Table of contents for TIME 1970s: A Decade of Change in TIME Magazine

The Vietnam War. Muhammad Ali. The space race. Billie Jean King. The oil embargo. Women’s rights. Happy Days. Watergate. Patricia Hearst. Jimmy Carter. Computers. Luke Skywalker. Ayatollah Khomeini. Saturday Night Fever… The ’70s was a time of unprecedented transformation, innovation, and conflict across the globe. In these pages, we explore the pivotal events that shaped what author Tom Wolfe called the “‘Me’ Decade.” Whether you lived through it or you’re curious about life before the digital age, take a look back at the people, politics, movements, and pop culture of the 1970s—a time like no other!…

JANUARY 5 President Nixon gave the go-ahead for the $5.5 billion NASA space shuttle program. “Nixon’s decision sets up an important new technological goal for NASA and the depressed aerospace industry.”TIME, January 17, 1972, on Nixon's funding of the space shuttle program JANUARY 9 A six-week coal miner strike started in the U.K., causing power blackouts and major disruption to industry. The ocean liner formerly known as RMS Queen Elizabeth caught fire and sank in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. It was ruled an arson. JANUARY 24 Shoichi Yokoi, a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army who refused to surrender to U.S. forces in 1944, was discovered hiding in the Guam jungle after living there for almost 28 years. JANUARY 30 Members of the British Army Parachute Brigade opened fire…

JANUARY 1 Nixon’s attorney general John N. Mitchell, chief of staff H. R. Haldeman, and political aide John Ehrlichman were convicted of felonies for their involvement in the Watergate scandal. All three were sentenced to prison. JANUARY 4 President Gerald Ford established the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States and appointed Vice President Nelson Rockefeller as chair. The project was called the Rockefeller Commission. JANUARY 6 The game show Wheel of Fortune debuted on NBC. JANUARY 8 Ella Grasso became governor of Connecticut, the first female governor in the U.S. who was elected in her own right. FEBRUARY 11 Margaret Thatcher became the Conservative Party leader. She was the first woman to lead a political party in Britain. FEBRUARY 28 A tube train in London failed to…

JANUARY 6 The U.S. returned the Crown of St. Stephen to the Hungarian government after having possession of it since the end of WWII. JANUARY 14 The punk band Sex Pistols performed their final show at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. JANUARY 15 Serial killer Ted Bundy bludgeoned four sorority sisters at the Chi Omega house at Florida State University in Tallahassee, killing Lisa Levy, 20, and Margaret Bowman, 21. He later attacked another coed six blocks away. JANUARY 25 The Cleveland Superbomb, a Midwest snowstorm that would drop 1 to 3 feet of snow with 100 mph wind gusts that caused drifts up to 25 feet, began. FEBRUARY 5 A nor’easter struck New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the New York metro area, bringing hurricane-force winds up to…

TIME 1970s Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs Managing Editor Lily Rothman Creative Director D.W. Pine Design Director Chrissy Dunleavy Director of Photography Katherine Pomerantz Project Editor Julie Blume Benedict Project Art Director Courtney Lentz Project Copy Editor Mary-Liz Shaw CEO Jessica Sibley COO Mark Howard Chief Revenue Officer Eric Kelliher Retail Sales & Business Development Lisa MacDonald Consumer Marketing Maya Draisin Published by TIME. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without prior permission from the publisher is prohibited. PRINTED IN THE USA Credits Cover Movie Poster Image Art /Getty Images; Bettmann (4)/Getty Images; CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images; Sunset Boulevard/Getty Images; Screen Archives/Getty Images; Paramount Pictures/Getty Images; Jack Mitchell/Getty Images; Bob D’Amico/Getty Images; NASA./Getty Images; Estate Of Keith Morris/Getty Images; Tony Triolo/Getty Images; 1 Pictures from History/Getty Images; The…

JANUARY 5 The first episode of the daytime soap opera All My Children aired on ABC. JANUARY 22 The first Boeing 747 flight from New York to London was safely completed. FEBRUARY 18 Each of the Chicago Seven, who were activists accused of conspiracy in relation to the riots that broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, were acquitted. Numerous contempt of court charges that stemmed from the contentious trial were upheld. “The trial was not only a symptom of the division in America; it also deepened it.”TIME, March 2, 1970, on the trial of the Chicago Seven MARCH 5 The 1968 international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons went into effect. Its goal was to prevent the spread and development of nuclear weapons. The agreement lasted…

