Exploring American History Unit X Modern America

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Exploring American HistoryUnit X Modern America

• Chapter 30 Searching for Order
• Section 2 America in the 1970s

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FACTS about this decade.

• Population 204,879,000 Unemployed in 1970
  4,088,000 National Debt 382 billion Average
  salary 7,564 Food prices milk, 33 cents a
  qt. bread, 24 cents a loaf round steak, 1.30 a
  pound Life Expectancy Male, 67.1 Female, 74.8
• Watergate forced a president to resign or be
  impeached.
• SALT I, the first series of Strategic Arms
  Limitation Talks, extended from November 1969 to
  May 1972. During that period the United States
  and the Soviet Union negotiated the first
  agreements to place limits and restraints on some
  of their central and most important armaments.

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Education

• Social movements, particularly the anti-war
  movement, were highly visible on college and
  university campuses.
• The Kent State massacre was the most devastating
  event, with four students gunned down by Ohio
  National Guardsmen attempting to stem the
  anti-war demonstrations.
• Mandatory busing to achieve racial school
  integration, particularly in Boston and other
  Northeastern cities, often led to violence and a
  disruption of the educational process.
• On a positive educational note, Congress
  guaranteed equal educational access to the
  handicapped with the Education of All Handicapped
  Children Act of 1975.
• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Ed.
  (1971)- busing can be used as a tool to
  desegregate schools

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Fads

• Mood rings, lava lamps, Rubik's cube, Sea
  Monkeys, smiley face stickers, and pet rocks all
  captured the imagination of Americans during this
  decade. The wildest fad surely was streaking nude
  through very public places! Families vacationed
  in station wagons and everyone wanted an RV.

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Fashion

• The men sported shoulder length hair.
• Non-traditional clothing became the rage,
  including bellbottom pants, hip huggers, colorful
  patches, hot pants, platform shoes, earth shoes,
  clogs, T-shirts, and gypsy dresses. Knits and
  denims were the fabrics of choice.
• Leisure suits for men became commonplace, and
  women were fashionable in everything from
  ankle-length grandmother dresses to hot pants and
  micro-miniskirts.
• The movie Annie Hall (1977) even inspired a
  fashion trend with women sporting traditional
  men's clothing such as derby hats, tweed jackets,
  and neckties worn with baggy pants or skirts.

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The movies

• The Seventies was the decade of the big comeback
  for the movies. After years of box office erosion
  caused by the popularity of television, a
  combination of blockbuster movies and new
  technologies such as Panavision and Dolby sound
  brought the masses back to the movies. The sci-fi
  adventure and spectacular special effects of
  George Lucas's Star Wars made it one of the
  highest grossing films ever.
• Other memorable movies were the disaster movies,
  Towering Inferno, Earthquake, Poseidon Adventure,
  and Airport. Sylvester Stallone's Rocky
  reaffirmed the American dream and gave people a
  hero with a "little guy comes out on top" plot.
  The Godfather spawned multiple sequels. There
  also was the terror of Steven Spielberg's Jaws,
  the chilling Exorcist, and the moving Kramer vs.
  Kramer. There was a definite public yearning for
  simpler, more innocent times as evidenced by the
  popularity of the movies, American Graffiti and
  Grease, which both presented a romanticized view
  of the Fifties. Saturday Night Fever with John
  Travolta fueled the "disco fever" already
  sweeping the music and dance club scenes and the
  nation's experience in the Vietnam War and its
  aftermath influenced the themes of several
  movies, including Coming Home, The Deer Hunter,
  and Apocalypse Now.

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Television and the movies

• Television came of age in the Seventies as topics
  once considered taboo were broached on the
  airwaves for the first time. Leading the way was
  the humorous social satire of All in the Family
  which had plots on many controversial issues such
  as abortion, race, and homosexuality. Saturday
  Night Live also satirized topics and people once
  thought of as off limits for such treatment, such
  as sex and religion. Nothing was considered
  sacred.
• Television satellite news broadcasts from the
  frontlines of the conflict in Vietnam continued
  to bring the horrors of war into the homes of
  millions of Americans and intensified anti-war
  sentiment in the country. The immensely popular
  TV miniseries Roots fostered an interest in
  genealogy, a greater appreciation of whites for
  the plight of blacks, and an increased interest
  in African American history. Happy Days, which
  followed the lives of a group of fifties-era
  teenagers, was TV's primary nod to nostalgia,
  while The Brady Bunch comically presented the
  contemporary family. The relatively new publicly
  funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting gained
  viewers and stature with such fare as Sesame
  Street for children, and live broadcasts of the
  Senate Watergate hearings.

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Technology

• The floppy disc appeared in 1970, and the next
  year Intel introduced the microprocessor, the
  "computer on a chip."
• Apollo 17, the last manned craft to the moon,
  brought back 250 samples of rock and soil.
  Unmanned space probes explored the moon, Jupiter,
  Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Venus.
• The U.S. Apollo 18 and the USSR's Soyuz 19 linked
  up in space to conduct joint experiments.
• Atari produced the first low-priced integrated
  circuit TV games, and the videocassette recorder
  (VCR) changed home entertainment forever. J
• Jumbo jets revolutionized commercial flight,
  doubling passenger capacity and increasing flight
  range to 6,000 miles.
• The neutron bomb, which destroys living beings
  but leaves buildings intact, was developed.
• In medicine, ultrasound diagnostic techniques
  were developed. The sites of DNA production on
  genes were discovered, and the fledging research
  in genetic engineering was halted pending
  development of safer techniques. The first test
  tube baby was born, developed from an
  artificially inseminated egg implanted in the
  mother's womb.

