Spirit of America BookstoreU.S. Timeline – 1969 to 2000
Ancient Times - 3500 B.C.E to 1490 C.E.
1491-1800
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1801-1900
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1901-1930
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1931-1950
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1951-1968
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jump to 2001-2010
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2011-2016
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2017-2018
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2019-2020
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2021 to present
Woodstock & WaterGate
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The Reagan Era
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The Clinton Era
Woodstock & WaterGate
- 1969: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a ban on the sweetener cyclamate; the food industry switched to saccharin (in turn restricted by the F.D.A. in 1977).
- 1969 Jan 16: Two manned Soyuz capsules of the Soviet Union became the first space vehicles to 'dock' in space and transfer personnel.
- 1969 Jan 20: Richard M. Nixon was sworn into office as the 37th President of the United States.
- 1969 March 3: N.A.S.A. Apollo 9 astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott & Russell Schweickart blasted off to orbit the Earth for ten days; splashdown was March 13, east of the Bahamas, north of Puerto Rico.
- 1969 March 20: Eight leaders of the protests during the Republican convention of the prior Summer were indicted for conspiracy and other crimes. The 'Chicago Seven' were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner. Eighth indictee Bobby Seale had his trial separated.
- 1969 March 20: John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.
- 1969 May 11: A second plutonium fire at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production facility again contaminated portions of the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area with radioactive Pu-239; the incident was monitored and reported by civilian agencies, which led to the U.S. government's divulgence of the 1957 plutonium fire.
- 1969 May 18: N.A.S.A. Apollo 10 astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford & John W. Young blasted off to orbit the moon (and test the lunar lander).
- 1969 May 20: U.S. & South Vietnamese forces captured Ap Bia Mountain, one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, earning the nickname 'Hamburger Hill'.
- 1969 May 26: N.A.S.A. Apollo 10 mission splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1969 June 9: U.S Senate confirmed Warren Burger as the new Chief Justice of The Supreme Court, succeeding Earl Warren.
- 1969 June 22: Ohio's polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire again, this time getting media attention and infamy.
- 1969 June 23: Warren Burger was sworn in as the new Chief Justice of The Supreme Court.
- 1969 June 27: Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, clashed with police in an incident that is considered the birth of the gay rights movement.
- 1969 July: Test screenings for "Sesame Street" with humans and the Muppet characters Bert & Ernie.
- 1969 July 16: Liftoff of Apollo 11 lunar landing mission from Cape Kennedy; splashdown was July 24 in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1969 July 18: A car driven by Sen. Edward M. 'Ted' Kennedy plunged off the narrow, un-railed Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard in Massachussets; his 28-year-old passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, was found drowned inside the vehicle the next day; Kennedy had not reported the incident, and pled guilty to a charge of 'leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury', and received a sentence of two months in jail, which was suspended.
- 1969 July 19: The Apollo 11 lunar landing mission went into orbit around the Moon, with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin, and Michael Collins on board.
- 1969 July 20: Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong & Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin in the lunar lander 'Eagle' touched down on the surface of the moon at 4:18 p.m. EDT. Aldrin & Armstrong were the first men to walk on the moon's surface; astronaut Michael Collins remained overhead in the orbiter module.
- 1969 July 21: Neil Armstrong left the lunar lander and stepped onto the surface of the moon, joined shortly by 'Buzz' Aldrin.
- 1969 July 21: Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong & Aldrin blasted off from the moon's surface aboard the lunar landing module at 1:54 p.m. EDT.
- 1969 July 24: The Apollo 11 moon-landing mission splashed down safely in the South Pacific.
- 1969 Aug 5: The U.S. space probe Mariner 7 flew past the planet Mars, sending photographs and scientific data back to Earth.
- 1969 Aug 9: The bodies of actress Sharon Tate and four others were found brutally slain at her home near Beverly Hills, California; cult leader Charles Manson and several followers were convicted of the crime.
- 1969 Aug 10: The bodies of Leno & Rosemary LaBianca were discovered at their home in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, California; Charles Manson and various followers were convicted of the Tate & LaBianca murders.
- 1969 Aug 15-18: Woodstock Music & Art Fair outside upstate Bethel, New York.
- 1969 Aug 17: Category 5 Hurricane Camille slammed into the Mississippi coast; it was blamed for 3 deaths in Cuba and 256 deaths in the U.S.