JANUARY 20 U.S. President Richard Nixon was sworn in for his second term. JANUARY 22 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Roe v. Wade case. It decided that the U.S. Constitution protects a pregnant person’s right to choose to have an abortion. Challenger George Foreman knocked out heavyweight champ Joe Frazier in two rounds in a much-hyped bout in Kingston, Jamaica. “It had been billed as the ‘Sunshine Showdown.’ But the heavyweight title bout…was more like a midnight mugging.”TIME, February 5, 1973, on the January 22 Foreman-Frazier boxing match JANUARY 27 The U.S. and representatives of North and South Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords, ending the war in Vietnam. FEBRUARY 21 Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 veered off course and was shot down over Egypt in Israeli-controlled airspace, killing…

JANUARY 19 Jimmy Carter won the Iowa Caucus, receiving 26.6% of the vote. His closest rival, Indiana Senator Birch Bayh, got 13.1% JANUARY 23 Hugo the Hippo, 20th Century-Fox’s first animated film, was released in theatres throughout the U.S. JANUARY 30 Live From Lincoln Center premiered on PBS, featuring the New York Philharmonic playing along with piano maestros Van Cliburn and André Previn. FEBRUARY 4 The 1976 Winter Olympics began in Innsbruck, Austria. A violent 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck Guatemala at 3:01 a.m. local time, killing approximately 23,000 people, injuring more than 76,000, and leaving thousands homeless. “The massive earthquake… that racked Guatemala lasted only 39 seconds, but to its victims that seemed an eternity of terror.”TIME, February 16, 1976, on the February 4 quake FEBRUARY 5 A riot…

JANUARY 1 The U.S. and the People’s Republic of China established official diplomatic relations. JANUARY 4 The state of Ohio agreed to pay the families of the victims and those injured in the Kent State riots $675,000, and, along with the Ohio National Guard, expressed deep “regret” for the tragedy. JANUARY 9 As part of the International Year of the Child, the Music for UNICEF Concert was held at the UN General Assembly in New York City, featuring the Bee Gees and other musicians and celebrities. JANUARY 16 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, left Iran to receive medical treatment. He never returned. JANUARY 19 John N. Mitchell, former U.S. Attorney General and chairman of the 1972 Nixon campaign, was released after serving 19 months in federal prison…

JANUARY 1 The Uniform Monday Act, which moved the Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, and Columbus Day holidays to Mondays, took effect. JANUARY 8 Gulf Islands National Seashore was established in Florida and Mississippi. JANUARY 2 Sixty-six died and more than 200 others were injured in a crowd crush after a soccer game at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland. JANUARY 12 The first episode of the TV sitcom All in the Family aired on CBS. JANUARY 25 Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten were convicted for the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles. “The Tate murders were so brutishly irrational, Hollywood was seized by fear.”TIME, August 22, 1969, Reporting on The Manson Family crimes Idi Amin overthrew Ugandan President Milton Obote and declared himself president. JANUARY…

JANUARY 6 In response to the energy crisis, the U.S. government passed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act, implementing daylight saving time year-round for a 2-year trial period. It was scrapped the following October. JANUARY 15 The 1950s-themed TV sitcom Happy Days debuted on ABC. JANUARY 30 President Nixon gave his State of the Union Address. It included the line: “One year of Watergate is enough.” “If it has consumed a year, Nixon’s own resistance to disclosure, his dismissal of…Archibald Cox, and his missing or erased White House tapes are major reasons.”TIME, February 11, 1974, on Nixon proclaiming, “One year of Watergate is enough” in his State of the Union Address FEBRUARY 4 Patricia Hearst, grand-daughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped from her Berkeley…

JANUARY 17 Gary Gilmore, the first person to be executed after the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, was shot by firing squad (his choice) at Utah State Prison. Gilmore murdered a gas station attendant and a hotel clerk in 1976. “Gilmore peered around the cold, harshly lit room, stared at the warden for a moment and finally said, ‘Let’s do it.’”TIME, January 31, 1977, on the execution of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore JANUARY 19 It snowed in Miami, Florida, for the first time in over 200 years. President Ford pardoned American-born Iva Toguri d’Aquino, aka Tokyo Rose, a wartime DJ for Radio Tokyo, who was convicted of treason in 1949. JANUARY 20 Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the 39th president of the United States, and Walter…

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