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Area 88

Area 88

:This article is about the manga series. For the videogame, see U.N. Squadron. Area 88 is a popular manga series by Kaoru Shintani that has twice been adapted into an anime series, and used as the theme for a video game. It is well-known for its realistic depiction of aircraft and air combat. 'Area 88' takes place in the late 1970s/early 1980s and is largely set in a middle eastern, war-embroiled country called the Kingdom of Asran in the Middle East. The war uses mercenary fighters, with its headquarters at a secret desert military airbase called 'Area 88'. Up-and-coming ace airline pilot Shin Kazama gets tricked into signing up by 'friend' Satoru Kanzaki as part of his jealousy-fueled plot to steal Shin's girlfriend Ryoko Tsugamo. Facing execution for deserting from 'Area 88', Shin reluctantly turns into a fighter pilot and attempts to serve his three year contract out. Area 88 attracts all kinds of people, with all kinds of assorted (and sordid) pasts. Among the other mercenaries are Mick Simon, an American who couldn't adjust to normal life after his tour of duty in the Vietnam War. Mick becomes Shin's best friend at Area 88. Another familiar sight at Area 88 is McCoy, a greedy weapons dealer who sells everything the mercenaries need from toilet paper to the planes that the mercenaries fly in battle. The Commander of Area 88 is Saki Vashtal, who is actually a prince of the nation of Asran, though his royal heritage means nothing there. Also prominent on the base are the war photographer Rocky (presented as Makoto Shinjou in the 2004 anime), the Dane Greg Gates (later featured in the video game adaptation) and the numerous pilots with whom Shin flies (most of whom die over the course of the series, often in the issue in which they were introduced). Though the series focuses mostly on Shin, other characters (notably Rocky and Mick) did have their own individual storylines. There are only three ways to leave Area 88: Survive three years (highly unlikely), buy out your contract for one and a half million dollars (difficult as a mercenary must pay for all his expenses) or desertion (a capital offense if caught). With each enemy plane brought down, Shin faces his shifting acceptance of the violence and killing that fills every day, as well as suppressing his feelings of wrong-doing. Eventually earning his release after numerous setbacks, he returns to normal life only to discover he has changed and can no longer fit into the life he once knew.

Aircraft

Aircraft listed with notable pilots
- F-5 Tiger - Kazama Shin
- F-8 Crusader - Kazama Shin, Boris
- F-20 Tigershark - Kazama Shin
- F-14 Tomcat - Mickey Simon (modified to a single-seater)
- A-10 Thunderbolt II - Greg Gates
- Harrier - Kim Aoba (2004 anime)
- Dassault Mirage F.1 - Kitori Palvanaff (2004 anime)
- F-4 Phantom - Unnamed pilots (2004 anime), Kazama Shin (2004 anime)
- F-100 Super Sabre - Mickey Simon (OVA)
- IAI Kfir - Saki, unnamed pilots (OVA)
- MiG-23 - Patrick Reed The enemies against which the Area 88 mercenaries fight often fly different types of planes, ranging from MiGs (MIG-17/MIG-21) to Harriers.

Animation

An OAV trilogy was released in 1985 on video tape and laser disc. The tapes/discs were called Area 88, Act I: Blue Skies of Betrayal, Area 88, Act II: The Requirements of Wolves, and Area 88, Act III: Burning Mirage. These were later released, English subtitled on VHS by U.S. Manga Corps. Only the first volume was subsequently released to DVD, but the English subtitles on the DVD suffered from poor translation. An updated 13-episode TV series with CG graphics was created in 2004 and was first aired in Japanese and Asian TV stations by Animax and its branches. ADV Films took responsibility for distributing it in English and it was released, both regular and boxsets, starting on July 19, 2005.

Variations

Each version of the Area 88 told slightly different variations on the same basic premise, and often shared individual story arcs. However, there are several key differences between each version, especially in the endings. The original manga ending had Shin returning to Japan, but losing all memory of his time in Area 88; the OAV trilogy had Shin return to Area 88 and his (surmised) death when the Area was overrun, and the 2004 anime truncated the story to before Shin finished his contract at the Area. The 2004 anime also introduced the permanent characters of Kim and Saki's cousin Kitori, neither of whom had appeared in prior versions.

Video Games

A shooter video game by Capcom was created in the late 80's, but it was released in the U.S. as UN Squadron, with only the characters connecting the two versions. Versions released included the Super Nintendo, Commodore 64, and Amiga, as well as a stand-up arcade game. In the game, the player could select from Shin, Mick, or Greg as the pilot to play. Each came with a different plane and various advantages; for example, Mick could handle air-to-air dogfights well while Greg excelled at air-to-ground attacks. Each pilot also had special abilities; Shin mastered normal weaponry at the highest speed, Mick inflicted extra damage with his armaments, and Greg recovered from attacks almost before they occurred. The SNES version differed from the rest in that the pilots no longer came with preset aircraft. Instead, all pilots started out with $3000 and the basic F8 Crusader and had to buy other aircraft along the way. Also, the linear mission sequence from the other versions was no longer enforced, meaning that the player could take certain missions out of order. The drawback was that it allowed only one player at a time, unlike the arcade version. However, each pilot retained his individual advantages, with an extra bonus thrown in: Shin again increased his firepower the most quickly, Mick gained double ammunition from reloads, and Greg received double vitality back from fuel tanks. (In the SNES version, Mick is known as Mickey Scymon.) The SNES version of UN Squadron featured the following aircraft:
- Crusader - The basic plane that all pilots started on, and the one with the least functionality.
- Tiger Shark - A balanced fighter capable of holding its own against air and ground.
- Tomcat - Optimized for forward attacks, and the most maneuverable of all the aircraft.
- Thunderbolt - Custom-built for ground attacks, featuring a ground-strafing cannon. Limited by low firepower and maneuverability.
- Stealth Ray - A new fighter that equips upward-attacking weapons. Plus, its stealth capabilities foil homing missiles.
- Efreet - Soviet technology. A fighter that handles all weapons in great quantities, but also the most expensive aircraft available. Practically none of the emotion or character development that occurred in the manga or OAVs were transferred over to the game. McCoy and Saki receive zero character development and all the pilots keep the same generic quotes after completing a mission.

