Timeline 1970
Return to home
1970 Jan 1,
Jimi Hendrix and his Band of Gypsies, Billy Cox and Buddy Miles,
performed 4 shows on New Years Eve and Day at the Fillmore East in
NYC. The recording "Band of Gypsies" was released in April. In 1999
a 2-disk CD, "Live at the Fillmore East" was released.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.W13C)
1970 Jan 1, Pres. Nixon signed
the National Environmental Policy Act into law.
(WSJ, 2/25/97,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Environmental_Policy_Act)
1970 Jan 1, The Family Law Act
took effect in California. It included no-fault divorce.
(SFC, 7/20/07, p.B12)(www.jstor.org/pss/351519)
1970 Jan 1, In SF Officer Eric
Zelms was fatally shot when 2 burglars surprised him and gained
control of his gun. The burglars were later convicted of murder and
sentenced 8 to 10 years.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A8)
1970 Jan 3, "Mame" closed at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC after 1508 performances.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3142)
1970 Jan 5, The TV soap opera
“All My Children” premiered. Its final episode was scheduled in the
Fall of 2011.
(SFC, 4/15/11,
p.F2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0065272/)
1970 Jan 5, Joseph A.
Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the
United Mine Workers, was found murdered with his wife and daughter
at their Clarksville, Pa., home. Nine people were later charged in
the killing including UMW Pres. W.A. Boyle.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1970 Jan 5, In China a 7.7
earthquake in Yunnan province killed over 15,000 people and was
covered up by authorities amid the chaos of the cultural revolution.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A8)
1970 Jan 7, Woodstock, NY,
farmers sued Max Yasgur (1919-1973) for $35,000 for damages caused
by the "Woodstock" rock festival.
(www.woodstockpreservation.org/pastpresent/maxtribute.html)
1970 Jan 10, Charles Olson
(b.1910), American poet, died in NYC. Volume Three of his Maximus
Poems appeared posthumously in 1975.
(SFC, 6/12/06,
p.D8)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olson/life.htm)
1970 Jan 12, In Nigeria the
30-month civil war ended. The Biafran forces surrendered after
nearly a million ethnic Igbos died mostly of hunger and disease.
Emeka Ojukwu had led some 40 million Igbos in secession. In 2008
Nigeria paid the pension of Ojukwu and 63 other former rebels as
part of efforts to heal wounds. In 2007 Pres. Obasanjo declared Jan
15 as “Armed Forces Remembrance Day" in honor of the soldiers that
died in the war.
(HNQ, 5/9/00)(AFP, 1/15/07)
1970 Jan 14, Diana Ross and the
Supremes performed their last concert together, at the Frontier
Hotel in Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/14/00)
1970 Jan 17, Silas Trim Bissell
(d.2002) and his wife Judith, Weathermen underground members, set a
homemade bomb under the steps of the ROTC building at Washington
State Univ. It failed to go off and both were caught. Bissel went
underground but was caught and served 17 months in Lompoc
(1987-1988).
(SFC, 6/24/02, p.B6)
1970 Jan 18, Mormon president
David McKay died at age 96.
(AP, 1/18/00)
1970 Jan 19, President Nixon
nominated G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court, but the
nomination was later defeated because of controversy over Carswell's
past racial views.
(AP, 1/19/98)
1970 Jan 20, William T. Cahill
(1912-1996), began serving as the governor of New Jersey and
continued to 1974.
(SFC, 7/3/96,
p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_T._Cahill)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100
made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The
plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat
400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96,
p.B5)(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1970 Jan 23, Evel Knievel made
a motorcycle jump over parked cars and trucks at the Cow Palace in
Daly City, Ca.
(www.stevemandich.com/evelincarnate/eveltimeline.htm)
1970 Jan 25, The Robert Altman
film "M*A*S*H" premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MASH_(film))
1970 Jan 21, Timothy Leary
(1920-1996) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of
two roaches of marijuana in 1968.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100
made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The
plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat
400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96,
p.B5)(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1970 Jan 26, In Turkey the
Islamic-oriented National Order Party was formed under the
leadership of Necmettin Erbakan.
(AP,
11/4/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Order_Party)
1970 Jan 27, Movie rating
system modified "M" rating to "PG."
(www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2006/01/)
1970 Jan 28, Israeli fighter
jets attacked the suburbs of Cairo.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1970 Jan, The Washington
Monthly reported that the US army had been closely watching civilian
political activity within the United States for the last 4 years.
(www.cmhpf.org/senator%20sam%20ervin.htm)
1970 Feb 1, In Buenos Aires,
Argentina, an express train rammed stationary commuter train and 236
people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15) (AP, 2/18/04)
1970 Feb 2, Bertrand Russell
(B.1872), philosopher, social gadfly and British MP, died in
Merioneth. "Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs
up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?" He wrote
"Pricipia Mathmatica." In 1996 "Bertrand Russel: The Spirit of
Solitude," 1871-1921 by Ray Monk was published.
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.A16)(AP, 1/7/99)(HN,
5/18/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell)
1970 Feb 11, Japan launched its
first satellite, Ohsumi-1. That launch made Japan the fourth nation
with a space rocket powerful enough to launch satellites to Earth
orbit, after the USSR, the US and France.
(www.spacetoday.org/Japan/Japan/History.html)
1970 Feb 12, Dean Arthur
Schwartzmiller (28) was convicted in Juneau, Alaska, of 2 charges of
lewd conduct after being accused of molesting 2 boys. Over the next
35 years he was arrested in 6 more states on molestation charges. In
2005 police in San Jose found notebooks at his home that documented
over 36,000 sex acts with young boys. In 2006 a jury in Santa Clara,
Ca., convicted Schwartzmiller (64) of molesting 2 San Jose boys. In
2007 he was sentenced to 152 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/17/05, p.A1)(SFC, 9/19/06, p.A1)(SFC,
1/30/07, p.A1)
1970 Feb 13, GM reportedly
redesigned automobiles to run on unleaded fuel.
(HN, 2/13/98)
1970 Feb 15, William Kunstler,
Chicago defense attorney, got a four-year sentence on contempt
charges for his conduct during the Chicago Seven trial.
(www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28417105_ITM)
1970 Feb 15, A Dominican DC-9
crashed into sea at Santo Domingo and 102 people were killed.
(http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19700215-0)
1970 Feb 16, In SF a homemade
bomb, placed outside the police Park Station on Waller St.,
exploded. Sgt. Brian McDonnell (44) died 2 days later and 8 other
officers were injured. Black Panthers were suspected, but a later
investigation suggested it was the work of the Weather Underground.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A8)(SFC, 2/17/07, p.B1)
1970 Feb 17, Robert Marasco's
"Child's Play," opened at the Royal theater on Broadway.
(http://tinyurl.com/3thznf)
1970 Feb 17, Joni Mitchell
(b.1943) held a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
(http://tinyurl.com/3etl9t)
1970 Feb 17, At Fort Bragg,
North Carolina, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald’s wife and 2 daughters were
murdered. Dr. MacDonald was convicted of the murders but claimed
that drug-crazed assailants were responsible. The book "Fatal
Vision" by Joe McGinniss recounted the story. In 2005 evidence was
presented that Helena Stoeckley (1953-1983), a defense witness, had
admitted to a prosecutor that she was at MacDonald’s house on the
night of the murder.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/14/05,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._MacDonald)
1970 Feb 17, Alfred Newman
(b.1900), US composer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Newman)
1970 Feb 17, S.Y. Agnon, Jewish
writer and Nobel Prize winner (1966) died in Jerusalem. His books
included “Days of Awe,” a compendium of Jewish practices, legends
and commentaries.
(WSJ, 9/22/07,
p.W6)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/agnon.htm)
1970 Feb 18, The Chicago Seven
defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the
1968 Democratic national convention; five were convicted of
violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968, but those convictions were
later reversed. In January reporter J. Anthony Lukas published "The
Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago
Conspiracy Trial."
(AP, 2/18/08)(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A19)
1970 Feb 20, Cheyenne Brando
(d.1995), daughter of Marlon, was born in Papeete, Tahiti.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Brando)
1970 Feb 20, Students at San
Jose Univ., Ca., buried a brand new Ford Maverick as part of their
Survival Faire. The Maverick was exhumed one year later.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.E1)(http://tinyurl.com/yyplgjc)
1970 Feb 21, Secret peace talks
were held between US Sec. of State Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho of
North Vietnam.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)
1970 Feb 21, The PFLP-GC, a
Palestinian terrorist group, planted a parcel bomb on Swissair
Flight 330 that blew up on a flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv. All 47
aboard were killed.
(SFC, 5/21/02,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_330)(Econ,
11/6/10, p.74)
1970 Feb 23, Guyana became a
republic.
(HFA, '96, p.22)
1970 Feb 24, 29 Swiss Army
officers died in avalanche at Reckingen, Switzerland.
(http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/english/avalanches/casestudies.shtml#54)
1970 Feb 25, Mark Rothko
(b.1903), painter, committed suicide in NYC. He was born in Dvinsk,
Russia, which is now Daugavpils, Latvia, and his family moved to
Portland, Ore., in 1913. His work moved to abstraction in the 1940s.
The execution of his will provoked a long drawn out court case. His
daughter charged the executors and the owner of Rothko’s gallery
with conspiracy and conflict of interest, and won. A 1998 show was
accompanied by the book "Mark Rothko" by Jeffrey Weiss with
contributions by John Cage, Carol-Mancusi-Ungaro, Barbara Novak,
Brian O’Doherty, Mark Rosenthal and Jessica Stewart.
(WSJ, 6/4/98, p.A16)(SFEC, 6/7/98, BR p.4)(AP,
11/11/03)(http://slate.msn.com/?id=2923)
1970 Feb 26, Beatles released
"Beatles Again," aka the "Hey Jude" album.
(www.dmbeatles.com/disk.php?disk=54)
1970 Feb 26, "Georgy" opened at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC for 4 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy)
1970 Feb 26, Five Marines were
arrested on charges of murdering 11 South Vietnamese women and
children.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1970 Feb 28, Bicycles were
permitted to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.
(www.goldengatebridge.org/research/dates.php)
1970 Mar 1, Kreisky's
social-democrats won the Austrian parliamentary election.
(http://tinyurl.com/3tv72y)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_legislative_election,_1970)
1950 Mar 1, Kim Soo-im
(b.1911), a former US-employed assistant and lover to provost
marshal Col. John E. Baird, was arrested by South Korean police,
joining thousands of others ensnared in President Syngman Rhee's
roundups of leftists — workers and writers, teachers, peasants and
others with suspect politics. She was soon tried and executed in
June by South Korea as an alleged spy.
(AP, 8/17/08)
1970 Mar 1, The white
government of Rhodesia declared independence from Britain.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/2/newsid_2514000/2514683.stm)
1970 Mar 2, The US Supreme
Court set age 23 as the cut-off for prosecuting men who fail to
register for the draft on their 18th birthday.
(http://tinyurl.com/4urpvk)
1970 Mar 3, Systems and
Services Company went public. John Baugh (1916-2007) created Sysco
Corp. by combining 9 regional companies, most of them frozen-food
distributors like his Zero Foods Co., founded right after WW II.
(WSJ, 3/17/07, p.A5)
1970 Mar 4, The French
submarine Eurydice exploded and sank in the Mediterranean off Cape
Camarat killing all 57 of its crew.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurydice_(S644))
1970 Mar 5, A nuclear
non-proliferation treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified
it. France and China only signed on in 1992.
(AP, 3/5/98)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.21)
1970 Mar 6, In NYC’s Greenwich
Village a townhouse at 18 West 11th St. exploded. SDS Weathermen
members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins were killed
at the site where a bomb was being manufactured. Other members went
underground and became known as the Weather Underground. The 1988
film "Running on Empty" was based on Bernardine Dohrn and Bill
Ayers. In 2001 Bill Ayers, former Weatherman, authored "Fugitive
Days, A Memoir."
(SSFC, 9/9/01, DB p.67)(SFC, 7/21/03,
p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Oughton)
1970 Mar 6, The Beatles
released "Let it Be" in UK.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be_(song))
1970 Mar 8, The Nixon
administration disclosed the deaths of 27 Americans in Laos.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1970 Mar 11, Iraq’s Ba’ath
Party agreed to an autonomy accord with the Kurd nation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Kurdistan)
1970 Mar 13, Cambodia ordered
Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1970 Mar 15, "Purlie" opened at
Broadway Theater in NYC. In December it moved to the Winter Garden
Theater and in March 1971 to the ANTA Playhouse where it closed in
November after a total of 688 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3514)
1970 Mar 15, Expo '70,
promoting "Progress and Harmony for Mankind," opened in Osaka,
Japan. The ‘70 Expo featured the Multiscreen Corporation production
of the film Tiger Child.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(Hem., 3/97, p.81)(AP,
3/15/08)
1970 Mar 17, The US Army
charged 14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre
case.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1970 Mar 17, The United States
cast its first veto in the UN Security Council. The US killed a
resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use
force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1970 Mar 18, The US Postal
Service was paralyzed by the first postal strike. A walkout of
letter carriers in Brooklyn and Manhattan set off a strike that
involved 210,000 of the nation’s 750,000 postal employees. Pres.
Nixon declared a state of national emergency and assigned military
units to NYC post offices.
(HN, 3/18/98)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1970 Mar 18, Prince Sihanouk
was overthrown by Gen’l. Lon Nol in a right-wing coup. He joined the
Khmer Rouge in a resistance war. The US and Vietnamese forces
invaded and drove the Viet Cong from border sanctuaries deep into
Cambodia where they joined with the weak and isolated Khmer Rouge. A
full scale civil war began. The next 8 years are covered in the 1988
book "Goodnight Cambodia, Forbidden History" by Vibol Ouk, who lived
through the horrors of Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.3)
1970 Mar 19, Willy Brandt and
Willi Stoph met for the first East-West Germany summit in Berlin.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1970 Mar 21, Marlen Haushofer
(b.1920), Austrian writer died. Her 1962 novel “The Wall” was her
only work translated into English.
(WSJ, 4/25/09,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlen_Haushofer)
1970 Mar 23, Mafia "Boss" Carlo
Gambino was arrested for plotting to steal $3 million.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1970 Mar 23, US performed the
Shaper nuclear test in Nevada.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mandrel)
1970 Mar 25, The Concorde, an
Anglo-French airplane, made its first supersonic flight.
(HN,
3/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)
1970 Mar 26, "Minnie's Boys"
opened at Imperial Theater in NYC for 80 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie%27s_Boys)
1970 Mar 26, The US conducted
the Handley nuclear test in Nevada.
(http://tinyurl.com/3urgtw)
1970 Mar 26, Peter Yarrow
(b.1938), of the singing trio Peter, Paul & Mary, pleaded guilty
to taking "immoral liberties" with a minor, referring to an incident
between Mr. Yarrow and a 14-year old. He served 3 months in
jail; 11 years later he was pardoned by President Carter.
