Steve McQueen with sideburns, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 5Bruce Lee fostered the popularity of martial arts cinema (from 1970s)
Image 6Nixon and Zhou toast, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 7English girl in the mid-1970s wearing a wide-sleeved shirt, belted at the waist. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 8Singer Cher in 1971. In the 1970s, women's hair was usually worn long with a centre parting (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 9A couple at a prom in late 1970s: powder tuxedo and sleeved dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 10VT100 (1978) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 11British girls in 1975 in flared jeans (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 12Margaret 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 13Ramones's lead guitarist Johnny Ramone performing in Toronto, 1977 (from 1970s in music)
Image 14Park Chung Hee (from 1970s)
Image 151974 Ford Mustang interior (from 1970s)
Image 16British singer Rod Stewart, 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 17Actress Camille Keaton in 1972. Throughout most of the decade, women preferred light, natural-looking make-up for the daytime. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 18America's first space station Skylab in orbit February 8, 1974 (from 1970s)
Image 19Silk scarves were popular fashion accessories for women in the 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 20Mario Kempes scores the first goal in the 1978 World Cup Final for Argentina (from 1970s)
Image 21Mao Zedong wearing gray Zhongshan suit, 1972. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 22Haile Selassie was overthrown from power in Ethiopia, ending one of the longest-lasting monarchies in world history. (from 1970s)
Image 23Two punks from the late 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 24Asteroids (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 25Jorge Luis Borges with admirers in 1976. (from 1970s)
Image 26Mid-70s Western-inspired outifts worn by country music group Asleep at the Wheel. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 271976 flyer advertising the racing game Fonz (from 1970s in video games)
Image 28Pink Floyd, 1973 (from 1970s in music)
Image 291973 Volvo P1800 sportwagon. (from 1970s)
Image 30The British band The Bee Gees were one of the biggest musical acts of the 1970s leading the disco phenomenon (from 1970s in music)
Image 31Jose Jose (from 1970s in music)
Image 32Bob Marley, 1980 (from 1970s in music)
Image 33Clockwise 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 34The Eagles (from 1970s in music)
Image 35Pong (1972) (from 1970s)
Image 36Charlie Rich (from 1970s in music)
Image 37The first Military Junta after the 1976 Coup d'État in Argentina, integrated by Jorge Videla, Emilio Massera and Orlando Agosti (from 1970s)
Image 38Rigo Tovar (from 1970s in music)
Image 39The CN Tower was completed in 1976, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure. (from 1970s)
Image 40Woman in miniskirt, 1970 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 41The early 1970s' fashions were a continuation of the hippie look from the late 1960s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 42Intellivision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 43American casual attire, 1974. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 44Paul Anka in 1961 (from 1970s in music)
Image 451979 Iranian Revolution (from 1970s)
Image 46Idi Amin (from 1970s)
Image 47David Bowie in the early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 48John Denver, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 49Apple II (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 50Loretta Lynn (from 1970s in music)
Image 51Fashion models in Leipzig, GDR, 1972. One of the women is modelling a "maxi" dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 52Punk pioneer Lene Lovich in 1979, with her trademark long plaited hair. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 53Henry Mancini (from 1970s in music)
Image 54Polistil VG2 Pong clone (1978), made in Italy (from 1970s in video games)
Image 55King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (from 1970s)
Image 56El Tri Band founder Alex Lora, on stage with the band in 2006 (from 1970s in music)
Image 57Kansas (from 1970s in music)
Image 58Singer Barry Manilow wears his hair longish in the soft, layered style favoured by men in the 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 59African American couple, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, July 1975 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 60Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (from 1970s)
Image 61Los Angeles high school students, 1973. The tousled, blond surfer hair was popular for young men in southern California. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 62Frisbee player Ken Westerfield wearing drawstring bell bottoms in the late 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 63Home Pong console (museum recreation) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 64Susana Giménez wearing hotpants, 1977 (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 65An 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 66Pink 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 67A West German schoolgirl with Schultüte in 1970, with a 'hippyish' outfit on. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 68Concorde landing at Farnborough in September 1974 (from 1970s)
Image 69Example of glam rock costume worn by Roy Wood and Wizzard, early 1970s. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 70Magnavox Odyssey (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 71The Swedish band ABBA was one of the most commercially successful European bands of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 72Aldo Moro (from 1970s)
Image 731970 Dodge Challenger Trans Am, an example of a muscle car in the earlier part of the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 74Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 75British rock band Killing Floor, 1971. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 76Girl in 1973 with a "flicked" hairstyle. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 77Hank Williams (from 1970s in music)
