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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1958 | - 1958: UNIMATE is first industrial robot
- 1958: Boris Pasternak Refuses Nobel Prize
- 1958: Chinese Leader Mao Zedong Launches the 'Great Leap Forward'
- 1958: Hope Diamond is Donated to the Smithsonian
- 1958: Hula Hoops Become Popular
- 1958: Lego Toy Bricks First Introduced
- 1958: NASA Founded
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| 2 | 1959 | - 1959: Beyond the Fringe' debuts in Edinburgh
- 1959: Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba
- 1959: International Treaty Makes Antarctica Scientific Preserve
- 1959: Kitchen Debate Between Nixon and Khrushchev
- 1959: The Sound of Music Opens on Broadway
- 1959: U.S. Quiz Shows Found to be Fixed
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| 3 | 1960 | - 1960: Launch of 'Coronation Street'
- 1960: Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho Released
- 1960: Brazil's Capital Moves to Brand New City
- 1960: Lasers Invented
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| 4 | 1961 | - 1961: Adolf Eichmann on Trial for Role in Holocaust
- 1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion
- 1961: Berlin Wall Built
- 1961: Peace Corps Founded
- 1961: Soviets Launch First Man in Space
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| 5 | 1962 | - 1962: Movie Actress Marilyn Monroe dies of an overdose of sleeping pills.
- 1962: Andy Warhol Exhibits His Campbell's Soup Can
- 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
- 1962: First Person Killed Trying to Cross the Berlin Wall
- 1962: Marilyn Monroe Found Dead
- 1962: Rachel Carson Publishes 'Silent Spring'
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| 6 | 1963 | - 1963: U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
- 1963: Betty Friedan Publishes 'The Feminine Mystique'
- 1963: JFK Assassinated
- 1963: Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His 'I Have a Dream' Speech
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| 7 | 1964 | - 1964: Beatles Become Popular in U.S.
- 1964: Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) Becomes World Heavyweight Champion
- 1964: Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S.
- 1964: Hasbro Launches GI Joe Action Figure
- 1964: Nelson Mandela Sentenced to Life in Prison
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| 8 | 1965 | - 1965: The United States begins air raids in Vietnam, committing 190,000 U.S. troops there by year's end.
- 1965: Cigarette ads banned on UK television
- 1965: Japan's Bullet Train Opens
- 1965: Los Angeles Riots
- 1965: U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam
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| 9 | 1966 | - 1966: Private theatre clubs lose immunity from censorship
- 1966: World Cup won by England at Wembley (4-2 in extra time v West Germany)
- 1966: Aberfan disaster - slag heap slip kills 144, incl. 116 children
- 1966: Black Panther Party Established
- 1966: Mao Zedong Launches the Cultural Revolution
- 1966: Mass Draft Protests in U.S.
- 1966: Star Trek T.V. Series Airs
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| 10 | 1967 | - 1967: Three US astronauts killed in fire during launch pad test
- 1967: First colour TV in Britain
- 1967: First human heart transplant in South Africa by Christiaan Barnard
- 1967: Che Guevara Killed
- 1967: First Heart Transplant
- 1967: Six-Day War in the Middle East
- 1967: Stalin's Daughter Defects
- 1967: Three U.S. Astronauts Killed During Simulated Launch
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| 11 | 1968 | - 1968: Student riots in Paris
- 1968: Severe flooding in England
- 1968: Pope encyclical condemns all artificial forms of birth control
- 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
- 1968: Prague Spring
- 1968: Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
- 1968: Tet Offensive
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| 12 | 1969 | - 1969: John Lennon returns OBE due to government's support of Vietnam War
- 1969: America lands man on the Moon
- 1969: Voting age lowered from 21 to 18 in UK
- 1969: ARPANET, the Precursor of the Internet, Created
- 1969: Charles Manson and 'Family' Arrested
- 1969: Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
- 1969: Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock
- 1969: Yasser Arafat Becomes Leader of the PLO
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| 13 | 1970 | - 1970: Damages awarded to Thalidomide victims
- 1970: American Soldiers Accused of Murdering Entire Town of Vietnamese Civilians
- 1970: Aswan High Dam Completed
- 1970: Beatles Break Up
- 1970: Computer Floppy Disks Introduced
- 1970: Palestinian Group Hijacks Five Planes
- 1970: Protesting Students at Kent State Shot
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| 14 | 1971 | - 1971: Intel builds the microprocessor, "a computer on a chip"
- 1971: Decimalisation of coinage in Britain
- 1971: Bomb explodes in London's Post Office tower
- 1971: London Bridge sold to the U.S.
