File:Star Wars - A New Hope, filming in Death Valley.jpg|Popular films of the decade included
Star Wars,
Jaws,
The Godfather,
Alien,
The Exorcist,
Grease,
Rocky, Chinatown, A Clockwork Orange, Superman,
Apocalypse Now,
Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, American Graffiti, and
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, many of which became critical and commercial landmarks of the decade. File:Carroll O'Connor Jean Stapleton All in the Family 1973.JPG|TV shows like
All in the Family, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, The Jeffersons, Good Times,
M*A*S*H,
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
Hawaii Five-O,
Sesame Street,
Welcome Back, Kotter,
The Six Million Dollar Man,
The Muppet Show, ''
Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, Three's Company, Sanford and Son, Monty Python's Flying Circus, and Saturday Night Live,'' were popular in the 1970s. File:Signed Pong Cabinet.jpg|The 1970s marked the birth of
video game industry, with arcade hits such as
Pong,
Breakout,
Space Invaders, and
Asteroids, alongside the rise of home consoles like the
Magnavox Odyssey and the
Atari 2600, which brought video gaming into households for the first time. File:Disco ball4.jpg| The decade saw the rise of
disco culture, popularized by nightclubs and films such as
Saturday Night Fever, with artists like
Bee Gees,
Donna Summer, and
Earth, Wind & Fire dominating the charts; the genre's popularity also provoked a cultural backlash, exemplified by
Disco Demolition Night in 1979. File:Philco-Ford Orange Retro TV (1970s).jpg| Popular animated TV shows of the 1970s included
Scooby-Doo, Where are You!, Schoolhouse Rock!,
Josie and the Pussycats, The Addams Family,
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,
Hong Kong Phooey, Star Trek,
Super Friends,
Jabberjaw, and
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels. File:LedZeppelinChicago75 2.jpg|
Hard rock,
heavy metal, and
progressive rock, rose to prominence in the 1970s, with bands such as
Pink Floyd,
Led Zeppelin,
Black Sabbath,
Deep Purple,
Kiss,
Supertramp, and
Yes, achieving widespread popularity and helping define the sound and image of rock music during the decade. File:Bruce Lee performs nunchaku.jpg|
Kung fu became a major pop culture phenomenon in the 1970s through films like
Enter the Dragon and the popularity of martial arts stars such as
Bruce Lee, as well as the television series
Kung Fu. File:Ramones Toronto 1976.jpg|The late 1970s saw the rise of
punk rock, with bands such as
Ramones,
Sex Pistols, and
The Clash emerging from New York and London and influencing fashion, youth culture, and the sound of popular music. File:1973 Volkswagen Super Beetle (9777174106).jpg|The
Volkswagen Beetle and
Toyota Corolla line of cars were popular in the 1970s, making the
world's best-selling automobiles at the time. File:Bob Marley Abesten.jpg|
Reggae music rose to worldwide prominence in the 1970s, led by artists such as
Bob Marley,
Peter Tosh, and
Jimmy Cliff, spreading Jamaican musical styles and
Rastafari culture internationally. File:Olimpiai Stadion, az olimpia megnyitóünnepsége. Fortepan 73767.jpg|Four
Olympic Games were held in the 1970s,
Sapporo and
Munich in 1972,
Innsbruck and
Montreal in 1976, all during the Cold War, and prompting significant events like the
Munich massacre in 1972 and the
African-led boycott in 1976. File:Unitape-8-track-recordimg-cartridge.jpg|
8-track cartridges were a popular music format in the 1970s, widely used in
car stereos and home audio systems, and became a defining part of how people experienced music during the decade.
Music During the early 1970s, popular music continued to be dominated by musicians who had achieved fame during the 1950s and the 1960s such as the
Rolling Stones,
The Who,
Elvis Presley,
Johnny Cash,
Loretta Lynn,
Conway Twitty,
Bob Dylan,
The Grateful Dead, and
Eric Clapton. In addition, many newcomer rock groups such as
Black Sabbath and
Led Zeppelin appeared.
The Beatles disbanded in 1970, but each member of the band immediately released a highly successful solo album, and
Paul McCartney especially would remain extremely popular throughout the decade. Singer-songwriters such as
Elton John,
James Taylor and
Jackson Browne also came into vogue during the early 1970s. The 1970s saw the rapid commercialization of rock music, and by the mid-decade there were a spate of bands derisively dubbed "corporate rock" due to the notion that they had been created by record labels to produce simplistic, radio-friendly songs that offered clichés rather than meaningful lyrics. Such bands included
The Doobie Brothers,
Bread,
Styx,
Kansas, and
REO Speedwagon.