- 1969 Aug 18: The Woodstock Festival wound to a close with a midmorning set by Jimi Hendrix.
- 1969 Sept 2: First activity occured on the internet as two computers at U.C.L.A connected by a 15-foot cable passed test data back and forth; a functional internet was created in 1983.
- 1969 Sept 20: Beginning of the trial of the Chicago Eight.
- 1969 Oct 18: The federal government banned the artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates due to evidence that they caused cancer in lab rats.
- 1969 Oct 29: First successful transmission of a message on ARPAnet (the pre-internet).
- 1969 Nov 5: Judge Hoffman sentenced Bobby Seale to four years in prison (3 months for each of 16 contempt of court outbursts) and separated his case; the conspiracy trial is since known as that of the Chicago Seven.
- 1969 Nov 10: Debut of children's program "Sesame Street" on National Educational Television.
- 1969 Nov 12: Investigative reporter Seymour Hersch revealed the 'My Lai Massacre' that took place March 1968 in VietNam.
- 1969 Nov 14: N.A.S.A.'s Apollo 12 mission blasted off for the moon.
- 1969 Nov 19: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad & Alan Bean made man's second walk on the moon's surface; astronaut Richard F. Gordon, Jr. stayed overhead in the command module.
- 1969 Nov 20: The Nixon Administration halted residential use of the pesticide DDT.
- 1969 Nov 20: A group of Native Americans activists occupied Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay and remained there for 19 months.
- 1969 Nov 24: N.A.S.A.'s Apollo 12 mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1969 Dec 1: The U.S. government held its first military draft lottery since World War II.
- 1969 Dec 6: Free Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in California was marred by the deaths of four people, including one stabbed by Hell's Angels 'security'.
- 1969 Dec 10: First announcement of recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
- 1969 Dec 17: The U.S. Air Force closed its Project Blue Book, concluding that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of U.F.O. sightings.
- 1970: The 64-mile-long D&RGW narrow-gauge railroad line from Antonito, Colorado to Chama, New Mexico was saved from being scrapped by a joint purchase by the State of Colorado and the State of New Mexico; the line was renamed the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad and has been a successful tourist destination for fifty-plus years.
- 1970: Litton Industries unveiled the first home appliance version of a microwave oven, at a consumer trade show in Chicago.
- 1970 Jan 17: Formation of the La Raza Unida Party in Crystal City, Texas; the stated purpose was Saul Alinsky-style confrontational politics to further the Xicano cause; after some success in local Texas elections, the party broke apart in 1978.
- 1970 Feb 18: The Chicago Seven were found not guilty of conspiracy charges, although some other, minor charges received guilty verdicts; all of the convictions were reversed in November 1972 - only eighth indictee Bobby Seale served jail time (for contempt of court).
- 1970 March 5: The Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.
- 1970 April 11: The ill-fated Apollo 13 mission to the moon blasted off from Cape Canaveral, with James A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr. & Fred W. Haise Jr. aboard.
- 1970 April 13: The explosion of a tank of liquid oxygen aboard Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, severely crippled the space craft; the mission was aborted. Heroic efforts at Cape Canaveral and on-board the spacecraft brought the three astronauts back safely to Earth.
- 1970 April 17: N.A.S.A.'s Apollo 13 mission splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean and was retrieved by the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima.
- 1970 April 22: The first Earth Day event, with millions of Americans participating, was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.
- 1970 April 24: The People's Republic of China launched its first satellite, which broadcast the patriotic song 'The East Is Red'.
- 1970 May 4: Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on antiwar protesters at Kent State University, killing four students
and wounding nine others. (The guardsmen were indicted in March 1974 and later acquitted.)
- 1970 May 15: Just after Midnight, two black students at Jackson State College in Mississippi - Phillip Lafayette Gibbs & James Earl Green - were killed by gunfire from state police during an on-campus student protest.
- 1970 June 22: President Nixon signed a law lowering the voting age to 18.
- 1970 June 30: I.B.M. introduced the System/370 mainframe computers, successor to the System/360 line.
- 1970 Aug 12: President Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act, which took effect 1 July 1971.
- 1970 Aug 24: Anti-war extremists left a van filled with explosives on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison; the explosion outside Sterling Hall killed researcher Robert Fassnacht.