Music

OAV Version

Opening Theme: "How Far to Paradise" by Derek Jackson Ending Theme: "「悲しみのＤｅｓｔｉｎｙ」 (Kanashimi no Destiny)" by MIO

TV Version

Opening Theme: "Mission (Fuga)" by angels Ending Theme: 1: "Dance in the Battlefield" by Keiko Terada (eps 1-8) 2: "Dance in the Battlefield (English Version)" by Keiko Terada (eps 9-12)

External links


- [http://www.animax.co.jp/area88/ Animax] (Japanese)
- [http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/a88/ TV Asahi] (Japanese)
- [http://www.anime-planet.com/animerec/772.html AniRec Database] (with screenshots)
-
- [http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=U&game_id=10247 Coin-OP Museum: "UN Squadron" Game]
- [http://www.advfilms.com/CatalogFilms_Detail.asp?ID=25/ Area 88 section (Regular DVD)]
- [http://www.advfilms.com/CatalogFilms_Detail.asp?ID=26/ Area 88 section (Boxset DVD)] ja:エリア88
- [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=3149 Area 88 TV Version Info]
- [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=513 Area 88 OAV Info] Category:Anime Category:Manga Category:ADV Films

U.N. Squadron

U.N. Squadron (Area 88 in Japan), is a shooting/action arcade game by Capcom. It is based on the anime/manga Area 88. Although it doesn't bear any resemblance to the original history, it still uses the many of the characters and place setting. In the context of other Capcom shooters such as 1942, 1943: The Battle of Midway, and Giga Wing this is one of the few that is a side scrolling shooter rather than a top down (vertical) shooter.

Gameplay

Giga Wing In this game, the player can choose between three mercenary pilots: Shin Kazama, Mickey Simon and Greg Gates. Each pilot flies a specific plane and has slightly different capabilities. Their mission is to stop a terrorist group known as Project 4.

Pilots


- Shin Kazama: Shin flies an F-20 Tigershark; the weapons on his plane fire forward only but at a quick pace. Shin and his plane are the most balanced combination available.
- Mickey Simon: Mickey flies an F-14 Tomcat; the weapons on his plane also fire forward only, but are also larger (albeit slower), inflicting more damage than Shins plane.
- Greg Gates: Greg flies an A-10 Thunderbolt; this plane has smaller forward fire than either Shin or Mickeys planes, but it also fires a second stream downward at a 45° angle from the forward firing stream.

Weapons Shop

Before entering a level, the player has the opportunity to purchase special weapons or added defenses in the shop. The player earns money for this shop by destroying enemy planes and vehicles during levels and, when the level is finished, any unused weapons are converted back into money.

Weapons

Depending on the level and which pilot they have chosen, players will encounter two of these eight different weapon enhancements in the weapons shop:
- Bulpup: Launches missiles forward at various angles.
- Bulpup II: A more powerful Bulpup.
- Phoenix: Homing missiles that go after any enemies on the screen.
- Falcon: A more powerful Phoenix.
- S. Shell: Shoots a large long shell at enemies that inflicts more damage than regular guns.
- S. Shell II: A more powerful and larger S. Shell.
- Bomb II: Allows you to drop powerful bombs from above.
- Napalm: More powerful than Bomb II in that it ignites the ground when it lands.

Defense

After selecting (or passing up) additional weapons, players are offered one of three defensive enhancements (these are the same on every level):
- Energy Tank: Adds more life to the lifebar when the level begins.
- Shield: Absorbs damage from enemy fire or collisions.
- Super Shield: Same as Shield, but can absorb more damage.

Play

Once a level has been entered, the game is similar to Defender and R-Type in form: the character's plane is viewed side-on, flying right as enemies approach from many directions. Land, sea, and air units are encountered in the various stages. R-Type The player's main gun has infinite ammunition and can be upgraded by picking up accumulating POW points. POWs, which appear when you destroy certain red enemies, can be found as green, blue or yellow glowing orbs inside a small box. Each color POW is worth a different amount of points:
- Blue POW: 1 point
- Green POW: 2 points
- Yellow POW: 4 points The player's current number of POWs and the amount needed for the next gun upgrade is displayed in the upper left corner of the display. Each upgrade generally requires more POWs to get than the last upgrade, and so forth. Special weapons, on the other hand, are limited in ammunition and have no ability to upgrade in level. The character's plane can take a number of enemy hits before being destroyed and has a brief period of invulnerability after each hit. This makes the game a little less frustrating. R-Type Like many shooters, the game is very challenging. Levels frequently included large numbers of enemies atacking at once, with subsequent vast amounts of firepower on screen. The player needed quick reflexes to navigate through all this fire while still attacking their enemies. Only a skilled player is capable of finishing the game with few (or any) continues.

Ports

U.N. Squadron (as well as Area 88 in Japan) was ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991. Differences between the arcade game and the SNES port include:
- Single player only
- Different planes may be used indepedent of the pilot chosen
- More and different power-ups may be bought in the between-level store
- An overhead map is used between levels
- If you die during a level, you restart that level from the beginning

External links


- [http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=6910 Area 88 entry] on the Killer List of Videogames
- [http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10247 U.N. Squadron entry] on the Killer List of Videogames
- [http://www.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/data/583864.html GameFAQs information page]
- [http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/un-squadron MobyGames information page] Category:Capcom games Category: Arcade games Category:Super NES games Category:ZX Spectrum games Category:1989 arcade games Category:1991 computer and video games