Funk, an offshoot of
soul music with a greater emphasis on beats, and influences from
rhythm and blues,
jazz, and
psychedelic rock, was also very popular. The mid-1970s also saw the rise of
disco music, which dominated during the last half of the decade with bands like the
Bee Gees,
Chic,
ABBA,
Village People,
Boney M,
Donna Summer,
KC and the Sunshine Band, and others. In response to this, rock music became increasingly hard-edged, with early metal artists like
Led Zeppelin,
Jimi Hendrix,
Black Sabbath, and
Deep Purple.
Minimalism also emerged, led by composers such as
Philip Glass,
Steve Reich and
Michael Nyman. This was a break from the intellectual serial music in the tradition of
Schoenberg, which lasted from the early 1900s to the 1960s. The 1970s also saw artists from
Motown records become popular across the globe. Artists like the
Jackson 5,
Stevie Wonder and
Marvin Gaye dominated the record charts across the world and had a significant influence on pop culture, including breaking down racial barriers. was one of the most popular and influential bands of the 1970s. The band's heavy, guitar-driven sound has led them to be cited as one of the progenitors of
heavy metal. Classical and experimental music influenced both
art rock and
progressive rock genres with bands such as
Pink Floyd,
Yes,
Todd Rundgren's Utopia,
Supertramp,
Rush,
Genesis,
King Crimson,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer,
Jethro Tull,
The Moody Blues and
Soft Machine.
Hard rock and
heavy metal also emerged among British bands
Led Zeppelin,
Queen,
The Who,
Black Sabbath,
UFO,
Deep Purple,
Uriah Heep, and
Judas Priest. Australian band
AC/DC also found its hard-rock origins in the early 1970s and its breakthrough in 1979's
Highway to Hell, while popular American rock bands included
Aerosmith,
Journey,
Lynyrd Skynyrd and
shock rockers
Alice Cooper,
Blue Öyster Cult, and
Kiss, and guitar-oriented
Ted Nugent and
Van Halen. In Europe, there was a surge of popularity in the early decade for
glam rock. After a successful return to live performing in the late 60s with his
TV special,
Elvis Presley regained his popularity through
Vegas performance engagements and concert tours throughout the United States until his death in 1977, which helped him acquire a new generation of fans. His 1973 televised concert,
Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite, aired in over 40 countries in Europe and Asia, as well as the United States, making it one of the most popular concert events of the decade. The second half of the decade saw the rise of
punk rock, when a spate of fresh, young rock groups playing stripped-down hard rock came to prominence at a time when most of the artists associated with the 1960s to early 1970s were in creative decline. Punk bands included
The Sex Pistols,
The Clash,
The Ramones,
Talking Heads, and more. performing
The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973, the highest-selling album of the decade and one of the highest-selling of all time. The highest-selling album of the decade was
Pink Floyd's
The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), along with
Eagles'
Hotel California (1976) and
Fleetwood Mac's
Rumours (1977).
Dark Side of the Moon remained on the
Billboard 200 albums chart for 741 weeks. Electronic instrumental progressive rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like
Kraftwerk,
Tangerine Dream,
Can, and
Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy
krautrock, along with the work of
Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with
Roxy Music), would be a major influence on subsequent
synthrock. The mid-1970s saw the rise of
electronic art music musicians such as
Jean-Michel Jarre,
Vangelis, and
Tomita, who with Brian Eno were a significant influence of the development of
new-age music. Japanese band
Yellow Magic Orchestra helped to pioneer synthpop, with their
self-titled album (in
1978) setting a template with less minimalism and with a strong emphasis on melody, and drawing from a wider range of influences than had been employed by
Kraftwerk.
YMO also introduced the microprocessor-based
Roland MC-8 sequencer and
TR-808 rhythm machine to popular music. In the first half of the 1970s, many jazz musicians from the
Miles Davis school achieved cross-over success through
jazz-rock fusion with bands like
Weather Report,
Return to Forever,
The Headhunters and
The Mahavishnu Orchestra who also influenced this genre and many others. In Germany,
Manfred Eicher started the
ECM label, which quickly made a name for "chamber jazz". Towards the end of the decade, Jamaican
reggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe, mostly because of reggae superstar and legend
Bob Marley. The mid-1970s saw the reemergence of acoustic jazz with the return of artists like
Dexter Gordon to the US music scene, who, along with a number of other artists, such as trumpet innovators like
Don Ellis and
Woody Shaw, who were among the last of the decade's traditionally oriented acoustic jazz musicians to be signed to major record labels, to receive critical and widespread commercial recognition and multiple Grammy nominations. (pictured here in 1977) was considered to be one of the most influential bands of the '70s (as well as the '80s), along with American rock band
Eagles and others The late 1970s also saw the beginning of
hip hop music with disc jockeys like
DJ Kool Herc and
Afrika Bambaataa taking loops from funk and soul records and playing them repeatedly at block parties and dance clubs. At the end of the 1970s, popular songs like ''
Rapper's Delight by Sugarhill Gang gave hip hop a wider audience. Hip hop was also influenced by the song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'' by
Gil Scott-Heron.