(http://theawarenesscenter.org/yarrow_peter.html)
1970 Mar 28, Over 1,000 people
were killed when a major earthquake damaged 254 villages in Gediz,
Turkey. Estimates of the magnitude varied from 6.9 to 7.3.
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/events/1970_03_28.php)
1970 Mar 30, Secretariat
(d.1989), triple crown race horse (1973), was born in Virginia.
(http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016464.html)
1970 Mar 30, The musical
"Applause" with Lauren Bacall opened on Broadway. It was based on
the movie "All About Eve."
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Par p.7)(AP, 3/30/07)
1970 Mar 31, The U.S. forces in
Vietnam downed a MIG-21, the first since September 1968.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1970 Mar 31, Semjon Timoshenko
(75), Russian marshal, inspector-general (WW II), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semyon_Timoshenko)
1970 Mar, The US National
Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam organized a trip to
Hanoi to meet with the prime minister of North Vietnam. Doug Down
and Noam Chomsky were indirectly informed that the US had invaded
Cambodia. In 1997 Prof. Dowd published "Blues for America."
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.E5)
1970 Apr 1, President Nixon
signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and
television, to take effect after Jan. 1, 1971.
(AP, 4/1/98)
1970 Apr 1, U.S. Army charged
Captain Ernest Medina in My Lai massacre.
(HN, 4/1/98)
1970 Apr 1, American Motors
Corp. (AMC) introduced the compact Gremlin for $1879. It was
designed by Richard Teague on the back of a Northwest Airlines
sickness bag. The last Gremlin was made in 1978.
(www.allpar.com/amc/gremlin.html)(SFC, 3/14/05,
p.A10)
1970 Apr 2, The US registered
1967 UN amendments on the 1946 convention for the regulation of
whaling.
(http://tinyurl.com/4wpco8)
1970 Apr 5, Six Nepalese
Sherpas died in an avalanche during a Japanese skiing expedition on
Everest.
(SFC, 5/15/96,
A-10)(www.everestsummiteersassociation.org/listofdeadoneverst.htm)
1970 Apr 7, "Effects of Gamma
Rays on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds," premiered in NYC. The play was
written in 1964 by Paul Zindel, playwright and science teacher.
Zindel received the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Effect_of_Gamma_Rays_on_Man-in-the-Moon_Marigolds)
1970 Apr 7, In the 42nd Academy
Awards in Los Angeles "Midnight Cowboy" won for best picture, John
Wayne for best actor (True Grit) and Maggie Smith for best actress
(The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42nd_Academy_Awards)
1970 Apr 8, The Senate rejected
President Nixon's nomination of G. Harold Carswell to the Supreme
Court.
(AP, 4/8/97)
1970 Apr 10, In California
grape grower Lionel Steinberg (d.1999 at 79) signed the initial
contract with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.
(SFC, 3/12/99, p.A23)
1970 Apr 11, The Beatles' "Let
It Be" single was released in the US and quickly went to #1.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be_(song))
1970 Apr 11, Apollo 13 blasted
off on a mission to the moon, commanded by Jim Lovell, that was
disrupted on April 13, when an explosion crippled the spacecraft.
The astronauts managed to return safely on April 17.
(AP, 4/11/97)(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.79)(TMC, 1994,
p.1970)
1970 Apr 11, John H. O'Hara
(b.1905), US journalist and novelist (Pal Joey, Rage to Live), died.
In 2003 Geoffrey Wolff authored "The Art of Burning Bridges: The
Life of John O'Hara."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Hara)(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.M2)
1970 Apr 12, In Mississippi
Rainey Pool, a black one-armed farmer, was beaten and tortured by a
mob in Belzoni and his body was dumped off a bridge into the
Sunflower River. In 1999 James "Doc" Caston (66), Charles Caston
(64) and Hal Crimm (50) were sentenced to 20 years in prison for
their part in the killing. Joe Watson pleaded guilty and testified
in exchange for a reduced sentence.
(USAT, 11/18/99, p.3A)
1970 Apr 13, Apollo 13,
four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a tank
containing liquid oxygen burst: "Houston, we've got a problem!" The
incident preventing a planned moon landing. The three-man crew
managed to return safely.
(AP, 4/13/97)(HN, 4/13/98)(HN, 4/13/99)
1970 Apr 13, Greek composer
Mikis Theodorakis (b.1925) was allowed to go into exile. His music
included the film score for Zorba the Greek (1964).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikis_Theodorakis)
1970 Apr 14, The Sandy Wilson
musical "Boy Friend" opened at Ambassador Theater in NYC for 119
performances. The original London production was in 1954.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Friend)
1970 Apr 15, Last Gasp’s first
publication, Slow Death Funnies #1, came out for the first “Earth
Day” (see April 22) Ron Turner founded Last Gasp, a San Francisco
publisher of underground comics and graphic novels.
(SFC, 3/27/10, p.E1)(http://tinyurl.com/ye78lv9)
1970 Apr 16, In Vermont a fire
at Johnson’s Pasture Commune left 4 people dead.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A10)
1970 Apr 17, The Apollo 13 crew
splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured
oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft. A film was made in 1995 that
depicted the mission.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-12)(SFEC, 11/10/96, Par
p.5)(AP, 4/17/97)
1970 Apr 20, Bruno Kreisky
became the 1st socialist chancellor of Austria.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1970 Apr 20, Paul Celan (49),
Romania born poet, drowned himself in the Seine. English
translations of his poems were published in 2001.
(SSFC, 4/1/01, BR p.5)
1970 Apr 21, Bruno Kreisky
(1911-1990) became the 1st socialist chancellor of Austria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Kreisky)
1970 Apr 22, The first Earth
Day and Earth Week was celebrated and millions protested pollution
on Earth and their concern for the environment. The event was
organized by a 33-member committee in Philadelphia. Wisconsin
Senator Gaylord Nelson suggested Earth Day as a means to focus
national attention on ecological issues. Gaylord selected Pete
McCloskey as co-chairman. Organizers later identified 12
anti-environment members of the US House and Senate, 7 of whom son
lost their seats.
(TMC, 1994, p.1970)(WSJ, 4/22/96, p.A22)(AP,
4/22/97)(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A23)(HNQ, 6/2/99)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.E3)
1970 Apr 24, President Nixon
ordered US and South Vietnamese troops to secretly invade the
“Parrot’s Beak” region of Cambodia, thought to be a Viet Cong
stronghold. Operation Patio was a covert aerial interdiction effort
conducted by the United States Seventh Air Force in Cambodia from
24-29 April 1970 during the Vietnam Conflict. It served as a
tactical adjunct to the heavier B-52 bombing missions being carried
out in Operation Menu.
(http://tinyurl.com/69ndsz8)(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Operation-Patio)
1970 Apr 24, China launched its
1st satellite, known as China 1 or Mao 1, to orbit on a Long March
rocket. It kept transmitting a song, "The East is Red." China became
the fifth country to launch a satellite into space, sending up the
Dongfanghong-1, which means "The East is Red."
(www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/Iran/IranianSat.html)(AP,
4/24/97)
1970 Apr 26, The musical,
"Company," opened at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway. It starred
Elaine Stritch and ran for [690] 705 performances. It was directed
by Hal Prince. George Furth wrote the book and Stephen Sondheim
(b.1930) wrote the score.
(AP,
4/26/98)(http://www.sondheim.com/works/company/)
1970 Apr 26, Gypsy Rose Lee
(b.1911), stripper and actress, died. Her 1957 memoir, written as a
monument to her mother, was made into the stage musical and film
Gypsy. In 2009 Rachel Shteir authored “Gypsy: The Art of the Tease.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_Rose_Lee)(SSFC, 3/22/09, Books
p.J3)
1970 Apr 28, The US invasion of
Cambodia took place. Congress and the press learned of the invasion
on April 30.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a04242670parrotsbeak)
1970 Apr 29, Andre Agassi,
tennis star and winner of an Olympic gold medal in 1996, was born in
Las Vegas, Nev.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Agassi)
1970 Apr 29, Uma Thurman,
actress, was born in Boston, Mass. Her films included “The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen” (1988) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994).
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000235/)
1970 Apr 29, In Australia a
large wooden log was placed on the winding track in front of a royal
train carrying Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip to the
town of Orange. The train did not derail as it was traveling too
slowly. The incident was only revealed in 2009 by a retired
detective.
(AFP, 1/28/09)
1970 Apr 29, 50,000 US and
South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia [see Apr 30].
(SFEC, 4/23/00,
p.A19)(www.democraticcentral.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1972)
1970 Apr 30, President Nixon
announced to a national TV audience that the United States was
sending troops into Cambodia "to win the just peace that we desire."
The action that sparked widespread protest. U.S. troops invaded
Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas and to attack
Communist border sanctuaries. Calling the joint U.S.-South
Vietnamese operation "indispensable," some 32,000 American and
48,000 South Vietnamese troops captured large caches of supplies,
but most Communist forces had already been withdrawn. A storm of
protest against expansion of the war swept the United States and
four days later four student protesters at Ohio's Kent State
University were shot dead by National Guardsmen.
(AP, 4/30/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1970)(HN,
4/30/98)(HNQ, 5/3/98)
1970 Apr 30, Inger Stevens
(b.1934, Stockholm-born star of TV’s “The Farmer’s Daughter,” died
of an overdose. For all intents and purposes, Ms. Stevens' death was
a suicide but following her death, it came out in the tabloids that
she had been secretly married to African-American Ike Jones since
1961. The couple was estranged at the time of her death.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0828447/bio)
1970 Apr 30, Yoshimi Tanaka and
a group of students of the Red Army Faction, including Shiro Akagi,
seized a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang, N. Korea, in
Japan's first ever case of air piracy. In 1996 Tanaka was sentenced
to 12 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c4bk7)(AP,
6/5/07)(www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=102)
1970 Apr, Melanie Safka
(b.1947) made a hit with her song "Lay Down.” It became part of her
Candles in the Rain album released in May 1970.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Safka)
1970 May 1, Students at Kent
State University rioted in downtown Kent, Ohio, in protest of the
American invasion of Cambodia. Campus protests broke out across the
nation.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1970 May 1, The US troop ship
General John Pope came to rest at the Suisun Bay, Ca., reserve fleet
rest stop. It was launched in 1943 and served up to this time. In
2010 it was scheduled to be recycled at a Texas shipyard.
(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.A2)
1970 May 2, Diane Crump became
the 1st woman jockey at the Kentucky Derby.
(www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-8312437_ITM)
1970 May 2, Student anti-war
protesters at Ohio's Kent State University burned down the campus
ROTC building. Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes ordered in the National
Guard to take control of the campus.
(HN, 5/2/98)(HNPD, 5/4/99)
1970 May 3, James A. Rhodes,
the governor of Ohio, in a press conference in Kent, called anti-war
protesters the "the worst type of people we harbor in America, worse
than the brownshirts and the communist element." Rhodes had ordered
the National Guard into Kent to quell anti-war demonstrations that
began after President Nixon announced the American incursion into
Cambodia on April 30.
(HNQ, 5/4/99)
1970 May 4,
At Kent State Univ. on Monday, a peaceful noontime rally of some
2,000 students was ordered to disburse by guardsmen. Tear gas was
fired and guardsmen charged into the crowd. At 12:20 p.m., a small
group of Guardsmen suddenly wheeled and unleashed a 13-second volley
of gunfire. They fired into a group of protesters, killing four and
wounding 9-11 others. One wounded student was crippled for life with
damage to his spinal column. In the days that followed, hundreds of
colleges were shut down by student strikes and more than 100,000
demonstrators marched on Washington, D.C. Twenty-five years after
the event the National Guard insisted that it was provoked
into attacking the students contrary to eye-witnesses, photographs,
and later investigations. Renowned American sculptor George Segal's
bronze Abraham and Isaac was commissioned to commemorate the killing
of four Vietnam War protesters at Ohio's Kent State University. The
finished bronze is now part of Princeton University's modern
sculpture garden.
(NPR interview with the crippled survivor
5/4/95)(HFA, '96, p.30)(AP, 5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)(HNQ, 8/24/98)(HNPD,
5/4/99)
1970 May 4, The US FCC adopted
the prime time access rule (PTAR), to be fully effective as of
October 1, 1971. Four months after its adoption, however, the
Commission on August 7, 1970, significantly amended the rule,
delaying until October 1, 1972, the effective date of the
off-network and feature films provisions.
(http://tinyurl.com/5lefgv)
1970 May 4, A dispatch filed
from Saigon described looting by US soldiers at the Cambodian town
of Snuol. The mention of looting was removed by an editor in New
York before the story was transmitted to newspapers in the United
States. An AP story was killed by Wes Gallagher (d.1997 at 86),
general manager of the new service.
(AP, 7/11/07)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.B5)
1970 May 6, Yuichiro Miura
(b.1932) of Japan skied down Mt. Everest.
(http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1090978/index.htm)
1970 May 7, Carlos Estrada
(b.1909), Uruguayan composer, died.
(www.answers.com/topic/carlos-estrada)
1970 May 8, Anti-war protests
took place across the United States and around the world.
Construction workers broke up an anti-war protest on New York City's
Wall Street.
(AP, 5/8/07)
1970 May 9, Walter Reuther
(1907-1970) died in a plane crash. He was a die maker who pioneered
the establishment of the United Automobile Workers union and served
as the UAW president from 1946 for 24 years.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv.
Supl)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Reuther)
1970 May 11, The song "Long
& Winding Road" by the Beatles was released in the US. It was
their last American release.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_and_Winding_Road)
1970 May 12, The US Senate
voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court
justice. Blackmun (1908-1999) was nominated to the US Supreme Court
by Richard Nixon on April 14, 1970.
(AP,
5/12/97)(www.law.cornell.edu/supct/justices/blackmun.bio.html)
1970 May 12, In Augusta,
Georgia, an overnight riot left 6 black men dead. Autopsies
confirmed that the six men killed were all shot in the back with
police-issued shotguns.
(www.socyberty.com/History/Augusta-Georgia-Riot-of-1970.237549)
1970 May 12, Premier Robert
Bourassa (1933-1996) began serving his first term as the Liberal
Premier of the province of Quebec. This term ended in 1976. He then
served a 2nd term from 1985-1994.
(SFC, 10/3/96,
p.C6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bourassa)
1970 May 14, In West Germany
Andreas Baader, a rabid opponent of the Vietnam War, broke out of
prison with the help of gang members including Ulrike Meinhof.
(WSJ, 4/3/09,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulrike_Meinhof)
1970 May 15, Phillip Lafayette
Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State
University in Mississippi, were killed when police opened fire
during student protests.
(AP, 5/15/97)
1970 May 15, South Africa was
excluded from Olympic play.
(http://tinyurl.com/4p3x2n)
1970 May 17, Thor Heyerdahl
(1914-2002), Norwegian anthropologist, left Morocco aboard Ra II, a
papyrus reed boat, and sailed 3,270 nautical miles across the
Atlantic to Barbados in 57 days [see Jul 12].
