THE SEVENTIES

THE SEVENTIES A Chronology of Events Editor: Piero Scaruffi

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The communist party seizes power in Chile, Salvador Allende is elected president
German chancellor Willy Brand launches "Ostpolitik"
Oct 1970: Quebec separatists kidnap a government minister and murder him
Peruvian philosopher Abimael Guzman Reynoso founds the Maoist guerrilla movement Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) at Ayacucho

War between India and Pakistan, Bangla Desh gains indipendence
India and Soviet Union sign a treaty of friendship
Attica prison: 33 convicts and 10 guards die in the riots
End of the Bretton Woods agreement and of fixed exchange rates: currencies float

Arab terrorists storm the Israeli dormitory at the Olympic Games
The Soviet Union achieves "strategic parity" in nuclear weapons
Richard Nixon meets with Mao
Richard Nixon orders carpet bombing of civilian areas in North Vietnam during the Christmas holidays
The Dow Jones index reaches 1000
Tutsis in Burundi massacre Hutus
Ray Tomlinson invents e-mail
January: Bloody Sunday in Norther Ireland (British troops shoot on a catholic demonstration and kill 13 people)
Jul 1972: The IRA kills 11 people in Belfast ("Bloody Friday")
Magnavox introduces the first video game console

Pinochet seizes power in Chile, 3,000 people will "disappear"
USA, defeated, leaves Vietnam after killing close to 2 million civilians and 1 million soldiers
Egypt, Syria and Jordania attack Israel
Oil crisis: Arab countries impose an oil embargo against the West. Oil prices skyrocket and precipitate a world recession.
May 1973: A hijacker blows up a Soviet flight in an attempt to reach China
Aug 1973: Fascist terrorists blow up a train in Bologna, Italy
Dec 1973: Basque terrorists kill the Spanish prime minister

First personal computer (Altair 8800)
Ethiopian king Haile Selassie is deposed by a revolution and a socialist government led by Menghitsu is installed
Haile Selasie is deposed by a military junta after 40 years of reign
Clay soldiers of Xian discovered
Supply-side economic theory (Arthur Laffer)
Astrelopitecus Lucy found in Africa
Turkey invades Cyprus and partitions the island in a Greek and a Turkish speaking halves
Revolution in Portugal
Sep 1974: A Pakistani terrorist group blows up a TWA flight over the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 88 passengers
Mar 1974: Black September terrorists seize the Saudi Arabian embassy in Sudan
Apr 1974: Terrorists of the PFLP-GC kill 18 Israeli civilians in Qirayt Shemona
May 1974: Palestinian terrorists kidnap schoolchildren and 21 people are killed when Israeli troops rescue them

The Baader-Meinhof in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy terrorize the population
Ethiopian dictator Menghitsu starts the "red terror" that will kill 100,000 people in 3 years
Vienna: terrorists headed by "Carlos the Jackal" (aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez) kidnap OPEC ministers
South Vietnam surrenders to North Vietnam. The US reneges on its pledge to pay $3 billion in war reparations and instead imposes an economic embargo
Lebanon: civil war intensifies
Indonesia invades East Timor after Portugal withdraws from its colony
Spanish dictator Franco dies and Spain turns democratic

Riots in Soweto, South Africa, to protest apartheid
First outbreak of Ebola (western Sudan and Congo)
Mao dies
The supersonic airplane Concorde begins service
Indonesia occupies former portuguese colony East Timor; catholic rebels start Fretilin; fighting and ethnic cleansing will eventually claim 600.000 lives
The first supersonic passenger plane debuts, the Concorde
Oct 1976: Anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch blows up a Cubana flight killing all 73 passengers

A polish cardinal, Karol Wojtyla, is elected pope
Vietnam invades Cambodia and deposes Pol Pot.
Jim Jones and his believers commit a mass suicide at Jamestown, Guyana (917 dead)
First test tube baby (Louise Joy Brown)
Deng Tsiao Ping seizes the power in China and calls for reforms (end of Maoism)