Country music also continued to increase in popularity in the 1970s. Between 1977 and 1979, it became more mainstream, particularly with the
outlaw movement, led by
Waylon Jennings and
Willie Nelson. The 70s also saw the rise of a country music subgenre,
southern rock, led by the
Allman Brothers Band. Other artists; such as
Conway Twitty,
Loretta Lynn,
Don Williams,
Kenny Rogers,
Dolly Parton,
Ronnie Milsap,
Crystal Gayle, and
Barbara Mandrell; all scored hits throughout the 70s which reached both country and pop charts. The genre also saw its golden age of vocal
duos and
groups in this decade; with
Conway Twitty and
Loretta Lynn,
George Jones and
Tammy Wynette,
Jim Ed Brown and
Helen Cornelius, the
Bellamy Brothers, the
Oak Ridge Boys, the
Statler Brothers,
Dave & Sugar, and
The Kendalls. The genre also became more involved in
Hollywood toward the end of the decade, with country-themed action films such as
Smokey and the Bandit and
Every Which Way But Loose, a trend that continued into the early 80s with
Urban Cowboy and
Bronco Billy. A major event in music in the early 1970s was the deaths of popular rock stars
Jimi Hendrix,
Janis Joplin, and
Jim Morrison, all at the age of 27. Two of popular music's most successful artists from other eras died within eight weeks of each other in 1977.
Elvis Presley, the best-selling singer of all time, died on August 16, 1977. Presley's funeral was held at
Graceland, on Thursday, August 18, 1977.
Bing Crosby, who sold about 50 million records, died on October 14, 1977. His single,
White Christmas, remains the best-selling single of all time, confirmed by the
Guinness Records. In addition to the deaths in the 1970s, breakups of bands and duos; such as
the Beatles,
Simon and Garfunkel,
Creedence Clearwater Revival,
the Everly Brothers, and others; occurred over the course of the decade. Statistically, Led Zeppelin and Elton John were the most successful musical acts of the 1970s, both having sold more than 300 million records since 1969. During the 1970s, Japan had the second largest music market in the world.
Popular music included
kayōkyoku,
idols,
new music,
rock and
enka. Musical artists and bands included
Momoe Yamaguchi,
Saori Minami, the
Candies,
Pink Lady,
Hiromi Go,
Hideki Saijo,
Yuming,
Saki Kubota,
Judy Ongg and
Sachiko Kobayashi. (1975)
Argentine rock became the most popular musical genre in
Argentina among youngsters, and became famous throughout
Latin America. Legendary Argentine rockstar
Charly García formed his first band,
Sui Generis (
Folk Rock), which released Argentine rock staples such as
Rasguña las piedras (Scratch the Stones) and
Canción para mi muerte (Song for My Death). In 1978, Charly García formed the first Latin American
supergroup Serú Girán (
Progressive Rock), which released some of the greatest rock anthems in Latin America, such as
Eiti Leda and
Seminare. Luis Alberto Spinetta achieved national acclaim with
Almendra, perhaps the first successful progressive rock band in Latin America, their greatest hit was
Muchacha (Ojos de papel). Later in 1973, Pescado Rabioso (Spinetta's second band) launched
Artaud, for many the magnus opus of Argentine rock. Other relevant Argentine musicians and bands of the 1970s are
Vox Dei,
Pappo,
Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota.
Film fostered the popularity of martial arts cinema Oscar winners of the decade were
Patton (1970),
The French Connection (1971),
The Godfather (1972),
The Sting (1973),
The Godfather Part II (1974), ''
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Rocky (1976), Annie Hall (1977), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Kramer vs. Kramer'' (1979). The top ten highest-grossing films of the decade are (in order from highest to lowest grossing):
Star Wars,
Jaws,
Grease,
The Exorcist,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
Superman,
The Godfather,
Saturday Night Fever,
Rocky, and
Jaws 2. Two of these movies came out on the same day: June 16, 1978. In 1970s
European cinema, the failure of the
Prague Spring brought about nostalgic motion pictures such as
István Szabó's
Szerelmesfilm (1970).
