Hippy Days

During the 1970’s many technological advances were made. In the year 1970, the floppy disc was creating making computer files more easily saved, stored and transported. SRI International invented the first robot that was controlled completely by artificial intelligence and they named it Shakey. Both Apple Inc. and Microsoft were founded in the 1970’s. Personal computers were being made. The neutron bomb was developed (a bomb which destroys all living objects but leaves building and the Earth untouched). The first test tube baby was born and was named Louise Brown.

Space exploration went to new levels in the 1970’s. Along with the launch of a new Star Trek animated series many other extraterrestrial activities were at foot. Apollo 17 returned from the moon bringing back with it hundreds of moon samples. Apollo 17 is famous for being the last manned space craft to the moon. On top of that, NASA continued to explore the moon as well as Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Venus using unmanned space probes. Then, to top it all of Apollo 18 and the USSR’s Soyuz 19 space stations linked together in an international space exploration project. This was especially significant due to the fact that both America and the USSR had been in a cold war for many years.

The education system underwent change as well in the 1970’s. The Elementary and Secondary Education School Busing Act was put into place in 1970. This act, intended to end segregation of race in schools, did not turn out for the better. The Busing Act made it mandatory for equal percentages of white and black students to attend the same schools in order to make a change from having “white schools” and “black schools” in order to have a more politically correct education system. The Busing Act ended making little to no change in reforming racism and only seemed to aggravate the students who were being bussed to different parts of their community. On the other hand, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 gave all children with both mental and physical handicaps the opportunity to an equal education and thus improved the American education system as a whole.

Because of its rising popularity and the media surrounding professional sports many changes occurred in the world of outdoor competition. Originally it was the sports teams that owned the players but due to the argument of “free agency” many athletes were marketing their abilities to whichever team would pay them the most. In 1979, Pete Rose earned one million dollars playing professional baseball. Compare this to the salaries of athletes in the late 1960’s, which peaked at around 100,000 dollars per year and one can come to the conclusion of how the business world was affecting sports at that time. Not only this, but at that time many professional athletes had began endorsing products in television commercials such as Joe Namath, who was the quarterback for the New York Jets but at the same time was promoting pantyhose in T.V. commercials for Beautymist hosiery.