- 1970 Sept 13: The first New York City Marathon, which took place entirely within Central Park.
- 1970 Sept 18: Rock music legend Jimmy Hendrix died in London, England at age 27.
- 1970 Sept 21: "N.F.L. Monday Night Football" debuted on ABC-TV.
- 1970 Oct 4: Rock singer Janis Joplin [1943-70] was found dead in her Los Angeles hotel room.
- 1970 Oct 10: The South Pacific island nation of Fiji became independent after nearly a century of British rule.
- 1970 Dec 2: The Environmental Protection Agency began operations, under director William D. Ruckelshaus.
- 1970 Dec 27: The hit musical stageplay "Hello Dolly" closed on Broadway after a run of 2,844 perform-ances and ten Tony Awards. The title role was performed by Carol Channing, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey (in an all-black version), Phyllis Diller, and Ethel Merman.
- 1970 Dec 28: Passage of the Occupational Safety & Health Act which established O.S.H.A. as part of the Labor Department, effective 28 April 1971.
- 1971: Founding of Starbucks Coffee in Seattle, Washington.
- 1971: Switzerland finally granted women the right to vote.
- 1971 Jan 12: Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 1964, per language embedded in the Foreign Military Sales Act, signed same day by President Nixon.
- 1971 Jan 31: Apollo 14 blasted off to the moon from Cape Canaveral, Florida with astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell & Stuart A. Roosa aboard.
- 1971 March 23: Congress passed the 26th Amendment, making voting age 18 years for federal & state elections.
- 1971 April 20: U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of busing students to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
- 1971 May 1: Amtrak passenger rail service officially began, intending to 'combine and streamline passenger operations of 18 intercity railroads'.
- 1971 May 30: American space probe Mariner 9 blasted off toward Mars from Cape Kennedy, Florida.
- 1971 June 13: The New York Times published the first installment of the secret 'Pentagon Papers', provided to them by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg [1931-2023].
- 1971 June 29: U.S. Senator Mike Gravel [Dem-Alaska] convened a special meeting of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds and entered 4,100 pages of the Pentagon Papers into the official record of the subcommittee (making the documents public and therefore making moot the court orders preventing publication).
- 1971 July 1: 26th Amendment lowering voting age to 18 was ratified.
- 1971 July 1: The Postal Reorganization Act took effect, moving the U.S. Postal Service from a Cabinet-level agency to an independent organization.
- 1971 July 26: Launch of Apollo 15, America's fourth manned mission to the moon.
- 1971 July 31: U.S. Apollo 15 crew members David Scott & James Irwin were the first astronauts to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the surface of the Moon.
- 1971 Aug 7: The Apollo 15 moon mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1971 Aug 15: President Nixon announced the end of the Gold Standard for U.S. dollars; the dollar dropped 8 percent in value.
- 1971 Aug 15: President Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices, and rents (as an attempt to halt inflation).
- 1971 Aug 23: Secret publication of the Powell Memorandum, written by U.S. Supreme Court nominee Lewis F. Powell, that outlined long-term strategies for expansion of corporate privilege by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other neo-conservative organizations. {text of the Powell Memo}
- 1971 Aug 26: U.S. Congress declared Women's Equality Day which celebrates the 19th Amendment {of 1920) and promotes a new Equal Rights Amendment.
- 1971 Sept 8: Debut event at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
- 1971 Sept 9: Prisoners at the Attica, New York Correctional Facility rioted for four days; eleven hostages and 32 inmates died.
- 1971 Oct 1: Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida.
- Autumn of 1971: The first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson, with content 'of no significance, something like QWERTYUIOP'.
- 1971 Oct 17: Birthday of U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.
- 1971 Oct 25: The United Nations General Assembly voted to admit mainland China {People's Republic of China) and expel Taiwan {Republic of China}.
- 1971 Oct 27: The Democratic Republic of Congo changed its name to the Republic of Zaire; the name was changed back in May 1997.
- 1971 Nov 23: The Communist People's Republic of China was seated in the U.N. Security Council.
- 1971 Nov 24: Airplane hijacker D.B. Cooper escaped by parachute with a suitcase of cash over a forest in Washington State; he was never identified, the case is unsolved, he was never heard from again.