German New Wave and
Rainer Fassbinder's existential movies characterized film-making in Germany. The movies of the Swedish director
Ingmar Bergman reached a new level of expression in motion pictures like
Cries and Whispers (1973).
Airport was released in 1970, spawning the
air disaster film genre. Throughout the decade, the film spawned three sequels: ''
Airport 1975,
Airport '77, and
The Concorde... Airport '79. The genre also inspired a spoof film (Airplane!'') along with its two sequels in the early 1980s. A slew of other air disaster films followed suit throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s, primarily in made-for-TV movies.
Car chase movies also became a popular film genre of the 1970s with such films as
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry in 1974, and perhaps the genre's most popular film
Smokey and the Bandit in 1977. and
Zubaida Tharwat in
The Other Man (1973) Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising middle class fantasies and struggles. In the
Bollywood cinema of India, this was epitomized by the movies of Bollywood superhero
Amitabh Bachchan. Another Asian touchstone beginning in the early 1970s was
Hong Kong martial arts film which sparked a greater interest in Chinese martial arts around the world.
Martial arts film reached the peak of its popularity largely in part due to its greatest icon,
Bruce Lee. During the 1970s, Hollywood continued the
New Hollywood movement of the late-1960s with young filmmakers like
Francis Ford Coppola,
George Lucas,
Martin Scorsese and
Steven Spielberg, as well as films like
Apocalypse Now,
The Godfather,
Star Wars,
Taxi Driver,
Jaws, and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Top-grossing
Jaws (1975) ushered in the
blockbuster era of filmmaking, though it was eclipsed two years later by the science-fiction film
Star Wars (1977), which would later go on to become
one of the most successful film franchises in history, spawning two sequels in the
original trilogy in the next decade.
Saturday Night Fever (1977) single-handedly touched off disco mania in the U.S.
The Godfather (1972) was also one of the decade's greatest successes and its first follow-up,
The Godfather Part II (1974) was also successful for a sequel.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show flopped in its 1975 debut, only to reappear as a more-popular midnight show later in the decade. Still in limited release decades after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history.
The Exorcist (1973) was a box office success for the horror genre, inspiring many other so-called "devil (Satan)" films like
The Omen and both of their own sequels. The release of the movie followed a general mood of paranoia on satanic themes in the United States; also the counterculture of the 1970s saw an increasing interest in
occultism. British comedy troupe
Monty Python started making films in the '70s, following the wake of their groundbreaking sketch series ''
Monty Python's Flying Circus. These included And Now for Something Completely Different (which featured film recreations of sketches from the first two series of Flying Circus
and new sketches created for the film), the ever-more popular Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the controversial Monty Python's Life of Brian''.
All That Jazz (1979) gained high critical praise, winning four Oscars and several other awards. It was an inductee of the 2001
National Film Registry list. The
Golden Age of Porn continued its reign throughout the 1970s, with one of its most popular films of the decade being
Debbie Does Dallas in 1978.
Television United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, colour channels were now available; three stations had begun broadcasting in colour between 1967 and 1969. However, many viewers continued to watch black-and-white television sets for most of the decade, which meant for example that televised
snooker (in which the colour of balls is important) did not reach the heights of its popularity until the 1980s. Notable dramas included
Play for Today and
Pennies from Heaven. In police dramas, there was a move towards increasing realism; popular shows included
Dixon of Dock Green,
Z-Cars,
Softly, Softly, and
The Sweeney. The science fiction show
Doctor Who reached its peak. 1970s British television featured a mix of traditional more modern comedies and sitcoms.
Fawlty Towers,
Morecambe and Wise,
The Benny Hill Show,
Are You Being Served? and ''
Dad's Army had their origins in the variety show and radio comedy of the first half of the century. Many popular British situation comedies (sit-coms) were gentle, unchallenging comedies of middle-class life; typical examples were Terry and June and Sykes. However, the middle-class settings of The Good Life and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin contrasted with their anti-establishment theme of people rejecting traditional social norms. A harsher side of society was shown by comedy series like Porridge and Rising Damp, while sitcoms such as Mind Your Language, Love Thy Neighbour and Till Death Us Do Part'' reflected social unease brought about by post-war immigration.
