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Important Events of the 1970s

1970

Movies
Airport, starring Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin; Catch-22, directed by Mike Nichols; Diary of a Mad Housewife, starring Carrie Snodgress and Richard Benjamin; Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson and Karen Black; Little Big Man, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway, Love Story, starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw; M*A*S*H, directed by Robert Altman and starring Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould; Fattori, starring George C. Scott.
Fiction
Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull; Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet; Thomas Berger, Vital Parts; James Dickey, Deliverance; Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays; Lois Gould, Such Good Friends; Jerzy Kosinski, Being There; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; William Saroyan, Days of Life and Death; Erich Segal, Love Story; Irwin Shaw, Rich Man, Poor Man; Leon Uris, QBV7L
Popular Songs
The Beatles, "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road"; the Carpenters, "Close to You"; the Guess Who, "American Woman"; the Jackson Five, "I Want You Back," "ABC," Til Be There," and "The Love You Save"; Led Zeppelin, "Whole Lotta Love"; Melanie, "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)"; the Partridge Family, "I Think I Love You"; Diana Ross, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"; Carly Simon, "That's the Way I Always Heard It Should Be"; Simon and Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"; Sly and the Family Stone, "Thank You (Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin)" and "Everybody Is a Star"; Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, "Tears of a Clown"; Edwin Starr, "War."
  • An "information" exhibition, highlighting the fusion of art, text, sound, light, and video, is held in New York City at the Museum of Modem Art.
  • "American Top 40," a weekly countdown of hits on the pop music charts hosted by Casey Kasem, debuts on nationwide radio.
  • The recording industry introduces quadriphonie discs.
  • Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young record "Ohio," protesting the killing of four students by the National Guard at Kent State University.
  • The film and soundtrack album Woodstock are released.
  • Jimi Hendrix chokes to death after a heavy dose of drugs and alcohol; Janis Joplin dies less than three weeks later of a drug overdose.
5 Feb.
Who Caresf, choreographed by George Balanchine and featuring the music of George Gershwin, is performed for the first time by the New York City Ballet,
25 Feb.
Two Vincent Van Gogh paintings are auctioned for a record $2.175 million in New York City.
10 Mar.
The National Endowment for the Arts grants $706,000 to twelve symphony and opera companies.
11 July
The Twentieth Annual Marlboro Music Festival opens in Marlboro, Vermont.
29 Sept.
Paul Mellon donates Paul Cezanne's The Artist's Father, valued at $1.5 million, to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
30 Nov.
In the first concert ever held in New York City's Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Leopold Stokowski conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
11 Dec.
The Soviet Union cancels the planned 1971 U.S. tour of the Bolshoi Ballet and opera companies, citing provocation by Zionists.

1971

Movies
Billy Jack, directed by and starring Tom Laughlin; Carnal Knowledge, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, and Candace Bergen; A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick; Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood; The French Connection, directed by William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman; The Hospital, starring George C. Scott; Klute, starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland; The Last Picture Show, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, and Cloris Leachman; McCabe and Mrs. Miller, directed by Robert Airman and starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie; Play Misty for Me, starring Clint Eastwood; Shaft, directed by Gordon Parks and starring Richard Roundtree.
Fiction
William Peter Blarty, The Exorcist; E. L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel; James P. Donleavy, The Onion Eaters; Ernest J. Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman; Bernard Malamud, The Tenants; Mary McCarthy, Birds of America; Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins; Harold Robbins, The Betsy; John Updike, Rabbit Redux.
Popular Songs
The Bee Gees, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"; Cher, "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves"; Alice Cooper, "Eighteen"; the Doors, "Riders on the Storm"; Marvin Gaye, "What's Goin' On"; Hamilton, Joe, Frank and Reynolds, "Don't Pull Your Love"; George Harrison, "My Sweet Lord"; Isaac Hayes, "Theme from Shaft"; Janis Joplin, "Me and Bobby McGee"; Carole King, "It's Too Late" and "I Feel the Earth Move"; Led Zeppelin, "Black Dog" and "Stairway to Heaven"; John Lennon, "Imagine"; Paul and Linda McCartney, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"; Melanie, "Brand New Key"; the Osmonds, "One Bad Apple"; the Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar"; Sly and the Family Stone, "Family Affair"; Rod Stewart, "Maggie May" and "Reason to Believe"; the Temptations, "Just My Imagination"; Three Dog Night, "Joy to the World."
  • Margaret Harris becomes the first black woman to lead a major orchestra, conducting the Chicago Symphony.
  • Alan Jay Lerner, Dorothy Fields, and Duke Ellington are among the first to be inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame.
  • George Harrison organizes the Concert for Bangladesh, a benefit concert to aid victims of starvation in that region.
17 May
The rock musical Godspell opens on Broadway.
July
The first major microfiche collection of books—the Library of American Civilization—is delivered to subscribers.
3 July
Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, dies of a suspected drug overdose.
11 July
Thousands pay tribute to the late jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong at a public funeral in New Orleans.
8 Sept.
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opens in Washington, D.C.
12 Oct.
The rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, produced by Robert Stigwood, and starring Yvonne Elliman and Ben Vereen, opens on Broadway.

