Flashbackfriday - - 1974

Flashback Friday 1974

          Hello and welcome to my fifth installment of Flashback Friday where I present a few things from history that caught my eye and tweaked my memory on my search.

News Headlines and History

• March 29 Terracotta Army Discovered. This was hugh news, I remember seeing this plastered on magazines everywhere for quite some time. Even today it still shows up and is talked about. It was all over the news, it was a pretty exciting find.

The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE,[1] were discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, People's Republic of China, Shaanxi province. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots and horses. Estimates from 2007 were that the three pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits nearby Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum.[2] Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians.

^{Source: Wiki}

^{By Jmhullot - CC BY 3.0, Link}

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• June 26 - I do not remember this being real big news back then, today a lot of people think it has had a very dramatic effect on us all and many call it the mark of the beast. A boon to the grocery stores and markets, a bane to many others.

^{By toguro - Own work, CC0, (modified by me)}

A supermarket cashier scans a multipack of chewing gum across a bar-code scanner in Troy, Ohio. It's the first product ever checked out by Universal Product Code.

Some readers may be unable to remember when grocery clerks had to put price stickers on nearly every item in the store. And retail cashiers had to read a price tag by eye and key in the price by hand. But that's the way things were. The process was not only laborious, but it left the store manager with no idea of how much of each of thousands of different products had been sold and how much remained in stock.

Here is a link from Wired magazine. Just a short story on it. (source for the above clip)

For a more in depth story there is the Smithsonian Magazine story

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• August 9 - The first resignation of a sitting American President. We have all seen it the Saturday Night Live shows, the Meme's "I am not a crook" the smile, the seriousness of his look, and the pretty historic Presidency of President Nixon. He is one president people remember. Some seeing what he accomplished, some seeing what he did. Few seeing both the accomplishments, and the dids. History is still talking and telling us how we should feel about his role as an American President.

In an evening televised address, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. With impeachment proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to leave the White House. “By taking this action,” he said in a solemn address from the Oval Office, “I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.”

^{Source: History.com}

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^{Source Same wiki story (CC0)} * Nov 24 - Lucy is found. Like the Terracotta Army Discovery, this was big, big, big news in the world of archaeology, and in the world in general.

"Lucy" acquired her name from the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by The Beatles, which was played loudly and repeatedly in the expedition camp all evening after the excavation team's first day of work on the recovery site. After public announcement of the discovery, Lucy captured much public interest, becoming a household name at the time.

Lucy became famous worldwide, and the story of her discovery and reconstruction was published in a book by Johanson. Beginning in 2007, the fossil assembly and associated artifacts were exhibited publicly in an extended six-year tour of the United States; the exhibition was called Lucy's Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia. There was discussion of the risks of damage to the unique fossils, and other museums preferred to display casts of the fossil assembly.[8] The original fossils were returned to Ethiopia in 2013, and subsequent exhibitions have used casts
^{Source: Wiki}
          Still a lot of controversy over Lucy, and I think there will always be controversy. To many different and divergent peoples for any truth about the fossils. So opinions and scientific explorations are muted to the lowest level so as not to upset sensitivities of the various and sundry peoples and their belief systems.

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• Date Unknow - Sometime in 1974 D&D wars released. Wiki did not have a specific date for it's release, nor could I find an article on what day in 1974 it was released. "In January 1974, TSR with Gygax's basement as a headquarters produced 1,000 copies of D&D, selling them for $10 each and the extra dice needed for another $3.50." That is the closest I could come up with for a date. Source: TSR wiki page

Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D[2]) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. It was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro) since 1997. It was derived from miniature wargames with a variation of Chainmail serving as the initial rule system.[3] D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry.[4]

D&D departs from traditional wargaming and assigns each player a specific character to play instead of a military formation. These characters embark upon imaginary adventures within a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Master serves as the game's referee and storyteller while maintaining the setting in which the adventures occur, and playing the role of the inhabitants. The characters form a party that interacts with the setting's inhabitants, and each other. Together they solve dilemmas, engage in battles, and gather treasure and knowledge.[4] In the process the characters earn experience points in order to rise in levels, and become increasingly powerful over a series of sessions.
^{Source: Wiki Page}

It was a fun game to play, gather a few friends, 5 worked pretty good, grab a few six packs, 3 worked good, sit around chat and play and have fun running a story. I played for a few months, then real life shifted me to another place, and did not play again, until computer versions came out.

Music

The Number one song for the year was: "The Way We Were" Barbra Streisand. Not to bad of a song I guess, although the movie was better I think, (can not remember for sure), starring Robert Redford.

^{source: LozBabsFanatic Youtube page}

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Once again another year of some really good music, a lot of which still lives on in memories. So I am not sure if he really was a one hit wonder or if he did have more songs, but I still, to this day, like and enjoy this song.

^{Source: TerryJacksVEVO youtube page}

Cars

From the annals of "The Consumer Guide Best Buys of 1974" about cars. I looked through its online offering,

Sporty Compacts:
Best Buy: Chevrolet Camaro
Second Choice: Pontiac Firebird

Boring...1974 not a good car year.

Low-Priced sports
Best Buy: Audi Fox

It's a good thing they have a second choice. I don't know how they could have picked that...bad year for cars and a bad year of pundit picks I guess.

Second Choice: Fiat X 1/9

^{Source: The Consumer Guide Best Buys of 1974}
I had one of these to drive for a little while. It was fun. It was very fun. Did I mention it was a fun little car to drive. I mean it was fun, it was also small. But I fit, no problems. It was a fun drive. Did I say it was fun to drive? it was.

Okay so 1974 pretty much a wash to me for cars, at least as I see it now. I may have thought differently back then, but back then I would not have been able to buy one of them. I mean cars were cheap, or seem cheap to us looking back, but it was still a lot of money back then. A lot cheaper then to buy a new car than today, but there are still vehicles that only take the equivalent of 6 Full months of average earnings to buy.

Conclusion

1974, to sum it up from my view looking back and cherry picking my own memories, I would have to say it was a rather exciting year for Archeology, and science in general. Yeah a president resigned, yeah we had a person that was not elected signed in as President. and well car choices really sucked. But did I tell you how fun it was to drive one of those X-19 Fiats, they were fun little cars. it was also another very good year for music, so all was not lost memory wise.

I hope you enjoyed my memory pickings from the year of 1974.