Spike Milligan's
Q and the still-popular ''
Monty Python's Flying Circus both used surreal comedy, originating from the 1950s The Goon Show''. During the 1970s, the original animated television series
Roobarb and
Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk. The television information retrieval service
Teletext was initially introduced when the BBC
Ceefax system went live on 23 September 1974. In the late 1970s, BBC2's unveiled a new identity, a twin-striped "2", which was the first electronically generated symbol and scrolled on and off the screen.
United States and
Demond Wilson from
Sanford and Son As the 1970s began, the Big Three TV networks were rapidly re-engineering their lineups, noting that existing programs were not attracting the youth audience. Most existing programs still operated on paradigms established in the 1950s, and some shows had literally been on the air since the dawn of TV broadcasting in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Shows that had low ratings or insufficient youth appeal were cancelled as networks scrambled to attract the large
baby boomer audience. To reflect the new social trends, television changed dramatically with more urban and edgy settings, and replaced the popular rural/country wholesome look of the 1950s and 1960s, seen as outmoded and unable to connect with young, educated urban audiences. This particular trend was known as the
rural purge. Television was transformed by what became termed as "social consciousness" programming, such as
All in the Family and
Soap, which broke down television barriers. Many advertising trends of the 1970s also reflected this growing social consciousness trend, such as with Coca-Cola's "Give the World a Coke" and Mcdonalds' "You Deserve a Break" campaigns. The women's movement ushered in a slew of programming featuring strong, independent females as central characters. Most notable was
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which spawned the successful spin-offs
Rhoda and
Phyllis, and also resulted in Mary Tyler Moore becoming the first female to head a television production company of her own,
MTM Enterprises, which churned out groundbreaking programming in the late 1970s throughout the 1990s. Women were also established portraying action characters in programs like
Police Woman,
Wonder Woman,
The Bionic Woman, and others. Minority-centric television programming also featured prominently during the 1970s. Shows featuring African-Americans as main characters, such as
Sanford and Son,
Maude,
The Jeffersons,
Good Times,
Roots and ''
What's Happening!! broke down barriers and became very popular. In addition, Soul Train, the brainchild of Don Cornelius, premiered in 1971 as the African-American counterpart to American Bandstand'', giving a forum for
soul,
funk,
jazz,
R&B,
disco, and future
rap and
hip hop artists to gain exposure to American audiences, consumers, music lovers, enthusiasts, and those keen on learning new dance moves. The television
western, which had been very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, all but died out during the 1970s, with
Bonanza,
The Virginian, and
Gunsmoke ending their runs. Replacing westerns were police and detective shows, a trend that would last through the 1980s. Television still had its medical shows of the 1970s, however,
Emergency! was the first popular
medical drama ever to feature both the paramedic program as well as the hospital emergency department, which also encouraged future people in the United States to develop their own paramedic program or hospital emergency department, and acted as an inspiration for many individuals.
Marcus Welby, M.D. and
Medical Center were other long-running medical dramas popular during the 1970s. 1950s nostalgia and pop culture became a theme in prime-time sitcoms with the
Garry Marshall-produced
Happy Days and its two
spin-offs Laverne & Shirley and
Mork & Mindy. By the mid-to-late 1970s,
jiggle television—programs oriented toward sexual gratification and
farce comedy and situations—became popular. Such programs included ''
Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat'', and perhaps the genre's most popular, ''
Three's Company''. Soap operas expanded their audiences beyond
housewives with the rise of
All My Children,
As the World Turns,
Somerset, and
The Young and the Restless; with many extending their episodes from 30 minutes to an hour. The soap
Another World began a 16-month experiment in March 1979 by screening 90-minute episodes, the only serial to do so.
Game shows such as
Match Game,
The Hollywood Squares,
Family Feud, and many others, saw their golden ages on
daytime television. The height of
Match Games popularity occurred between 1973 and 1977, before it was overtaken by
Family Feud in 1978. Television's current longest-running game show,
The Price Is Right, began its run hosted by
Bob Barker in 1972. Another influential genre was the television newscast, which built on its initial widespread success in the 1960s. The science fiction phenomenon of the late 1970s that began with
Star Wars went to television with shows such as
Battlestar Galactica.
Variety shows, a staple of TV programming since the beginning, were also re-engineered to appeal to young viewers. Old standbys such as
The Ed Sullivan Show and
The Red Skelton Show were canceled and replaced by hipper programming like
Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and
Donny & Marie.