1970s

The 1970s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1970 and 1979. The decade is remembered by many as the 1960s rapidly running out of steam, and the gloom of recession replacing the optimism of the 1960s Flower Power era. The United States, which had become an influential global power, experienced much of the transition. While the sixties saw social activism, society became more self-absorbed in the seventies. Analyst and writer Tom Wolfe epitomized this feeling in 1976, calling the seventies the "Me Decade." Music became at once more introspective with the singer-songwriter movement and more carefree with the rise of disco music. As the decade continued on, the American world view became apprehensive, with continuing inner-city poverty and rising urban crime rates, the Watergate hearings broadcast on television, and the Vietnam War still fresh in the national memory. Network, arguably one of the decade's most representative films, dealt with narcissism and paranoia as violence escalated in the Middle East and America was crippled by the Oil Shock of 1973. As the economy slipped, the use of recreational drugs increased and many began to fear purported cults such as the Children of God. By the end of the decade the feminist movement had helped improve women's working conditions and environmentalism had become a major cause in the United States and Europe. While the United States experienced recession, the economy of Japan rose to claim the top spot on the world stage. The economies of many third world countries continued to bloom in the early 1970s through the green revolution. They might have thrived and become stable in the way that Europe recovered after the war through the Marshall Plan; however, the economic growth was stunted by the oil crisis. In 1973, foreign peacekeepers fled Vietnam, and the war that had lasted for nearly a decade ended with the Paris Peace Accords and communism continuing to spread. In neighboring Cambodia, several million citizens were executed by communist leader Pol Pot. Meanwhile, black South Africans still remained under apartheid following the death of activist Steve Biko.

Worldwide trends in the Seventies

The ethos of the 1970s emerged from a transition of the global social structure. It reflected the transition from the decline of colonial imperialism since the end of World War II to globalization and the rise of a new middle class in the developing world. Globally, the 1970s had several features that were similar and definitive across economic levels and regions. These aspects and essence that make up global essence of the 1970s are the defining points of the 1970s: the Bretton Woods system and its subsequent failure, the impact of the contraceptive pill on social-interactional dynamics, and the oil shock of 1973. The developing nations experienced economic growth that came in the wake of political independence. However, several African economies declined and political states became dictatorial regimes. Many Middle Eastern democracies crumbled into chaotic regimes with pseudo democratic governments. The 1970s ethos in much of the developing world was characterized by:
- the incessant need to redefine social norms to newer socioeconomic systems,
- the sheer pace at which they need to adapt to new social influences along with the need to integrate it to their native cultural context, and
- the constant aspiration for a more egalitarian society in cultures that were long colonised and have an even longer history of hierarchical social structure. The green revolution of the late 1960s brought about self sufficiency in many developing economies. At the same time an increasing number of people began to seek urban prosperity over agrarian life. This consequently saw the duality of transition of diverse interaction across social communities amid increasing information blockade across social class. Other common global ethos of the seventies world include: increasingly flexible and varied gender roles for women. Women could now enter the work force and not just be housewives. However the gender role of men remained as that of a bread-winner. The period also saw unprecedented socioeconomic impact of an ever-increasing number of women entering the non-agrarian economic workforce, and the sweeping cultural-religious impact of the Iranian revolution toward the end of the 1970s. The global experience of the cultural transition of the 1970s and an experience of a global zeitgeist revealed the interdependence of economies since World War II, and showed the huge impact of American economic policies on the world.

Economy of the Seventies

The developed economies of the world, the 1970s adversely distinguished itself from the prosperous postwar period between 1945 and 1969. Then, the world economy was buoyed by the Marshall Plan and the robust American economy. However, the high standing enjoyed by the American economy gradually became discomposed by loose domestic and war spending, particularly the Vietnam war. The oil shock of 1973 added to the existing ailments and conjured high inflation throughout much of the world for the rest of the decade. World leaders, such as James Callaghan of the United Kingdom, and Jimmy Carter of the United States, could not control it, causing their support to dwindle. Although there was no economic depression, the period is known for "stagflation", in which inflation and unemployment steadily increased, therefore leading to lower economic growth rates than previous decades. In Eastern Europe, Soviet-style command economies began showing signs of stagnation, in which successes were persistently dogged by setbacks. The oil shock increased East European, particularly Soviet, exports, but agriculture became a growing annoyance to such economies.

Oil crisis

Jimmy Carter, were common throughout the Western world. Also common were long lines to receive rationed petrol products.]] Economically, the seventies were marked by the energy crisis which peaked in 1973 and 1979 (see 1973 oil crisis and 1979 oil crisis). After the first oil shock in 1973, gasoline was rationed in many countries. Europe particularly depended on the Middle East for oil; the US was also affected even though it had its own oil reserves. Many European countries introduced car-free days. In the US, customers with a license plate ending in an odd number were only allowed to buy gasoline on odd-numbered days, while even-numbered plate-holders could only purchase gasoline on even-numbered days. The experience that oil reserves were not endless and technological development was not sustainable without harming the environment ended the age of modernism. As a result, ecological awareness rose.

Social movements

Environmentalism

The seventies touched off a mainstream affirmation of the environmental issues early activists from the '60s, such as Rachel Carson, warned about. The moon landing that had occurred at the end of the previous decade transmitted back concrete images of the earth as an integrated, life-supporting system and shaped a public willingness to preserve nature. On April 22, 1970, the United States celebrated its first Earth Day in which over two thousand colleges and universities and roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools participated. Over the course of the decade, in the US a series of environmentally friendly legislation would be passed. Notable actions included the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, the passage of Clean Water Act in 1972, and the enactment of the Endangered Species Act the next year. The takeoff of environmental thought rose parallel to the increased usage of nuclear power over fossil fuels. However, with the increasing expenses of nuclear power the opposition likewise grew. [http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/180] Opposition to nuclear power became widespread in reaction to the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant on March 28, 1979.

Feminism

Feminism in the United States got its start in the 1960s, but began to take flight starting in 1970, with the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which legalized female suffrage). With the anthology Sisterhood is Powerful and other works being published at the start of the decade, feminism started to reach a larger audience.