- 1971 Dec 18: Chicago-based civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson founded Operation PUSH {People United to Save Humanity}.
- 1972: Orville Redenbacher began national distribution of his Gourmet® Popping Corn.
- 1972: LIFE Magazine stopped publication of its weekly edition. (LIFE was founded in 1883, purchased by Henry Luce & TIME Magazine in 1936, switched to occasional issues in 1972, switched to monthly issues in 1978, and finally shut down in 2000.)
- 1972 Jan 5: President Nixon announced that he had ordered the development of the Space Shuttle.
- 1972 Jan 7: Republican appointee Lewis F. Powell, Jr. [1907-98] was sworn to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court; he resigned in June 1987.
- 1972 Jan 9: Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes spoke by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, California and said that a purported autobiography of him by author Clifford Irving was a fake.
- 1972 Jan 11: East Pakistan changed its name to Bangladesh.
- 1972 Feb 26: The Buffalo Creek Slurry Spill in West Virginia unleashed an estimated 132 million gallons of toxic coal mining waste (ten times the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill) from three dams operated by the Pittston Coal Company; 125 people were killed, 1,121 people were injured, and over 4,000 people were left homeless.
- 1972 March 22: Equal Rights Amendment proposal sent to states for ratification; passage failed by three states.
- 1972 April 16: Apollo 16 blasted off to the moon from Cape Canaveral.
- 1972 April 20: Apollo 16's lunar module landed on the surface of the moon.
- 1972 April 21: Apollo 16 astronauts John Young & Charles Duke explored the surface of the moon.
- 1972 April 27: The Apollo 16 command module splashed down safely in the South Pacific Ocean; the spacecraft and its crew were retrieved by the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga.
- 1972 May 15: Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot while campaigning for president; Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down.
- 1972 June 14: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered a ban on domestic use of the pesticide D.D.T., to take effect at year's end.
- 1972 June 17: Five burglars were arrested inside the WaterGate Hotel in Washington, DC – leading to the resignation of President Nixon 26 months later.
- 1972 June 19: Hurricane Agnes made landfall over the Florida Panhandle, causing at least 122 deaths.
- 1972 June 23: President Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the C.I.A. to obstruct the F.B.I.'s Watergate investigation; revelation of the audiotape recording of this conversation led to Nixon's resignation in 1974.
- 1972 June 27: Founding of the Atari, Inc. video game company in Santa Clara, California by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney; Atari folded in 1984.
- 1972 Sept 11: The Bay Area Rapid Transit ('BART') of Northern California began operation.
- 1972 Sept 15: A federal grand jury in Washington, DC indicted seven men in connection with the WaterGate burglary: the five burglars, plus White House staff E. Howard Hunt & G. Gordon Liddy. {See also 1 March 1974.}
- 1972 Oct 18: Congress passed the Clean Water Act by overriding President Nixon's veto.
- 1972 Nov 8: Debut of the premium cable TV network H.B.O. (Home Box Office); the first movie shown was "Sometimes A Great Notion".
- 1972 Nov 11: The U.S. Army turned over its base at Long Binh outside Saigon to the South Vietnamese as a symbol of the end of United States involvement in the VietNam War.
- 1972 Nov 14: Dow Jones Industrial Average index closed above 1,000 for the first time ever.
- 1972 Nov 29: Debut of Atari's coin-operated arcade video game Pong at Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.
- 1972 Dec 7: N.A.S.A.'s Apollo 17 mission was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida – N.A.S.A.'s last moon mission to date.
- 1972 Dec 11: Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan landed on the Moon, while Ron Evans remained in orbit.
- 1972 Dec 14: Apollo 17 astronauts Schmitt & Cernan concluded their third moonwalk and blasted off for their return to the orbiter.
- 1972 Dec 19: Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the Apollo program of manned moon landings.
- 1972 Dec 28: North Korea's Prime Minister Kim Il Sung [1912-94] was named President under a new constitution.
- 1973-75: An economic recession in the U.S that lasted two years, precipitated by the O.P.E.C. Oil Crisis and resulting 'stagflation'.
- 1973 Jan 15: President Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive military action in North VietNam, based on progress in peace negotiations.
- 1973 Jan 22: The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its landmark decision
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 giving women the right to
privacy in choosing to have an abortion.
- 1973 Jan 22: Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson died.