1972

Movies
Cabaret, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and Joel Grey, Deliverance, starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds; The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and Talia Shire; Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, and Richard Pryor; The Poseidon Adventure, directed by Irwin Allen and starring Gene Hackman; Sounder, starring Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield; Superfly directed by Gordon Parks and starring Ron O'Neal.
Fiction
Louis Auchincloss, I Come as a Thief; James Baldwin, No Name in the Street; Michael Crichton, The Terminal Man; John W. Gardner, The Sunlight Dialogues; Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives; Arthur Mizener, The Saddest Story; Chaim Potok, My Name Is Asher Lev; Irving Wallace, The Ward; Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter; Herman Wouk, The Winds of War.
Popular Songs
America, "A Horse With No Name"; Chuck Berry, "My Ding-a-Ling"; the Chi-Lites, Oh Girl"; Mac Davis, "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me"; Sammy Davis, Jr., "The Candy Man"; Donna Fargo, "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA"; Roberta Flack, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"; Al Green, "Let's Stay Together"; Looking Glass, "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"; Curtis Mayfield, "Freddie's Dead"; Don McLean, "American Pie"; Johnny Nash, "I Can See Clearly Now"; Nilsson, "Without You"; the O'Jays, "Back Stabbers"; Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again Naturally"; Billy Paul, "Me and Mrs. Jones"; Elvis Presley, "Burnin' Love"; Helen Reddy, "I Am Woman"; the Spinners, "I'll Be Axound"; the Staple Singers, "111 Take You There"; the Temptations, "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone"; Bill Withers, "Lean on Me"; Neil Young, "Heart of Gold."
  • The rock musical Hair ends its Broadway run after 1,742 performances.
  • New York City radio station WCBS-FM becomes the first to adopt an oldies format.
  • In New York City the exhibition "Sharp-Focus Realism" is held at the Sidney Janis Gallery.
  • Don McLean's "American Pie" becomes the longest song ever to hit number one, clocking in at eight minutes.
14 Feb.
The musical Grease opens on Broadway.
17 June
Fiddler on the Roof becomes the longest-running show in Broadway history, with 3,225 performances.
22 Aug.
American audiences are exposed for the first time to British comedy troupe Monty Python with the release of their (Ava And Now for Something Completely Different.
16 Oct.
Henry Lewis becomes the first African-American to conduct the New York Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra.
23 Oct.
Pippin, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Ben Vereen and Jill Clayburgh, opens on Broadway.