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Music

• This decade saw the breakup of the Beatles and
  the death of Elvis Presley, robbing rock of two
  major influences.
• Pop music splintered into a multitude of styles
  soft-rock, hard rock, country rock, folk rock,
  punk rock, shock rock - and
• The dance craze of the decade, disco!
• Among the top names in popular music were
  Aerosmith, the Bee Gees, David Bowie, Jackson
  Browne, Alice Cooper, Eagles, Electric Light
  Orchestra, Emerson, Lake Palmer, Fleetwood Mac,
  Billy Joel, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, John
  Lennon, Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen,
  Rod Stewart,Three Dog Night, and The Who.
• "Easy listening" regained popularity with groups
  such as the Carpenters, and Bob Marley gained a
  huge core of fans in the U.S. performing Jamaican
  reggae music.

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The end of the Vietnam War

• The U.S. had always had
• a definite reason to fight a war
• Declared war on its enemies
• a plan or strategy for fighting and winning
• Signed a peace treaty that ended the war.
• 1969-1973 most powerful- second march on
  Washington and My Lai Massacre
• 1970- Bombing of Cambodia, Kent State and the
  Pentagon Papers.
• War Hawks, Doves, Draft evasion.
• Vietnamization and Domino Theory
• Cease Fire- January 1973
• Cease fire in Vietnam
• People of South Vietnam to choose own government.
• Release of all American POWs.
• Rest of U.S. troops to withdrawn in 60 days
• 150,000 North Vietnamese troops to remain in
  South Vietnam

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Oil Embargo

• October 17, 1973, when Arab members of the
  Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
  (OPEC), in the midst of the Yom Kippur War,
  announced that they would no longer ship
  petroleum to nations that had supported Israel in
  its conflict with Egyptthat is, to the United
  States and its allies in Western Europe.
• At around the same time, OPEC-member states
  agreed to use their leverage over the world
  price-setting mechanism for oil to quadruple
  world oil prices

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Environment

• What is Love Canal? Simply put, it is an
  incomplete canal, or just a trench, built in
  western New York state in the 1890s. From the
  1930s through the 1950s, it was used as a
  chemical waste dump. The surrounding land was
  then sold and used for residential purposes, and
  soon people began complaining about strange odors
  and possible health problems. Since the late
  1970s, many studies have been done to ascertain
  whether any health problems can be traced to the
  waste dumped into Love Canal.
• Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant is just outside
  Harrisburg, Penn.
• A failed valve, and a miss reading by a worker
  caused the reactor to be exposed and radiation to
  escape. No deaths or illnesses. 1/2 hour away
  from a meltdown.

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Patty Hearst and the SLA

• SLA was an American paramilitary group and was a
  proponent of radical ideology. Members of the
  group were accused and convicted of committing
  murders, bank robberies, and acts of violence
  between 1973 and 1975. Even though they never had
  more than 13 members, they became the top ongoing
  media story during their underground fugitive
  period. More than anything else, this was
  generated by their spectacular kidnapping of
  wealthy media heiress Patty Hearst, making them
  household names. On Feb. 4, 1974, the SLA carried
  out its most notorious crime the kidnapping of
  19-year-old newspaper heiress Patricia Campbell
  Hearst, the granddaughter of publisher William
  Randolph Hearst and an art history major at
  Berkeley, it was a national media event.
• A SLA communiqué to a local newspaper said the
  group had "served an arrest warrant" on Hearst,
  daughter of the "corporate enemy of the people.
• SLA's first demand that every poor person in
  California be given 70 in free food. The
  estimated cost of such a food distribution would
  be 400 million. Instead a food donation program
  was set that provided 2 million in food.
• The SLA robbed a Hibernia Bank branch in San
  Francisco. Two surveillance cameras captured
  Hearst carrying a carbine and shouting orders at
  terrified bank customers. Two bystanders were
  shot during the robbery, which netted the SLA
  10,692. Urban Guerilla or Brainwashed? It seemed
  to all that she had become more and more
  sympathetic with the aims of the SLA and
  eventually joined the group, taking part in their
  illegal activities, including bank robberies.
• When she went on trial for bank robbery, she
  claimed the SLA had brainwashed her into
  believing the FBI would kill her if she tried to
  return to her parents. A jury rejected Hearst's
  claim and she spent two years in prison before
  President Carter commuted her sentence.

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Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.

• The charismatic leader of Jonestown, was Jim
  Jones, a preacher who set up the Peoples Temple
  in San Francisco and ultimately moved his
  followers to a more clandestine site in Guyana.
• While Jones was preaching in San Francisco, he
  helped out many local and even national campaigns
  and was seen as a healer which much power in the
  community.
• However, once he had all of his members in
  Jonestown, his personality changed. Away from the
  constraints of American soil, Jonestown and its
  members became very cultish.
• In 1978, 913 followers of Jim Jones and the
  Peoples Temple committed a mass suicide in
  northern Guyana at a site called, Jonestown.
  After making all 276 children at Jonestown drink
  the punch, all the adults proceeded. In the end,
  after Jones apparently killed himself with a
  gunshot to the head.

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Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan- 1979- 515 min.
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Iran and the United States - 530 min.
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