- 1973 Jan 27: VietNam War peace accords signed in Paris, France.
- 1973 Jan 28: Official cease fire went into effect in the VietNam War.
- 1973 Mar 29: VietNam War hostilities ended as the last U.S. combat troops left VietNam.
- 1973 April 3: The first cell phone call was made from a sidewalk in New York City with a Motorola prototype device the size of a brick.
- 1973 May 8: Militant American Indians who held the village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota for ten weeks surrendered to federal authorities.
- 1973 May 11: Charges against Daniel Ellsberg [1931-2023] for his role in the 'Pentagon Papers' case were dismissed, citing 'government misconduct'.
- 1973 May 14: U.S. launched Skylab, the first manned space station; after occupation by three crews, the vehicle's decaying orbit resulted in falling back to Earth on 11 July 1979.
- 1973 May 18: Harvard law professor Archibald Cox was appointed Watergate special prosecutor by U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson.
- 1973 June 24: An arson fire set at the Up Stairs Lounge gay bar in New Orleans, Louisiana caused a harrow-ing inferno, taking 32 lives (listed as the deadliest attack on a U.S. gay bar until the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016).
- 1973 July 10: The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, covering 700 small islands in the Caribbean Ocean, was granted full independence after three centuries of British rule.
- 1973 July 13: Former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield revealed the existence of President Nixon's secret taping system, during testimony at the Senate Watergate hearings.
- 1973 Aug 14: The United States halted bombing in Cambodia.
- 1973 Oct 10: Indicted for taking bribes while in office in Maryland and as Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew pled no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion and resigned his office.
- 1973 Oct 17: The Arab oil-producers cartel announced cutbacks in oil exports to Western nations and to Japan, triggering the Oil Embargo that lasted six months.
- 1973 Oct 20: The infamous 'Saturday Night Massacre' – After a news conference by Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, the White House ordered Attorney General Elliott Richardson to fire Cox; Richardson resigned rather than obey; his deputy William Ruckleshaus also resigned rather than obey; later that evening, the White House delivered a message to Cox at home that he had been fired by Solicitor General Robert H. Bork.
- 1973 Oct 23: President Nixon agreed to turn over audio recordings subpoenaed by the WaterGate special prosecutor to Judge John Sirica.
- 1973 Nov 16: Launch from Cape Canaveral of Skylab 4, carrying a crew of three, on an 84-day mission.
- 1973 Nov 21: President Nixon's attorney J. Fred Buzhardt revealed the existence of the 18½-minute gap on one of the White House tape recordings subpoenaed for the Watergate hearings.
- 1973 Nov 27: The U.S. Senate confirmed House Speaker Gerald Ford to be U.S. Vice President, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned in October.
- 1973 Dec 9: Birthday of Stacey Abrams in Madison, Wisconsin; the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia where she began volunteering for Democratic politicians at age 17; she was cheated out of a win for Georgia governor in 2018 and is again running for that office (12/2021).
- 1974 Jan 2: President Nixon signed legislation to limit U.S. highway speeds to 55 mph (a reaction to the 'Gas Crisis' triggered by O.P.E.C); federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.
- 1974 Feb 13: Nobel Prize-winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn [1918-2008] was expelled from the Soviet Union.
- 1974 Feb 22: Pakistan officially recognized Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan).
- 1974 March 1: A federal grand jury in Washington, DC indicted a second group of seven men on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the WaterGate Conspiracy: former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell, and White House staff H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson & Gordon C. Strachan (not tried), and lawyers to the re-election campaign Robert Mardian & Kenneth Parkinson.
- 1974 March 4: Time-Life published the first issue of People Magazine (then called People Weekly).
- 1974 March 18: O.P.E.C. ended the oil embargo against the U.S.A.
- 1974 April 8: Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves baseball team hit his 715th career home run, breaking Babe Ruth's longtime record; Aaron eventually scored a total of 755 home runs.
- 1974 April 25: Portugal's Carnation Revolution bloodless military coup toppled the Estado Novo regime.
- 1974 May 9: The U.S. House Judiciary Committee began public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
- 1974 June 15: Publication of "All The President's Men" book by Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein.
- 1974 June 26: The first official public barcode scan took place at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio.