Gay rights

The Stonewall riots, which occurred in New York City in June 1969, are generally considered to have ignited the modern gay rights movement, especially in North America (the U.K. had already decriminalised homosexuality in 1967). In the 1970s, in western countries and especially so in major urban centers, gay and lesbian people came out of the closet as never before (even as many others remained closeted) and a vocal and visible gay-rights movement coalesced in an unprecedented way. Considering the profound stigma attached to homosexuality at the dawn of the 1970s, the movement, although still nascent, saw tremendous gains over the course of the decade. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders in 1973. Gay-rights ordinances were passed by several cities (beginning with Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1972), and, for the first time, a few openly gay people were elected to political office in the United States. In 1977 Harvey Milk, a politically active gay man in the emerging gay neighborhood The Castro, was elected to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. Milk and liberal San Francisco mayor George Moscone were assassinated the following year; in 1979 their assassin, Dan White, received a sentence of voluntary manslaughter. The anger the gay community felt about the murders and about White's light sentence further galvanized the movement. The increasing visibility of gay people also generated a backlash during the seventies. In perhaps the most discussed anti-gay rights campaign of the decade, singer Anita Bryant led a successful drive in 1977 to repeal a gay-rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida. The new openness about homosexuality proved disconcerting to some heterosexuals who had been accustomed to gay and lesbian people remaining closeted and politically silent. "The love that dare not speak its name," Canadian author Robertson Davies wrote during the decade, referencing the famous Lord Alfred Douglas quote, "has become the love that won't shut up." On October 14, 1979, approximately 100,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., in the largest pro-gay rights demonstration up to that time.

Culture during the Seventies

Emerging social perspectives in the Seventies

In the wake of the 1960s many of the social dimenisions and perspectives towards issues were increasingly seen in liberal perspectives. Universities became more friendly and less authoritative towards students. This was reflected in the corporate culture of the 1970s, where the hierarchy between supervisor and subordinates became increasingly flat. This had influence in social interaction and family relationship as well. The nuclear family rose to prominence in the third world and the role of women in nuclear families took radical shift from those of earlier generations. With the rise of nuclear family and liberal attitudes towards social structure came new perspectives to child rearing and education. The 70s saw a decline in attendance to boarding schools and a rise of local day schools. The role of the nuclear family and the parent was increasingly noticed and given new impetus. Social norms and laws were increasingly framed in favour of women.

The Seventies in music

The seventies were a time when a new generation of young people were exposed to new media and hence newer ideas in almost every field. Elvis was probably the biggest entertainer in the world in the 70´s and in 1973 he held the historic Hawaain concert which was televised worldwide to almost 1.5 billion people from over 40 countries. TV and motion picture brought to varied audiences images, lifestyles and music from diverse regions and peoples. This led to the emergence of a new vocabulary and experimentation in music. After the war the second generation of German musicians began experimenting with music, these included experimental classical music and the tradition of Krautrock or Kraut music, rooted in the experimental classical music. This later influenced both art rock and progressive rock. The main exponents of this genre include Genesis, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and space rock giants Pink Floyd. The experimental nature of progressive rock is exemplified in songs such as Pink Floyd's Echoes. The seventies is also when many legendary rock bands started, or hit their peak, including The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC/DC,Queen (Band),Black Sabbath]], KISS, The Who, and Van Halen. Another experimentation in European classical music was brought about by composer Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, with what was to be called Minimalist music. This was a break from the intellectual serial music of the tradition of Schoenberg which lasted from the early 1900s to 1960s. Minimalist music sought to appreciate simple music with systematic patterns repeated in complex variations. These experimentations were also used in several movies made in the early 1970s. In world music the musical collaboration of violinists Yehudi Menuhin and L. Subramaniam was appreciated by a large audience. The commercial cinemas around the world tended to imitate nuances of disco beats in their movies to present their movies as western and upbeat. These included the increasingly popular Kung-fu movies in far East Asia and Bollywood movies from India. One of the most successful European groups of the decade was the quartet ABBA. The Swedish group, who are still the most successful group from their country, first found fame when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. They became one of the most widely known European groups ever, and were the decade's biggest sellers. "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen" are two of ABBA's most popular songs. To many people, the Seventies will be most remembered for the rise in disco music. First creeping into dance clubs in the mid-seventies (with such hits as "The Hustle" by Van McCoy), songstresses like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Dalida and Anita Ward popularized the genre and were described in subsequent decades as the "disco divas." The Village People scored a Top Ten hit with "Y.M.C.A." and the Bee Gees had a string of #1s following their collaboration on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. As quickly as disco's popularity came, however, it fell out of favor with the new decade, and effectively died in 1981, with the popularity of New Wave bands such as Blondie and Devo, who both formed their respective bands in the seventies. Many of the aforementioned singers who became popular during the disco era found themselves out of tune with the 1980s, and were out of work for many years, until a renewed interest in disco brought many of them back to the forefront. Many songs from the disco era are still very popular dance hits and receive continuous airplay in nightclubs throughout the world. The mid-seventies saw the rise of punk music from its protopunk/garage band roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and The Clash were some of the earliest acts to make it big in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Groups like the Clash were noted for the experimentation of style, especially that of having strong reggae influences in their music. Punk music has also been heavily associated with a certain punk fashion and absurdist humor which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture and values.

The Seventies in cinema

World cinema

In cinema all over the world, the seventies brought about vigour in adventurous and realistic complex narratives with rich cinematography and elaborate scores. The cultural interaction between aided with TV and visual media and the rise in motion picture technology ushered in a new period of motion picture making. In European cinema, the failure of the Prague Spring brought about nostalgic motion pictures reminiscent of the ones that celebrate the 1970s itself. These movies expressed a yearning and as a premonition to the decade and its dreams. The Hungarian director István Szabó made the motion picture Szerelmesfilm (1970), which is a nostalgic portrayal and a premonition of the fading of the young 1970s ethos of change and a friendlier social structure. The Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci made the motion picture The Conformist (1970). German movies after the war aksed existential questions especially the works of Rainer Fassbinder. The movies of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman reached a new level of expression in motion pictures like Cries and Whispers (1973). Young German directors made movies that came to be called as the German new wave. It was the voice of a new generation that had grown up after the second world war. These included directors like Wim Wenders, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Werner Herzog. Wim wenders made movies that explored psychological states of humans in situations intimate and significant to the characters. He made Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick) in 1972. It was based on a novella by Peter Handke. He further explored this realm in the motion picture Alice in den Städten (Alice in the Cities), 1974. Hans-Jürgen Syberberg created a sensation in 1977 with the motion picture Hitler: ein Film aus Deutschland (Hitler a film from Germany). It was a seven hour movie which attempted to investigate hitler under the shadows of wagner art and Nazi nationalism. This was followed by the expressionist movie Woyzeck (1979) by Werner Herzog. Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising middle class fantasies and struggles. In the Bollywood cinema of India this was epitomised by the movies of Bollywood superhero Amitabh Bachchan. These movies portrayed adventurous plots with car chase trying to imitate hollywood movies like The French Connection, presented music with Disco beats and also presented the young middle class man as an "angry young man". The women on the other hand were shown as ones who have adopted western values and outfits especially by heroines like Parveen Babi (who was featured on the cover of TIME for a story on Bollywood's success) and Zeenat Aman. However towards the very end of the 1970s, especially after the steep rise in land prices in urban areas and the decline in employment security, the heroines were seen more often as saree-women striving to have a prosperous middle class family especially heroines like Jayaprada and Hema Malini. In this way the cinema of asian region becomes a sociological statement of the social-economic times of the region and its people. Other movie industry of the region produced fine masterpieces like in Malayalam cinema. Adoor Gopalakrishnan made Swayamvaram in 1972, which got wide critical acclaim. This was followed by the movie Nirmalyam by M.T. Vasudevan Nair in 1973.

