Suffice it to say, 1970 was a pivotal year in American life. The free love era of the late 1960s was over, and nothing signaled that change quite like 1970. Protests over the United States involvement in Vietnam reached a fever pitch with the Kent State shootings and popular music was transformed with the break-up of The Beatles and the untimely deaths of rock ‘n’ roll legends like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
A lunar space mission failed, and an earthquake wrought Biblical damage on the Peruvian coastline. Unrest grew, and in short order, the 1960s seemed like a long-lost dream. At the same time, the new decade brought forth several technological innovations that see widespread use well into the modern day like bar codes. However you look at it, the year marked a palpable shift between eras. Let’s explore the biggest American headlines from 1970. (For a mathematical look at America, discover 5 numbers that changed American history.)
To compile a list of the biggest American headlines from 1970, 24/7 Tempo consulted a range of news, archives, and history publications including Infoplease.com, Historic-newspapers.com, and CNN.com. Next, we picked the most notable stories from that year from entertainment, foreign policy, and technological innovations. After that, we confirmed aspects of our research using sites like Britannica.com and NASA.gov.
The Kent State Massacre
The late 1960s saw the United States declare war on Vietnam. Many people were unhappy with the decision and antiwar protests began spreading across the country. During the late spring of 1970, the United States expanded its wartime operations by invading Vietnam’s neighbor Cambodia. In response, more protests sprung up around America, particularly on college campuses. A protest at one such college, Kent State University in Ohio, transformed into a nightmare that haunted the public consciousness.
Students gathered on Kent State grounds at the start of May 1970 for a rally opposing the U.S. incursion into Cambodia. The protesters acted fierce from the outset, with people burning copies of the United States Constitution and storefronts being vandalized well into the night. Rumors of unrest and credible threats against local businesses catalyzed Kent Mayor LeRoy Satrom to declare a state of emergency and call in backup from the Ohio National Guard.
Some 1,200 protesters gathered at noon on May 4 around the Victory Bell at the University Commons. Though the demonstration was more peaceful than in previous days, the Ohio National Guard moved in and attempted to disperse the protesters. When this failed, the National Guard advanced. In an instant, however, everything changed. A group of Guardsmen opened fire on the protesters in a volley of gunshots with little provocation. Chaos erupted, and in the aftermath, four students lay dead with nine more severely wounded.
The shooting sparked widespread condemnation and outrage, particularly on college campuses. A student strike was already underway when the shootings occurred, but Kent State ratcheted up the stakes. Ultimately, it helped foment a walkout of 4 million students from hundreds of high schools and colleges across the country. The massacre had a profound effect on public opinion regarding the already contentious presence of the United States in Southeast Asia. Eight National Guardsmen stood trial on charges of depriving students of their civil rights but they were ultimately acquitted in a bench trial.
The Beatles Break Up
It’s hard for modern audiences to fathom how big The Beatles were during the 1960s. Already a growing band in the United Kingdom, The Beatles soared to new heights after coming stateside to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. Their performance was viewed by over 75 million Americans and helped kick off what is known as Beatlemania. For the next few years, The Beatles embarked on a meteoric rise through the music industry and the American consciousness. Everywhere they went, the band set attendance records. Their fame became so great that band members often had to travel by armored car to keep safe from unhinged fans, typically teenage girls.
By 1965, however, the Beatles grew jaded with touring and gave up live performances completely by 1966. They continued to release critically acclaimed albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” but a mutiny was quietly forming within the group. Their star power had become too great and the artistic differences of each member became increasingly apparent. Other factors likely contributed to The Beatles’ breakup including the death of their manager Brian Epstein, resentment over bassist Paul McCartney’s domineering behavior, and John Lennon’s relationship with Yoko Ono.
McCartney was the first to go after he announced a plan of separation from the band. This kicked off widespread speculation until The Beatles announced a tentative breakup. Legal disputes followed, which lasted until 1974 when the band was declared to be officially broken up. Rumors persisted about a supposed reunion, but nothing ever materialized. By 1971, however, each band member had released a solo album, which effectively cemented the end of The Beatles.
Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin Die
The 1960s were a time of societal upheaval, flourishing youth movements, and revolutions in popular music. The Beatles may have dominated the mid-1960s, but by the decade’s end, other acts had come to prominence that further changed the popular music landscape. Take Jimi Hendrix, for example, a former soldier and guitarist from Seattle. After he left the military, Hendrix began touring in popular bands. Upon moving to England in 1966, he scored a series of top-10 hits like “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze,” and “The Wind Cries Mary.” Within three years, Hendrix was one of the most popular musicians in the world, dazzling audiences with his innovative guitar playing. He quickly became the highest-paid rock musician and headlined legendary concerts like the Woodstock and Isle of Wight festivals.
