The 1970s: So What Did NOT Happen? Quiz

Answer: The first man lands on the Moon.

The first lunar landing was on July 20, 1969. The whole world breathlessly watched as U.S. Astronaut Neil Armstrong set down the first foot ('a small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind), followed by Buzz Aldrin.

Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed four students at Kent State University protesting U.S. incursion into Cambodia. Ten days later, state troopers killed two and injured twelve students at Jackson State University in Mississippi.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created by an act of Congress, while Richard Nixon signed an executive order in 1970 establishing the EPA. Congress then passed the Clean Water Act and and a number of other environmental acts that gave the EPA authority to regulate water quality, waste disposal, etc.

One final event of 1970 to mention: the deaths of rock stars Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, all 27 years old.

Answer: Charles Manson is executed.

Charles Manson, leader of the murderous Manson family, was sentenced to death in 1971, but the following year all death-row inmates in California had their sentences commuted to life in prison.

The ending of gold standard was known as "Nixon shock" and largely caused the Great Inflation of the 1970s. The Libertarian Party positioned itself as a classically liberal alternative to the modern-progressive liberal Democrats and the conservative Republicans. Jimmy Carter was elected Governor of Georgia the same year that Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California; both men would eventually become President and would run against each other in the 1980 election.

Answer: Margaret Chase Smith (R) runs for President.

In January 1972, Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) became the first woman to seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, making her the first black candidate to run for a major party's nomination for President. Margaret Chase Smith had run for the Republican nomination in 1964. Neither lady won their party's nomination. Chisholm in particular was largely ignored both by the Democratic establishment and by her black male colleagues.

President Richard Nixon visited the People's Republic of China for eight days as part of his program to normalize relations with the PRC (as opposed to the Republic of China in Taiwan). The Watergate burglaries created a scandal which eventually led to Nixon's resignation.

Answer: Eighteen-year-olds get their suffrage (26th Amendment).

Nixon had in 1970 signed a Congressional act lowering the voting age, but the Supreme Court ruled that the President had no authority to lower the voting age in state and local elections, necessitating an Amendment. The 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to eighteen, was proposed by Congress on March 23, 1971, and ratified on July 1, 1971, the swiftest ratification of a Constitutional amendment in U.S. history. Student activism regarding conscription was largely responsible.

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade overturned state bans on abortion based on a Constitutional right to privacy. The DEA is established under the Department of Justice to combat drug smuggling and distribution within the United States. Skylab was NASA's first space station and the only one that the USA operated exclusively. It would fall back to the Earth in 1979.

Answer: Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.

The amazing colt Secretariat won the U.S. Triple Crown of horse racing the previous year, in 1973, twenty-five years after the previous winner, Citation in 1948.

On August 8, 1974, for the first time in American history, a President resigned from office. Richard Nixon did so to avoid impeachment (regarding the Watergate Scandal). The Super Outbreak of 148 tornadoes centered on Kentucky and readiated out to 12 other states, as well as the Canadian province of Ontario. It was the first such outbreak to produce more than 100 tornadoes in under 24 hours.

In 1973 the USA and several other industrialized nations faced substantial petroleum shortages following an oil embargo from OPEC, targeted at nations who appeared to support Israel during the Yom Kippur Wars. This triggered an energy crisis. In March 1974, most of OPEC ceased its embargo of the USA, Japan, and Europe, but energy crises and their consequent economic woes would continue to plague the 1970s.

Answer: Daylight Saving Time is cancelled.

In fact, due to the energy crises of the decade, Daylight Saving Time commenced two months early in the USA, on February 23.

In Sacramento, California, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a Manson Family cult member, attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford, but her gun wouldn't fire, and a Secret Service agent overpowered her. Heavyweight fighter Muhammad Ali defeated Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Quezon City, part of Metro Manila in the Philippines. Communist forces took Saigon, Americans and South Vietnamese fled, and South Vietnam surrendered.

Answer: The first case of AIDS is documented.

Although it is believed that the HIV virus entered the USA around 1968, the first documented cases of AIDS were in New York and California in 1981.

In 1976, USA celebrated 200 years as a democratic republic, independent of Britain. In commemoration, the U.S. Treasury re-issued the two-dollar bill (or Federal Reserve note) with the portrait of Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress in 1776. Previous two-dollar bills had been issued variously between 1862 and 1966.

In Gregg v. Georgia and several other cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was neither cruel nor unusual under the Constitution.

Answer: Voters elect Jimmy Carter as the 39th President.

President James Earl Carter (b. 1924) was elected on November 2, 1976 and inaugurated on January 20, 1977, succeeding Gerald Ford (who had replaced Nixon upon his resignation in 1974). A relatively unknown Governor of Georgia, Carter was the first President elected from the Deep South since Zachary Taylor in 1848.

NASA launched the space probe Voyager 2 a few weeks ahead of its twin Voyager 1, but Voyager 2's trajectory was longer, so its pictures of the outer planets were received later. The infamous 25-hour blackout of New York City on July 13-14 occurred as the city faced a financial crisis and was terrorized by the Son of Sam murders, and it led to citywide looting and arson. Elvis Presley, king of rock and roll, died at age 42; the exact cause of death has been disputed.

Answer: The President urges production of the neutron bomb.

Actually, President Jimmy Carter decided to halt production (begun before he took office) of the neutron bomb, which kills people with radiation but leaves buildings intact. It would not be resumed until the 1980s, but after mass protests production was again halted, though the weapons remained stockpiled until 1992; the last was dismantled in 2011.

The President declares a federal emergency and orders the immediate evacuation of the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York when it is discovered it was built on a toxic waste dump.

Carter brokered peace negotiations between Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland. The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was disbanded, and women were integrated into the same units as men, although they were kept from coming near combat situations until 1994.

Answer: Gasoline (petrol) prices plummet.

The energy shortages of the 1970s hit a severe point in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution, and a buying panic in the USA that further drove gasoline (petrol) prices up.

Ted Kennedy, brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, made the unusual decision in 1979 to run for president against his party's incumbent, Jimmy Carter. Kennedy lost to Carter in the 1980 Democratic Primary, in no small part because of personal scandal in his past.

While fishing one April morning in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, Carter was menaced by a large swamp rabbit, which swam toward Carter's fishing boat while hissing and gnashing its teeth (not unlike the "killer rabbit" of a recently released Monty Python film). When it tried to board, Carter splashed water on it until it gave up and swam away. Although at first few believed that a rabbit would threaten a human being this way, the incident had been photographed, and it became sensationalized as a "killer rabbit attack".

On March 28, the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, suffered a partial meltdown of reactor number 2 and leaked radiation. Cleanup of the site would not be complete until 1993.