An earlier post here was about some notable things from our class birth year, 1953. Of course, we were unaware of all that until years later when we learned about it as “history.” Our senior year is now history too. To our children, much of it seems like something from a movie which is where they saw some of 1970 and 1971 unfold.

Here are a few things from those two years that, hopefully, we all can still recall given a little reminder.

1970

• The Beatles released Let It Be and Paul announced their breakup.
• PBS becomes a US television network.
• Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died of drug overdoses.
• U.S. President Richard Nixon orders an invasion of Cambodia, widening the war in Vietnam.
• Vietnam War protests across the U.S. at college campuses cause shutdowns by student strikes.
• The Ford Pinto is introduced.
• Scientists performed the first artificial synthesis of a live cell.
• The Who’s Tommy is performed at the Lincoln Center in New York.
• Apollo 13 announces “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here” as an oxygen tank explodes whilst they are on the way to the Moon.
• April 22 is the first Earth Day.
• The Grateful Dead perform their first gig in the UK.
• Forty-three nations ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• The first jumbo-jet, the Boeing 747, makes its debut commercial flight from New York to London.
• Midnight Cowboy is awarded Best Picture at the 42nd Academy Awards.
• May 4 – Four protestors at Kent State University in Ohio are killed by National Guard troops.
• The comic strip Doonesbury debuts.
• 100,000 people demonstrate in Washington DC against the Vietnam War.
• The American Football League officially merges with the National Football League.
• The U.S. Senate repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that had given Presidents Johnson and Nixon sweeping powers in the Vietnam War.
• “I’ll Be There” by The Jackson 5 is the Billboard Song of the Year.

1971

• U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that busing students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation of schools.
• Super Bowl V: Baltimore Colts defeat the Dallas Cowboys 16-13.
• The Voting Age in the United States is lowered to 18 yrs old when the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution is ratified.
• Walt Disney’s Disneyworld theme park is opened in Florida.
• “Hot Pants” are a fashion trend for women.
• Anti-war demonstrators attempt to shut down the government in Washington, DC and about 12,000 are arrested, but most are later released.
• In 1970 a gallon of gas was 36 cents.
• Charles Manson and 3 of his women followers are convicted of the Tate-LaBianca murders.
• The first ARPAnet (earliest version of the Internet) e-mail between computers is sent and it uses the @ sign in an email address.
• The Pentagon Papers are published detailing the military’s secret, negative assessment of the Vietnam War.
• “The War on Drugs” is declared by President Nixon.
• Jim Morrison dies of heart failure at the age of 27.
• Apollo 15 landed on the moon and used the Lunar Rover vehicle for the first time.
• Starbucks is founded in Seattle, Washington.
• The first satellite to orbit Mars, the US Mariner 9, is launched.
• The first microprocessor, Intel’s 4004 is introduced and the computer revolution takes a giant leap.
• A new stock market index called the Nasdaq debuts focused on technology.
• The Concert for Bangladesh album is released by George Harrison. Imagine by John Lennon is released. Led Zeppelin IV is released. The single “American Pie” by Don McLean is released in an 8-minute version.
• Nikita Khrushchev is buried in Moscow.
• Tennis player Billie Jean King is the first female athlete to win $100,000 in prize money in one year.
• In the 68th World Series, the Baltimore Orioles are beaten by the Pittsburgh Pirates 4 games to 3.
• The environmentalist group Greenpeace is founded.
• Coca-Cola introduces the plastic bottle.
• In 1970, the average cost for a new home was $23,400.00, and the average annual income was $9,350.