For her part, Janis Joplin was quite the musical innovator. A late bloomer from Port Arthur, Texas, Joplin rose to prominence after giving an impressive performance with her backing band Big Brother and the Holding Company at the 1967 Monterey Pop Music Festival. Joplin went solo after that, appearing at the Woodstock Festival and scoring five singles on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. In the process, she gained a reputation for her powerful, yet haunting mezzo-soprano vocals and magnetic stage presence.
The late ’60s brought perspective shifts but it also brought increasing drug use, particularly among hippie movement-adjacent musicians. On Sept. 18, 1970, Hendrix died while in London. After his girlfriend found him unconscious, paramedics rushed Hendrix to the hospital. Tragically, he asphyxiated on his vomit while intoxicated with barbiturates. Less than a month later, Joplin was found dead in her motel room in Los Angeles from a drug overdose. Because Hendrix and Joplin were 27 at the time of their deaths, the circumstances contributed to the idea of the 27 Club. This informal list tracks the statistically anomalous deaths of popular musicians like Kurt Cobain at the age of 27.
IBM Introduces the Floppy Disk
The floppy disk is an interesting point in the history of technology, serving as an incredibly valuable and innovative storage device for decades. Increasing advancements in storage technology, however, saw the use of the floppy disk go from ubiquitous to almost unheard-of in the modern world. Nevertheless, the introduction of the commercially available floppy disk in 1970 helped transform computing forever.
In the late 1960s, computer powerhouse firm IBM sought a way to create a simple, accessible, and adaptable read-only storage device for computers. They delegated the duty to a group of engineers at IBM’s San Jose, California, location. At first, work on the prototype device was slow going. By the end of the ’60s, however, the engineers cracked the code. This resulted in several patents for a read-only, 8-inch diameter flexible “memory disk” that could hold up to 80 kilobytes of data. Within a few years of IBM’s 1970 announcement, it had reformatted the memory disk to fit on a more usable 5 1/4-inch disk. This proved a success, as floppy disk drives became a staple of personal computers and word processing devices.
For the next 40 years, floppy disks acted as an everpresent medium in the world of computing. In time, computers became simultaneously more advanced and affordable. The floppy disk served a perfect role in the advent of memory storage and saw mass inclusion in computers. An estimated 5 billion standard floppy disks were in use across the world by 1996. Though more powerful storage devices replaced the floppy disk, its legacy remains in the form of computer icons, most notably the save icon on Apple operation systems. (For other obsolete gadgets, explore outdated technologies we once couldn’t live without.)
Bar Codes Introduced for Retail and Commercial Use
The use of floppy disks may have been widespread, but it has nothing on the ubiquity of bar codes well into the modern day. Bar codes can be found everywhere you look and on every product you buy. They serve as simple but innovative price-matching tools and have gained all sorts of symbolism and cultural cache since they first appeared in 1970. Before that, however, they were a simple idea based on Morse Code. Bar codes first came about after two engineers overheard a grocery store president talking about product prices.
In response, Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland came up with a way to automatically read product price data. They based their initial design on Morse Code, using a system of lines and circles. Eventually, they replaced this with a bullseye configuration and filed a patent for their system on Oct. 20, 1949. Little did they know that their invention would come to revolutionize the commercial world.
At first, bar codes saw use for very specific situations like reading fast-moving stock at British Railways. It took until 1966 for the bar code to be conceived of as a mass market tool. After the National Association of Food Chains (NAFC) held a meeting on potential automated checkout systems, they put out a contract request to companies like Singer, RCA, Litton Industries, and IBM. Early tests by RCA proved untenable. IBM, however, revitalized the system and its product became the NAFC standard.
It took until the mid-1970s for bar codes to see widespread use. Within a few short years, however, bar codes became an ever-present fixture on commercial products. Even today, bar codes are found on practically every commercial product available for purchase. QR codes, the modern bar code, have attempted to replace the original but with little luck so far. Ironically, the original inventors of the bar code sold their patent for a single payment of $15,000.
‘Midnight Cowboy’ Wins Best Picture
When “Midnight Cowboy” hit movie theaters in the summer of 1969, it proved both a shock and a revelation. Directed by John Schlesinger and starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, the film explored an unlikely friendship between a sickly con man and a naive gigolo. Based on a novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy, the film illustrated the rough and tumble streets of New York City as populated by all manner of lowlifes, hustlers, and criminals. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) initially gave it an R rating. Upon reappraisal, however, the MPAA gave it the rare X rating due to its homosexual frame of reference and graphic depictions of adult situations.