(SFC, 4/19/02,
p.A2)(www.spiritus-temporis.com/thor-heyerdahl/)
1970 May 20, Some 100,000
people demonstrated in New York's Wall Street district in support of
U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)
1970 May 20, The Beatles movie
"Let it Be" premiered in Britain. The documentary film was about a
Beatles’ recording session.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, DB
p.47)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0065976/)
1970 May 21, The National Guard
was mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State University. [see
May 4]
(HN, 5/21/98)
1970 May 22, Joseph W. Krutch
(b.1893), US writer, died. His books included “Measure of Man”
(1954).
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/323961/Joseph-Wood-Krutch)
1970 May 25, Rachel Lindsay
Greenbush and Sidney Robin Greenbush, twin actresses, were born
in Hollywood, CA. From 1974 to 1982 the identical twins played
the character of Carrie Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie under
the credit “Lindsay Sidney Greenbush.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_and_Sidney_Greenbush)
1970 May 25, Michael Benyaer,
actor and writer, was born in Vancouver, BC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Benyaer)
1970 May 27, Dougal Haston and
Don Whillans, members of a British expedition, climbed the south
face of Nepal’s Annapurna I, the 10th highest summit in the world.
(www.trentofestival.it/en/info/honorary%20members/SIR%20CHRIS%20BONINGTON.htm)
1970 May 27, USSR performs an
underground nuclear test.
(www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Arch/sts-table/sts-table.html)
1970 May 29, John Gunther
(b.1901), American journalist and author, died.
(www.hwwilson.com/Print/14gunther.html)
1970 May 29, Eva Hesse, artist
(34), died in NYC. She is one of 3 artists covered by Anne Middleton
Wagner in "Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism in the Art of
Hesse, Krasner and O’Keefe."
(HFA, '96, p.42)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.T-7)(SSFC,
2/3/02, p.D3)
1970 May 29, In Sri Lanka
Sirimavo Bandaranaike began serving as the country’s 9th prime
minister for a 2nd term and continued to 1977. His first term as the
7th PM of Ceylon was from 1960-1965.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirimavo_Bandaranaike)
1970 May 31, In Cambodia 9
journalists (American, Cambodian, Indian, Japanese, and French) were
ambushed by Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong guerrillas near Kandoul
village south of Phnom Penh. 4 of the CBS employees were killed
instantly. 5 others were believed to have been taken to Kandoul in
the days after and executed. Their bodies were dumped in a shallow
grave amid the untilled earth of rice paddies.
(AP, 4/23/10)
1970 May 31, Tens of thousands
of people died in an earthquake in Peru. The 7.7 earthquake killed
67,000, injured 50,000 and destroyed 186,000 buildings.
(AP, 5/31/97)(SFC, 11/29/97, p.C3)
1970 May, The US government
shut off power and stopped fresh water supplies from the Native
American Indians on Alcatraz Island. A fire broke out and each side
blamed the other.
(G, Summer ‘97,
p.5)(www.nps.gov/alca/historyculture/we-hold-the-rock.htm)
1970 May, Leonard Woodcock
(1911-2001) was named head of the UAW following the death of Walter
Reuther. He was elected to a full term at the union's 23rd
Constitutional Convention in April, 1972, and re-elected in 1974. He
retired in May 1977 and then served as US ambassador to China from
1979-1981.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.C2)
1970 May, In Panama leftist
activist Heliodoro Portugal was kidnapped. His remains were found in
1999 near a military barracks outside Panama City. In 2009 the
government accepted responsibility for Portugal's disappearance and
agreed to pay his family $256,000.
(AP, 5/27/10)
1970 Jun 2, Har Gobind Khorana
(1922-1993), Indian-American chemist at the Univ. of Wisconsin,
announced the synthesis of the 1st artificial gene.
(www.super70s.com/Super70s/Timeline/1970/)(www.answers.com/topic/har-gobind-khorana)
1970 Jun 3, Hjalmar Horace
Greeley Schacht (b.1877), President of Germany’s Reichsbank
(1933-1939), minister of Economics (1934-1936), died. Schacht was
tried for crimes against peace in Nuremberg in 1946. His defense was
that he was only a banker and economist.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjalmar_Schacht)
1970 Jun 7, The Who's Tommy was
performed at NY's Lincoln Center.
(www.bigozine2.com/archive/ARrarities/ARwhoortommy.html)
1970 Jun 7, E.M. Forster
(b.1879 as Edward Morgan Forster), English novelist, died.
(SFC,12/26/97,
p.C22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._Forster)
1970 Jun 9, Harry A. Blackmun
(1908-1999), was sworn in as Supreme Court Justice.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Blackmun)
1970 Jun 10, A fifteen-man
group of special forces troops began training for Operation Kingpin,
a POW rescue mission in North Vietnam. Almost flawless in execution,
the daring rescue raid at the Son Tay prison camp deep within North
Vietnam lacked only one essential ingredient--POWs.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1970 Jun 11, The United States
presence in Libya came to an end as the last detachment left Wheelus
Air Base.
(AP, 6/11/00)
1970 Jun 11, Frank Laubach,
Christian Evangelical missionary, died. In 1935, while working at a
remote location in the Philippines, he developed the "Each One Teach
One" literacy program. It has since been used to teach about 60
million people to read in their own language.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Laubach)
1970 Jun 11, Frank Silvera
(b.1914), actor, died. He was accidentally electrocuted in his home.
At the time he was appearing on the TV series “High Chaparral.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Silvera)
1970 Jun 11, Palestinian
guerrillas and King Hussein's army signed a truce in Jordan after
week of heavy clashes.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1970 Jun 11, Alexander F.
Kerensky (b.1881), Russian premier (1917), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kerensky)
1970 Jun 13, Beatles' "Let It
Be," album went #1 & stayed #1 for 4 weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be)
1970 Jun 16, Kenneth A. Gibson
of Newark, N.J., became the first black to win a mayoral election in
a major Northeast city.
(AP, 6/16/98)
1970 Jun 17, North Vietnamese
troops cut the last operating rail line in Cambodia.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1970 Jun 19, "The Tim Conway
Show", TV Comedy, last aired on CBS after 13 episodes.
(www.tvrage.com/The_Tim_Conway_Show_1970)
1970 Jun 19, In SF police
officer Richard Radetich (25) was shot 3 times by a gunman as wrote
a ticket in a parked patrol car. Radetich died 15 hours later
leaving behind a wife and 8-month-old daughter.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A1)
1970 Jun 19, Edward Heath
(1916-2005) began serving as Britain’s prime minister and continued
to 1974. Derek George Rayner (d.1998 at 72), later Lord Rayner, soon
joined the government to centralize defense procurement for PM
Edward Heath.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.32)(SFC, 7/18/05,
p.B6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Heath)
1970 Jun 19, A. Nikolayev and
V. Sevastyanov returned after 18 days in Russia’s Soyuz 9.
(www.astronautix.com/flights/soyuz9.htm)
1970 Jun 21, Tony Jacklin
became the first British golfer to win the US Open for 50 years, and
with his British Open victory eleven months earlier, he became only
the third golfer to accomplish this double within a 12-month period.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1970 Jun 21, Penn Central was
forced into bankruptcy. The default caught the market by surprise,
largely because commercial paper ratings were in their infancy. Fed
chairman Arthur Burns reacted by making discount window loans to
banks that lent to CP issuers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Central_Transportation)(WSJ,
8/30/07, p.A3)
1970 Jun 22, President Nixon
signed the 26th amendment, a measure lowering the voting age to 18.
(AP, 6/22/97) (HN, 6/22/98)
1970 Jun 22, In Vietnam surgeon
Dang Thuy Tram (27) died after refusing to surrender to US troops
during a skirmish. Officer Frederick Whitehurst retrieved her the
diaries from her gutted field hospital, and decided at his
translator's urging not to burn them. The work was translated and
published in 2006.
(AP,
4/3/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dang_Thuy_Tram)
1970 Jun 24, The film
"Catch-22," directed by Mike Nichols, opened. It was based on the
novel by Joseph Heller.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, DB
p.44)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0065528/)
1970 Jun 24, The US Senate
voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. With
fresh evidence later available, claims that the Tonkin Gulf incident
was deliberately provoked gained new plausibility.
(HN, 6/24/98)(http://tinyurl.com/4x8keb)
1970 Jun 28-1970 Jun 29,
Reinhold and Gunther Messner of Tyrol, Italy, reached the
26,650-foot peak of Nanga Parbat in northern Pakistan. Gunther (24)
died during the descent. In 2005 Reinhold retrieved his brother’s
remains.
(WSJ, 12/10/03, p.A1)(SFC, 9/5/05, p.A2)
1970 Jun 28, Muhammed Ali,
formerly Cassius Clay, stood before the Supreme Court regarding his
refusal of induction into the Army during the Vietnam War.
(HN, 6/28/99)
1970 Jun 29, U.S. troops pulled
out of Cambodia.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1970 Jun 30, IBM announced the
System 370 computer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_370)
1970 Jun, The Israeli
government passed its initial decision to establish settlements in
Gaza.
(AP, 8/15/05)
1970 Jul 1, In Guatemala Gen.
Carlos Arana Osorio (1918-2003), a hard-line conservative of the
National Liberation Movement, began serving as president and
continued to 1974. He expanded efforts to bring armed rebels under
control and prosecuted student radicals. He declared a state of
siege in his 1st year.
(AP, 12/6/03)(SFC, 12/8/03,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Manuel_Arana_Osorio)
1970 Jul 2, Jessie Street
(b.1889), Australian civil rights activist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Street)
1970 Jul 3, A British Dan-Air
charter, flying a Comet 4 turbojet, crashed near Barcelona and 112
were killed.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=834)
1970 Jul 4, Some 100 people
were injured in race rioting in Asbury Park, NJ. In 2005 Daniel
Wolff authored “Fourth of July, Asbury Park: A History of the
Promised Land.”
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.E1)
1970 Jul 4, Casey Kasem
(b.1932) debuted his "American Top 40" on LA radio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Kasem)
1970 Jul 4, Barnett Newman
(b.1905), American artist of the abstract expressionist movement,
died. His "zips" consisted of fields of flat color punctuated by
vertical stripes.
(SFC,11/22/97, p.D5)(SFC, 3/30/02, p.D1)(NW,
4/22/02, p.66)
1970 Jul 12, Thor Heyerdahl,
Norwegian ethnographer, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in "Ra" and
docked in Barbados.
(www.shipsonstamps.org/Topics/html/kontiki.htm)
1970 Jul 15, Frederik Lugt
(b.1884), Dutch founder of the Fondation Custodia (1947), died in
Paris. The foundation, which he founded with his wife, kept intact
his collection of Old Master drawings at the Institut Neederlandais,
the Dutch cultural center in Paris.
(Econ, 2/13/10,
p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frits_Lugt)
1970 Jul 18, Arthur Brown
(b.1942), English rock singer, was arrested for stripping on stage
in Palermo, Sicily.
(www.godofhellfire.co.uk/60s.htm)
1970 Jul 21, The Aswan Dam
opened in Egypt. Over the years the giant dam caused the disruption
of the Nile's flow and destroyed vital mineral deposits. Fishing
industries have been linked to the spread of disease. Formal opening
ceremonies were held Jan 15, 1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_High_Dam)
1970 Jul 21, Libya ordered the
confiscation of all Jewish property.
(http://tinyurl.com/48p4fy)
1970 Jul 23, Sultan Qaboos bin
Al Said deposed his father, Sultan Said bin Taimur, and took over
rule in Oman.
(NG, 5/95, p.120)(AP, 7/23/97)
1970 Jul 24, Pres. Nixon signed
the Failing Newspaper Act (Newspaper Preservation Act) allowing
papers in the same market to cut costs by merging some of their
operations.
(SFC, 10/21/09,
p.D5)(www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-25372134_ITM)
1970 Jul 24, Freddie Mac
(Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.), a stockholder-owned corporation,
was chartered by Congress to keep money flowing to mortgage lenders
in support of homeownership and rental housing. Preston Martin
(1923-2007) helped spearhead its creation. It was listed as a public
company in 1989.
(WSJ, 6/2/07,
p.A5)(www.freddiemac.com/investors/faq.html)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.80)
1970 Jul 24, Robert B. Choate
(d.2009 at 84), an engineer turned consumer advocate, testified on
nutrition information for consumers at a Senate subcommittee hearing
and used data supplied by cereal manufacturers. He ranked 60
cereals, including Sugar Smacks, Froot Loops, and Lucky charms, by
their nutritive value, showing that 40 products offered such poor
nourishment that they were essentially “empty calories.”
(SFC, 5/22/09, p.B6)(http://tinyurl.com/qy7rgb)
1970 Jul 24, In Laos Capt.
Donald Bloodworth and his pilot were lost on a night reconnaissance
mission in a F-4D fighter-bomber. Bloodworth’s remains were returned
to the US in 1998.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A14)
1970 Jul 26, The SF Chronicle
received a letter from the Zodiac killer with an unsubstantiated
claim of killing 13 people.
(SFC, 10/2/00, p.A19)
1970 Jul 27, Antonio de
Oliveira Salazar (b.1889), former dictator of Portugal (1932-68),
died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar)
1970 Jul 29, Six days of race
rioting began in Hartford, Ct.
(www.fsmitha.com/time1970.htm)
1970 Jul 29, John G.B.
Barbirolli (b.1899), English conductor, composer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barbirolli)
1970 Jul 29, Jonel Perlea (69),
Romania-born composer, died in NY. In 1957 he became the principal
conductor of the Connecticut Symphony and continued there for ten
years.
(http://soundfountain.org/rem/remperlea.html)
1970 Jul 30, George Szell
(b.1897)), Hungarian-US conductor, died in Cleveland, Ohio. He had
served as the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1946.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Szell)
1970 Aug 1, The dance piece
"The Fugue," created by Twyla Tharp (b.1941), premiered at the Univ.
of Massachusetts in Amherst.
(WSJ, 10/17/96,
p.A20)(www.abt.org/education/archive/ballets/fugue.html)
1970 Aug 1, W. Lain Guthrie
(d.1997 at 84), a commercial airline pilot, refused to dump kerosene
into the atmosphere as had been common practice. He kept his DC-8 on
the ground and ordered the ground crew to drain the waste fuel from
the previous flight. He was fired but other pilots supported him and
he was reinstated and the industry stopped its dumping.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.D2)
1970 Aug 3, A 4-day NFL strike
ended when the owners agreed to put $4.5 million into the players'
pension fund and insurance benefits annually. The players also
received increased preseason and per diem payments.
(www.buffalobills.com/team/history/important-dates-august.html)
1970 Aug 3, Hurricane "Celia"
reached its peak as it made landfall near Corpus Christi, Texas, as
a strong Category Three hurricane.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Celia)
1970 Aug 7, At a hearing for
the "Soledad Brothers," Jonathon P. Jackson (17), the younger
brother of George L. Jackson, attempted an armed rescue attempt at
the Marin Civic Center. A shootout in the parking lot followed and 4
people were killed and 5 injured. Among the dead were Jackson, Judge
Harold Haley, Black Panther James McClain, and convict William A.
Christmas. Angela Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and
conspiracy, but was acquitted in 1972 after spending a year in jail.