1973

Movies
American Graffiti directed by George Lucas and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford, and Suzanne Somers; Badlands, directed by Terence Malick and starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacelq The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin and starring Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair; The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff; The Last Detail, directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jack Nicholson; Mean Streets, directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro; Paper Moon, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Ryan O'Neal and Tarum O'Neal; Serpico, starring Al Pacino; Sleeper, directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Diane Keaton; The Sting, starring Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and Robert Shaw; The Way We Were, starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford; What's Up, Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.
Fiction
Thomas Berger, Regiment of Women; John Cheever, The World of Apples; Alice Childress, A Hero Aint Nothin But a Sandwich; Leon Forrest, There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden; Erica Jong, Fear of Flying; Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree; Bernard Malamud, Rembrandt's Hat; Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince; Marge Piercy, Small Changes; Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow; Paul Theroux, Saint Jack; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Breakfast of Champions.
Popular Songs
The Carpenters, "Top of the World"; Cher, "Half Breed"; Jim Croce, "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle"; Roberta Flack, "Killing Me Softly"; Gladys Knight and the Pips, "Midnight Train to Georgia"; Grand Funk Railroad, "We're an American Band"; Elton John, "Crocodile Rock" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"; Eddie Kendricks, "Keep on Truckin' "; Vicki Lawrence, "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia"; Curtis Mayfield, "Superfly"; Maureen McGovern, "The Morning After"; the O'Jays, "Love Train"; Paul McCartney and Wings, "My Love" and "Live and Let Die"; Billy Preston, "Will It Go Round in Circles"; Charlie Rich, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"; the Rolling Stones, "Angie"; Diana Ross, "Touch Me in the Morning"; Carry Simon, "You're So Vain"; Ringo Starr, "Photograph"; Stories, "Brother Louie"; Tony Orlando and Dawn, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon"; Barry White, "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby"; Stevie Wonder, "Superstition" and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life."
  • Jasper Johns's Double White Map is sold for $240,000, the highest price ever paid to a living American artist at that time.
  • A new Friday night television concert series, Midnight Special, debuts with Helen Reddy as host.
  • The International Dance Council is established under the auspices of UNESCO.
  • Enter the Dragon, starring martial artist Bruce Lee, is released, sparking a nationwide Kung Fu craze.
6 Feb.
The New York Times reports that the Soviet Union has agreed to loan forty-one paintings by European masters to show in U.S. galleries.
25 Feb.
Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, featuring the song "Send in the Clowns," opens on Broadway.
Mar.
Pink Floyd releases their landmark album The Dark Side of the Moon. It remains on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart for 741 weeks—14 1/4 years.
4 Apr.
Elvis Presley's Hawaiian concert, taped earlier in the year, is televised to a huge audience.
2 May
Forty-seven artworks from the Norton Simon Collection are sold in New York City for $6.7 million.
10 May
Harold Lawrence, manager of the London Symphony Orchestra, is named to succeed Helen Thompson as manager of the New York Philharmonic.

