1970 - 1979

A year-by-year chronolgy of the 1970s.

After ten years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed on July 21, 1970. The Aswan High Dam, located on the Nile River just north of the border between Egypt and Sudan, was built to control the frequent cycles of flooding and drought within Egypt.

On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen fired upon an already dispersed crowd of student protesters, killing four and wounding nine others.

On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple cult, instructed his followers to commit revolutionary suicide. After an attack on a U.S. Congressman, the group drank poisoned punch. Learn more about Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and what drove these people to mass suicide.

The first episode of the extremely popular TV series MASH aired on CBS on September 17, 1972.

The Munich Massacre was a terrorist attack during the 1972 Olympic Games. Eight Palestinian terrorists killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team and then took nine others hostage. The situation was ended by a huge gunfight that left five of the terrorists and all of the nine hostages dead.

At 3:42 a.m. on July 28, 1976, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit the sleeping city of Tangshan, in northeastern China. The very large earthquake, striking an area where it was totally unexpected, obliterated the city of Tangshan and killed over 240,000 people - making it the deadliest earthquake of the twentieth century.

On March 29, 1974, three farmers stumbled upon one of the greatest archaeological finds of the twentieth century - the discovery of Qin Shihuangdi's ancient terracotta army.

On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world's first successful test-tube baby was born. Though the technology that made her conception possible was heralded as a triumph, it also caused many to consider the possibilities of future ill-use.