An attempt by black militant James David McClain to escape his trial
in Marin County, California, ended in a shootout with police that
claimed the lives of McClain, two of three cohorts, and Judge Harold
J. Daley, one of several hostages.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W21)(SFC, 8/19/98, p.A18)(AP,
8/7/00)
1970 Aug 7, In Colombia Misael
Pastrana (1923-1997), a member of the Conservative Party, began
serving as the country’s 31st president. He was elected by a margin
of 63,000 votes. Some who favored his opponent, Gen’l. Gustavo Rojas
Pinilla, formed the M-19 rebel group and waged war for almost 2
decades before they disarmed in 1989.
(SFC, 8/23/97,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misael_Pastrana_Borrero)
1970 Aug 7, Israel, Jordan and
Egypt agreed to a ceasefire under the terms of the US proposed Roger
Plan. The Roger Plan was originally proposed in a December 9, 1969,
speech at an Adult Education conference. The plan was formally
announced on 19 June 1970.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Attrition)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Plan)
1970 Aug 10, Dan Mitrione
(b.1920), a former Indiana police officer and FBI agent who had been
advising Latin American governments, including Uruguay's, on
techniques for interrogating suspects, was killed by Tupamaro
guerrillas. He had been kidnapped on July 31. In 2010 diplomatic
cables revealed that President Richard Nixon wanted the Uruguayan
government to threaten to kill leftist prisoners in an attempt to
save the life of Mitrione.
(AP,
8/13/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Mitrione)
1970 Aug 12, Curt Flood lost
his $41 million antitrust suit against baseball. On June 18, 1972,
the US Supreme Court upheld the lower court's rulings on Flood's
case. Baseball continued to be exempt from antitrust laws and its
reserve clause was upheld.
(www.scripophily.net/cuflasmi19.html)
1970 Aug 14, City University of
NY inaugurated open admissions.
(www.kipnotes.com/Colleges.htm)
1970 Aug 15, A ferryboat named
the M.V. Golden Gate made its maiden voyage from San Francisco to
Sausalito marking a revival of ferry service on San Francisco Bay.
It was retired from service on March 26, 2004. The Golden Gate Bus
and Ferry Transit system began operating with one ferry and 4 leased
busses. Ferry service to Sausalito was inaugurated. The ferryboat
Golden Gate was retired in 2004.
(www.goldengateferry.org/researchlibrary/history.php)(SFC, 12/2/99,
p.A36)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A1)
1970 Aug 16, Benny Bufano
(b.1898), California-based Italian-American sculptor, died. He was
known for his late-career bullet-shaped public sculptures.
(SFC, 12/8/00,
p.C1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Bufano)
1970 Aug 17, Venera 7 was
launched by USSR for a soft landing on Venus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_7)
1970 Aug 19, George Wright and
three other men escaped from the Bayside State Prison farm in
Leesburg, New Jersey. He became affiliated with an underground
militant group, the Black Liberation Army, and lived for a while in
a "communal family" with several of its members in Detroit.
(AP, 9/28/11)
1970 Aug 20, Ronald Tsukamoto
(b.1942), a Berkeley, Ca., rookie police officer, was shot and
killed. In 2004 Don Juan Warren Graphenreed (54) was arrested as a
suspect in the murder, but was released without being charged. In
2005 police arrested Styles Price (56), a retired Oakland
schoolteacher for the killing. Graphenreed was again arrested at
Corcoran State Prison, where he was held on a drug charge. Price was
soon freed and the case against Graphenreed was dropped due to
“insufficient corroborating evidence.”(SSFC, 4/19/08, p.)
(SFC, 5/26/04, p.B3)(SFC, 6/16/04, p.B5)(SFC,
8/11/05, p.B1)(SFC, 8/13/05, p.B1)
1970 Aug 24, A bomb planted by
anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army
Math Research Center in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher
Robert Fassnacht. On Sep 2 the FBI began a nationwide hunt for
Dwight Armstrong (19), Karleton Armstrong (22), David S. Fine (18),
and Leo F. Burt (22). Dwight Armstrong (1951-2010), the last to be
caught, was arrested in Toronto in April, 1977.
(AP, 8/24/97)(SSFC, 6/27/10, p.C9)
1970 Aug 25, Claudia Schiffer,
German fashion model, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Schiffer)
1970 Aug 29, Ruben Salazar
(42), a Latino journalist for KMEX, was killed by a tear gas
canister fired by a sheriff’s deputy following an anti-war
demonstration in East Los Angeles. In 2008 a US postage stamp was
issued in his honor. On Feb 22, 2011, a report on the case found no
evidence supporting suspicions that Salazar was deliberately killed.
It stated that Salazar’s death was due to a series of tactical
blunders that would be unacceptable by today's law enforcement
standards.
(SFC, 4/21/08, p.A1)(AP, 2/22/11)
1970 Aug, The first
all-computer championship was held in New York and won by CHESS 3.0
(CDC 6400), a program written by Slate, Atkin and Gorlen at
Northwestern University. Six programs had entered the first
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) North American Computer
Championships. The event was organized by Monty Newborn. The other
programs were DALY CP, J Brit, COKO III, SCHACH, and the Marsland
CP.
(http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/comphis.htm)
1970 Sep 1, Dr. Hugh Scott of
Washington, D.C., became the first African-American superintendent
of schools in a major U.S. city.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1970 Sep 3, Vince Lombardi
(57), one of Fordham University‘s stalwart linemen known as the
"Seven Blocks of Granite" during his college days, succumbed to
cancer in Washington, D.C. He had recently coached the Washington
Redskins to their first winning season in 14 years. Lombardi had
previously coached the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships
and victories in the first two Super Bowls. He went to the
Washington Redskins in 1969 as head coach, general manager, and part
owner. The team wound up with a 7-5-2 record for the season. In 1999
David Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince
Lombardi."
(AP, 9/3/97)(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A28)
1970 Sep 4, Natalia Makarova
(b.1940), Russian ballet dancer, requested asylum while on tour in
Britain.
(WSJ, 10/1/98,
p.A20)(www.abt.org/education/archive/choreographers/makarova_n.html)
1970 Sep 4, Salvador Allende
Gossens (1908-1973) won the presidential election in Chile. A week
later in Washington Henry Kissinger discussed a "covert action
program" to oust Allende.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende)(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.D1)
1970 Sep 6, Palestinian
guerrillas of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
seized control of three jetliners which were later blown up on the
ground in Jordan after the passengers and crews were evacuated. This
triggered a civil war in and the expulsion of Palestinians from
Jordan.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B4)(AP, 9/6/97)
1970 Sep 7, Donald Boyles set a
record for the highest parachute jump from a bridge by leaping off
of 1,053 ft Royal George Bridge in Colorado.
(www.baseclimb.com/BASE_history.htm)
1970 Sep 9, U.S. Marines
launched Operation Dubois Square, a 10-day search for North
Vietnamese troops near DaNang. Marine pilots in their diminutive
Douglas A-4 Skyhawks provided vital close air support for ground
forces in Vietnam.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1970 Sep 11, In Laos the US
Operation Tailwind began with the objectives of reconnaissance,
intelligence collection, and a diversion for a larger operation to
the north. In 1998 it was reported that the secret raid called
Operation Tailwind by a Special Forces unit called the Studies and
Observations Group (SOG) used the nerve gas sarin in Laos to kill
American armed service members who had defected. A report in 1998
allegedly confirmed that over 100 people were killed including up to
20 American military defectors. Adm. Thomas Moorer (1912-2004), the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time (1970-1974),
confirmed in 1998 that nerve gas was used. CNN and Time magazine
later recanted the story due to insufficient evidence.
(www.scarface-usmc.org/tailwind.htm)(SFC, 6/8/98,
p.A3)(WSJ, 6/26/98, p.W13)(SFC, 7/3/98, p.A1)(SFC, 2/7/04, p.A21)
1970 Sep 12, US professor
Timothy Leary, LSD proponent, escaped from a California jail. Leary
escaped from the State Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo with the help
of his third wife, Rosemary and the Weather Underground. He went to
Algiers and joined Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, who
kidnapped the Learys after a political disagreement. They soon
escaped and made their way to Afghanistan. In 1974 he was caught and
revealed his collaborators to the FBI.
(http://tinyurl.com/4ncp8t)(SFC, 6/1/96,
p.A7)(SFC, 7/1/99, p.A9)
1970 Sep 12, The Univ. of
Alabama under coach Bear Bryant football team played against an
integrated opponent for the 1st time losing to the Univ. of Southern
California 42-21.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.D10)
1970 Sep 12, The Soviet Union
launched its unmanned Soviet Luna 16. It was the first robotic probe
to land on the Moon and return a sample to Earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16)
1970 Sep 13, The supersonic
airliner Concorde landed for the 1st time at Heathrow airport.
(www.aviation-news.co.uk/concordeChronology.html)
1970 Sep 15, Pres. Nixon
authorized a US-backed coup in Chile.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F7)
1970 Sep 15, The Jordanian army
attacked Palestinian positions and expelled PLO officials and
commandos from Jordan. The PLO was driven out of Jordan and forced
to move to Lebanon.
(www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/arabisraeliwars.php)(SFC,
2/8/99, p.A6)
1970 Sep 16, The American TV
show "McCloud" was released. It starred Dennis Weaver (1924-2006)
and was written and produced by Leslie Stevens (d.1998). The series
continued to 1977.
(SFC, 4/29/98,
p.C2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0065317/)
1970 Sep 18, Jimi Hendrix (27),
rock star guitarist, died in London of drug overdose. Hendrix had
performed briefly as an opening act for the Monkeys as well as
behind the Isley Brothers and Little Richard. In 1978 David
Henderson authored the biography “Scuse me While I Kiss the Sky.” In
2005 Charles R. Cross authored “Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of
Jimi Hendrix.”
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/18/97)(WSJ, 4/16/99,
p.W13C)(SSFC, 8/21/05, p.F1)
1970 Sep 19, "The Mary Tyler
Moore Show" with Ed Asner debuted on CBS TV and ran to 1977. Mary
Richards threw her hat at 7th St. and Nicollet Ave. in Minneapolis
for the opening credits. In 2001 the city planned a $150,000 statue
of Mary to be made by Gwendolyn Gillen of Wisconsin. In 1989 Robert
S. Alley and Irby B. Brown authored “Love Is All Around,” a complete
documentary of the show.
(SFEC, 5/24/98, DB p.39)(AP, 9/19/00)(WSJ,
6/19/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/12/05, p.P14)
1970 Sep, 19, The 1st
Glastonbury Fair attracted some 1,500 revelers. The first festival
at Worthy Farm was the Pilton Festival, mounted by Michael Eavis,
and attended by 1,500 people. The first act to perform was the group
Stackridge; the headline act was T.Rex. The larger free festival at
the summer solstice in June the next year was the first to attract
nationwide interest, and the event became an important precursor of
the later Glastonbury Festivals. In 2004 some 115,000 were expected
for what had become Britain’s biggest pop festival.
(Econ, 6/26/04,
p.61)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Festival#1970s)
1970 Sep 20, Pres. Nixon’s
aide, Charles W. Colson, stated in a memo to Chief of staff H.R.
Haldeman: "(the networks) are very much afraid of us and are trying
hard to prove they are ‘good guys.’"
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A7)
1970 Sep 20, The Soviet Luna 16
landed on Moon’s Mare Fecunditatis and drilled a core sample.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16)
1970 Sep 21, "NFL Monday Night
Football" made its debut on ABC TV as the Cleveland Browns defeated
the visiting New York Jets, 31-to-21.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/21/00)
1970 Sep 21, In Jordan King
Hussein sent a plea to Israel for air support via the British
embassy. Israel did not respond. The Black September crises left
2,000 people dead in 13 days of fighting.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A12)
1970 Sep 22, President Richard
M. Nixon signed a bill giving the District of Columbia
representation in the U.S. Congress. Pres Nixon requested 1,000 new
FBI agents for college campuses.
(HN, 9/22/98)(http://tinyurl.com/5qrct8)
1970 Sep 22, Abdul Razak
(1922-1976) became Malaysia’s 2nd prime minister.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_Abdul_Razak)
1970 Sep 24, Moon Landrieu
(b.1930) began serving as the mayor of New Orleans and continued to
1978. From 1979-1981 he served as the US Secretary of Housing and
Urban Development under Pres. Jimmy Carter.
(Econ, 2/13/10,
p.34)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Landrieu)
1970 Sep 24, The Soviet Luna 16
returned to Earth, completing the first unmanned round trip to the
moon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16)
1970 Sep 25, Erich M. Remarque
(b.1898), German writer, died. His books included “Im West Nichts
Neues” (All Quiet on the Western Front), 1929.
(http://kirjasto.sci.fi/remarque.htm)
1970 Sep 26, The President’s
Commission on Campus Unrest, also referred to as the Scranton
Commission, investigated the Kent killings and found "The
indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the
deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and
inexcusable." The commission, directed by former Pennsylvania
Governor William Scranton, was appointed by President Richard Nixon
shortly after the Kent State shootings and relied heavily on a
massive FBI investigation. The Scranton report also found student
conduct prior to the shootings partly responsible.
(HNQ, 5/4/98)
1970 Sep 27, A cease-fire
accord was signed in Cairo between the Jordanian army and
Palestinian guerrillas by King Hussein and Yasser Arafat brokered by
the Arab peace committee headed by Bahi Ladgham of Tunisia.
(SFC, 4/16/98, p.B4)(http://tinyurl.com/6e3v9s)
1970 Sep 28, John Roderigo Dos
Passos (b.1896), US writer (Manhattan Transfer), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dos_Passos)
1970 Sep 28, In Egypt Pres.
Gamal Abdul Nasser (b.1918) died of a heart attack. He became
president in 1953. Anwar Sadat replaced Nasser.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamal_Abdel_Nasser)
1970 Sep, Ford introduced the
compact 1971 Pinto. The car became infamous for its lethally
exploding gas tank. The car lasted to 1980.
(www.allpar.com/amc/gremlin.html)(SFC, 3/14/05,
p.A10)
1970 Sep, GM introduced the
compact 1971 Chevrolet Vega. The car was released in 1971 and lasted
to 1977. The aluminum and cast-iron engine kept breaking.
(www.allpar.com/amc/gremlin.html)(SFC, 3/14/05,
p.A10)(WSJ, 12/22/08, p.B2)
1970 Sep, The Who, an English
rock band, released "See Me, Feel Me," the finale of its Tommy
album, as a single in the US.
(www.connollyco.com/discography/who/)
1970 Sep, In Jordan during
"Black September" army troops loyal to King Hussein put down a
revolt by Palestinian guerrillas, who demanded the ouster of the
King. Cmdr. Habes al-Majali (d.2001 at 87) crushed the rebellion led
by followers of Yasser Arafat.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)(SFC, 4/24/01, p.B2)
1970 Oct 2, A plane carrying
the Wichita State Univ. football team crashed near Silver Plume,
Colorado, killing 29 passengers as well as the Captain and
Flight Attendant.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_State_University_Crash)
1970 Oct 3, "Coco" closed at
Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 333 performances.