Hollywood

The decade opened with Hollywood facing a financial slump, reflecting the monetary woes of the nation as a whole during the first half of the decade. Despite this, the seventies proved to be a benchmark decade in the development of cinema, both as an art form and a business. With young filmmakers taking greater risks and restrictions regarding language and sexuality lifting, Hollywood produced some its most critically acclaimed and financially successful films since its supposed "golden era." Hollywood for his role in the 1972 hit The Godfather. He boycotted the ceremony and sent Native American Sacheen Littlefeather to reject the award on his behalf. Also pictured are Roger Moore and Liv Ullmann.]] In the years previous to 1970, Hollywood had began to cater to the younger generation with films such as The Graduate and Topless Nurses. This proved a folly when anti-war films like R.P.M. and The Strawberry Statement became major box-office flops. Even solid films with bankable stars, like the Pearl Harbor epic Tora! Tora! Tora!, flopped, leaving studios in dire straights financially. Unable to repay financiers, studios began selling off land, furniture, clothing, and sets acquired over years of production. Nostalgic fans bid on merchandise and collectables ranging from Judy Garland's sparkling red shoes to MGM's own back lots. More of the successful films were those based in the harsh truths of war, rather than the excesses of the '60s. Films like Patton, about the World War II general, and M
- A
- S
- H, about a Korean War field hospital, were major box-office draws in 1970. Honest, old-fashioned films like Five Easy Pieces, Summer of '42, and the Erich Segal adaptation, Love Story, were commercial and critical hits. (Love Story and "Summer" remain, as of 2005, two of the most successful films in Hollywood history. "Summer," costing $1,000,000 USD, brought in $25,000,000 at the box office, while "Love Story," with a budget of $2,200,000, earned $106,400,000). One of the most insightful films of the decade came from the mind of a Hollywood outsider, Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman, whose Taking Off became a bold reflection of life at the beginning of the seventies. The 1971 satirized the American middle class, following a young girl who runs away from home, leaving her parents free to explore life for the first time in years. While the film was never given a wide release in America, it became a major critical achievement both in America and around the world (garnering the film high honors at the Cannes Film Festival and several BAFTA Award nominations). An adaptation of an Arthur Hailey novel would prove to be one of the most notable films of 1970, and would set the stage for a major trend in seventies cinema. The film, Airport, featured a complex plot, characters, and an all-star cast of Hollywood A-listers and legends. Airport followed an airport manager trying to keep a fictional Chicago airport operational during a blizzard, as well as a bomb plot to blow up an airplane. The film was a major critical and financial success, helping pull Universal Studios into the black for the year. The film earned senior actress Helen Hayes an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and garnered many other nominations in both technical and talent categories. The success of the film launched a slew of disaster-related films, many of which following the same blueprint of major stars, a melodramatic script, and great suspense. disaster Three Airport sequels followed in 1974, 1977, and 1979, each successor making less money than the last. 1972 brought The Poseidon Adventure, which starred a young Gene Hackman leading an all-star cast to safety in a capsized luxury liner. The film earned an Academy Award for visual effects (and Best Original Song for "The Morning After," as well as numerous nominations, including one for its notable supporting star, Shelley Winters. The Towering Inferno teamed Steve McQueen and Paul Newman against a fire in a New York skyscraper. The film cost a whopping $14 million to produce (expensive for its time), and won Academy Awards for Cinematography, Film Editing, and Best Original Song. The same year, the epic Earthquake featured questionable effects (camera shake and models) to achieve a destructive 9.9 earthquake in Los Angeles. Despite this, the film was one of the most successful of its time, earning $80 million at box office. By the late seventies, the novelty had worn off and the disasters had become less exciting. 1977 brought a terrorist targeting a Rollercoaster, a 1978 Swarm of bees, and a less-than-threatening Meteor in 1979. 1971 brought a rebirth of the action film, three years after the influential Bullitt. The French Connection, starring Gene Hackman, brought suspense to new heights with an adrenaline-broiling car chase through the streets of New York City, while Get Carter featured gratuitous nudity and A Clockwork Orange featured much blood and gore to complement its complex story. African American filmmakers also found success in the seventies with such hits as Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, and more questionable films, such as Blacula and Blackenstein. Like other sequels in the seventies, Shaft went on to have two more adventures, each less successful than the last. An adaptation of a Mario Puzo novel, The Godfather, became one of the best-loved and most respected works of cinema upon its release in 1972. The three-hour epic followed a Mafia boss, played by Marlon Brando, through his life of crime. Beyond the violence and drama were themes of love, pride, and greed. The Godfather went on to earn $134 million at American box office, and $245 million throughout the world. It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Its director Francis Ford Coppola was passed over in favor of Bob Fosse and his musical, Cabaret, which also earned an Oscar for its star, Liza Minnelli. The Godfather: Part II followed in 1974, with roughly the same principal cast and crew, earning Oscars for star Robert De Niro, its director, composer, screenwriters and art directors. The film also earned the Best Picture Oscar for that year. The replacement of Sean Connery, first with George Lazenby and then with Roger Moore, in the James Bond series created a minor bump for the '60s hit in the seventies. While 1973's Live and Let Die was a moderate success, the following films in the series didn't live up to expectations. The highest grossing of the seventies Bond films, 1979's Moonraker, is viewed by many as the weakest of the franchise. Other massively successful films would soon take Bond's place in the seventies. It was at this time that the blockbuster was born. While the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist