1970s

• 1970: Nigerian Civil War ends with the reintegration of the Republic of Biafra with Nigeria
after ~3 million deaths. Edward Heath becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 1970
Polish protests. Cambodian Civil War begins. Kent State massacre leaves four students dead and
nine injured. Yemeni Civil War ends. Ratification of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons. Containerisation adopted globally, massively boosting global trade. Maiden
flight of the Boeing 747. Bhola Cyclone kills 500,000 people in East Pakistan. Black September
in Jordan begins. Anwar Sadat becomes President of Egypt. Break-up of the Beatles. FLQ
seizes hostages, causing Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau of Canada to issue the War
Measures Act
• 1971: Nixon shock removes gold back-up for the US Dollar triggering export of inflation from
rich to poor nations. Black September in Jordan ends. Bangladesh Liberation War occurred,
independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan and precipitates Third Indo-Pakistani War.
Internment begins in Northern Ireland. Invention of the microchip. The death of Jim Morrison.
Idi Amin seizes power in Uganda. Completion of the World Trade Center (North tower). Joseph
Mobutu renames The Republic of the Congo Zaire. Greenpeace founded. COINTELPRO
officially ends.
• 1972: Northern Ireland's Bloody Sunday. First Sudanese Civil War ends. Martial law declared
in the Philippines by President Ferdinand Marcos. Munich massacre occurs at the 1972 Summer
Olympics in Munich, Germany. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Bangladesh from
imprisonment in Pakistan.
• 1973: 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Yom Kippur War, Beginning of the Watergate scandal. First
space station, Skylab, is launched. Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon is released in
the UK. The Supreme Court of the United States decides Roe v. Wade. First close-up images of
Jupiter. The Sears Tower is completed.
• 1974: The Turkish invasion of Cyprus led to the creation of the Northern Cyprus. Carnation
Revolution in Portugal begins transition to democracy. Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia is
overthrown in a military coup. First close-up images of Mercury. Discovery of "Lucy"
(Australopithecus afarensis) in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge. World population reaches 4 billion.
Resignation of Richard Nixon.
• 1975: The Fall of Saigon ends the Vietnam War. Juan Carlos I becomes King of Spain.
Cambodian Civil War ends with victory for the Khmer Rouge. The Killing Fields murders
begin. First Cricket World Cup hosted.
• 1976: First outbreak of the Ebola virus. End of Cultural Revolution. Steve Wozniak invented the
Apple I and Steve Jobs then convinced Wozniak to sell the system, giving birth to Apple
Computer. Church Committee.
• 1977: Introduction of the first mass-produced personal computers. Launch of the Voyager
spacecraft, currently the most distant man-made objects in the universe. Queen Alia of Jordan is
killed in helicopter crash. Tenerife disaster marks the deadliest accident in aviation history.
Shaba I conflict involves Safari Club.
• 1978: Invention of artificial insulin. Discovery of Pluto's moon Charon. Independence of
Tuvalu. Jim Jones's New religious movement The Peoples Temple ends in the organized mass
killing and suicide of 920 people. Birth of the first test-tube baby. Cambodian-Vietnamese War
begins. Uganda–Tanzania War begins. War in Afghanistan (1978–present) begins. Deng
Xiaoping commences the Chinese economic reform. Spanish transition to democracy is
completed. John Paul I and then John Paul II become Pope. 918 people die at Jonestown.
 • 1979: Smallpox eradicated. Soviet–Afghan War begins. Rhodesian Bush War ends. Iranian
Revolution and Iran hostage crisis. Shah Reza Pahlavi forced into exile. Arrival of Pope John
Paul II in Poland, eventually sparking the Solidarity movement. First close-up images of Saturn.
Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Implementation of China's
One-child policy. Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Uganda–Tanzania War ends with defeat
for Uganda and the exile of Idi Amin. Cambodian-Vietnamese War ends with the overthrow of
Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime. 1.7 million people known to have been murdered in The
Killing Fields. Sino-Vietnamese War. Nicaraguan Revolution. Central Treaty Organization
dissolved.

1980s
• 1980: Independence of Rhodesia, which becomes Zimbabwe. Independence of Vanuatu. Ronald
Reagan is elected President of the United States. 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Launch of
CNN. Queen Beatrix becomes monarch of the Netherlands. Beginning of the Iran–Iraq War,
Salvadorian Civil War and Contra War. Assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero.
Disappearance and death of Azaria Chamberlain. Solidarity union forms at Poland's Gdańsk
Shipyard under Lech Wałęsa, and begins agitation for greater personal freedoms. Murder of
John Lennon.
• 1981: First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle. Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady
Diana Spencer. Assassination of Anwar Sadat. Launch of MTV. Iran releases the 52 U.S.
hostages held in Tehran after 444 days. President Reagan and three others were injured after an
assassination attempt. The AIDS epidemic officially begins.
• 1982: Death of Leonid Brezhnev; Yuri Andropov becomes leader of the Soviet Union. First
Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Falklands War. Hama massacre in Syria leads to more than 10,000
deaths. First execution by Lethal injection takes place in Texas. Sony releases the world's first
commercially sold CD Player, the Sony CDP-101. Princess Grace of Monaco dies following a
car accident. Michael Jackson’s album Thriller is released.
• 1983: GPS development declassified following the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007.
Independence of Brunei. End of dictatorship in Argentina. Second Sudanese Civil War begins.
Invasion of Grenada by the United States. Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The 1983 Beirut
barracks bombing results in the deaths of 307 people, hastening the removal of international
peacekeeping forces in Lebanon.
• 1984: The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is recognized as the cause of HIV/AIDS, and
research on zidovudine and other treatments gets underway. Konstantin Chernenko becomes
Premier of the Soviet Union. Beginning of the 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia and the 1984-85 UK
miners' strike. Sino-British Joint Declaration agrees to hand Hong Kong back to China by 1997.
Assassination of Indira Gandhi. Murder of Marvin Gaye.
• 1985: End of 1982 Lebanon War. Live Aid. Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Premier of the Soviet
Union. First use of DNA fingerprinting. End of military leadership in Brazil.
• 1986: Challenger and Chernobyl disasters. South Yemen Civil War. Launch of the space station
Mir. First close-up images of the planet Uranus. Return of Halley's Comet. End of dictatorship
of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. Iran–Contra becomes public. Assassination of Olof
Palme.
• 1987: Stock market crash of 1987. First Intifada between Israel and Palestine begins. World
population reaches 5 billion. The antidepressant drug Prozac becomes commercially available.
• 1988: Perestroika begins. End of the Iran–Iraq War. End of dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in
Chile. Pan Am Flight 103 falls over Lockerbie, Scotland. Myanmar Armed Forces launch a
 military coup. Construction of the Channel Tunnel begins. George H. W. Bush is elected
President of the United States.
• 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall; Revolutions of 1989 and collapse of the Soviet Bloc in Europe.
Tiananmen Square Massacre in China. End of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. End of
dictatorship in Paraguay and the first direct Presidential election in Brazil since 1960. Akihito
becomes Emperor of Japan. Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie. Exxon Valdez oil spill. First
close up pictures of Neptune. First Liberian Civil War begins.