- 1974 June 30: A 23-year-old Afro-American man from Ohio shot and killed Alberta King, mother of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68], as she sat at the organ in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia; deacon Edward Boykin was also killed, and a woman was wounded. The shooter was convicted and sentenced to death, but on appeal and with support of the King family (opposed to the death penalty), was resentenced to life in prison; he died in 1994 in a prison hospital following a stroke at age 44.
- 1974 July 24: U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously in United States v. Nixon that the President's claim of 'executive privilege' was invalid against the Congressional subpoena for records connected to the Watergate burglary and that the White House must surrender the tapes & documents.
- 1974 July 27: The U.S. House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Nixon for personally engaging in conduct designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.
- 1974 Aug: The supposed commercial {owned by Howard Hughes} deep-sea mining ship Glomar Explorer retrieved pieces of the sunken Soviet submarine K-128 from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean; some secret details were finally released in 2010.
- 1974 Aug 9: President Richard M. Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment proceedings in the House & Senate; Vice President Gerald Ford became President.
- 1974 Sept 8: President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.
- 1974 Nov 13: Anti-nuclear & union activist Karen Silkwood died in a mysterious car crash near Crescent, Oklahoma after work at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant and on her way to meet with a reporter.
- 1974 Dec:
 End of the worldwide 1973-74 stock market crash.
- 1974 Dec 9: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index dropped to a low of 577.60, a loss of 42 percent since November 1972.
- 1974 Dec 31: U.S. citizens were allowed to buy/own gold – for the first time in over 40 years.
- 1975: Launch of videocassette technology, on the commercial and at-home V.C.R. (video cassette recorder & player) devices; production was shut down in July 2016.
- 1975 Jan: The first commercial personal computer went on sale, the Altair 8800 made by Model Instrumentation Telemetry Systems of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- 1975 Jan 1: Former White House Chief of Staff (under Nixon) H.R. Haldeman was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the WaterGate Conspiracy; his sentence was later reduced, and he was released on parole after serving 18 months in federal prison.
- 1975 Jan 8: Federal Judge John Sirica ordered early release for WaterGate Conspiracy figures John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach, and Jeb Stuart Magruder.
- 1975 March 10: Talent agent Wally Amos took the advice of some friends and opened a cookie store on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, California under the name 'Famous Amos'.
- 1975 April 1: Founding of Apple Computer, Inc. in Cupertino, California by Steve Wozniak and Steven Jobs.
- 1975 April 4: Founding of Microsoft, Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Bill Gates and Paul G. Allen.
- 1975 April 30: The end of the VietNam War as South VietNam surrendered to North Vietnam in Saigon.
- 1975 July 17: A manned N.A.S.A. Apollo spaceship docked with the Russian Soyuz 19 spacecraft in orbit, the first linkup of the two superpowers in space; the two American astronauts boarded the Russian craft and visited for two hours.
- 1975 July 22: Congress voted to restore American citizenship to Civil War General Robert E. Lee. {Lee submitted a signed Amnesty Oath in October 1865, but the document was lost for 105 years.} President Ford signed the measure on August 5.
- 1975 Sept 5: President Gerald Ford escaped an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California by Charles Manson disciple Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme; no shots were fired; Fromme served 34 years in prison.
- 1975 Sept 18: The F.B.I. captured newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in San Francisco, nineteen months after she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
- 1975 Sept 5: President Gerald Ford escaped a second assassination attempt in San Francisco, California; the shooter was Sara Jane Moore, who served 32 years in prison.
- 1975 Nov 10: Mysterious sinking of the Great Lakes ore ship SS Edmund Fitzgerald during a storm with 29 crew aboard.
- 1975 Nov 20: Caudilho (dictator) Generalisimo Francisco Franco y Bahamonde of Spain died at age 82.
- 1975 Nov 22: Juan Carlos was proclaimed King of Spain at age 37.
- 1975 Dec 29: A bomb exploded inside the main terminal at La Guardia Airport in Queens, New York City, killing 11 and injuring 74; responsibility for the incident was never determined.
- 1976: Invention of natural-flavor Jelly Belly Candy by an Illinois candy company founded in 1869 {since moved to Fairfield, California}.
- 1976: An outbreak of a deadly virus in Zaire, Africa was at first thought to be a variant of the Marburg viral hemorrhagic fever, but later identified as the species Zaire ebolavirus. An epidemic erupted in 2014 in Africa, with isolated cases spreading to Europe and the United States by way of aircraft passengers.