was among the top five grossing films of the seventies, the first film given the blockbuster distinction was 1975's Jaws. Released on June 20th, the film about a series of horrific deaths related to a massive great white shark was director Steven Spielberg's first big-budget Hollywood production, coming in at a cool $9 million in cost. The film slowly grew in ticket sales and became one of the most profitable films of its time, ending with a $260 million dollar gross in the United States alone. The film won Academy Awards for its skillful editing, chilling score, and sound recording. It was also nominated for Best Picture that year, though it lost to Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which also won acting awards for Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher). Louise Fletcher The massive success of Jaws was eclipsed just two years later by another legendary blockbuster and film franchise. The George Lucas science-fiction epic, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, hit theater screens in May of 1977, and became a major hit, growing in ticket sales throughout the summer, and the rest of the year. In time earning some $460 million, the good versus evil fantasy set in space was not soon surpassed. The film's breathtaking visual effects won an Academy Award. The film also won for John Williams's uplifting score, as well as art direction, costume design, film editing, and sound. A New Hope effectively removed any specter of studio bankruptcy that had haunted the studios since early in the decade. When a television film, The Star Wars Holiday Special, was released as a spin-off from A New Hope in 1978, it failed to receive the status of the original film, and was deemed a flop. It would be two years until the Star Wars series would be revived with The Empire Strikes Back. Another success in visual effects came the same year as A New Hope, with Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, another blockbuster and alien contact set in the wilderness. For the picture, Spielberg received his first Oscar nomination for direction. Throughout the seventies, the horror film developed into a lucrative genre of film. It began in 1973 with the terrifying The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin and starring the young Linda Blair. The film saw massive success, and the first of several sequels was released in 1977. 1976 brought the equally creepy suspense thriller, Marathon Man, about a man who becomes the target of a former Nazi dentist's torment after his brother dies. The same year, the Devil himself made an appearance in The Omen, about the spawn of Satan. 1978's Halloween was a precursor to the "slasher" films of the eighties and nineties with its psychopathic Michael Myers. Cult horror films were also popular in the seventies, such as Wes Craven's early gore films Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, as well as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In the mid-seventies movies began to reflect the disenfranchisement brought by the excesses of the past twenty years. A deeply unsettling look at alienation and city life, Taxi Driver earned international praise, first at the Cannes Film Festival and then at the Academy Awards, where it was nominated for Best Leading Actor (Robert De Niro), Best Supporting Actress (Jodie Foster), Best Score (Bernard Herrmann), and Best Picture. All the President's Men dealt with the impeachment of Richard Nixon, while Network portrayed greed and narcissism in both American society and television media. The film won Oscars for Best Actor (Peter Finch), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Supporting Actres (Beatrice Straight), and Best Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky). Thanks to a stellar cast, experienced director, and a poignant story, Network became one of the largest critical successes of 1976. Another film, Rocky, about an average man turned boxer (played by Sylvester Stallone) won the Best Picture Academy Award that year. The film also became a major commercial success and spawned four sequels through the rest of the seventies and eighties. 1978 brought the successful sequel, Jaws 2, which featured the same cast, but without Steven Spielberg. Another tailor-made blockbuster, Dino de Laurentiis' King Kong was released, but to less than stellar success. King Kong did mark the first time a film was booked to theaters before a release date, a common practice today. King Kong, introduced the "disco lifestyle" to the world.]] The success of Woody Allen's Annie Hall in 1977 stirred a new trend in moviemaking. Annie Hall, a love story about a depressed comedian and a free-spirited woman, was followed with more sentimental films, including Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl, An Unmarried Woman staring Jill Clayburgh,the autobiographical Lillian Hellman story, Julia, starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave, and 1978's Heaven Can Wait and International Velvet. Younger audiences were also beginning to be the focus of cinema, after the huge blockbusters that had attracted them back to the theater. John Travolta became popular in the pop-culture landmark films, Saturday Night Fever, which introduced Disco to middle America, and Grease, which recalled the world of the 1950s. Comedy was also given new life in the irreverent Animal House, set on a college campus during the 1960s. Up in Smoke, starring Cheech and Chong, was another irreverent comedy about marijuana use became popular among teenagers. The new television comedy program, "Saturday Night Live," launched the careers of several of its comedians, such as Chevy Chase, who starred in the 1978 hit Foul Play with rising star Goldie Hawn. Blockbusters like Superman, starring former Love of Life actor Christopher Reeve, were also still popular. The decade closed with two films chronicling the Vietnam War, Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Both films focused on the horrors of war and the psychological damaged caused by such horrors. Christopher Walken and director Michael Cimino earned Oscars for their work on the film, which earned a Best Picture Academy Award. Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep were also nominated for their work in The Deer Hunter. Apocalypse Now won for cinematography and sound, and earned nominations for Robert Duvall and Coppola. 1979 saw the poignant Kramer vs. Kramer, the inspiring Norma Rae, and the nuclear thriller, The China Syndrome. Meanwhile, The Onion Field and And Justice for All focused on the failures of the American judicial system. The year ended with Hal Ashby's subtle black comedy Being There and The Muppet Movie, a family film based on the Jim Henson puppet characters.