1990s
• 1990: Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web. John Major becomes Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom. German reunification. Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Gulf War
begins. Contra War ends. Myanmar Armed Forces place Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
North and South Yemen unify to form the Republic of Yemen. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change releases its first assessment report, linking increases in carbon dioxide in the
Earth's atmosphere, and resultant rise in global temperature, to human activities.
• 1991: 1991 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement, Gulf War ends in US withdrawal and failed
uprising. Dissolution of the Soviet Union and independence of 15 former Soviet republics.
Boris Yeltsin becomes the first President of the Russia. Ten-Day War in Slovenia begins the
Yugoslav Wars. Beginning of the Somali, Sierra Leonian and Algerian Civil Wars. The first
website is put online and made available to the public. Final end of the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia. Mount Pinatubo erupts with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 6 and reduces global
temperatures.
• 1992: Maastricht Treaty creates the European Union. Bill Clinton is elected President of the
United States. End of dictatorship in Albania and South Korea. End of Salvadorian Civil War.
Bosnian War begins. Los Angeles riots over the acquittal of those involved in the beating of
Rodney King. Discovery of the Kuiper belt and the first extrasolar planets. Hurricane Andrew
kills 65 and causes $26.5 billion in damages in the Bahamas and the United States.
• 1993: Velvet Divorce between Czech Republic and Slovakia. Independence of Eritrea. Oslo
accords end First Intifada between Israel and Palestine. 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The
Waco siege ends after a 51-day standoff, leaving 86 people dead.
• 1994: Palau Independence. End of apartheid in South Africa and election of Nelson Mandela.
Establishment of NAFTA. Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. First Chechen War begins. Yemeni
Civil War (1994). Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira triggers the
Rwandan genocide. Opening of the Channel Tunnel. Kim Jong-il becomes Supreme Leader of
North Korea. Suicide of Kurt Cobain. Death of Ayrton Senna.
• 1995: Establishment of the World Trade Organization. American terrorist Timothy McVeigh
bombs the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Srebrenica massacre. NATO
bombing raids in Bosnia end the Bosnian War; Dayton Accords signed. Assassination of
Yitzhak Rabin. North Korean famine begins. Third Taiwan Strait Crisis begins. Austria, Finland
and Sweden join the European Union. Murder of Selena.
• 1996: First Congo War begins. Third Taiwan Strait Crisis ends. First Chechen War ends. First
Liberian Civil War ends. End of dictatorship in Taiwan. Dolly the sheep becomes the first
successful cloned mammal. The Taliban government takes control of Afghanistan. Port Arthur
massacre leaves 35 people dead, leading to tighter gun regulations in Australia. Nepalese Civil
War begins. Murder of Tupac Shakur.
• 1997: Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Transfer of sovereignty over
Hong Kong from UK to China. Lottery Uprising in Albania. Kabila ousts Mobutu; Zaire
 becomes the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Diana, Princess of Wales is killed in a car
accident in Paris. Sound barrier broken on land. Murder of Biggie Smalls.
• 1998: Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa against the West. Kenya and Tanzania bombings.
Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Second Congo War begins. Good Friday
Agreement brings an end to The Troubles in Northern Ireland. North Korean famine kills an
estimated 2.5 million people by this point. Hurricane Mitch leaves more than 19,325 dead in
Central America as a result of catastrophic flooding and mudslides. Murder of Phil Hartman.
• 1999: Euro is introduced. Kosovo War ends the Yugoslav Wars. Islamist insurgency in Nigeria
begins. Hugo Chavez becomes President of Venezuela. Second Chechen War and Second
Liberian Civil War begin. Fourth Indo-Pakistani War. Crisis in East Timor leads to 1400 deaths.
Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, United States. World population reaches 6
billion.

2000s
• 2000: 3rd millennium celebrations. End of Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Second Intifada
begins. George W. Bush is elected President of the United States. Vicente Fox becomes the first
opposition President of Mexico. Vladimir Putin becomes President of Russia. British Army
launch Operation Palliser which effectively ends the Sierra Leone Civil War. International
Space Station begins operations. First Inter-Korean summit. al-Qaeda suicide bombs the
USS Cole.