Officially named the Woodstock Music and Art Fair it drew between 300,000 and 400,000 people to the rain-soaked grounds of a farm in Upstate New York for three days of music The unexpectedly large crowd caused major traffic problems and raised concerns about how to provide sanitation food and medical care Yet despite these problems Woodstock was remarkably peaceful and there were memorable performances by such stars as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin 6 The 1970s Nixon and his vice president Spiro Agnew claimed that the angry protesters were a minority and that the silent majority of Americans wanted to work hard and live peaceful lives On July 20 1969 just eight months after Nixon’s election the American people watched their television sets in awe as astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon This giant leap for mankind as Armstrong called it meant to many that the United States had won the space race with its Cold War enemy the Soviet Union Just a few weeks later an entirely different kind of event held the attention of hundreds of thousands of Americans It was an event for young people those born in the baby boom era after World War II who were now in their teens and twenties Words to Know Cold War KOHLD WOR The relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States for several decades after World War II when a war of words substituted for what would have been a much more deadly war of weapons administration ad-min-uh-STREY-shuhn The president and the people who work with the president in the executive branch of the government resign ri-ZINE To give up a job a position or an office voluntarily coup KOO A sudden overthrow of the government usually by the military The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in August 1969 became a landmark cultural event of the late 60s
The 1970s 7 The year 1976 was America’s Bicentennial the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence Though the country had many problems it remained a largely successful experiment in a world filled with turmoil It seemed that no part of the globe was safe from unrest in this era The 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich West Germany faced a violent disruption when Arab terrorists held Israeli athletes hostage killing eleven before five of the eight terrorists were killed In 1973 the government of Chile was overthrown by a military coup also called a takeover allegedly with the involvement of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency CIA and on the other side of the Western Hemisphere the Yom Kippur War battered Israel Olympic team members stand on the field as the Olympic flag flies at half-staff during a memorial service in the Munich Olympic Stadium in Germany on Sept 6 1972 Eleven Israeli team members were killed by Arab guerrillas at the Summer Olympic Games President Johnson visits Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam prior to Nixon's term in office President Nixon had vowed to end the Vietnam War Soon before the 1972 presidential election his administration announced that peace was at hand He was reelected and in January 1973 a treaty was signed that called for the return of U S prisoners of war POWs held by the North Vietnamese as well as the withdrawal of U.S. troops In April 1975 the North Vietnamese captured Saigon the South Vietnamese capital and the war was over By this time however a sensational scandal known as Watergate forced President Nixon to resign Gerald Ford whom Nixon had appointed as vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned over charges of bribe-taking and tax evasion was now president Ford would lose the 1976 election to Democrat Jimmy Carter
8 The 1970s Energy Crunch In the 1970s Americans had to face the fact that their habit of guzzling gas and oil without thought to conservation would have to come to an end An energy crunch led one government official to say Popeye is running out of spinach At the beginning of the decade the United States consumed 30 percent of the world’s available energy One third of that was imported from foreign mostly Arab countries These countries had joined together in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC In October 1973 OPEC imposed an embargo It stopped all shipments of oil to the United States in retaliation for U S arms shipments to Israel during the October Yom Kippur War Overnight long lines formed at gas stations When motorists finally reached the pumps they found that prices had risen dramatically jumping from thirty-five cents to one dollar a gallon in some places In efforts to conserve many gas stations closed on Sundays and the speed limit on the nation’s highways was reduced from 70 miles 112 65 km to 55 miles 80 47 km per hour a measure that proved to save lives as well as gas Carpooling use of mass transportation bicycle riding and walking were encouraged In March 1974 OPEC lifted the embargo and foreign oil began to enter the United States again though prices remained relatively high Gasoline supplies were replenished Furthermore Americans knew that a huge pipeline was being built across the frozen wilderness of Alaska It would soon deliver billions of gallons of oil from the Arctic to the lower 48 states The oil embargo had long-term effects that would plague the nation throughout the 1970s The U.S. automobile industry suffered as Americans switched to smaller more fuel-efficient foreign cars One company Chrysler Corporation was hit so hard that it took 1 5 billion dollars in loan guarantees from the U.S. government to keep the company from collapsing and taking untold numbers of workers down with it The downturn in the U.S. automobile industry triggered economic problems in related industries
The 1970s 9 such as steel glass and rubber The cities where these industries were located were hard-hit as well as many employees were laid off High prices and unemployment were widespread and would cause problems for Presidents Nixon Ford and Carter In December 1978 and June 1979 OPEC again handed the United States huge increases in oil prices This brought a return of the gas-crisis scenes of 1973 This time however Americans and their industries were somewhat better equipped to weather the storm In the mid-1970s a civil war destroyed much of Beirut the once-beautiful capital of Lebanon A civil war in Nicaragua led to the overthrow of a military dictator there And in late 1979 the Soviet Union invaded the nation of Afghanistan leading the United States to boycott or refuse to attend the 1980 Summer Olympic Games held in the Soviet Union Mediterranean Sea Juniyah Beirut LEBANON Zahlah Saida SYRIA Tyre Beirut is not only the capital city of Lebanon but is also the country's largest and most important seaport But as the 1970s closed one country in particular plagued the United States That country was Iran The Ayatollah Khomeni returned from exile on February 1 1979 to become the leader of his country There an Islamic revolution led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had overthrown the shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi a longtime leader who had been friendly with the United States On November 4 1979 the U.S. Embassy in Iran’s capital city Tehran was attacked and 66 American workers in the embassy were taken hostage It was not until January 20 1981 just moments after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president that the hostages were freed The 1970s were difficult years indeed Words to Know embargo em-BAR-goh The suspension of trade or shipment of a particular product