The Seventies in television

In the United States

Jim Henson At the start of the decade, long-standing trends in American television were finally reaching the end of the road. The Red Skelton Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, long-revered American institutions, were finally canceled after multi-decade spans. The "family sitcom," popularized by the travails of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in the fifties and sixties, saw its last breath at the start of the new decade with The Brady Bunch, which ran for five seasons. Although the show was never highly rated during its original run, it has been broadcast in syndication continuously since 1974, and many children have grown up with it, causing them to think of the Bradys as the quintessential family—not only in 1970s television, but quite possibly all of American television. In the United States, television in the seventies was transformed by what became termed as "social consciousness" programming, spearheaded by television producer Norman Lear. All in the Family, his adaptation of the British television series Til Death Us Do Part, broke down television barriers. When the series premiered in 1971, Americans heard the words "fag," "nigger," and "spic" on national television programming for the first time. All in the Family was the talk of countless dinner tables throughout the country; Americans hadn't seen anything like it on television before. The show became the highest-rated program on US television schedules in the fall of 1971 and stayed in the top slot until 1976—to date, only one other series has tied All in the Family for such a long stretch at the top of the ratings. All in the Family spawned numerous spin-offs, such as Maude, starring Bea Arthur. Maude was Edith Bunker's cousin and Archie's arch-enemy. She stood for everything liberal and was an outspoken advocate of civil rights and feminism. Maude felt most comfortable, however, hiring a black woman as her housekeeper. Maude's housekeeper, Florida Evans (played by Esther Rolle), became popular in her own right and was given her own television series in 1974, Good Times, which proved to be another hit for Lear's production company. Lear developed two shows in 1975: The Jeffersons, a spinoff of All in the Family in which Archie Bunker's black next-door neighbors moved to a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and One Day at a Time, about a single mother raising her two teenage daughters in Indianapolis. Indianapolis With the rise in socially responsible programming, the television western, a very popular genre in the 1960s, slowly died out. The first casualties were The High Chaparral and The Virginian, both NBC staples, in the spring of 1971. Bonanza suffered a blow when actor Dan Blocker died during surgery in 1972, and the show quietly ended its run the next year. CBS's Gunsmoke outlasted them all, and finally ended its run with a star-studded series finale in 1975. Bonanza actor Michael Landon helped popularize a television adaptation of the popular children's book series Little House on the Prairie. Debuting in 1974, the series ran for eight years. Little Houses competitor family drama was CBS's The Waltons, which revolved around family unity but during a different time and place—Virginia during the Great Depression. By the mid-to-late 1970s, viewers tired of socially responsible sitcoms. CBS had aired most of Lear's creations and had led the US television ratings since the mid-1950s; since then the network had received a reputation as being the "Tiffany Network," showcasing the best in television. Former CBS head of programming Fred Silverman defected to struggling ABC, which saw a glimmer of hope in the early 1970s with the #1 hit show Marcus Welby, M.D., but eventually retreated to its traditional third-place spot. Silverman was instrumental in starting a new movement in American television, centered around sexual gratification and bawdy humor and situations. Critics called the new era "jiggle television," exemplified by the crime-fighting television series Charlie's Angels, which starred up-and-coming sex symbols Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith, and Kate Jackson. Kate Jackson Silverman was responsible for green-lighting more risqué sitcoms such as Three's Company, modeled after the British series Man About the House, in which swinging single-man Jack Tripper pretended to be gay in order to live in an apartment with two single women. Mildly controversial at the time, the show quickly became a Top Ten hit in the ratings. ABC also aired Soap, a sitcom that parodied soap operas, and garnered controversy by writing in one of the first gay characters on U.S. television. Many stations refused to air the series (another storyline consisted of heroine Corinne Tate, played by Diana Canova, lusting after a priest who eventually left the priesthood to marry her). Silverman's legacy also included the "fantasy" genre, which started in 1977 with The Love Boat. The series involved popular movie and television stars in guest roles as passengers on a luxury cruise liner that sailed up and down the Pacific Coast. Silverman followed up in 1978 with Fantasy Island, starring Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize. Montalban and Villechaize were the owner and sidekick, respectively, of a luxury island resort where peoples' wishes came true. Hervé Villechaize Another popular medium in US television moving into the 1970s was the soap opera, which moved from being a genre watched exclusively by housewives to having a sizable audience of men (who largely watched The Edge of Night) and college students; the latter audience helped All My Children gain a devoted following, as it was on during many universities' traditional "lunch period." In a TIME article written about the g

1980s

The 1980s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1980 and 1989. The decade was one of frantic change. It was also an era of political and economic decentralisation, especially in countries with mixed and command economies. Political events and trends of the 1980s culminated in the toppling of military governments and authoritarian regimes, including every communist Warsaw Pact state in Eastern Europe, bringing to a close the decades-long Cold War. The 1980s also saw very rapid developments in numerous sectors of technology which have defined the modern consumer world, particularly electronics like Personal Computers, gaming systems, the arrival of the first commercially available hand held mobile phones (the first being the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X in 1983) and various audio technologies such as the compact disc, which are still prominent well into the 2000s. The population of the world increased more dramatically in the 1980s than any other decade in human history, adding nearly one billion new people in the course of the decade. This is an important fact as such astronomical growth of the human race is unlikely to ever be repeated in the future due to current population trends, which are consistently showing a decline in birth rates across the globe. Children born in the 1980s are likely to have an extremely prominent position in world business and government affairs from the 2020s all the way through to the 2050s due to their immense population and potential voting powers.

Criticism/Backlash

Coined the "me decade," this decade has been somewhat derided since as early as 1989 for its perceived greediness among Yuppies, certain clothes/music/hairstyles which seem outlandish by modern standards, and of course the discovery of the AIDS virus in the early part of the decade, unlike the 1990s which have had a very positive receiving into the 21st Century despite criticism for the 90s' "slacker" image.

Technology

21st Century] 21st Century]
- Bulletin board system popularity.
- Popularization of personal computers, Walkmans, VHS videocassette recorders, and cassette players .
- Introduction of the IBM PC in 1981.
- Home video games become enormously popular, most notably Atari until the market crashes in 1983; the rise of Nintendo brings about full recovery.
- The first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1, launched in 1981.
- Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.
- The Soviet Union launches the space station Mir in 1986.
- Apple Macintosh, first commercially successful GUI, is released in 1984.
- Accident at Chernobyl nuclear reactor, April 1986.
- Framework (office suite) launched
- Internet actively used by geeks in late 1980s
- First commercial hand-held mobile phone - Motorola DynaTAC 8000X 1983.

Science


- Discovery of the W and Z bosons at CERN.
- Development of the scanning tunneling microscope by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer.
- English computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web at CERN, Switzerland.