Image 78Three Los Angeles Chicanos in 1974. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 79Dave Schultz won Stanley Cup two times (from 1970s)
Image 80Footballer George Best wore long hair in 1976. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 81United States President Jimmy Carter and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna, Austria (from 1970s)
Image 82The world map of military alliances in 1970s: Western allies (blue), Non-aligned countries (green) and Soviet allies (red) (from 1970s)
Image 83Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson from Sanford and Son (from 1970s)
Image 84Anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 1971. (from 1970s)
Image 85Voyager 1 passing by Jupiter's Great Red Spot February 25, 1979 (from 1970s)
Image 86Siouxsie Sioux of the English punk group Siouxsie and the Banshees. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 87Commodore PET (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 88TRS-80 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 89Two 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 90The Vietnam War (1955–1975) (from 1970s)
Image 91British 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 92AC/DC, August 1979 (from 1970s in music)
Image 93 Fairchild Channel F (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 94Singer Billy Preston in 1974 wearing an Afro hairstyle. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 95In 1971 hotpants and bell-bottomed trousers were popular fashion trends (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 96Isabel 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 97Atari 2600 (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 98Microvision (1979) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges. (from 1970s)
Image 99Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat shake hands, Camp David, 1978 (from 1970s)
Image 100By 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 101Alan Bennett in 1973, wearing a wide necktie (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 102Apollo 17 Astronaut Gene Cernan becomes the last man on the Moon, December 13, 1972 (from 1970s)
Image 103Swedish model Ulla Jones dressed in a lurex halter top and matching flared trousers (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 104Honda Civic sold well throughout the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 105Actress Raquel Welch in 1979, wearing the shoulder pads and "retro"-look tilted hat favored by designers at the time (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 106American 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 107Elton John was one of the most commercially successful solo pop acts of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)
Image 108Linda Ronstadt in 1976 (from 1970s in music)
Image 109The 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 110Color TV-Game (1977) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 111A Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from 1970s)
Image 112Death Race (1976) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 113Flared 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 114Microvision (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 115Pong arcade machine (1972) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 116Typical mid to late 1970s Ted gear, as worn by Shakin' Stevens. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 117Debby Boone song "You Light Up My Life" had the most weeks at number one in the US Billboard chart (from 1970s in music)
Image 118A young woman wearing a wrap dress. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 119Pakistan 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 120Nixon displays the V-for-victory sign as he departs the White House after resigning (from 1970s)
Image 121Led Zeppelin, 1977 (from 1970s in music)
Image 122Debbie Harry of Blondie in 1977. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 123Diane von Fürstenberg's wrap dress, designed in the 1970s (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 124Egyptian military vehicles crossing the Suez Canal on October 7, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. (from 1970s)
Image 125Galaxian (1979) (from 1970s in video games)
Image 126Public at the farewell concert of Sui Generis (1975) (from 1970s)
Image 127Line at a gas station in Maryland, June 15, 1979. (from 1970s)
Image 128Willie Nelson became one of the most popular country music artists during the 1970s. (from 1970s in music)
Image 129Salah Zulfikar and Zubaida Tharwat in The Other Man (1973) (from 1970s)
Image 130Queen, 1975 (from 1970s in music)
Image 131Viking 1, the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars, takes this picture of the landing site in Chryse Planitia (1978) (from 1970s)
Image 132Singer Rod Stewart performing in 1976. He was one of the major British soft rock artists of the 1970s (from 1970s in music)

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Sources

^ Howard Brick, "Review", American Historical Review (2012) 117#5 p 1537
^ Marglin, Stephen A.; Schor, Juliet B. (1992). Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience – Oxford Scholarship. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198287414.001.0001. ISBN 9780198287414.
^ Hays, Jeffrey (August 2012). "Economic History of Japan in the 1970s and 80s". Facts and Details. Archived from the original on 2012-05-19. Retrieved 2012-12-02.

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[1] Howard Brick, "Review", American Historical Review (2012) 117#5 p 1537

[2] Marglin, Stephen A.; Schor, Juliet B. (1992). Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience – Oxford Scholarship. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198287414.001.0001. ISBN 9780198287414.

[secondecon-3] Hays, Jeffrey (August 2012). "Economic History of Japan in the 1970s and 80s". Facts and Details. Archived from the original on 2012-05-19. Retrieved 2012-12-02.

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