That foreboding rating mattered little when it came to public reception, however. Within 10 weeks of release, “Midnight Cowboy” became the No. 1 film in the United States. By the end of 1969, the film had earned an impressive $11 million worldwide. When it came time for the Academy Awards in early 1970, “Midnight Cowboy” earned a spread of nominations but no one expected such a graphic and raw movie to take home any meaningful awards.
The Academy had something different in mind when it awarded the film Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. “Midnight Cowboy” remains the first and only X-rated film to win Best Picture. The film’s reputation has only grown since. In 1994, the Library of Congress deemed “Midnight Cowboy” to be culturally or historically significant and selected it for the United States National Film Registry.
Monday Night Football Debuts on ABC
The National Football League is currently the most-watched sport in the United States. Back in 1970, however, football was still a burgeoning enterprise. It had a wide selection of teams but not much in terms of viewership. Enter Monday Night Football, which marked a turning point for the league’s numbers thanks to its commitment to the best of football every week.
NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle envisioned something like Monday Night Football back in the early ’60s when he proposed a weekly game broadcast during prime-time television hours. The experiment started small, with one game scheduled in prime time per week during the 1966 and 1967 seasons. When it came time for a new television contract to begin in 1970, Rozelle petitioned the top networks but only ABC showed interest. As such, Monday Night Football on ABC debuted on Sept. 21, 1970, during a game between the New York Jets and the Cleveland Browns. Football legends Howard Cosell, Don Meredith, and Frank Gifford were on hand to give a play-by-play.
Since then, Monday Night Football has grown into one of the most popular television shows of all time. During its initial run on ABC between 1970 and 2005, Monday Night Football became one of the highest-rated and longest-running shows in United States television history. After 2005, it moved to the ESPN network where it saw a noticeable drop in ratings. Nevertheless, ESPN extended its contract until 2033 in a deal valued at $15 billion.
Earthquake Kills 50,000 in Peru
On May 31, 1970, at around 3:30 in the afternoon, a massive earthquake hit Peru, causing widespread destruction. The earthquake first hit undersea with the epicenter located off the coast of the cities of Casma and Chimbote. With a massive magnitude of 7.9, the earthquake affected an area larger than the Netherlands and Belgium combined. Thanks to mountains covered in mud and snow, the earthquake kicked off a series of avalanches and landslides. By the time it reached the village of Yungay, it was estimated to contain at least 80 million cubic meters of snow, ice, and mud.
The earthquake, known as the Ancash Earthquake, sowed widespread destruction and destroyed major aspects of regional infrastructure including telecommunications systems, commerce markets, and transportation networks. In heavily affected cities like Chimbote, up to 90% of the buildings were destroyed. All told the earthquake killed between 66,000-70,000 people and resulted in billions of dollars worth of damage. Furthermore, large parts of the Pan-American highway were damaged and railways running through the Santa Valley were rendered unusable.
In response, various countries immediately offered assistance and money for recovery efforts. First Lady Pat Nixon traveled to Peru where she led American efforts at cleanup. To this day, it remains the largest earthquake in Peruvian history and likely one of the world’s biggest and deadliest avalanches.
Apollo 13
Taking off on April 11, 1970, the Apollo 13 mission was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo Space Program and the third intended to land on the moon. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Apollo 13 went well for two days until its lunar landing had to be aborted because an oxygen tank in the service module ruptured, disabling the shuttle’s electrical life support system. What started as an exciting journey to the moon quickly became a mission of life-and-death stakes.
After the service module ruptured, the Apollo 13 crew lacked the oxygen to breathe and generate the ship’s electrical power. In a mad dash to rescue the ship, Mission Control shut off the service and command module systems, forcing the crew to rely on the lunar module system to make it home. With James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise on board, Mission Control improvised methods to keep the astronauts alive for several days.
They got the astronauts back to Earth by implementing a circumlunar trajectory. This involved shooting the ship towards the moon, around the backside, and back to Earth to catch its gravitational pull. Nevertheless, the Apollo 13 crew experienced great hardship during their days in space. The cabin was cold, wet, and lacking viable, potable water. Remarkably, a combined effort between the astronauts and Mission Control got the Apollo 13 ship back to Earth in one piece.
On April 17, 1970, Apollo 13 splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean with all the astronauts on board alive and accounted for. The perilous series of events ignited a newfound interest in the United States Space Program with tens of millions watching the ship’s ocean landing live. In later years, the story of Apollo 13 was adapted for several dramatizations, including the 1995 film “Apollo 13.” (For nostalgia of the period, discover childhood traditions from the ’70s that should come back.)