Flashbackfriday - - 1979
11-9-18
Flashback Friday - - 1979
This is going to conclude the 70's for flashback's. I will be taking some time before maybe doing another decade.
News Headlines and History
All date information was pulled from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_in_the_United_States
January 4 – The State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of those who were dead or injured from the Kent State shootings.
May 4th 1970, that was when the shooting happened. the Ohio National Guard shot and killed 4 unarmed college students and injured a further 9. Almost 9 years later, some for of justice was meted out. It took slightly over 1 year for the government to conclude the ROTC Fire trial, that I would consider in compliance with the Constitution. Four years to bring any kind of justice against the state a little bit lengthy, and then another four years to comply with the court findings to long. Were they the protesters right? Remember the killing was not of protesters most of the dead were bystanders, I think I saw one report that of the four dead only two of them were protester. Right or wrong, this whole thing shows that the justice system that needed work back then and still does to this day.
January 29 – Brenda Ann Spencer opens fire at a school in San Diego, California, killing two faculty members and wounding eight students. Her response to the action, “I don’t like Mondays,”
On April 4, 1980, she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. According to wiki she is as of October 2018 still in prison. Justice is swift when it is the individual against the system.
March 29 – America's most serious nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.
The China Syndrome, a movie about a nuclear disaster, which was released just 12 days before the incident and received a tepid reception from the movie-going public, became a blockbuster hit. I remember that movie, coincident or prelude, or intentional meltdown? Who knows, but the people around the area will be happy next year when they plan on a complete shutdown of the facility due to operating cost.
November 1 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urges his people to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand attacks on United States and Israeli interests.
November 4 – Iran hostage crisis begins: 3,000 Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages (53 of whom are American). They demand that the United States send the former Shah of Iran back to stand trial.
November 12 – Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, U.S. President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.
November 14 – Iran hostage crisis: U.S. President Jimmy Carter issues Executive Order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States and U.S. banks in response to the hostage crisis.
November 17 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and African American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
November 21 – After false radio reports from the Ayatollah Khomeini that the Americans had occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set afire, killing 4 (see Foreign relations of Pakistan).
Not a happy November. Not a lot has changed. I wonder what the value was of all the frozen assets compared to the airplane delivery of all that money a few years ago. Nothing has really changed.
November 2 – Assata Shakur (ne' Joanne Chesimard), a former member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, is liberated from a Clinton, New Jersey prison and soon shuttled off to Cuba where she remains under political asylum.
And of course there had to be at least one total asinine piss off the people headline somewhere. She was "liberated from a Clinton, New Jersey prison", not broken out of, not escaped from, but liberated. Any other person who is illegally released from prison in the United States is an escaped convict. I have no clue nor do I even care to know who this person is.
Okay that last headline was a downer, so on to the music.
Music
Selected music was sourced from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-one_singles_of_1979.
"My Sharona"
By: "The Knack" Music taste were beginning to make a change again, not so much disco on the charts this year. Here are a couple others that I enjoyed listening to then and still now.
Blondie - Heart Of Glass
A little bit different sound all all three of the above selections, variety was returning to the sounds of music. Not so much everyday bubblegum/disco, sounds the same kind of music.
Conclusion
I think will conclude my weekly flashback series for now. I may come back to it or make a post every now and then about a past event that catches my fancy, but for the decade, I think that's it for now.
The years reviewed: 1970 - - 1971 - - 1972 - - 1973 - - 1974 - - 1975 - - 1976 - - 1977 - - 1978.
I remember my parents talking about Three Mile Island. We lived in PA and drove past it on the way to see my grandparents all the time.
Now I work for the company that designed the TMI reactor. They tell me that the design flaw was well known and they had already engineered a solution. The change order was waiting to be signed when the accident happened. They just underestimated the urgency of the problem.
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