(www.playbill.com/news/article/117071.html)
1970 Oct 3, Baseball
umpires called their 1st strike. A one-day strike of the first game
of the championship playoffs, the first by umpires in major league
history, prompted the league presidents to recognize the Association
and negotiate a labor contract that set a minimum salary of $11,000
and raised the average salary to $21,000.
(www.sdabu.com/history_main.htm)
1970 Oct 4, Janis Joplin
(b.1943) was found dead in a seedy Hollywood motel of a heroin
overdose at age 27. Her classic songs included: "Down on Me," "Ball
and Chain," and "Piece of My Heart." In 1992 Laura Joplin authored
“Love, Janis.”
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.4)(SSFC,
8/21/05, p.F1)
1970 Oct 5, National
Educational Television (NET), the forerunner of Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS), commenced broadcasting following its merger with
station WNDT Newark, New Jersey, to form WNET. In 1973 it merged
with Educational Television Stations.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS)
1970 Oct 5, British trade
commissioner James Richard Cross was kidnapped in Canada by militant
Quebec separatists; he was released the following December.
(AP, 10/5/00)
1970 Oct 6, Elvis Presley
recorded "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me."
(http://oldies.about.com/od/elvispresleyhistory/a/elvis1970.htm)
1970 Oct 7, Pres. Nixon in a
televised speech proposed a cease-fire-in-place for Indochina and
the negotiated withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam.
(WSJ, 2/5/96,
p.A-19)(http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/keyevents/Nixon)
1970 Oct 8, Soviet author
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for
literature.
(AP, 10/8/97)
1970 Oct 9, The Khmer Republic
(Cambodia) declared independence.
(http://flagspot.net/flags/kh_hstry.html)
1970 Oct 10, Former Illinois
Secretary of State Paul Powell (b.1902) died. Investigators soon
found nearly half a million dollars in cash and checks, from
unsuspecting drivers paying for their license plates, crammed into
shoe boxes inside his hotel room.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Powell_(politician))
1970 Oct 10, In the October
Crisis Quebec Provincial Labor Minister Pierre Laporte and the
British trade commissioner James Cross were kidnapped by the
left-wing, nationalist Front de Liberation du Quebec, Quebec
Liberation Front (FLQ), a militant separatist group. Laporte's body
was found about a week later. Mr. Cross was released but Mr. LaPorte
was found dead strangled in the trunk of a car. The Canadian
government refused to pay a ransom. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
responded by suspending civil liberties in Quebec and invoking the
War Measures Act, and sending over 1,000 troops to the
French-Canadian province.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.C6)(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A20)(AP,
10/10/97)
1970 Oct 10, The South Pacific
island of Fiji became independent after nearly a century of British
rule. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (d.2004) became Fiji's first prime
minister. Fiji’s military at this time numbered about 200.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(AP, 10/10/97)(AP,
4/19/04)(WSJ, 9/29/07, p.A6)
1970 Oct 10, Edouard Daladier
(b.1884), 3 time premier of France (1933, 1934, 1938-40), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Daladier)
1970 Oct 12, President Richard
Nixon announced the pullout of 40,000 more American troops in
Vietnam by Christmas.
(HN, 10/12/98)
1970 Oct 12, In Quebec, Canada,
the "October Crises" continued. PM Pierre Trudeau imposed martial
law in Quebec and sent troops into Montreal because of bombings and
killings by the Quebec Liberation Front.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.C6)(SFC, 11/22/96,
p.A20)(SFC,12/27/97, p.A12)
1970 Oct 13, Canada established
diplomatic relations with China.
(http://geo.international.gc.ca/asia/china/political_economic/diplomatic_relations-en.asp)
1970 Oct 14, San Francisco’s
Golden Gate Park Conservatory was added to the National Register of
Historic Places.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places)
1970 Oct 15, Anwar Sadat
(1918-1981) succeeded the late Gamal Abdel Nasser as president of
Egypt. Sadat had worked with Nasser to overthrow Egypt‘s monarchy
and was imprisoned during World War II for his ties to the Germans.
After the revolution in 1952, he held key posts under Nasser
including that of vice president (1964-66 and 1969-70). In 1973, he
led Egypt into a war with Israel, but five years later negotiated
the Camp David Accords with Israeli premier Menachem Begin for which
both men received the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated by
Muslim extremists in 1981.
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A19)(HNQ,
7/30/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Sadat)
1970 Oct 17, Pierre Laporte
(b.1921), the Quebec minister of labor, was found strangled to death
7 days after his kidnapping by the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laporte)
1970 Oct 19, Amdahl
Corp., a manufacturer of IBM mainframe compatible products, was
formed at Sunnyvale, California by Dr. Gene Amdahl, a former IBM
employee. In 1997 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu.
(www.wordiq.com/definition/Amdahl)
1970 Oct 19, John Linley
Frazier murdered Dr. Victor Ohta, his wife, 2 children and secretary
in Santa Cruz, Ca. He was convicted in Dec. 1971, and sentenced to
death. The sentence was changed to life in prison after the state
Supreme Court struck down capital punishment in California. In 2009
Frazier (62) committed suicide at Mule Creek State Prison.
(www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/frazier.htm)(SFC,
1/27/05, p.B7)(SFC, 8/20/09, p.D6)
1970 Oct 19, In SF police
officer Harold Hamilton was killed after responding to a bank
robbery at the Wells Fargo branch at Seventh and Clement Street.
Later several officers were wounded when a bomb exploded outside
Hamilton’s funeral at St. Brendan Church.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A8)
1970 Oct 21, John T. Scopes
(b.1900), US teacher in the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," died.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3526)
1970 Oct 21, In South Korea 777
Unification church couples were wed.
(www.ultralingua.com/eureka/index.php/Category:Unification_Church)
1970 Oct 24, The X24A lifting
body exceeded Mach 1. The X-24A was the Martin Corporation's
subsonic test version of the US Air Force's preferred manned lifting
body configuration. The lifting bodies were used to demonstrate the
ability of pilots to maneuver and safely land wingless vehicles
designed to fly back to Earth from space and be landed like an
airplane at a predetermined site.
(NPub, 2002,
p.22)(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/X-24A/index.html)
1970 Oct 24, Richard
Hofstadter, US historian, died at 54. In 2006 David S. Brown
authored “Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography.”
(http://tinyurl.com/f9ty4)(WSJ, 5/13/06, p.P8)
1970 Oct 25, In Chile a US
CIA-backed kidnapping attempt was botched and left Gen. Rene
Schneider dead. Schneider had opposed a US plan for a military coup.
In 2001 his widow and 3 sons filed a suit against Henry Kissinger,
Richard Helms and several other former US bureaucrats.
(SFC, 9/12/01,
p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Schneider)
1970 Oct 26, Pres. Nixon signed
Executive Order 11566 ordered the establishment of the
Consumer Information Center (CIC).
(WSJ, 1/8/97,
p.A18)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59087)
1970 Oct 26, Congress passed
Public Law 91-508, the US Bank Secrecy Act, which required that
banks maintain records of wire transfers of more than $3000 and
report cash transactions of more than $10,000.
(SFC, 6/28/97,
p.A2)(www.irs.gov/irm/part4/ch24s05.html)
1970 Oct 26, Gary Trudeau's
comic strip "Doonesbury" first appeared. The SF Chronicle began to
carry the "Doonesbury" cartoon of Garry Trudeau under editor George
Stanleigh Arnold (d.1997 at 78).
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A26)(HN, 10/26/00)
1970 Oct 27, The US Controlled
Substance Act became effective. It classified marijuana, heroin and
LSD as “schedule I,” drugs with no accepted medical use. People
arrested for drug offences then rose from an initial 416,000 per
year to 1,890,000 per year in 2007.
(WSJ, 2/8/05,
p.D7)(www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/21cfr/21usc/812.htm)(Econ,
12/15/07, p.38)
1970 Oct 28, In Canada Gerald
Regan (b.1928) became premier of Nova Scotia and continued to 1978.
In 1995 charges were filed that he sexually assaulted 2 girls (14)
in 1956 and another young woman (18) in 1969. He was tried in 1998
at age 70. He was acquitted by a jury as 19 other women came forward
with charges of sexual assault.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.C9)(SFEC, 12/20/98,
p.A35)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Regan)
1970 Oct, "Engine Number 9" by
Wilson Pickett (d.2006) peaked at #14 on the pop singles chart.
(www.superseventies.com/singlesbymonth70.html)
1970 Oct, David Baltimore (37)
of MIT won a Nobel Prize for discovering the reverse transcriptase
enzyme. In 2001 Shane Crotty authored "Ahead of the Curve," an
account of Baltimore’s work and ten year defense over a 1986
controversy over scientific data and the work of junior colleague
Thereza Imanishi-Kari.
(WSJ, 8/1/01, p.A12)
1970 Oct, The Nobel Peace Prize
was won by Norman Borlaug (1914-2009) for his development of
high-yield wheat varieties for which he was dubbed father of the
"Green Revolution." In 2006 Leon Hesser authored ”The Man Who Fed
the World,” a biography of Borlaug.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)(WSJ, 9/5/06,
p.D8)(SFC, 9/14/09, p.A7)
1970 Oct, The Nobel Prize for
Physics was won by Louis Neel (d.2000 at 95) of France for
discoveries about magnetic fields and Hanes Alfven of Sweden for
work on interactions between plasmas and magnetic fields.
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A23)
1970 Oct, Paul Samuelson
(1915-2009), American economist and MIT professor, won the Nobel
Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his effort to bring
mathematical analysis into economics.
(SFC, 12/14/09, p.D1)
1970 Oct, Britain’s council
workers went on strike.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.104)
1970 Oct, China began
construction of the 1,160 mile Tazara Railway between Lusaka, Zambia
and the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam. China brought in its own
workers for the project, which in 1976 finished ahead of schedule.
(www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ziliao/3602/3604/t18009.htm)(Econ, 10/28/06,
p.54)
1970 Nov 1, A discotheque near
Grenoble, France, burned. All exits were padlocked and 142 people
died.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/1/newsid_2537000/2537937.stm)
1970 Nov 3, President Nixon
delivered a speech to explain why American troops in Vietnam had
invaded the neutral country of Cambodia.
(www.amazon.com/Speeches-Richard-M-Nixon/dp/6301666453)
1970 Nov 3, California Gov.
Reagan won a 2nd term. He defeated Jesse Unruh.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F7)
1970 Nov 3, Rev. Robert Drinan
(1920-2007), a Jesuit priest, was elected US congressman from
Massachusetts. He later became the 1st member of Congress to call
for the impeachment of Pres. Nixon due to the administration’s
undeclared war in Cambodia.
(SFC, 1/30/07,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Drinan)
1970 Nov 3, Salvador Allende
was inaugurated as president of Chile. He was elected with 36% of
the vote, only 40,000 ahead of the candidate of the right.
(AP, 11/3/97)(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.A19)
1970 Nov 3, King Peter II of
Yugoslavia died in a hospital in Denver, Colorado. He had been
forced into exile three weeks after his country was invaded by Nazi
Germany. He was buried in the Liberty Easter Serbian Orthodox
Monastery in Liberty, Illinois. He was the 1st European king or
queen to die and be buried in the US.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_II_of_Yugoslavia)
1970 Nov 3, An Australian
bomber crashed in Vietnam near the Laos border. The bodies of Flying
Officer Michael Herbert (24) and navigator, Pilot Officer Robert
Carver (24), were listed as missing until their remains were
discovered in 2009. They were the last of Australia’s Vietnam era
MIAs.
(AP, 7/30/09)
1970 Nov 4, Andre Sakharov,
Russian nuclear physicist, formed a Human Rights Committee.
(http://tinyurl.com/58dqt4)
1970 Nov 6, Augustin Lara
(b.1897), Mexican composer, died. At the time of his death, Lara had
written more than 700 songs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agust%C3%ADn_Lara)
1970 Nov 9, Charles De Gaulle
(b.1890), former French president (1959-1969), died. In 1996 Daniel
Mahoney published "De Gaulle: Statesmanship, Grandeur, and Modern
Democracy." Michel Droit (d.2000 at 77) authored the 5-volume
“Man of Destiny” (1972), widely regarded as the most thorough
examination of de Gaulle’s life and work.
(AP, 11/9/97)(WSJ, 1/19/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle)(SFC, 6/23/00,
p.D5)
1970 Nov 10, The Soviet Union
launched Luna 17, an unmanned space mission of the Luna program,
towards the moon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_17)
1970 Nov 11, Stevie Wonder sang
"Heaven Help Us All" on the Johnny Cash show.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0063919/episodes)
1970 Nov 12, A 240 KPH cyclone
hit East Pakistan (Bangladesh) [see Nov 13].
(SSFC, 9/5/04,
p.9)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1970 Nov 12, Hafez al-Assad
(1930-2000), Syrian defense minister, had his opponents arrested and
took full control of Syria.
(http://lexicorient.com/e.o/assad_hafiz.htm)
1970 Nov 13, The Bhola Cyclone
killed an estimated 300,000 in East Pakistan (Bangladesh). The
highest loss of life and destruction occurred on the low lying
islands of the Ganges Delta south of Dhaka. In particular the island
and district of Bhola, where casualties may have exceeded 100,000
alone, with the towns of Charfasson and Tazumuddin being devastated.
The city of Chittagong was also badly affected. The official death
toll was put at 150,000, with 100,000 people missing. However many
estimates put the true figure as high as 500,000.
(SFEC, 9/5/04,
p.6)(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/C_0397.htm)
1970 Nov 14, The Marshall
Univ. football team of Huntington, West Virginia, was wiped out in
air crash of a Southern Airways DC-9 at Kenova, WV. All 75 people on
board were killed.
(www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Aviation/Disasters/70-11-14(SouthernAir).asp)
1970 Nov 17, The Soviet Union
landed an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle on the moon, the
Lunokhod 1. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna
17.
(AP,
11/17/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1)
1970 Nov 18, US President
Richard Nixon requested Congress to approve $155 million in
supplemental aid for the Cambodian government. $85 million was later
allocated for military assistance. Cambodia’s PM Lon Nol (1913-1985)
had officially invited the US to extend the war in Vietnam into
Cambodia to wreck the Ho Chi Minh supply trail.
(SFC, 8/14/97,
p.A25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Nol)
1970 Nov 18, Warren Harding
(d.2002 at 77) and Dean Caldwell scaled a new route up El Capitan in
Yosemite Valley after a 27 days effort. Harding 1st scaled El
Capitan in 1958.
(SFC, 3/9/02, p.A24)
1970 Nov 20, UN General
Assembly accepted membership of the People’s Republic of China.
(www.un.org/documents/ga/res/25/ares25.htm)
1970 Nov 21, US Army Special
Forces raided the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam but found no
prisoners. It would be later learned that the POWs had been
relocated to Dong Hoi, on July 14. The POWs were moved because the
well in the compound had dried up and the nearby Song Con River had
begun to overflow its banks. This flooding problem, not a security
leak, resulted in the prisoners being transported to Dong Hoi to a
new prison nicknamed "Camp Faith." US planes conduct widespread
bombing raids in North Vietnam.