- 1971: United Kingdom Changes to Decimal System for Currency
- 1971: VCRs Introduced
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| 15 | 1972 | - 1972: First handheld calculator, from Texas Instruments
- 1972: Power workers strike crisis
- 1972: Miners call off crippling coal strike
- 1972: M*A*S*H T.V. Shows Premiers
- 1972: Mark Spitz Wins Seven Gold Medals
- 1972: Pocket Calculators Introduced
- 1972: Terrorists Attack at the Olympic Games in Munich
- 1972: Watergate Scandal Begins
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| 16 | 1973 | - 1973: The Internet was originally set up by the U.S. Department of Defense
- 1973: Britain enters EEC Common Market with Ireland and Denmark
- 1973: Miners strike and oil crisis precipitate 'three-day week' until Mar 1974 to conserve power
- 1973: Paul Getty Kidnapped
- 1973: Sears Tower Built
- 1973: U.S. Pulls Out of Vietnam
- 1973: U.S. Vice President Resigns
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| 17 | 1974 | - 1974: OPEC oil shock
- 1974: President Nixon resigns over Watergate scandal
- 1974: Halie Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, Deposed
- 1974: Mikhail Baryshnikov Defects
- 1974: Terracotta Army Discovered in China
- 1974: U.S. President Nixon Resigns
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| 18 | 1975 | - 1975: End of Vietnam war
- 1975: Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act come into force in UK
- 1975: Arthur Ashe First Black Man to Win Wimbledon
- 1975: Civil War in Lebanon
- 1975: Microsoft Founded
- 1975: Pol Pot Becomes the Communist Dictator of Cambodia
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| 19 | 1976 | - 1976: First Apple computer
- 1976: Viking Lander lands on Mars
- 1976: NASA's Viking Lander lands on Mars, starts looking for alien life
- 1976: Long hot summer in UK. Parliament introduces Drought Act
- 1976: Nadia Comaneci Given Seven Perfect Tens
- 1976: North and South Vietnam Join to Form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
- 1976: Tangshan Earthquake Kills Over 240,000
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| 20 | 1977 | - 1977: The Centre National d'Art et de la Culture Georges-Pompidou (Pompidou Centre or "Beaubourg"), a Hi-Tech metal-framework building designed by Richard Rogers, is completed in Paris and proves immensely popular.
- 1977: UK road speed limits set at 70mph for dual roads; 60mph single
- 1977: Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Silver Jubilee
- 1977: 'Star Wars' fever invades Britain as thousands flock to cinemas to watch the long-awaited sci-fi blockbuster
- 1977: Elvis Found Dead
- 1977: Miniseries Roots Airs
- 1977: South African Anti-Apartheid Leader Steve Biko Tortured to Death
- 1977: Star Wars Movie Released
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| 21 | 1978 | - 1978: World's first 'test tube' baby, Louise Browne born in Oldham
- 1978: Writer and broadcaster Georgi Markov dies after an assassin stabs him with a poisoned umbrella at a London bus stop.
- 1978: Pope John Paul II elected by cardinals: first non-Italian for 450 years
- 1978: First Test-Tube Baby Born
- 1978: John Paul II Becomes Pope
- 1978: Jonestown Massacre
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| 22 | 1979 | - 1979: Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister to 1990 (Conservative)
- 1979: Public sector strike paralyses UK
- 1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes first woman UK Prime Minister
- 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini Returns as Leader of Iran
- 1979: Iran Takes American Hostages in Tehran
- 1979: Margaret Thatcher First Woman Prime Minister of Great Britain
- 1979: Mother Theresa Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1979: Nuclear Accident at Three Mile Island
- 1979: Sony Introduces the Walkman
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| 23 | 1980 | - 1980: Arthur Fry, a chemist for 3M, invented the Post-It note
- 1980: Failed U.S. Rescue Attempt to Save Hostages in Tehran
- 1980: John Lennon Assassinated
- 1980: Mount St. Helens Erupts
- 1980: Rubik's Cube Popular
- 1980: Ted Turner Establishes CNN
- 1980: Failed U.S. Rescue Attempt to Save Hostages in Tehran
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| 24 | 1981 | - 1981: First US Space Shuttle (Columbia) launched
- 1981: Worst April blizzards of 20th century in Britain
- 1981: Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer
- 1981: Assassination Attempt on the Pope
- 1981: Assassination Attempt on U.S. President Reagan
- 1981: Millions Watch Royal Wedding on T.V.
- 1981: New Plague Identified as AIDS
- 1981: Pac-Man is Extremely Popular
- 1981: Personal Computers (PC) Introduced by IBM
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| 25 | 1982 | - 1982: Argentina invades Falkland Islands
- 1982: Unemployment reaches 3 million in Britain
- 1982: Women's peace protests against cruise missiles begin at Greenham Common
- 1982: E.T. Movie Released
- 1982: Falkland Islands Invaded by Argentina
- 1982: King Henry VIII's Ship the Mary Rose Raised After 437 Years
- 1982: Reverend Sun Myung Moon Marries 2,075 Couples at Madison Square Garden
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| 26 | 1983 | - 1983: Margaret Thatcher wins landslide second term election victory, taking 397 seats to Labour's 209
- 1983: ?1 coin goes into circulation in Britain
- 1983: Reagan Announces Defense Plan Called Star Wars
- 1983: Soviets Shoot Down a Korean Airliner
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| 27 | 1984 | - 1984: Miners' strike in UK - High Court orders sequestration of NUM assets
- 1984: Huge Poison Gas Leak in Bhopal, India
- 1984: Indira Gandhi, India's Prime Minister, Killed by Two Bodyguards
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| 28 | 1985 | - 1985: BBC launches 'EastEnders' as soap rival to 'Coronation Street'
- 1985: Famine in Ethiopia
- 1985: Hole in the Ozone Layer Discovered
- 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev Calls for Glasnost and Perestroika
- 1985: Wreck of the Titanic Found
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| 29 | 1986 | - 1986: US bombing of Libya
- 1986: Chernobyl nuclear accident in USSR
- 1986: LiveAid, the biggest music event staged to date
- 1986: Seven dead in 'Challenger' space shuttle disaster
- 1986: Challenger Space Shuttle Explodes
- 1986: Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
- 1986: Ferdinand Marcos Flees the Philippines
- 1986: Iran-Contra Scandal Unfolds
- 1986: U.S. Bombs Libya
- 1986: U.S.S.R. Launches Mir Space Station
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1958 - 1986 (28 years)