1974

Movies
Airport 1975, starring Charlton Heston, Karen Black, George Kennedy, and Helen Reddy, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, and Jodie Foster, Blazing Saddles, directed by Mel Brooks and starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, Chinatown, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, Claudine, starring Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones; The Conversation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman; Death Wish, starring Charles Bronson; Earthquake, starring Charlton Heston and George Kennedy, The Godfather Part II, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, and Diane Keaton; The Great Gatsby, starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Karen Black; Lenny, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Dustin Hoffinan; The Towenng Inferno, directed by Irwin Allen and starring Paul Newman and Steve McQueen; Uptown Saturday Night, directed by Sidney Pokier and starring Poitier, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor; Young Frankenstein, directed by Mel Brooks and starring Gene Wilder.
Fiction
James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk; Donald Barthelme, Guilty Pleasures; Peter Benchley, Jaws; Joseph Heller, Something Happened; James Michener, Centennial; Albert Murray, Train Whistle Guitar; Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far; John Updike, Buchanan Dying; Irving Wallace, The Fan Club.
Popular Songs
Paul Anka, "You're Havin' My Baby"; Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" and "Takin' Care of Business"; Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, "Billy, Don't Be a Hero"; Brownsville Station, "Smokin' in the Boys' Room"; Harry Chapin, "Cat's in the Cradle"; Cher, "Dark Lady"; Eric Clapton, "I Shot the Sheriff"; Dionne Warwick and the Spinners, "Then Came You"; Carl Douglas, "Kung Fu Fighting"; Roberta Flack, "Feel Like Makin' Love"; Grand Funk Railroad, "The Loco-Motion"; Hues Corporation, "Rock the Boat"; Terry Jacks, "Seasons in the Sun"; Elton John, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" and "The Bitch Is Back"; Gordon Lightfoot, "Sundown"; George McCrae, "Rock Your Baby"; Olivia Newton-John, "I Honestly Love You"; Paper Lace, "The Night Chicago Died"; Paul McCartney and Wings, "Band on the Run"; Ray Stevens, "The Streak"; Barbra Streisand, "The Way We Were"; The Stylistics, "You Make Me Feel Brand New"; Barry White, "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe."
  • "Open Circuits," an international conference on video art, is held in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art.
  • People, an offshoot of Time magazine focusing on celebrities and "real life" stories, begins publishing. Mia Farrow, star of The Great Gatsby, is pictured on the cover of the first issue.
  • The Ramones, a band in the "garage" tradition whose fast, loud three-chord sound will usher in the American punk rock movement, begins playing at the New York City club CBGB.
  • Disco, a beat-driven dance music already popular in the black and gay communities, begins to find mainstream success with hits such as "Rock the Boat," "Rock Your Baby," and "Kung Fu Fighting."
12 Feb.
The rock club The Bottom Line opens in New York City.
19 Feb.
Dick Clark launches the American Music Awards.
6 Mar.
The film rights to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's best-selling investigation of Watergate, All the President's Men, are sold for $450,000.
18 Apr.
Allen Ginsberg wins the National Book Award for Poetry.
16 May
Leonard Bernstein's The Dybbuk, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, is premiered by the New York City Ballet.
9 Sept.
The Senate approves a copyright reform bill requiring jukebox operators to pay royalties to composers and music publishers.

1975

Movies
Barry Lyndon, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Ryan O'Neal; Cooley High, directed by Michael Schultz; Dog Day Afternoon, directed by Sydney Lumet and starring Al Pacino; Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss; Love and Death, directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Diane Keaton; Mahogany, starring Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams; Nashville, directed by Robert Airman; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher; The Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick; Shampoo, starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, and Goldie Hawn; Tommy, directed by Ken Russell and starring Roger Daltrey and Ann-Margret.
Fiction
Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift; Thomas Berger, Sneaky People; E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime; Jerzy Kosinski, Cockpit; Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment; Toni Morrison, Sula; Vladimir Nabokov, Tyrants Destroyed; Reynolds Price, The Surface of Earth; Judith Rossner, Looking for Mr. Goodbar; John Updike, A Month of Sundays; Joseph Wambaugh, The Choirboys.
Popular Songs
America, "Sister Golden Hair"; the Bee Gees, "Jive Talkin' "; David Bowie, "Fame"; Glen Campbell, "Rhinestone Cowboy"; the Captain and Tennille, "Love Will Keep Us Together"; John Denver, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy"; the Doobie Brothers, "Black Water"; the Eagles, "Best of My Love" and "One of These Nights"; Earth Wind & Fire, "Shining Star"; Fleetwood Mac, "Rhiannon"; Grand Funk Railroad, "Bad Time"; Elton John, "Island Girl" and "Philadelphia Freedom"; KC and the Sunshine Band, "Get Down Tonight" and "That's the Way (I Like It)"; Labelle, "Lady Marmalade"; Led Zeppelin, "Kashmir"; Barry Manilow, "Mandy"; Van McCoy, "The Hustle"; Michael Murphey, "Wildfire"; Olivia Newton-John, "Have You Never Been Mellow"; Ohio Players, "Fire"; Ozark Mountain Daredevils, "Jackie Blue"; Paul McCartney and Wings, "Listen to What the Man Said"; Pilot, "Magic"; Queen, "Killer Queen"; Minnie Ripperton, "Lovin' You"; Linda Ronstadt, "You're No Good"; Neil Sedaka, "Bad Blood" and "Laughter in the Rain"; Silver Connection, "Fly Robin Fly"; Donna Summer, "Love to Love You Baby"; Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run"; 10cc, "I'm Not in Love"; Tony Orlando and Dawn, "He Don't Love You (Like I Love You)"; Dwight Twilley Band, "I'm on Fire"
  • Elton John's Captain Fantastic and the Browndirt Cowboy becomes the first album to debut at number one on the Billboard album chart. His follow-up release, Rock of the Westies, also debuts at number one.
  • Bruce Springsteen becomes the first and only rock performer to appear on the covers of Time and Newsweek in the same week, amid the hype for his album Born to Run.
  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show, an offbeat musical about a Transylvanian transvestite, is released and soon gains cult status.
5 Jan.
The all-black musical The Wiz opens on Broadway, eventually tallying 1,672 performances.
17 Apr.
President Gerald Ford becomes the first U.S. president since Abraham Lincoln to attend a performance at Washington's Ford Theater.
5 Sept.
The United States and the Soviet Union agree to five major art exchanges over the next five years.