(www.psywarrior.com/sontay.html)(HN, 11/21/99)
1970 Nov 23, George Harrison
released "My Sweet Lord" in the US.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sweet_Lord)
1970 Nov 25, Walter Hickel
(1919-2010), former governor of Alaska and US Secretary of the
Interior, was fired by Pres. Nixon after sending Nixon a letter
critical of how the president handled student protests following the
National Guard shootings at Kent State.
(AH, 10/04, p.42)(SSFC, 5/9/10,
p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Hickel)
1970 Nov 25, Yukio Mishima
(45), Japanese author and nationalist (Hara-kiri), invaded military
headquarters in Tokyo and committed ritual suicide samurai-style.
His death was an act of protest after he failed to persuade the
country's Self Defense Force to stage a coup and renounce the
US-imposed postwar constitution that banned Japanese aggressive
military action. His books included "The Sound of Waves" and "The
Temple and the Golden Pavilion." In 1998 Jiro Fukushima published a
memoir that contained 15 letters from Mishima and descriptions of a
sexual liaison with Mishima. A lawsuit soon halted book sales.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 10/21/99, p.B7)
1970 Nov 27, George Harrison
released his solo album "All Things Must Pass." He became the 1st
Beatle to have a solo No. 1 hit with "My Sweet Lord."
(SFC, 12/1/01,
p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Things_Must_Pass)
1970 Nov 27, Syria joined a
pact linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1970 Nov 27, Pope Paul VI,
visiting the Philippines, was slightly wounded at the Manila airport
by Benjamin Mendoza, a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as
a priest.
(AP, 11/27/02)
1970 Nov 28, "I Hear You
Knocking" by Dave Edmunds" peaked at #1 on the U.K. pop singles
chart and stayed there for seven weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Hear_You_Knocking)
1970 Nov 28, "Montego Bay" by
Bobby Bloom peaked at #8 on the pop singles chart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1970s_one-hit_wonders_in_the_United_States)
1970 Nov 29, The orchestral
work "Yale-Princeton" by Charles Ives premiered in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/6agvou)
1970 Dec 1, In Mexico Pres.
Luis Echeverria succeeded Gustav Diaz Ortaz and continued to 1976.
He began with populist approach and later devalued the peso,
starting a tradition of currency instability and economic crises.
(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1970 Dec 2, The US Senate voted
to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1970 Dec 2, The Environmental
Protection Agency began operating under director William
Ruckelshaus. Pres. Nixon appointed a 3-member Council on
Environmental Quality that included journalist Robert Cahn (d.1997
at 80). It was the first centralized White House office to advise
the president on environmental matters. Cahn served to 1972.
President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The EPA took over certain functions previously handled by the
departments of the Interior, Agriculture and Health, Education and
Welfare in an effort to set and enforce national pollution-control
standards. The first task it was given was the administration of the
Clean Air Act, passed that same year. Currently, the EPA enforces 12
federal statutes ranging from safe drinking water to pesticide use.
(SFC,11/1/97, p.A17)(AP, 12/2/97)(HNQ, 4/16/01)
1970 Dec 7, Rube Goldberg (87),
US cartoonist (Mike & Ike, Pulitzer 1948), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg)
1970 Dec 7, In Pakistan polling
began for 300 seats in the National Assembly. The Awami League
emerged as the single largest party in the National Assembly by
winning 160 seats. It was also able to win 288 out of 300 seats in
the East Pakistan Assembly. However, the party failed to win even a
single seat in the four Provincial Assemblies of West Pakistan. The
Pakistan People’s Party, led by landlord Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, won a
majority in West Pakistan. Mr. Bhutto and military leader, Gen.
Yahya Khan, refused to honor the results.
(www.storyofpakistan.com/articletext.asp?artid=A140&Pg=2)
1970 Dec 7, Poland and West
Germany signed a pact renouncing use of force to settle disputes,
recognizing the Oder-Neisse River as Poland's western frontier, and
acknowledging transfer to Poland of 40,000 square miles of former
German territory.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1970 Dec 10, Ford elected Lee
Iacocca (b.1924) as president.
(www.stfrancis.edu/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/bbios/biograph/leeic.htm)
1970 Dec 11, Walt Disney's
"Aristocats" was released.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocats)
1970 Dec 13, In Poland Gen.
Jaruzelski imposed martial law.
(SFC, 5/16/01, p.D3)
1970 Dec 17, In Poland riot
police under orders from defense minister Gen'l. Wojciech Jaruzelski
opened fire on workers protesting food price increases and 44 people
were killed in Gdansk, Gdynia, Szczecin, and Elblag. A case against
Jaruzelski was opened in 1996 and in 1999 a court ruled that medical
reasons would not exempt him from trial. The Jaruzelski trial began
in 2001.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A14)(SFC, 5/16/01, p.D3)
1970 Dec 18, "Me Nobody Knows"
opened at Helen Hayes Theater in NYC for 587 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Me_Nobody_Knows)
1970 Dec 18, An atomic leak in
Nevada forced hundreds to flee the test site.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1970 Dec 18, In Poland rioting
continued. Troops and tanks patrolled Polish streets. 20 people were
killed in the riots as they protested increased. food prices.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1970-12/1970-12-18-NBC-2.html)
1970 Dec 21, A meeting took
place between Elvis Presley and President Nixon as Elvis sought to
get the credentials of a Federal Agent to help Nixon fight drugs.
The meeting remained secret until The Washington Post broke the
story on Jan. 27, 1972.
(AP, 1/8/07)
1970 Dec 22, Treblinka SS
commander Franz Stangl (b.1908) was sentenced to life in prison. He
was responsible for the murder of approximately 900,000 people in
the period 1941-1943.
(www.simon-wiesenthal-archiv.at/02_dokuzentrum/02_faelle/e02_stangl.html)
1970 Dec 23, In NYC
construction workers place the highest steel on the highest building
in the world, the World Trade Center.
(www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/12/dayintech_1223)
1970 Dec 23, French journalist
Regis Debray (b.1940), arrested in 1967, was freed in Bolivia.
(www.indopedia.org/1970.html)(www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n03/hard01_.html)
1970 Dec 24, A US Animal
Welfare Act was passed expanding the list of animals covered by the
1966 Animal Welfare Act. It included guidelines for the use and care
of laboratory animals.
(www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/usdaleg1.htm)
1970 Dec 24, Nine GIs were
killed and nine wounded by friendly fire in Vietnam.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1970 Dec 27, "Hello, Dolly!"
closed at the St. James Theater on Broadway after a run of 2,844
performances.
(AP,
12/27/97)(www.nodanw.com/shows_h/hello_dolly.htm)
1970 Dec 31, Pres. Nixon signed
US Public Law 91-604 amending the Clean Air Act to control smog but
not global warning. Catalytic converters designed to reduce smog
were produced by the automobile companies. In 1998 it was reported
that the nitrous oxide comprised 7.2% of the gases in global
warming. Catalytic converters produced nearly half of this nitrous
oxide.
(SFC, 5/29/98,
p.A2)(http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2874)
1970 Dec 31, Congress
authorized the Eisenhower dollar coin.
(http://eisenhowerdollarguide.com/)
1970 Dec 31, Congress amended
the Bank Holding Act to tighten the Fed’s authority to supervise
bank expansion.
(WSJ, 4/10/98, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/6ykabd)
1970 Dec 31, Lorine Niedecker
(b.1903), died. She was a Wisconsin-born objectivist-influenced
poet.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR
p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorine_Niedecker)
1970 Dec 31, Paul McCartney
filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles’ partnership.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney)
1970 Dec 31, President Allende
nationalized the Chilean coal mines.
(www.historyorb.com/countries/chile)
1970 Dec, Derek and the
Dominos, featuring Eric Clapton, released their “Layla” album.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layla)
1970 Dec, The US Institute of
Medicine was formed as a component of the National Academy of
Sciences. Dr. John Hogness (1922-2007) served as its first
president.
(http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/Board_on_Medicine.html)(SFC,
7/16/07, p.C6)
1970 Theodore Geisel (aka Dr.
Seuss) painted "A Plethora of Cats."
(www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120902175_pf.html)
1970 Roy Lichtenstein
(1923-1997), American pop artist, created his color lithograph,
screen print: "Peace Through Chemistry II."
(SFEC, 10/1/00, DB
p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein)
1970 Frank Stella (b.1936),
American painter, created his abstract acrylic painting “Firuzabad.”
(SFC, 6/17/04, p.E1)
1970 Robert Smithson
(1938-1973), American minimalist land artist, created his “Spiral
Jetty,” a 1,500 foot coil of rock extending from the shore of Utah’s
Great Salt Lake.
(WSJ, 10/29/05,
p.P16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithson)
1970 Richard Bach (b.1936),
American writer, authored his novel "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."
(SFC, 6/27/00,
p.A23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bach)
1970 Jim Bouton (b.1939)
published his controversial "Ball Four."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_Four)
1970 Dee Brown (1908-2002),
American writer, published "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," a
history of Native Americans in the American West in the late
nineteenth century and their displacement and slaughter by the
United States federal government.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury_My_Heart_at_Wounded_Knee)
1970 J. Desmond Clark (d.2002),
professor at UC Berkeley, authored "The Pre-history of Africa."
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A25)
1970 James Dickey (1923-1997),
American author, published his novel "Deliverance."
(SFC,1/21/97, p.A20)
1970 Germaine Greer (b.1939),
Australian academic writer, published "The Female Eunuch." The work
insisted on women's right to free sexuality and vaginal pleasure. In
1999 Christine Wallace published the biography: "Germaine Greer:
Untamed Shrew."
(SFEC, 7/4/99, BR
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_Greer)
1970 Tony Hillerman
(1925-2008), American writer, introduced Lt. Joe Leaphorn in his
first detective novel "The Blessing Way," as an experienced police
officer who understood, but did not share his people's traditional
belief in a rich spirit world. Officer Jim Chee, introduced in
"People of Darkness" (1978), was a younger officer studying to
become a "hathaali" — Navajo for "shaman."
(AP, 10/27/08)
1970 Dr. Arthur Janov authored
his int’l. bestseller “The Primal Scream,” a book that
revolutionized the world of psychotherapy.
(www.primaltherapy.com/SEO/items_books.shtml)
1970 Joseph Lieberman authored
"The Scorpion and the Tarantula: The Struggle to Control Atomic
Weapons 1945-1969." Lieberman stood as the Democratic candidate for
vice-president with Al Gore in 2000.
(WSJ, 8/30/00, p.A26)
1970 Susan Lydon (1943-2005)
authored the feminist essay “The Politics of Orgasm” in the Rolling
Stone rock magazine.
(SSFC, 7/24/05, p.A19)
1970 Malachi Martin (d.1999 at
78), an Irish-born former Jesuit, published "The Encounter," a study
of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D8)
1970 James Michener (d.1997 at
90) wrote "The Quality of Life."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1970 George L. Mosse
(1918-1999), a Univ. of Wisconsin historian, published "Germans and
Jews: The Right, the Left, and the Search for a 'Third Force' in
Pre-Nazi Germany."
(SFEC, 1/31/99,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mosse)
1970 Lewis Mumford (1895-1990),
American historian of technology and science, published "The Myth of
the Machine."
(Wired, 8/96,
p.168)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford)
1970 Michael Ondaatje, Sri
Lanka-born writer, authored his novel "The Collected Works of Billy
the Kid."
(SSFC, 9/9/01, DB p.70)
1970 Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
authored “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” in which he declared that
large doses of Vitamin C could ward off colds.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling)
1970 Robert Peterson
(1906-2006) authored “Only the Ball Was White,” the first history of
baseball’s US Negro Leagues.
(SFC, 2/21/06, p.B5)
1970 Charles A. Reich (b.1928),
a professor at Yale Univ. Law School, published his "Greening of
America" first in the New Yorker and then as a book. In this work
Reich predicted that "something called Consciousness III would soon
create a social revolution by wiping out its ugly forbear,
Consciousness II." In 1995 he published a new book, "Opposing
the System," wherein he explained why the greening of America never
took place. In 2000 Roger Kimball followed the thread with "The Long
March." "…everything is sucked through the sieve of politics and the
ideology of victimhood."
(WSJ, 10/3/95, p.A-18)(WSJ, 6/28/00,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Reich)
1970 Richard Scammon
(1915-2001) and Ben J. Wattenberg (b.1933) authored "The Real
Majority." They argued that the Democratic Party needed to focus on
social issues in order to survive.
(SSFC, 4/29/01, p.A27)
1970 Stephen Schmidt in his
“Astrology 14” advocated a 14-sign zodiac, introducing Ophiuchus
(December 6 to December 31) and Cetus (May 12 to June 6) as new
signs. Within 20-century sidereal astrology the idea was taken up by
Walter Berg in his “The 13 Signs of the Zodiac” (1995). Berg's book
was published in Japan in 1996 and became a bestseller.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus_%28astrology%29)
1970 Yasundo Takahashi
(1912-1996), professor at UC Berkeley, wrote his textbook "Control
and Dynamic Systems." It became a standard reference in the field of
control engineering, the study of how machines work.
(http://tinyurl.com/6qjaoo)(http://catalog.library.ksu.edu.sa/digital/153142.html)
1970 Alvin Toffler (b.1928)
"Future Shock," and argued that technology was changing so rapidly
that individuals could find themselves strangers in their own
cultures.
(HN, 10/4/00)(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1970 "Slag," the first major
play by English dramatist David Hare (b.1947), had its premier.
(WSJ, 7/16/97, p.A20)
1970 Harold Pinter wrote his
play "Old Times."
(SFC, 6/16/98, p.D1)
1970 Gill Scott-Heron authored
his lyric “The Revolution Will Not be Televised,” a diatribe against
the mass media’s trivialization of social upheaval.
(www.interlog.com/~mushroom/gil.html)
1970 Carlisle Floyd composed an
operatic version of John Steinbeck’s "Of Mice and Men." The world
premiere was done by the Seattle Opera.
(WSJ, 7/15/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 11/18/98, p.A20)
1970 Freda Payne (b.1942) made
a smash hit with the song "Band of Gold."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freda_Payne)
1970 The Shostakovich
(1906-1975) 13th symphony "Babi Yar," smuggled on microfilm to the
US, was premiered in the US by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
(WSJ, 6/29/99, p.A12)(http://tinyurl.com/69xuxx)
1970 Edwin Starr (d.2003 at
61), Nashville-born soul singer, hit No. 1 with "War."
(SSFC, 12/28/03,
p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(Edwin_Starr_song))
1970 The first issue of the
Smithsonian Mag. was published and sent to 160,000 readers. It was
the creation of S. Dillon Ripley, then Sec. of the Smithsonian
Inst., and Edward K. Thompson (1907-1996), former managing editor of
Life. Thompson was editor and publisher of the Smithsonian from
1969-1981.
