The 1970s were filled with unusual inventions, political turmoil, cultural turning points, and true stories that still sound hard to believe. These 50 facts reveal a decade that was often stranger, darker, and more surprising than people remember.
1978 TWA Hijacking Link
1. TWA Flight 541 was seized in 1978 by the daughter of a woman who died while hijacking a helicopter to free a federal prisoner, who had been imprisoned for hijacking a TWA flight in 1972.
2. In 1977, 23-year-old Mexican-American Vietnam veteran Jose Campos Torres was taken into custody for disorderly conduct at a bar in Houston’s Mexican-American East End neighborhood and was brutally beaten by six police officers. Because of his injuries, the city jail would not process him and told the officers to bring him to the hospital. Instead, they took him to the Buffalo Bayou River, pushed Torres in, and he drowned.
3. In 1971, Saddam Hussein brought in 95,000 tons of grain treated with fungicidal mercury. The grain was meant to be planted, but the Iraqis could not understand the English and Spanish warnings or the “skull and crossbones” image. They baked it into bread and ate it. Hundreds of people died.
4. In 1975, the Hells Angels tried to kill Mick Jagger. They attempted to motor a boat up to the Long Island mansion where he was staying, but the boat sank, and the Hells Angels members aboard had to swim for their lives.
5. In 1973, a helicopter touched down in the exercise yard of Dublin’s Mountjoy prison. The guards thought it was a surprise inspection until 3 Irish Republic Army prisoners climbed into it and escaped. When a guard saw prisoners escaping right in front of him, he shouted, ‘Close the f*cking gates!’
6. In a 1971 interview with Playboy, John Wayne said: “I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t feel guilty about the fact that five or ten generations ago these people were slaves.”
7. The company behind ITT Tech was once among the largest conglomerates on Earth. It grossed $8 billion in 1970, played major roles in the Brazilian and Chilean coups, and was recently fined $100 million for violations of the Arms Export Control Act.
8. During the 1976 Olympic relay, the flame was sent as a radio signal from Greece to Canada, which triggered a laser beam to relight the fire.
9. In 1972, the CBC’s Peter Gzowski asked listeners to finish the phrase “As Canadian as…”. Heather Scott met the challenge with “… possible under the circumstances.”
10. The first barcode ever scanned was on a pack of Juicy Fruit in Troy, Ohio on June 26, 1974. The pack of gum and its receipt are now displayed at the Smithsonian Institute.
Mississippi Reverses Broadcast
11. In 1970, the agency that operated Mississippi’s new public television network first voted not to air Sesame Street because the show was racially integrated. After this became public, pressure from the public made them change their decision.
12. In 1970, Debbie Reynolds was the highest paid woman on television and had 42% of the viewing audience, but she left her show because NBC was airing cigarette commercials during its broadcast time.
13. During the 1979 British Columbia election, MLA Frank Calder lost by one vote. He later said that he and his wife had failed to vote.
14. The Red Bull was first made in Thailand in 1976 as an energy drink for truck drivers.
15. On January the 1st, 1976, the Hollywood sign was changed to read “Hollyweed” after some pot-head pranksters added $50 of fabric to it.
16. In 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was beaten to death, and the main suspects in the murder were Kennedy cousins Thomas and Michael Skakel. Even though Michael Skakel was overheard in 1978 saying, “I’m going to get away with murder. I’m a Kennedy”, he was not convicted until 2002.
17. “Gay Bob” was one of the first homosexual dolls ever made. The anatomically-correct doll was released in 1978 amid heavy controversy. It was kept in a box designed to resemble a closet. Esquire gave the toy the “Dubious Achievement Award”, and the toy sold remarkably well throughout the year.
18. When “This Old House” debuted in 1979 as a one-time, 13-part series, it was one of the earliest home improvement shows. Building contractors at first found it controversial, and the cast worried that they were revealing secrets of the building trades.
19. In 1975, a man named Alex Mitchell died of laughter while watching the “Kung Fu Kapers” episode of ‘The Goodies’. The skit showed a kilt-clad Scotsman with bagpipes fighting a man carrying a black pudding. His widow later wrote to ‘The Goodies’ to thank them for making the final moments of her husband’s life so pleasant.
20. Chuck Hughes was the only NFL player to have died on the field, and that happened in 1971. The game went on with a silent crowd in Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
Princeton Bomb Term Paper
21. In 1977, John Aristotle Phillips, an underachieving junior at Princeton University, successfully designed a nuclear bomb for a term paper. He received an A on the paper, but the FBI seized it and classified it.
22. In 1978, Amos Atkinson held a Melbourne cafe hostage with a shotgun until his mother, who was a regular diner there, arrived in her nightgown and struck him over the head with her handbag while telling him to stop being stupid. He then freed his captives and surrendered.
23. In 1972, before the Super Bowl, President Richard Nixon phoned Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula and suggested that he run a certain play. Reportedly, he had done the same thing a week earlier with the Washington Redskins. Both teams ran the plays he recommended, both plays failed, and both teams lost.
24. In 1975, $10 million worth of Huey helicopters had to be pushed off the flight deck of the USS Midway and into the sea to make room for the emergency landing of an aircraft carrying Vietnamese evacuees.
25. In 1973, IBM offered its UPC barcode proposal to the grocery industry at no cost. The industry accepted a very similar standard based on their proposal. However, IBM also created the first technology able to read the bar codes and made tons of money selling the equipment to grocery stores.
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