The Carol Burnett Show also ended its historic 11-year run in 1978. In the end, rising production costs largely did in variety shows. The exception was
Saturday Night Live (then known as ''NBC's Saturday Night
), which was created by Lorne Michaels and premiered in 1975, with an original cast of Laraine Newman, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris, and Chevy Chase. The country music variety show Hee Haw'', which premiered in 1969, was the only series to survive the "rural purge" and continued throughout the 70s, 80s, and into the 1990s before ending its run, although the series went into syndication after its first three seasons.
Sesame Street, which debuted in 1969, would continue to run for the entire decade. Puppeteer
Jim Henson who worked on that show would also be behind
The Muppet Show. Henson produced two
pilot episodes for
ABC in 1974 and 1975, but neither went forward as a series. While other networks in the United States rejected Henson's proposals, British producer
Lew Grade expressed enthusiasm for the project and agreed to co-produce
The Muppet Show for
ATV, part of the UK
ITV network. The series premiered in the UK on 5 September 1976 and ended on 23 May 1981. Five seasons, totalling 120 episodes, were broadcast on ATV and other ITV franchises in the UK and in
first-run syndication in the United States from 1976 to 1981.
The Dukes of Hazzard began its six-year run in 1979. The series was inspired by the car-chase film genre, particularly the 1975 film
Moonrunners, on which the series was based, with similar characters and scenes; and both were directed by
Gy Waldron and voice-over narrated by country music artist
Waylon Jennings.
Pay television As cable television became more affordable and accessible by U.S. consumers, the race to bring the silver screen to the small screen commenced with the launch of
pay television services showing premium content.
HBO launched on November 8, 1972, becoming the nation's first pay-television channel. On September 30, 1975, HBO became the first television network to continuously deliver signals via satellite when it showed the
Thrilla in Manila boxing match between
Muhammad Ali and
Joe Frazier. Star Channel launched its service offerings nationally in 1973 through the delivery of movies on videotapes for cable providers to broadcast. This proved problematic since the videotapes were often riddled with technical difficulties. Star Channel eventually was linked up to satellite in January 1978. Shortly after, Warner Communications acquired the channel and relaunched it on December 1, 1979, in its current form as
The Movie Channel. Media giant
Viacom launched their premium service,
Showtime, nationally on July 1, 1976, after a brief, wildly successful test launch on their cable system in
Dublin, California.
Australia In 1974, Australian TV tested color transmissions (full-time color came in 1975). Popular shows during the decade include,
Young Talent Time,
Number 96,
The Aunty Jack Show, ''
Class of '74, The Sullivans, The Don Lane Show, Cop Shop, The Naked Vicar Show, The Paul Hogan Show and Countdown''.
South Africa South Africa saw nationwide television service for the first time on January 5, 1976, although limited-view, locally available television began on May 5, 1975.
Japan The original anime television series
Vicky the Viking,
Heidi,
Maya the Bee and
Doraemon in both 1974, 1975 and 1979, respectively.
Computer and video games (1972) (1979) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges. • Popular and notable video games of the 1970s include:
Space Invaders,
Asteroids,
Pong, and
Breakout. •
Golden age of video arcade games •
Gun Fight was the first video game to contain a
microprocessor. •
The Oregon Trail was the first publicly available educational video game made available for widespread use in schools on December 3, 1971. The game is a cult classic and is still used today, in a wide variety of formats, through emulators and on smartphones. • The first commercially available video game console, entitled
Magnavox Odyssey, was released in September 1972, created by
Ralph H. Baer. •
1974: Both
Maze War (on the
Imlac PDS-1 at the
NASA Ames Research Center in California) and
Spasim (on PLATO) appeared, pioneering examples of early multiplayer 3D
first-person shooters. • In 1976,
Mattel introduced the first
handheld electronic game with the release of
Mattel Auto Race. • Then, in 1976,
William Crowther wrote the first modern text adventure game,
Colossal Cave Adventure. •
Apple, Inc. ushered in the modern personal computing age with its June 1, 1977, launch of the first mass-produced personal computer, the
Apple II. Although many business-focused personal workstations were available to corporations years earlier, the Apple II has the distinction of being the first to produce personal computers specifically targeted to home users, beating the
Commodore PET and
Atari 400 to the market by five months. The original retail price of the computer was US$1298 (with 4 KB of RAM) and US$2638 (with the maximum 48 KB of RAM). • The
Atari 2600 was released in October 1977 and was a huge commercial success. It was challenged by the
Magnavox Odyssey² and
Intellivision. •
Fairchild Channel F from 1976 becomes the first programmable
ROM cartridge-based video game console. • The
Microvision was the first hand-held game console using interchangeable cartridges. It was released by the
Milton Bradley Company in November 1979. scores the first goal in the
1978 World Cup Final for
Argentina Sports The
1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany saw swimmer
Mark Spitz set seven World Records and won a record seven gold medals. The
1976 Summer Olympics were held in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Brazil won the
1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, West Germany won the
1974 FIFA World Cup in West Germany, and Argentina won the
1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina. The
1970 FIFA World Cup was the first world cup to be televised in color. On April 9, 1975, Asia's first professional basketball league, the
Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) had its first game at the
Araneta Coliseum in Cubao,
Quezon City, Philippines.