(Smith., 4/95, p.27)(SFC, 10/10/96, p.C6)
1970 The TV news show "Agronsky
& Company," WTOP-TV, was the first to feature news reporters
talking among themselves. Martin Zama Agronsky (b.1915) died in 1999
at age 84.
(SFC, 7/26/99, p.A22)
1970 The TV show "Wall Street
Week" started with Louis Rukeyser. The last program was scheduled
for June 28, 2002.
(SFC, 3/22/02, p.B5)
1970 Virginia Graham
(1912-1998), American daytime television talk show host, began "The
Virginia Graham Show" on TV and continued to 1972.
(SFC, 12/25/98,
p.B6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Graham)
1970 The Flip Wilson Show began
on TV. It ran to 1974. Wilson died in 1998 at age 64.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B9)
1970 "The Phil Donohue Show"
began on TV. It ran to 1996.
(SFEC, 5/24/98, DB p.39)
1970 Wayne Shorter and
keyboardist Joe Zawinful formed the pioneering fusion band Weather
Report.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, DB p.35)
1970 Jerry Garcia expressed his
musical credo in "The Wheel":
The Wheel is turning
- And you can't slow it down
You can't let
go
- And you can't hold on
You can't go back
- And you can't stand still
If the thunder don't get you -
Then the lightning will
The members of the Grateful Dead were pictured in
a photo: Bill Kreutzmann, Ron Mckernan, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir,
Mickey Hart, and Phil Lesh. The Dead song "Friend of the Devil" was
on the "American Beauty Album."
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-12)(SFC, 5/26/96, DB
p.31)(SFC, 10/23/00, p.F3)
1970 Johnny and June Carter
Cash won a Grammy for the song "If I Were a Carpenter" written by
Tim Hardin.
(SFC, 5/16/03, p.A24)
1970 The rock group Blood,
Sweat & Tears made a historic tour of eastern Europe. They began
playing in Greenwich Village from a group composed of the best
players in town. Their first album was "Child Is Father to the Man."
Their 2nd album included the hit "Spinning Wheel."
(SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.66)
1970 Marvin Gaye recorded
"What’s Going On," a tale of confusion about the state of America
prompted by his brother’s return from Vietnam.
(WSJ, 5/8/01, p.A24)
1970 T. Rex, a British rock
band, initiated the glam-rock, aka glitter rock, period with their
hit single "Ride a White Swan." The 1998 film "Velvet Goldmine"
chronicled the era.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.B1)
1970 Bill Monroe was named to
the Country Music Hall of Fame.
(SFC, 9/10/96, p.A17)
1970 Santana made a hit with
"Oye Como Va." It was written and composed by Latin jazz and mambo
musician Tito Puente in 1963 and popularized by Santana's cover of
the song on their album Abraxas.
(SFC, 11/30/02,
p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oye_Como_Va)
1970 Paolo Soleri (b.1919),
Italian-American architect, led the ground breaking at Arcosanti, a
model ecocity in the high Arizona desert. It was a prototype
arcology designed for 5,000 residents, combining compact buildings
with huge solar greenhouses on a 4,000 acre preserve about 60 miles
north of Phoenix. Soleri projected a people density of 215 per acre
vs. 72 in Delhi and 33 per acre in New York City. Since then some
6,000 architectural students have come to help with the building and
learning about its design. The site attracted some 50,000 visitors
every year.
(PacDis, Spring/'94, p. 28)(AP,
10/15/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Soleri)
1970 Orville Redenbacker’s
Gourmet Popping corn was launched at Chicago’s Marshall Field’s.
Partners Charlie Bowman (1919-2009) and Orville Redenbacker
(1907-1995) sold the popular brand in 1976 to Hunt-Wessen Foods Inc.
The company was later acquired by ConAgra Foods.
(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A4)
1970 Dr. Robert Schuller,
minister of the Reformed Church of America, began his Sunday TV show
"Hour of Power."
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Par p.18)
1970 William Pierce (d.2002), a
former American Nazi Party officer, joined the neo-Nazi National
Alliance and began to restructure the organization. He later wrote
"the Turner Diaries." The Alliance had begun as a youth organization
to support the presidential campaign of Gov. George Wallace. It
chronicled the "liberation" of America from the Jews, and described
the bombing of the FBI headquarters and a mortar attack on the
Capitol.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.C6)(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A32)(WSJ,
7/24/02, p.A1)
1970 Betty Crocker introduced
Hamburger Helper.
(AH, 6/07, p.11)
1970 Robert Earl Burton, aka
"The Teacher," founded the Fellowship of Friends while living in
Berkeley. The group incorporated in 1971 and moved to Yuba County,
Ca., where they bought and cleared land with donations and volunteer
labor on an estate called Apollo. The group’s philosophy was based
on the teachings of George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky. The group
has been charged with brainwashing and sexual exploitation.
(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A10)
1970 John W. Gardner
(1912-2002), former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
under President Lyndon Johnson, founded Common Cause, a citizen’s
lobby for the well-being of the nation.
(SFC, 2/18/02,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Gardner)
1970 Bill Griffith (b.1944)
created the cartoon character "Zippy the Pinhead." In 1985 he began
a daily strip of "Zippy" for the SF Chronicle.
(SFC, 10/12/97,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Griffith)
1970 The US magazine “Foreign
Policy” was founded by Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008) and Warren
Demian Manshel (1924-1990).
(Econ, 12/18/10,
p.166)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Policy)
1970 The American Lung
Association began its "Kick the Habit" antismoking campaign.
(WSJ, 4/14/99, p.A1)
1970 Essence Magazine, marketed
to African Americans, was founded.
(WSJ, 6/9/99, p.B10)
1970 Cheryl Brown, Miss Iowa,
became the first African-American finalist in the Miss America
beauty pageant.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/missamerica/peopleevents/e_inclusion.html)
1970 The US census categorized
the population as "White, Negro or Black, Chinese, Japanese,
Filipino, American Indian, Hawaiian, Korean and other.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.A21)
1970 Senate hearings on Agent
Orange were conducted following articles in the New Yorker magazine
by Thomas Whiteside. By the end of the hearings the surgeon general
announced restrictions on the herbicide and shortly after the
Defense Dept. stopped using it in Vietnam.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A23)
1970 The US sent a 5-dolphin
team to Vietnam to guard the Army munitions pier at Cam Ranh Bay.
The dolphins were in Vietnam for 6 months and the pier remained
safe. It was blown up after they left.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.D1)(SFC, 5/18/10, p.C3)
1970 Cocaine was first listed
in the US Controlled Substances Act. Until that point, the use of
cocaine was open and rarely prosecuted in the US due to the moral
and physical debates commonly discussed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine)
1970 Robert Lee Vesco
(1935-2007), head of Int’l. Controls Corp., bought Investment
Overseas Services (IOS) for under $5 million gaining control of an
estimated $400 million in funds, which he then plundered. Vesco fled
the US in 1971.
(SFC, 5/3/08, p.A6)
1970 Bruce Bent (b.1937)
created The Reserve Fund, the first money fund. In 2008 the Reserve
Primary Fund, in the wake of the Lehman Brothers failure, became the
2nd money fund to fall below $1. The first fund to fall below $1 was
Community Bancshares in 1994. It was liquidated with a loss of 4
cents on the dollar.
(Econ, 6/14/08,
p.87)(www.antonnews.com/manhassetpress/2001/02/23/news/)(SFC,
9/17/08, p.C1)
1970 Chester Bowles
(1901-1986), former governor of Connecticut and US ambassador to
India and Nepal (1951-1953), wrote a piece in the NY Times titled
“Will We Ever Learn in Asia.” Here he outlined America’s alliance
with Pakistan and prophesied that contradictions underlying the
alliance would harm vital American interests.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.E1)
1970 A NY Times Magazine
article quoted Milton Friedman, economist, as follows: There is one
and only one social responsibility of business, to use its resources
and engage in activities designed to increase its profits." The only
qualification being that it engage "in open and free competition
without deception or fraud." Friedman held that an exchange rate is
a price and that it was an infringement on human freedom to peg it.
This was opposed to the view of economist Robert Mundell who held
that an exchange rate is a promise and that to change it is to
default on a commitment.
(WSJ, 6/21/96, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.A10)
1970 The California Welfare
Reform Act allowed women to receive public funding for abortions.
(WSJ, 1/30/97, p.A16)
1970 The California
Environmental Quality Act was passed. It required developers to
produce an environmental impact report on any new project.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.13)
1970 Warren Winiarski and
investors purchased an orchard next to Nathan Fay’s vineyard in Napa
County, Ca., and began planting what would become Stag’s Leap Wine
Cellars. His 1973 grapes became the Cabernet Sauvignon that won the
famous 1976 tasting in Paris.
(SFC, 1/5/06, p.F5)(SFC, 3/28/08, p.F4)
1970 The San Francisco Symphony
under Josef Krips premiered the Viola Concerto by SFSU composer
Roger Nixon (1921-2009), with Rolf Persinger as soloist.
(SFC, 10/17/09, p.C3)
1970 The 580-room SF Holiday
Inn at Fisherman’s Wharf, designed by Clement Chen Jr., a Shanghai
native, was constructed. In 2005 it was renovated and
re-flagged as a Hilton hotel.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.B1)(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.B1)(SFC,
3/17/05, p.C1)
1970 In San Francisco a dragon
crested gate was erected at the Bush and Grant St. entrance to
Chinatown.
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.F8)
1970 In San Francisco Albert S.
Samuels returned his 20-foot-tall clock to the jewelry store front
at 856 Market St. where it had marked time since [1941] 1943, except
for 1967-1970 when BART was under construction. [see 1915]
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.C4)(SFC, 11/18/00, p.A1)
1970 Conductor Seiji Ozawa
succeeded Josef Krips to lead the SF Symphony.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.B9)
1970 In San Francisco Faith
Petric (55) retired and began a new career as a folk singer. Petric
had begun running the SF Folk Club (b.1948) in 1962 and soon began
hosting meetings of the club at her Clayton street home.
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A14)
1970 In San Francisco Rev. Sri
Swami Satchidananda (1914-2002) established his Integral Yoga
Institute.
(SFC, 8/20/02, p.A22)
1970 In San Francisco Rene
Yanez co-founded the Galerie de la Raza to showcase the work of
Latino and Chicano artists.
(SFC, 11/21/03, p.E9)
1970 San Francisco Mayor Joseph
Alioto named Alfred J. Nelder (d.2002 at 87) as police chief. Nelder
served for 19 months.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A23)
1970 In San Francisco D.B Jones
(d.2000 at 66) began serving as founding executive director of Meals
on Wheels.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.A26)
1970 In San Francisco Nadya J.
McCann (b.Nadya Jacobova Moiseeva and d.1997 at 79), a 10 year
resident from Hong Kong, formed McCann Shipping, a freight
forwarding company.
(SFC, 12/2/97, p.A22)
1970 San Francisco’s
Playland-at-the-Beach amusement park closed. The 1906 Charles Looff
carousel that was there was moved to a Long Beach shopping center.
It was scheduled to return to SF in Jun 1998 to the Yerba Buena
Gardens.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.C4)(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A20)
1970 In San Francisco John
Maher and residents at the apartment called Ellis Island, renamed
their organization to re-integrate ex-cons as the Delancey Street
Foundation.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.5)
1970 Eight people were arrested
in SF during a protest demanding freedom for Los Siete, six Latino
youths on trial for killing a police officer.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.6)
1970 Franz Schurman
(1926-2010), UC Berkeley sociologist and historian, co-founded the
Pacific News Service (PNS) with Orville Schell.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.C4)
1970 The submarine Drum was
launched at Mare Island in the SF Bay. It was the last ship produced
there.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C5)
1970 The UC Berkeley Art Museum
on Bancroft Way was constructed.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A15)
1970 The Palo Alto Research
Center (PARC) of Xerox opened on the outskirts of Palo Alto, Ca.
George Pake (1924-2004) ran the center until 1978. It was founded by
Dr. Jacob Goldman.
(www.mit-forum.org.il/2000events/tenyears_eng.htm)(SFC, 10/25/00,
p.D1)(SFC, 3/11/04, p.C5)
1970 Madge Short (d.1998 at 80)
and Jane Saunders (50) co-founded The Body Shop in Berkeley, Ca. The
name was sold to Britain’s Anita Roddick in 1987 for $3.5 million.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A20)(SSFC, 5/16/04, p.F6)
1970 Ron Dellums (34) was
elected as representative of the East Bay’s 7th Congressional
District, Oakland, Ca. He was later re-elected by the 9th District
and stayed in Congress for 27 years.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A1)
1970 A 10-cent walkway toll on
the Golden Gate Bridge was eliminated. In 1998 a $1 walkway toll was
proposed for pedestrians and bicyclists.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A19)
1970 Franz Schurman
(1926-2010), UC Berkeley sociologist and historian, co-founded the
Pacific News Service (PNS) with Orville Schell.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.C4)
1970 The Marine Science
Institute was founded in Redwood City, Ca., to monitor the South
Bay.
(SFC, 7/22/03, p.A12)
1970 New York City’s Off-Track
Betting Corp. was created, in part to take gambling out of the hands
of organized crime. In 2008 it was taken over by the state.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.36)
1970 The Bob Jones Univ. in
Greenville S.C., lost its federal tax exempt status due to its ban
on interracial dating and marriage.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A3)
1970 American Sugar Company
changed its name to Amstar Corp. and distributed its products under
the Domino brand name.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)
1970 AT&T introduced
customer dialing of int’l. long distance calls, initially between
Manhattan and London.
(WSJ, 2/2/05, p.A12)
1970 Dr. Hale E. Dougherty
(d.2002) began marketing a Spiro Agnew wristwatch. It was a result
of the current joke: "Did you know that Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro
Agnew watch.
(SFC, 1/3/03, p.A28)
1970 Royal Dutch/Shell Oil Co.
had Norwegian crews install the huge (14,500 ton) Brent Spar oil rig
in the North Sea. In 1995, after three years of controversy over
dumping the rig in the deep sea, Shell agreed to tote it ashore
someplace for dismantling.
(WSJ, 6/22/95, p.A-14)
1970 Chrysler imported vehicles
built by Mitsubishi Motors under the Dodge and Plymouth names.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1970 Honda discontinued the
S800 2-seater after this model year. A new S2000 was introduced to
the US in 1999.
(USAT, 9/17/99, p.8D)
1970 Kirk Kerkorian opened his
International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, the largest hotel in the
world. It later became the Las Vegas Hilton.
(WSJ, 4/21/07,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Hotel_%28Las_Vegas%29)
1970 Lou Menk (d.1999 at 81)
merged the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific and the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy railroads to create the giant Burlington
Northern Railroad.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.C4)
1970 The over-the-counter stock
market exchange was transformed into the NASDAQ, or National
Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation market. It is
an electronic network of some 500 dealers who trade a list of about
4,800 stocks.
(Hem, 8/95, p.78)
1970 Ted Turner (b.1938) bought
an Atlanta UHF station and built it into the Turner Broadcasting
System. He had inherited his father’s billboard business in 1962.
