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Timeline

1970

  • In the Year of Wilson:
  • CP Snow publishes final volume of Strangers and Brothers
  • Golda Meir visits London
  • Maggie Smith emerges as a film and TV personality
  • Forysthe Saga, televised on BBC, gains worldwide popularity
  • De Gaulle dies
  • Films noted by general history: Catch-22 (Nichols), Topaz (Hitchcock), Woodstock (Wadleigh)
  • TV sets in use throughout the world hit 231 million
  • Government passes Films Act 1970 – continues the existing system of Eady Levy, Quota and NFFC - it fails to address the growing problems of American dominance, the growing power of television and the growth of new audiovisual technologies.

1971

  • Rolls Royce declares bankruptcy (again!)
  • In Switzerland women are granted right to vote (no, really - sheesh!)
  • 'Preventive detention' used in Northern Ireland E.M.Forster publishes
  • Maurice (posth) Postal strike leaves Britons without mail for 47 days
  • Films noted by general history: A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick), The French Connection (Friedkin), The Conformist (Bertolucci)

1972

  • Ireland, Britain and Demark agree to full membership in the EEC
  • Summer Olympics in Munich
  • 47 Day Coal Strike
  • Margaret Rutherford, George Sanders and Cecil Day Lewis die, as does Duke of Windsor, Max Fleischer (the cartoonist who created Popeye) and Edward J Hoover (!)
  • All in the Family is the leading US TV Show
  • Sylvia Plath publishes Winter Tree (posth) Jesus Chist Superstar
  • Films noted by general history: Cabaret (Fosse), Frenzy (Hitchcock), The Godfather (FCCoppola), the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise (Bunuel)

1973

  • Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark formally join the Common Market
  • Fighting breaks out between Arab-Israeli
  • Tolkein dies
  • Academy Awards to The Godfather & Cabaret
  • John Ford dies
  • Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger
  • Films noted by a general history: Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci), Sleeper (Woody Allen)
  • The ACCT publishes a report calling for the nationalisation of the film industry

1974

  • Ali floats like butterfly stings like bee defeats Foreman in Zaire
  • Paty Hearst joins her kidnappers Skylab - 84 days in space
  • No Pultizer prizes in literature or drama awarded this year
  • The Tower of London and Houses of Parliament are bombed
  • Nuclear tests conducted by Great Britain, France & China
  • Watergate Wilson's in again
  • AT & T, US's biggest private employer bans discrimination against homosexuals
  • Films noted by general history: Godfather part II; Sting (73) wins Academy Award for best pic; Glenda Jackson for Touch of Class (best actress).

1975

  • Thatcher becomes leader of Tories
  • Rugby (the school) accepts coeds for first time in its 408 years
  • Fighting in Beirut
  • US marks start of American Bicentennial
  • Muscians strike on Broadway for 25 days
  • Britain's inflation rate jumps to 25%
  • OPEC oil price rises
  • Films noted by a general history: Jaws (Spielers), Nashville (Altman), Sunshine Boys (Burns)
  • Wilson forms a working party to look into the future of the British Film Industry

1976

  • Value of %#163; falls
  • Nobel Prize for Lit: Saul Bellow (US)
  • Seychelles (former Brit colon) declares its Independence
  • Wilson resigns; Callaghan succeeds him
  • Montereal Summer Olympics -- 32 African & Asian countries withdraw over political issues
  • Stoppard's Travesties Fritz Lang dies, as does Alastair Sim
  • Films noted by a general history: All the President's Men (Pakula), Taxi Driver (doh), Rocky (ditto), Face to Face
  • British Lion taken over by EMI
  • Wilson’s working party produces the Terry report which recommends practical measures for strengthening the film industry including investment in the industry and greater co-operation between the film industry and television.
  • Hammer Studios produces its last horror film – To the Devil a Daughter
  • Creation of the British Film Authority

1977

  • World's worst air disaster to date - Tenerife
  • Elvis is dead! (a lie of course) Anthony Eden also, no lie, and Peter Finch, Bing Crosby and Chaplin
  • British scientist note for the first time that they have determined the complete genetic structure of a living organism
  • Films noted by a general history: Star Wars (Lucas), Julia (with Redgrave etc), Saturday Night Fever, Annie Hall (Allen)
  • Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II

1978

  • US Coal Strike ends on 110th day
  • Amoco Cadiz oil spill off France
  • Pope Paul VI dies (no longevity these guys - only live to 8 or 9 decades or so!)
  • Annie Hall cleans up at Academy Awards
  • Argentina wins football World Cup (I now understand motivation behind Falklands business)
  • Iris Murdoch publishes The Sea The Sea (unfortunately)
  • Films noted by a general history: Grease (no, really), The Deer Hunter, National Lampoon's Animal House
  • Last Carry on film produced – Carry on Emmanuelle

1979

  • Rejection of Labour's plans for devolution in Scotland and Wales and,bingo: enter Thatcher, o Thatcher
  • Peter Shaffer's Amadeus play and William Golding's Darkness Visible
  • Jean Rhys dies, as does John Wayne,Gracie Fields and Barnes Wallis
  • St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines declare Independence from Britain
  • Borg wins Wimbledon for the fourth time, and Sebastian Coe cleans up world records on 800m & 1500m
  • Deer Hunter does the Academy Award thang.
  • Sir Anthony Blunt is unmasked as the fourth man in Burgess/Maclean/Philby spy scandal and stripped of his knighthood
  • Films noted by a general history: Manhattan, Apocalypse Now (FCC), Being There (Kramer)

What's perhaps interesting in the records of what is a 'general' history of the period, is that from 1976 onwards Britain is not as mentioned in events on the world stage as much as it is from 1970-1975