United States won Stanley Cup two times The
Oakland Athletics three-peated at the World Series in
1972–
1974. The
Cincinnati Reds go to the
World Series in
1970,
1972,
1975, and
1976, led by the
Big Red Machine winning two out of four. The
New York Yankees won the World Series in
1977 and
1978 after losing in
1976. The
Dallas Cowboys and the
Pittsburgh Steelers dominated the decade in the NFL. Steelers were led by
Terry Bradshaw and
Chuck Noll, and the Cowboys were led by
Roger Staubach and
Tom Landry, while the
Miami Dolphins became the only team in NFL history to go "all the way," winning the
Super Bowl with an
undefeated record—a feat that remains unmatched to this day. The 1970s saw the construction of several sports venues, including
Arrowhead Stadium,
Three Rivers Stadium,
Texas Stadium,
Veterans Stadium,
Riverfront Stadium, and
Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The
Philadelphia Flyers won the
Stanley Cup in
1974 and
1975, a team best remembered as "The Broad Street Bullies".
Disc sports (Frisbee) As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternatives. They would form what would become known as the
counterculture. The forms of escape and resistance would manifest in many ways including social activism, alternative lifestyles, experimental living through foods, dress, music and alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a
frisbee. What started with a few players like Victor Malafronte, Z Weyand and
Ken Westerfield experimenting with new ways of throwing and catching a frisbee, later would become known as playing
freestyle. Organized disc sports, in the 1970s, began with promotional efforts from
Wham-O and
Irwin Toy (Canada), a few tournaments and professionals using frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs and sporting events. Disc sports such as freestyle,
double disc court,
guts,
disc ultimate and
disc golf became this sports first events.
Literature with admirers in 1976. Fiction in the early 1970s brought a return to old-fashioned storytelling, especially with
Erich Segal's
Love Story. The seventies also saw the decline of previously well-respected writers, such as
Saul Bellow and
Peter De Vries, who both released poorly received novels at the start of the decade. Racism remained a key literary subject.
John Updike emerged as a major literary figure. Reflections on the 1960s experience also found roots in the literature of the decade through the works of
Joyce Carol Oates and
Wright Morris. With the rising cost of hard-cover books and the increasing readership of
genre fiction, the paperback became a popular medium. Criminal non-fiction also became a popular topic. Irreverence and satire, typified in
Kurt Vonnegut's
Breakfast of Champions, were common literary elements. The horror genre also emerged, and by the late 1970s
Stephen King had become one of the most popular
genre novelists. The
postmodern author
Thomas Pynchon published his most famous work, ''
Gravity's Rainbow'', in 1973. In non-fiction, several books related to Nixon and the
Watergate scandal topped the best-selling lists. 1977 brought many high-profile biographical works of literary figures, such as those of
Virginia Woolf,
Agatha Christie, and
J. R. R. Tolkien. The
fake memoir Go Ask Alice was released in 1971. Upon its initial release the book was marketed as a real diary of a teenage girl who overdosed in the 1960s. However, it was later revealed that the book was actually written by
Beatrice Sparks.
Jorge Luis Borges published ''
Dr. Brodie's Report in 1970 and The Book Of Sand'' in 1975.
Julio Cortázar published
Octaedro in 1974.
Ernesto Sábato published
Abaddón The Exterminator, his last novel, in 1974.
