I'm a sufficiently old fogey that I have lived through more than half
of the 20th century.  I got to thinking about the decades I've experienced
and the momentous events that occurred in them:

  1940s - World War II, the atomic bomb, Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe
  1950s - TV takes over the American living room, the Cold War becomes an
           institution, Supreme Court school desegregation decision
  1960s - Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, moon landing, hippie counterculture
  1970s - uh, well, there was Watergate I guess, and, um, disco
  1980s - Reaganomics, rise of the personal computer, collapse of the Soviet
           Union, AIDS

Well, you get the picture.  I had a little trouble coming up with stuff
for the 70s comparable in momentousness to the other decades listed.  Now
I could probably come up with more with a bit of effort, but still, the
70s just seem like a blah decade compared to the others.  Do you agree?

17 responses total.

You forgot something from the '70s.  I was born. ;)

Arab oil boycott, "energy crisis", Three Mile Island, Star Wars (the actual
movie, not SDI).  I don't know.  When were the microwave oven and home
VCR invented?  Apple ][ was in the 70s too.

This may result in your having a momentous influence on future
decades, but in and of itself does not tip the scales for the
70s.  (No offense.)

(#2 slipped in.  #3 was a response to #1.)

True, personal computers first appeared in the 70's, but came of age
in the 80's; hence I consider that an 80's phenomenon.  It's similar
to World War II, which I consider to be 40's even though in started
in the late 30's and the seeds were sown even earlier.

My first reaction to Jeff's "microwave oven" citation was to be
dismissive -- how could a kitchen gadget compare in momentousness
to, say, the advent of TV?  But on second thought, it's revolutionized
our meal preparation habits and freed up time for other things, thus
having a ripple effect and making meal preparation and consumption
much more casual than it used to be.

OPEC, 3-mile Island, ouster from Vietnam, Isreal-Egypt treaty, Afghanistan
war, Iran hostage crisis, Chinese ban on Beethoven lifted....

The environmentalist movement, as we know it, was born in the 
seventies, with the first Earth Day and the publication of books 
like Paul Ehrlich's _The Population Bomb_.  Also, I date the full 
flowering of the modern feminist movement from the seventies.  
Helen Reddy singing "I Am Woman," Billy Jean King whipping Bobby 
Riggs' butt, etc.  

Some things conceived in the sixties and born in the eighties 
needed the seventies to gestate in.  The hippie counterculture 
spent the seventies metamorphosing into the New Age.  Stuart 
Brand and the Whole Earth gang had to coax Tao Te Ching down from 
the dusty shelf it had spent the last century on, for example, so 
it could become popular, then respectable, then The Tao of 
Physics, The Tao of Management, The Tao of Pooh, and The Tao of 
Whatever.  All the rest of it - channeling, crystals, wicca, 
self-esteem, self-actualization (remember est?), herbalism, 
alternative medicine, UFO abductions, repressed memories, false 
memories, the whole Fortean circus - it all came out of the 
seventies.  If the New Age, as some have claimed, is our 
collective descent into madness, then the seventies prepared the 
slope and greased it for us.  

Also, something seriously ugly happened to America in the 
seventies.  I can't define it exactly, but it's typified by a 
poster of the period showing a club-carrying lout, with the 
caption: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death I will fear no evil, 'cause I'm the meanest son of a bitch 
in the valley."  It's avatars were men like Burt Reynolds in some 
of his early movies, the entire Nixon administration, and many 
returning Viet Nam veterans.  We never really got over it.  

In popular culture, full frontal nudity, explicit sex and graphic 
violence became commonplace in movies.  Movies like Star Wars, 
Jaws and Halloween started trends we're still living with.

One thing that's important (IMHO) is the development of the TV/Computer
Game.  It's taken awhile, but pong has lead, in a rather straight line,
to the wide availability of multi-media, and who knows where multi-media
will lead to in the future.

Probably the most enduring controbution of the 70s is the creation of 50s
nostalga.  Today, we're all nostalgic for those 70s when people were
remembering the 50s on a standard 20 year cycle; they don't make nostalga
like they used to.

I don't think I'd call the breakup of the former Soviet Union an 80s
event; things didn't really start to break loose until about 89, and
the implications of the whole thing are far from over.  I am curious what
year will be remembered as the year the world changed, a la 1945.  Probably
90.

The 70s did seem to be a big decade as far as film evolution; if you
compare films at the beginning of the 80s to those at the end, they're
faster and higher budget and flashier, but not radically different.

The 70s has a reputation as a decade of promiscuity, the immediate
successor of the sexual revolution before the countertrend which now
has serial monogamy as the socially appropriate lifestyle.

I'd be inclined to say the return of women to the workplace was a
common 70s theme, though a curiousity then more than an economic necessity
as it is now.

Within computers, it was certainly a big decade.  A case can be made that
few significant new concepts in operating systems invented since the 70s
is in widescale use.

When did credit cards start becoming really universal and widespread?
My impression is the 70s, but I'm not clear on it.

The 70s was probably a time, in general, of the beginning of a decline
for America in the perception of some.  America was no longer able to
obtain its foreign policy goals (SE Asia, Arab oil problems) through being
strong, and the preceived strength of the presidency channged substantially.

Whether you like it or not, the 70s had a definite musical flavor.  Not
as strong as the 60s, maybe, but stronger than the 80s to me.

TV got more violent

Number nine was good.  

I love disco! And i hear it is making a comeback!

Oh no!

Vietnam may have been played out in the 60's but I remember very well when
it ended in '75. Of course the U.S. was gone by that point but it was the
first time the U.S. had ever really been defeated in a war. People talk about
the 60s as a time of widespread drug use but the 70s were much worse as far
as I can tell. By that time they were seen as acceptable and it seemed that
everyone, or at least everyone I knew was doing them. 

I remember the CB radio craze that went on for a while. There was some good
music and some terrible music. Fortunately we don't hear the really bad stuff
as much anymore.

Sex back then was great! Of course I was a lot younger so it was easier for
me to get laid but there was a much more free attitude back then. AIDs seems
to have killed that.

I think the average people had more power back then and they were not as
willing to accept the corporate domination that seems to be controlling
America these days. This was before Reagan got rid of the laws that forced
the media to give fair time to the left and the right. Ever since Reagan we
have been sliding toward the extreme right. I think there will be a backlash
eventually but I could be wrong. 

There are certainly things I miss about the 70s. Primarily my dead relatives
and my youth. I am sure I will feel the same way about this decade too.

70s? Y'all fergit to mention progressive rock.

Course, there was also BROWN and ORANGE. Lots of it. Oh well.

Oh, and Thatcherism (=Reaganomics, only not as nice)

Howard Cosell was the messiah

When it comes to the seventies, I guess I would discuss the change from
a more pacifist-oriented and idealistic approach to political activism
to the more nihilist, militant, destructive spirit that rode youth
activism starting in 1969.

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