1976

Movies
All the Presidents Men, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffrman; Carrie, directed by Brian DePalma and starring Sissy Spacek and John Travolta; Car Wash, directed by Michael Schultz and starring Richard Pryor, Family Plot, directed by Alfred Hitchcock; Logan's Run, starring Michael York and Farrah Fawcett, Network, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall; The Omen, starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick; Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire; A Star Is Born, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson; Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd, and Jodie Foster.
Fiction
John Gardner, October Light; Ira Levin, The Boys from Brazil; Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time; Paul Theroux, The Family Arsenal; Leon Uris, Trinity; Gore Vidal, 1876; Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick; Alice Walker, Meridian; Irving Wallace, The R Document
Popular Songs
Aerosmith, "Dream On"; Bay City Rollers, "Saturday Night"; The Bee Gees, "You Should Be Dancing"; Bellamy Brothers, "Let Your Love Flow"; Chicago, "If You Leave Me Now"; The Four Seasons, "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)"; Elton John and Kiki Dee, "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart"; Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"; Barry Manilow, "I Write the Songs"; C. W. McCall, "Convoy"; Steve Miller Band, "Rock'n Me"; Paul McCartney and Wings, "Silly Love Songs"; Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody"; Vickie Sue Robinson, "Turn the Beat Around"; Diana Ross, "Love Hangover" and "Theme from Mahogany"; Paul Simon, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"; Starland Vocal Band, "Afternoon Delight"; Rod Stewart, "Tonight's the Night"; Johnnie Taylor, "Disco Lady"; Andrea True Connection, "More More More"; Wild Cherry, "Play That Funky Music"
  • "Women Artists: 1550-1950," a retrospective exhibit, begins a national tour at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
  • Conductor Arthur Fiedler and pianist Arthur Rubinstein are awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford. Rubinstein later retires from recitals due to blindness.
  • Ragtime composer Scott Joplin, whose rags were popularized by the film The Stingy is awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
  • Elton John performs an entire week of sold-out concerts in Madison Square Garden, breaking all attendance records for the venue.
  • Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive! becomes the biggest-selling live album ever released.
  • The Recording Industry Association of America creates the Platinum Award for singles selling one million copies and albums selling two million copies. The first platinum single is "Disco Lady" by Johnnie Taylor; the first platinum album is The Eagles/Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975.
  • Lasers are used in a rock show for the first time, by the Who.
  • The exhibit "Two Centuries of Black American Art" opens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
  • Saul Bellow wins the Nobel Prize for literature.
12 Jan.
The National Endowment for the Arts awards grants totaling over $8 million to one hundred orchestras.
30 Jan.
The first "Live from Lincoln Center" telecast features the New York Philharmonic with Andre Previn as conductor and Van Cliburn as pianist.
18 May
An all-star concert, the highlight of a $6.5 million fund-raising drive to restore Carnegie Hall in New York City, features Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz, and Isaac Stern.
24 June
Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival opens, featuring Henry V with Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep.
30 June
Swan Lake, performed by the American Ballet Theater at Lincoln Center, becomes the first full-length ballet to be telecast live.
4 July
The works often U.S. sculptors are unveiled along a 455-mile stretch of inter-state highway in Nebraska.
21 July
Guys and Dolls is revived on Broadway with an all-black cast.
4 Aug.
Gian Carlo Menotti's Symphony No. 1, commissioned for the bicentennial, premieres in New York City.
6 Oct.
Jackson Pollock's last privately owned painting, Lavender Misty is sold to the National Gallery of Art for $2 million.
6 Nov.
Gone With the Wind is broadcast on network television for the first time, setting a new Nielsen ratings record.

