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.
Image 4The 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 27Actress Camille Keaton in 1972. Throughout most of the decade, women preferred light, natural-looking make-up for the daytime. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 28Pink 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 61Isabel 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 69Los Angeles high school students, 1973. The tousled, blond surfer hair was popular for young men in southern California. (from 1970s in fashion)
Image 72Willie Nelson became one of the most popular country music artists during the 1970s. (from 1970s in music)
Image 73British 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 74Honda Civic sold well throughout the decade. (from 1970s)
Image 82By 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 83Two 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 102A Women's Liberation march in Washington, D.C., 1970 (from 1970s)
Image 103American 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 116Nixon displays the V-for-victory sign as he departs the White House after resigning (from 1970s)
Image 117Margaret 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 126British 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)
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