(WSJ, 10/21/04,
p.D8)(www.wordiq.com/definition/Ted_Turner)
1970 Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) were developed to record environmental changes over
large geographic areas and time. By 1995 electronic mapmaking
software and demographics could be put on the desk top computer for
$2000.
(Hem., Oct. '95, p.57)
1970 The first electronic
editing terminals were used by newspapers.
(SFC, 1/29/00, p.E3)
1970 Intel Corp. brought out
the 1103 DRAM, the world's first commercially produced memory chip
and launched the personal-computer revolution.
(SFEC,10/26/97, BR
p.3)(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa100898.htm)
1970 Pan American World Airways
offered reservations for a flight to the moon and 93,000 people sign
up.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.71)
1970 Tom and Kate Chappell
began producing a phosphate-free laundry detergent called Clearlake.
Tom’s of Maine expanded to produce a natural toothpaste and in 2006
sold an 84% stake to Colgate-Palmolive for $100 million in cash.
(SFC, 3/22/06, p.C3)
1970 Arthur Jones (1927-2007)
invented the Nautilus exercise equipment.
(SFC, 8/29/07, p.B7)
1970 Dr. John D. Anderson
announced that radio signals bounced off of the Mariner VI
spacecraft had returned with a time lag of 204 microseconds. At this
time the spacecraft had reached a distance of about 2 1/2
times earth's average distance from the sun. It was a delay that
fell within the error limits of Einstein’s theory and attributed to
the effect of the sun's gravitation on the radio waves.
(TNG, Klein, p.176)
1970 The US FDA approved
lithium medication for manic depressives.
(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.21)
1970 A vaccine against anthrax
began to be used.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A19)
1970 Geerat "Gary" Vermeij, a
blind scientist, while studying mollusks in Guam, discovered that
predators play a major role in determining how and why species
change. In 1992 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and in 1996
published "Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life."
(SFC, 7/7/96, Par, p.15)
1970 The Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC) was founded in the US to protect public
health and the environment.
(www.nrdc.org/about/)(Econ, 2/18/06, p.32)
1970 US consumer prices climbed
at an annual 6%.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.A12)
1970 The proportion of
Americans behind bars this year was below one in 400. By 2010 the
number was one in 100.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.26)
1970 An oil barge owned by
Irving Oil Co. of St. John, Canada, sank in the Gulf of the St.
Lawrence about 40 miles north of Prince Edward Island. It contained
4,200 tons of oil and 7.5 tons of PCB heating fluid. In 1996 a
salvage effort was attempted.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.A19)
1970 Mister Ed (b.1949) the
talking horse, star of the 1961 TV sitcom, died. By the time Mister
Ed reached the age of 19 he was suffering from a broken leg and a
variety of health problems, and was quietly put to death with no
publicity. However, in an interview on Los Angeles station KECT's
program "Life and Times", Alan Young stated that Mr. Ed died from an
inadvertent tranquilizer administered while he was "in retirement"
in a stable in Burbank, California.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Ed)
1970 Algeria's Socialist
government permitted American writer and activist Eldridge Cleaver
to open a local office of the Black Panther Movement.
(AP, 9/28/11)
1970 In Portuguese Angola the
father of Michael Durney bought the Mampeza Industrial SARL, a
cannery in Benguela. By 1997 under Michael it was processing 5 tons
of tuna a day and one tone of sardines and mackerel.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A17)
1970 In Argentina the Montonero
Peronist Movement formed about this time as a radical terrorist,
leftist, nationalist, and catholic guerrilla group. The Movimiento
Peronista Montonero was active during the 1970s. Its motto was
venceremos ("we'll win"). Their activity provided a pretext for the
1976 military coup.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montoneros)
1970 In Australia the last laws
granting authorities wide powers to take Aboriginal children away
from their families were abolished. Many Aborigines said statistics
show the government is still far more likely to take Aboriginal
children into foster care for reasons such as abuse than white
children. Estimates put the number of children taken since 1910 at
55,000.
(AP, 1/30/08)(Econ, 2/2/08, p.50)
1970 The film "Walkabout" by
Nicolas Roeg was produced. It was about the Australian aborigines.
(SFC, 12/29/96, DB p.8)
1970 Leonard Casley, a wheat
farmer in Western Australia, declared his property independent and
styled himself as Prince Leonard I.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.85)
1970 The Graz Academy of Music
and Drama became the University of Music and Drama.
(StuAus, April '95, p.62)
1970 The Univ. of Klagenfurt in
the Carinthia province of Austria was founded.
(StuAus, April '95, p.73)
1970 Fazle Hasan Abed (b.1936),
a Bangladeshi educated in Britain, turned offices in Chittagong into
a refuge for victims of the recent Bhola Cyclone. Bt 1972 it was
known as the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC).
In 2010 Ian Smillie authored “Freedom From Want: The Remarkable
Success Story of BRAC, the Global Grassroots Organization That's
Winning the Fight Against Poverty.”
(Econ, 2/20/10,
p.60)(www.brac.net/index.php?nid=11)
1970 The British Monty Python
film "And Now for Something Completely Different" was produced.
(SFC, 6/3/98, p.E3)
1970 The thriller play "Sleuth"
by Anthony Shaffer (d.2001 at 75) opened in London and ran for 2,359
performances.
(SFC, 11/8/01, p.A25)
1970 Lord Geoffrey Rippon of
Hexham (1924-1997), a member of PM Heath’s cabinet, was given the
responsibility for negotiating favorable terms for Britain’s entry
into the European Economic Community.
(SFC, 1/30/97,
p.C2)(www.onpedia.com/encyclopedia/Geoffrey-Rippon)
1970 Britain put together a
classified “War Book,” featuring a doomsday scenario, with a
step-by-step guide for dealing with a crisis, from the first stages
of conflict to "R hour," the designation for the release of all
Britain's nuclear weapons. The 1970 version was declassified in
2009. A 1964 version printed just 96 copies.
(AP, 6/23/09)
1970 Development of the English
town of Milton Keynes was begun.
(Econ, 8/7/04, p.45)
1970 Cambodia's Prince Norodom
Sihanouk fled to China and began compiling his Bulletin Mensuel de
Documentation (Monthly Documentation Bulletin). The bulletin
continued on an off thru 2003.
(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A1)
1970 An AP story of looting and
raping by American soldiers in Cambodia was killed by Wes Gallagher
(d.1997 at 86), general manager of the new service.
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.B5)
1970 In Cambodia Sean Flynn
(28), son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn, and a close friend, Dana
Stone, disappeared in the province of Kampong Cham. In 2010
searchers believed they had found Flynn’s remains and awaited
forensic confirmation.
(AP, 3/29/10)
1970 The infant gorilla later
named King was captured about this time in Cameroon and shipped to
the US where he performed in Las Vegas and traveled with a
circus until age 10. He spent his next 20 years at Monkey Jungle in
Dade County, Fla.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A8)
1970 The Don't Make a Wave
Committee of Winnipeg, Canada, was renamed Greenpeace and Ben
Metcalfe became the 1st chairman.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A31)
1970 West Kildonan, a suburb of
Winnipeg, Canada, was incorporated into Winnipeg. Mayor Daniel
Abraham Yanofsky (d.2000 at 74), a chess grandmaster, transferred to
the City Council and served to 1986.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A17)
1970 Canada’s government set
aside the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve to protect the coastal
environment.
(SFEC, 10/8/00, p.T9)
1970 In Cuba Jesus (Chucho)
Valdez formed his jazz group Irakere.
(SFC, 6/16/96, BR p.42)
1970 The Plastic People of the
Universe band lost their Czechoslovak government license due to
nonconformity and went underground with support from Vaclav Havel.
(SFC, 1/8/01, p.A19)
1970 Hubert Maga became
premier (1970-1972) of Dahomey (later Benin).
(http://tinyurl.com/9ryq5)
1970 The Finchaa Dam was built
in Ethiopia.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A9)
1970 China established
relations with Ethiopia.
(WSJ, 3/29/05, p.A2)
1970 Wang Jinxi (47), icon of
Chinese communism, died. Known as the “iron man,” he helped turn
Daqing into China’s biggest oil production center.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.60)
1970 The first radioactive
pacemaker was put into a patient in France.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.26)
1970 Airbus Industrie was
formally set up following an agreement between Aerospatiale (France)
and Deutsche Aerospace (Germany). In 1971 it was joined by CASA
(Spain). The name "Airbus" was taken from a nonproprietary term used
by the airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial
aircraft of a certain size and range, as term was acceptable to the
French linguistically.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1970 Legislators in Germany’s
state of Hesse drafted the world’s first data-protection law.
(http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2007/08/data-protection-officers-according-to.html)
1970 The population
of Accra, capital of Ghana, was about 338,000.
(AHD, 1971, p.9)
1970 India introduced “process”
patents which allowed innovators to protect the way they made drugs,
rather than the molecules themselves.
(Econ, 6/18/05, Survey p.17)
1970 Ahmedabad, the largest
city in India’s state of Gujarat, was the capital of Gujarat from
1960 to 1970; the capital was shifted to Gandhinagar thereafter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad)
1970 The shooting of tigers was
banned in India.
(NG, 12/97, p.13)
1970 In Iran velayet el-faqih,
the idea of guardianship as rule, was advanced by the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini in a series of lectures and later formed the basis
of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
(Econ, 3/21/09,
p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardianship_of_the_Islamic_Jurists)
1970 Benjamin Weiss, an
Israeli-American mathematician, first posed the "Road Coloring
Problem," which essentially assumed it's possible to create a
"universal map" that can direct people to arrive at a certain
destination, at the same time, regardless of starting point. In 2008
Avraham Trahtman (63), immigrant mathematician from Russia, provided
an 8-page solution.
(AP, 3/20/08)(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23729600/)
1970 In Italy divorce became
legal.
(SFC, 1/29/00, p.E3)
1970 In northern Italy radicals
linked up to form the Red Brigades, led by sociology students Renato
Curcio and Margherita Cagol.
(WSJ, 12/13/07, p.A18)
1970 The Japanese film "Dodes
ka-den" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1970 In Japan the Kigenkai sect
was founded based on the indigenous Shinto religion. Members sold
expensive purified water to cure diseases. In 2007 police arrested
20 women of the 400-member sect, for beating a member to death for
failing to carry out religious rites.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A3)
1970 In Laos the introduction
of Soviet-made long-range 130mm artillery pieces onto the
battlefield allowed the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese to
neutralize to some extent the Royal Lao Army's advantage of air
superiority.
(www.onwar.com/aced/data/lima/laos1962.htm)
1970 Colonel Qaddafi expelled
20,000 Italians from Libya.
(Econ, 8/2/08,
p.54)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Italians)
1970 In Mexico work began in
Cancun to develop a tourist attraction.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T10)
1970 In Mexico under the rule
of Luis Echeverria the military launched the so-called "Friendship
Operation" in Guerrero. A 2006 report said there was evidence the
army conducted "illegal searches, arbitrary detentions, torture, the
raping of women in the presence of their husbands, and the possible
extrajudicial executions of groups of people."
(AP, 2/27/06)
1970 In Northern Ireland the
Irish Republican Army (IRA) split between more Marxist officials and
soon-to-be dominant Provisionals.
(SSFC, 9/14/03,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republicanism_in_Northern_Ireland)
1970 Black guerrillas fighting
white rule attempted unsuccessfully to blast the body of Cecil
Rhodes from his granite tomb in the Matopos Hills, Rhodesia (later
Zimbabwe).
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A1)
1970 The South Pacific islands
of Tonga gained independence from Britain.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)
1970 The UNESCO Convention on
the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export
and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was set up to protect
cultural heritage.
(AM, 5/01, p.20)
1970 Venezuelan oil production
peaked in this year.
(http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/venezuela/venezuela51.html)
1970-1971 Marcus Welby, M.D. was the top ranking
network show on television with a ranking of 29.6%. Robert Young
(d.1998 at 91) played his TV role "Marcus Welby, M.D." until 1976.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)(SFC, 7/23/98, p.C4)
1970-1976 In Poland a government informant known
as Bolek operated during this period. In 2008 2 historians alleged
that Lech Walesa was Bolek. Walesa denied the allegations.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.58)
1970s Eden Housing, a nonprofit
housing organization, began to purchase and renovate housing for low
income people in the San Francisco Bay Area.
(SFC, 2/25/99, p.A15)
1970s Melvin Carter confessed
to terrorizing over 100 women over 9 years in the College Terrace
rapes in Palo Alto, Berkeley and other cities before he was
arrested. He was paroled in 1994 to public outrage.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A1,15)
1970s "Stinky," the smelly
rapist of Berkeley, was never caught.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A15)
1970-1974 In 2010 Dominic Sandbrook authored
“State of Emergency: The Way We Were. Britain, 1970-1974.”
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.104)
1970-1979 In 1999 Stephen Paul Miller authored
"The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance."
(SFEC, 8/29/99, BR p.2)
1970-1979 In 2000 David Frum authored: "How We Got
Here--The 70s: The Decade that Brought You Modern Life (For Better
or Worse)."
(WSJ, 1/27/00, p.A20)
1970-1979 In the 1970s Bill Hewlett and David
Packard championed a management style called “Management by Walking
Around” (MBWA).
(www.michaellorenzen.com/mbwa.html)(Econ,
1/21/06, Surveyp.15)
1970-1979 CAT Scan (Computer Assisted Tomography)
technology was developed.
(MT, 10/94, p.9)
1970-1979 In the 1970s the Australian government
took over the Ghan rail line, running from Adelaide to Alice
Springs, and upgraded the tracks to standard gauge. The last Ghan
steam engine was replaced in 1982.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.T9)
1970-1979 The Mexican government expropriated
thousands of acres of ejido (collective) land nationwide in the
1970s to promote tourism and other development.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A14)
1970-1980 Some 94% of China's villagers were
covered by cooperative medical schemes. But the collectives were
disbanded during market reforms of the 1980s which ended
cradle-to-grave welfare for the masses.
(Reuters, 11/18/05)
1970-1988 Lubomir Strougal served as prime
minister of Czechoslovakia.
(SFC, 8/1/01,
p.A9)(www.charta77.org/strougal.htm)
1970-1989 In 1997 the editors of “Ben Is Dead”
magazine edited "Retro Hell: Life in the ‘70s and ‘80’s: from Afros
to Zotz."
(SFC,11/27/97, p.C9)
1970-1997 The IRA killed 1,775 people and wounded
more than 20,000 others during this period in hopes of forcing
Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom and into the Irish
Republic.
(AP, 4/26/07)
1970-1998 Brazilian Gold miners worked in the
Yanomani reservation near Venezuela beginning in the 1970s and
during this period introduced diseases that cut the Indian
population by more than half.
(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A1)
1970-1998 The history of Cambodia over this period
was covered by Henry Kamm of the NY Times: "Cambodia: Report from a
Stricken Land."
(SFEC, 10/18/98, BR p.2)
1970-2000 This period in Irish history was later
covered by 2007 R.F. Foster in his “Luck & the Irish: A Brief
History of Change 1970-2000.”
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.116)
Go to 1971