- 1976 Jan 30: The U.S. Supreme Court handed down the landmark Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 decision that expenditure of money is a form of constitutionally-protected free speech.
- 1976 April 1: Creation of Consolidated Rail Corporation ('Conrail') by merging the Penn Central Railroad and six other failed railroad companies; Conrail was broken up in June 1999.
- 1976 April 5: Death of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes at age 70.
- 1976 April 9: Release of feature film "All The President's Men" starring Robert Redford & Dustin Hoffman; film won four Oscars, including Best Script Adaptation.
- 1976 May 24: Britain & France opened trans-Atlantic supersonic Concorde air transport service to Washington, DC; the SST flights ended in November 2003.
- 1976 July 2: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was not inherently 'cruel or unusual punishment'.
- 1976 July 7: First female cadets enrolled at U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
- 1976 July 20: America's Viking I robot spacecraft landed on the planet Mars.
- 1976 Sept 3: America's Viking II robot spacecraft landed on the planet Mars and took the first close-up, color photographs of the planet's surface.
- 1976 Sept 9: Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the People's Republic of China, died in Beijing at age 82.
- 1976 Sept 17: N.A.S.A. unveiled the space shuttle Enterprise to the public for the first time in Palmdale, California.
- 1976 Dec 17: Release of the film "A Star Is Born" starring Barbra Streisand; second remake after the 1937 & 1954 films.
- 1976 Dec 15: The notorious Liberian-registered oil tanker MV Argo Merchant ran aground 30 miles off Nantucket, Massachusetts; the crew was rescued but nothing could be done to save the ship or its cargo.
- 1976 Dec 21: Foundered oil tanker MV Argo Merchant broke apart and spilled its entire cargo of 7,700,000 U.S. gallons of Venezuelan fuel oil into the sea; luckily, the spill was pushed offshore by high winds and damage to ecosystems on land was minimal.
- 1977: Plastic bags began replacing paper bags at grocery stores in the U.S.A.
- 1977: Soda pop consumption in the U.S.A. exceeded coffee consumption.
- 1977 May 25: Release of the first 'Star Wars' movie,
later retitled "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope".
- 1977 June 5: The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, went on sale.
- 1977 June 13: James Earl Ray, convicted and imprisoned for the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was recaptured three days after his escape from a Tennessee state prison.
- 1977 July 13: Power blackout in New York City that lasted 25 hours.
- 1977 Aug 4: President Carter signed the Department of Energy into existence.
- 1977 Aug 12: First solo flight of the space shuttle Enterprise, separating from a Boeing 747 and landing at Edwards A.F.B. in the California desert.
- 1977 Aug 16: Elvis Presley died at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee at age 42.
- 1977 Aug 20: The Voyager 2 space probe launched toward Jupiter [July 1979] & Saturn [Aug 1981] plus Uranus [Jan 1986] & Neptune [Aug 1989]; currently speeding away from the Sun, the spacecraft is expected to transmit data back to Earth thru the year 2020.
- 1977 Sept 5: NASA's Voyager 1 space probe launched to Jupiter [March 1979] & Saturn [Nov 1980]; currently speeding away from the Sun, the interstellar probe is still transmitting data as it crosses the 'heliopause' into deep space.
- 1977 Sept 12: African student leader Steve Biko died in police custody at Pretoria Prison in South Africa; the brutal death triggered an international outcry against South Africa's apartheid policies.
- 1977 Oct 19: The supersonic Concorde air service made its first landing in New York City; the twenty existing aircraft were retired in November 2003.
- 1978: First 'spam' email from Digital Equipment Corp. to 400 users on Arpanet.
- 1978: Founding of the Sundance Film Festival, now held in January in Park City, Utah.
- 1978 April 18: The U.S. Senate approved the Panama Canal Treaty, scheduling turnover of complete control of the waterway to Panama on the last day of 1999.
- 1978 May 5: Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield used a $12,000 investment ($4,000 of it borrowed) to open Ben & Jerry’s Homemade ice cream scoop shop in a renovated gas station in downtown Burlington, Vermont.
- 1978 June 6: California voters overwhelmingly approved the Proposition 13 ballot initiative calling for major cuts in property taxes.