Architecture was completed in 1976, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure. Architecture in the 1970s began as a continuation of styles created by such architects as
Frank Lloyd Wright and
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Early in the decade, several architects competed to build the tallest building in the world. Of these buildings, the most notable are the
John Hancock Center and
Sears Tower in Chicago, both designed by
Bruce Graham and
Fazlur Khan, and the
World Trade Center towers in New York by American architect
Minoru Yamasaki. The decade also brought experimentation in geometric design,
pop-art,
postmodernism, and early
deconstructivism. Design trends in the 1970s were marked by a backlash against the bright colors and futurism of the 1950s and 1960s and a rise in popularity of dark, earthy tones with extensive use of brown, green, purple, and orange. Wood decor and paneling was integral to 1970s interior design as well, replacing the obsession of the 1950s and 1960s with chrome and aluminum. Darker colors not only reflected the back-to-nature mindset of the decade, but the sluggish world economy with its lowered optimism and expectations for the future. In 1974,
Louis Kahn's last and arguably most famous building, the National Assembly Building of
Dhaka, Bangladesh, was completed. The building's use of open spaces and groundbreaking geometry brought rare attention to the small South Asian country.
Hugh Stubbins's
Citicorp Center revolutionized the incorporation of solar panels in office buildings. The seventies brought further experimentation in glass and steel construction and geometric design. Chinese architect
I. M. Pei's
John Hancock Tower in
Boston, Massachusetts, is an example, although like many buildings of the time, the experimentation was flawed and glass panes fell from the façade. In 1976, the completed
CN Tower in Toronto became the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, an honor it held until 2007. The fact that no taller tower had been built between the construction of the CN Tower and the
Burj Khalifa shows how innovative the architecture and engineering of the structure truly were. Modern architecture was increasingly criticized as the decade went on from the point of view of postmodern architects, such as
Philip Johnson, Charles Moore, and
Michael Graves, who advocated a return to pre-modern styles of architecture and the incorporation of pop elements as a means of communicating with a broader public. Other architects, such as
Peter Eisenman of the
New York Five, advocated the pursuit of form for the sake of form and drew on semiotics theory for support. "High Tech" architecture moved forward as
Buckminster Fuller continued his experiments in
geodesic domes, while the
Georges Pompidou Center, designed by
Renzo Piano and
Richard Rogers, which opened in 1977, was a prominent example. As the decade drew to a close,
Frank Gehry broke out in a new direction with his own house in Santa Monica, a highly complex structure, half excavated out of an existing bungalow and half cheaply built construction using materials such as chicken wire fencing.
Terracotta Army figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China, near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (Chinese: 秦始皇陵; pinyin: Qín Shǐhuáng Ling). In 1978, electrical workers in
Mexico City found the remains of the
Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in the middle of the city.
Fashion Clothing styles during the 1970s were influenced by outfits seen in popular music groups and in Hollywood films. In clothing, prints, especially from India and other parts of the world, were fashionable. Much of the 1970s fashion styles were influenced by the
hippie movement. As well as the hippie look, the 70s also gave way to
glam rock styles, started off by
David Bowie who was named the King of Glam Rock. Glam was a
genderbent and outlandish style. Significant fashion trends of the 1970s include: •
Bell-bottomed pants remained popular throughout the decade. These combined with
turtle necked shirts and flower-prints to form the characteristic 1970s look. In the later part of the decade, this gave way to three-piece suits, in large part because of the movie
Saturday Night Fever. •
Sideburns were popular for men, particularly mutton chops; as were
beards and
mustaches which had been out of fashion since the 19th and early 20th century. • Women's hairstyles went from long and straight in the first half of the decade to the feathery cut of
Farrah Fawcett, a trend that continued through the first half of the 1980s. •
Miniskirts and
minidresses were still popular in the first half of the decade, particularly with pleated "rah-rah" skirts with higher hemlines; but they were quickly phased out by the mid-70s in favor of
hot pants. However, miniskirts and minidresses never totally went away, and they made a return to mainstream fashion in the mid-1980s and has remained a fashion staple in the decades since. •
Crop tops and
hot pants became popular summer outfits among young women and teenage girls in the second half of the decade. •
Platform shoes •
Leisure suits •
Mohawk hairstyle was associated with
punk subculture •
Flokati rugs •
Lava lamps •
Papasan chairs File:Redhead Beach Bell Bottoms.jpg|
Bell-bottomed pants were especially popular throughout the decade File:Farrah_Fawcett_1977.JPG|The
Farrah Fawcett hairstyle was considered particularly fashionable during the decade File:Young-Dolly-Parton.jpg|Denim jackets and headbands were also a trend, modeled here by
Dolly Parton in 1977 File:Blue disco quad roller skates.jpg|Roller-skating was at its peak in the 1970s, and was closely associated with disco music and
roller discos File:A girl in Kensington.JPG|
Miniskirts were still popular in the first half of the decade File:Billy Preston.jpg|
Billy Preston sporting an
afro in 1974 == People ==