1977

Movies
Annie Hall, directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Diane Keaton; Close Encounters of the Third Kind, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Richard Dreyfuss; The Goodbye Girl, directed by Herbert Ross and starring Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason; Julia, directed by Fred Zinneman and starring Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jason Robards; New York, New York, directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli; Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta; Smokey and the Bandit, starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field; Star Wars, directed by George Lucas and starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher; The Turning Point, directed by Herbert Ross and starring Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Fiction
Louis Auchincloss, The Dark Lady; John Cheever, Falconer; Richard Condon, The Abandoned Woman; Robert Coover, The Public Burning; Sarah Davidson, Loose Change; Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer; Leon Forrest, The Blood-worth Orphans; Marilyn French, The Women's Room; Jerzy Kosinski, Blind Date; James Alan McPherson, Elbow Room; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; Paul Theroux, Consul's File.
Popular Songs
Abba, "Dancing Queen"; Debby Boone, "You Light Up My Life"; Bill Conti," Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)"; the Eagles, "Fly Like an Eagle" and "Hotel California"; Emotions, "Best of My Love"; Fleetwood Mac, "Dreams"; Andy Gibb, "I Just Want to Be Your Everything"; Hall and Oates, "Rich Girf; Thelma Houston, "Don't Leave Me This Way"; Mary MacGregor, "Torn Between Two Lovers"; Meco, "Star Wars Theme"; Rose Royce, "Car Wash"; Barbra Streisand, "Love Theme from A Star Is Born (Evergreen)"; Stevie Wonder, "Sir Duke."
  • The national tour "Treasures of Tutankhamen," featuring Egyptian artifacts from King Tufs tomb, draws the largest attendance in history for an art show.
  • Studio 54, the first celebrity disco, opens in New York City.
  • Fleetwood Mac's album Rumours sells over eight million copies, holds the number one album slot on the Billboard chart for thirty-one weeks, and becomes the first album to produce four Top 10 singles. It remains on the chart for 3 1/2 years.
20 Feb.
Alex Haley's Roots is listed by The New York Times as the top-selling book in the country for twenty consecutive weeks.
21 Apr.
The musical Annie, produced by Mike Nichols, opens on Broadway, eventually notching 2,377 performances.
26 May
Beatlemania, a mixed-media concert featuring Beatles songs performed by Beatles look-alikes, opens in New York City.
26 June
Elvis Presley makes his last concert appearance, in Indianapolis.
30 June
The Newport Jazz Festival announces a move to Saratoga Springs, New York, citing prohibitive costs.
19 Aug.
Elvis Presley dies of heart failure at age forty-two.
15 Oct.
The Metropolitan Opera performs La Boheme, marking its first live television broadcast. Renata Scotto and Luciano Pavarotti star.
22 Nov.
The J. Paul Getty Museum in California reportedly pays between $3.5 and $5 million for a fourth-century bronze, a record price for sculpture.