- 1978 June 8: A jury in Clark County, Nevada ruled that the so-called 'Mormon Will' of billionaire Howard Hughes [1905-76] was a forgery.
- 1978 Oct 16: The College of Cardinals elected Karol Wojtyla of Poland as Pope of the Catholic Church; he chose the name John Paul II and reigned for 26 years.
- 1978 Nov 4: Nobel Peace Prize announced for President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel for their progress toward a Middle East accord.
- 1978 Dec 13: The Philadelphia Mint began making Susan B. Anthony dollar coins, which went into circulation the following July.
- 1978 Dec 22: Deng Xiaoping gained power as top leader in Communist China, effectively ending the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.
- 1979: Founding of anti-hunger group Feeding America.
- 1979 March 5: NASA's Voyager 1 space probe flew past Jupiter, sending back photographs of the planet and its moons.
- 1979 March 28: America's worst commercial nuclear accident occured inside Reactor Unit Two at Three Mile Island power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania.
- 1979 June 18: President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna, Austria.
- 1979 July: The Susan B. Anthony [1820-1906] U.S. dollar coin was placed into circulation.
- 1979 July 11: The abandoned 100-ton U.S. space station Skylab (launched May 1973) re-entered Earth's atmosphere, burning up and scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Australia.
- 1979 July 16: Biggest nuclear radiation accident in U.S. history (bigger than Three Mile Island) when 100 million gallons of nuclear waste spilled at Church Rock, New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation and flowed down the Rio Puerco river (and was largely ignored by all media).
{ Wikipedia }
- 1979 Aug 6: Paul Volcker sworn as 12th Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
- 1979 Sept 7: Launch of cable TV network E.S.P.N. (Entertainment & Sports Programming Network).
- 1979 Sept 24: Compu-Serve became the first company to offer email to the public.
- 1979 Oct 17: Establishment of the Cabinet-level U.S. Department of Education.
- 1979 Nov 3: Forty members of the local Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party opened fire on unarmed demonstrators in what became known as the Greensboro [NC] Massacre, leaving 5 dead and 10 wounded. The local police were implicated as conspirators; indictments have never been filed, but survivors won a wrongful death lawsuit. { see Greensboro Justice Fund [est. 1985] &
Greensboro Truth & Community Reconciliation Project [est. 1999] }
- 1979 Nov 4: Iranian militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran; most of the seized American hostages remained in captivity for 444 days.
- 1979 Dec 9: Smallpox was declared to be eradicated.
- 1979 Dec 27: Soviet military forces siezed control of Afghanistan and executed President Amin. (The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan from May 1988 to February 1989.)
- 1980: Post-It Notes® went on the market.
- 1980 Feb 2-3: Prisoners at the New Mexico State Penitentiary rioted; at least 33 inmates died and over 200 inmates were treated for injuries.
- 1980 April 18: Founding of the independent nation of Zimbabwe, formerly Zimbabwe Rhodesia, in southern Africa.
- 1980 May 17: Release of the second 'Star Wars' movie,
"Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back".
- 1980 May 17-20: Race riots in Miami, Florida erupted when four police officers were acquitted of all charges in the death of Afro-American Arthur McDuffie [1946-79]; 18 people died, 350 men, women, and children were injured, and 600 people were arrested.
- 1980 May 18: Catastrophic volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens in northwest Washington State; 57 people were killed.
- 1980 June 1: Debut of C.N.N., the Cable News Network.
- 1980 July 9: NASA's Voyager 2 space probe flew past Jupiter, sending back photographs of the planet and its moons.
- 1980 July 21: Draft registration began in the U.S. for 19- and 20-year-old men.
- 1980 Aug 14: Workers went on strike at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk, Poland.
- 1980 Aug 31: Beginning of Poland's Solidarity (Solidarnosc) labor union movement at the conclusion of a 17-day strike at the Gdansk Shipyards.
- 1980 Nov 8: Space scientists at J.P.L. in Pasadena announced that N.A.S.A. probe Voyager 1 had discovered a fifteenth moon orbiting the planet Saturn.
- 1980 Nov 20: NASA's Voyager 1 space probe flew past Saturn, sending back photographs of the planet and its rings & moons.
- 1980 Dec 8: Musician John Lennon was shot to death by a deranged fan outside the Dakota Apartments building in New York City.
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