1978

Movies
The Buddy Holly Story, starring Gary Busey, Coming Home, directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight; Days of Heaven, directed by Terence Malick and starring Richard Gere; The Deer Hunter, directed by Michael Cimino and starring Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken; Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John; Heaven Can Wait, directed by Warren Beatty and starring Beatty and Julie Christie; Interiors, directed by Woody Allen and starring Diane Keaton and Geraldine Page; Mid-night Express, starring Brad Davis; National Lampoon's Animal House, starring John Belushi; An Unmarried Woman, starring Jill Clayburgh.
Fiction
Louis Auchincloss, The Country Cousin; John Cheever, The Stories of John Cheever; Ernest J. Gaines, In My Fathers House; John Irving, The World According to Garp; Judith Krantz, Scruples; Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance.
Popular Songs
The Bee Gees, "How Deep Is Your Love," "Night Fever," and "Stayin' Alive"; the Commodores, "Three Times a Lady"; Yvonne Elliman, "If I Can't Have You"; Exile, "Kiss You All Over"; Andy Gibb, "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" and "Shadow Dancing"; Billy Joel, "Just the Way You Are"; Paul McCartney and Wings, "With a Little Luck"; Gerry Rafferty, "Baker Street"; the Rolling Stones, "Miss You"; Donna Summer, "Last Dance" and "MacArthur Park"; A Taste of Honey, "Boogie Oogie Oogie"; John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, "You're the One That I Want"; Frankie Valli, "Grease"; Village People, "Macho Man" and "Y.M.C.A."
  • The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., opens the East Building, dedicated to modern art.
  • Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubinstein are honored at the Kennedy Center in New York City.
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer wins the Nobel Prize for literature, the second American writer to win in three years.
  • Christina Crawford creates a stir with the best-seller Mommie Dearest, a scathing portrait of her late mother, actress Joan Crawford.
Jan.
The English punk rock band the Sex Pistols breaks up in the middle of its first American tour when singer Johnny Rotten quits the band.
4 Jan.
The top-selling paperback in the country, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is a novelization of a film script.
13 Apr.
An elaborate financial plan is announced to save Radio City Music Hall in New York City, known for its Rockertes dancers and Music Hall Symphony.
24 Apr.
The Soviet press agency Tass reports that painter Andrew Wyeth has been elected honorary member of the Soviet Academy of Arts.
9 May
Ain't Misbehaving an all-black musical featuring the music of Fats Waller, opens on Broadway, eventually racking up 1,604 performances.
20 July
John D. Rockefeller III bequeaths his American art collection to the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco and to the Asia Society in New York City.
27 Dec.
Three paintings by Paul Cézanne, valued at between $2.5 and $3 million, are discovered to be missing from the Art Institute in Chicago.

1979

Movies
Alien, starring Sigourney Weaver; All That Jazz, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Roy Scheider and Jessica Lange; Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, and Marlon Brando; The China Syndrome, starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas; Kramer vs. Kramer, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep; Manhattan, directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen, Diane Keaton, and Meryl Streep; Norma Rae, starring Sally Field; Rock 'n' Rolll High School, starring the Ramones; 10, directed by Blake Edwards and starring Dudley Moore, Bo Derek, and Julie Andrews.
Fiction
Jerzy Kosinski, Passion Play; Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song; Bernard Malamud, Dubins Lives; Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer; Isaac Bashevis Singer, Old Love; William Styron, Sophie's Choice; John Updike, Too Far to Go; Alice Walker, Goodnight, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning.
Popular Songs
Herb Alpert, "Rise"; the Bee Gees, "Tragedy"; Blondie, "Heart of Glass"; Chic, "Good Times" and "Le Freak"; the Doobie Brothers, "What a Fool Believes"; Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"; Michael Jackson, "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"; the Knack, "My Sharona"; M, "Pop Musik"; Peaches and Herb, "Reunited"; Sister Sledge, "We Are Family"; Rod Stewart, "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"; Donna Summer, "Bad Girls," "Hot Stuff," and "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)"; Anita Ward, "Ring My Bell."
  • Aaron Copland is honored at the Kennedy Center in New York City.
  • The first digitally recorded album—Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop—is released.
  • Chuck Berry serves a four-month prison term for income-tax evasion.
  • Eleven people are trampled to death at a Who concert in Cincinnati when fans rush to find unassigned seating.
16 Mar.
The China Syndrome, a film depicting the shutdown of an unsafe nuclear reactor, opens just twelve days before a malfunction of a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania leads to a near meltdown.
15 Sept.
Massachusetts adopts the nation's first lottery in support of the arts.
25 Sept.
The musical Evita, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and produced by Robert Stigwood, opens on Broadway, eventually running 1,567 performances.
25 Sept.
Icebergs, a long-lost painting by nineteenth-century landscape artist Frederick Edwin Church, is auctioned for a record $2.5 million.