War, peace and politics

Switzerland]
- Cold War peaks; fall of the Iron Curtain.
- Jimmy Carter announces a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow; Eastern Bloc countries boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
- Solidarity movement in Poland launched in 1981. It eventually topples the country's Communist regime.
- Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi tackles with a growing Sikh insurgency and the Khalistan Movement. She orders Operation Blue Star on the holy Golden Temple. She is assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.
- Ronald Reagan proposes the Strategic Defense Initiative, derided as "Star Wars." Deploys Pershing missiles in Western Europe to counter the Soviet SS-20, to some protests.
- Soviet fighters down Korean Air Flight 007 in 1983, leading to a high point in international tensions.
- Three Soviet Premiers die in rapid succession: Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko.
- Gorbachev introduces Glasnost and Perestroika in the Soviet Union.
- Fall of the Berlin Wall in East Germany in 1989, preparing the way to German reunification.
- Velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia.
- Revolution in Romania, execution of Ceauşescu.
- Margaret Thatcher and Thatcherism dominate British politics.
- The "Reagan Revolution", beginning with the election of 1980, introduces so-called neoconservatives to Washington.
- In 1981, François Mitterrand becomes France's President, the most politically successful Socialist in French history.
- Helmut Kohl is elected in West Germany in 1982, leading to the defeat of the anti-deployment movement; he becomes the longest serving Chancellor so far.
- Falklands War; Argentina invades the Falkland islands in 1982 but defeated by the United Kingdom.
- Israel invades Lebanon in 1982, . A suicide bomber kills 241 U.S. marines stationed there as peacekeepers.
- Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 causes the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands.
- Over 120,000 flee Cuba in 1980 during the Mariel Boatlift, during which Fidel Castro released many criminals into American harbors.
- P.W. Botha suppresses anti-apartheid activists; international boycotts of South Africa continue.
- King Juan Carlos of Spain prevents a military coup in 1980. Spain joined NATO in 1982; it joined the European Union with Portugal in 1986.
- In 1989 students protest on Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China and are eventually suppressed.
- Large protests in the Philippines topples the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship; military rule ends after protests in Argentina and South Korea.
- Augusto Pinochet forms a new constitution, holds a referendum on rule and loses. Democracy is restored.
- The Soviet Union ends its disastrous military campaign in Afghanistan.
- Former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim is exposed as a former Nazi
- Vietnam continues its military occupation of Cambodia.
- In Europe, rise of alleged neo-fascist parties (Le Pen in France, Schönhuber/Republikaner in Germany, Haider in Austria), parallel to a rise of Green parties.
- Political correctness becomes a concern in mainstream politics.
- Ronald Reagan decides to invade Grenada in 1984 and depose the nascent hard-line communist government.
- The Reagan administration bombs Libya in 1986 in response to alleged Libyan support for attacks on U.S. servicemen in Europe.
- Under George H. W. Bush, the U.S. invades Panama in 1989 to overthrow Manuel Noriega.
- The Reagan Doctrine implements support for anti-communist or anti-Soviet insurgencies most notably in Nicaragua, Angola, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. This leads to continued civil war, the deposition of several regimes, some democratization, but also the Iran-Contra scandal.
- The United States launches a covert war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua and is condemned by the World Court for mining Nicaragua's harbour, an authority and judgment the U.S. administration did not recognize.
- President Tito of Yugoslavia dies.
- Release of Americans held hostage in Iran.
- Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa urging the killing of Salman Rushdie.
- Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, UK.
- In 1985, A radical PLO offshoot called Palestine Liberation Front hijacks the Achille Lauro and shoots the wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, throwing him overboard.
- Terror groups Abu Nidal and Hezbollah rise to prominence in Western attention.
- Dark years for Malta and its politics. Violence is culminated by the murder of Raymond Caruana and blocking entry to Nationalist supporters into the southern village of Zejtun.
- The Rainbow Warrior is sunk by French secret service agents.

Economics

secret service 1987 through 19 January 1988)]]
- Reaganomics, Thatcherism and Rogernomics.
- In the United States the longest bull market in history begins in 1983; Dow Jones Industrial Average passes 2000 point milestone January 8, 1987.
- OPEC controls slip; petroleum prices collapse below $10 per barrel by mid-1986, devastating oil-producing nations such as Mexico.
- U.S. Midwest Farm Crisis 1981–1985.
- East Asian Tigers' share of world trade rises significantly.
- U.S. balance of trade falls into chronic deficit; populists criticize trade relations with Japan.
- Stockmarkets across the world crash on Black Monday, October 19, 1987. The New York Stock Exchange suffers its largest one-day stock market drop.
- Late 1980s recession

Trends and Fashions


- The video game console begins to outstrip the arcade game.
- The Rubik's cube, Cabbage Patch Kids, "Baby on Board" signs, and Trivial Pursuit fads capture the interest of the American public.fad]
- Nerds are popular subject.
- Alcohol education expands.
- Hair becomes big and poofy, or otherwise eccentric. Examples include the Mullet and the Flock of Seagulls cuts.
- Power Dressing was a major fashion statement of the decade, characterised by the use of increasingly large shoulder pads - the origins of this trend are often attributed to the American television series "Dynasty" and, specifically to one of its stars - the British actress Joan Collins.
- Pop stars of the era such as Duran Duran and television shows like Miami Vice brought the trend to the male fashion world, often accompanied by "designer stubble" and blonde highlights.
- Women's Liberation movement increases women's role in the workplace, and establishes new precedents for US women. As a carry-over from the 1970s, more and more women take to calling themselves "Ms." versus "Mrs." or "Miss"
- No-Fault divorce laws pave the way for increased divorce rate, as depicted in the movie, Irreconcilable Differences. No-Fault divorce catapults record numbers of women and children into the throes of poverty. The increase in single parent homes and, perhaps more significantly, homes in which both parents work leads to the phenomenon of Latch-key children, where children come home to an empty house and watch a lot of television.
- Neo-prohibitionism grows in popularity.
- Ninja and martial arts mania sweeps North America due to the popularity of Kung Fu Theater and Ninja Movies. Many instructional books are published and sold by many authors claiming to be experts. This is also often blamed as the beginning of the McDojo trend.

Music


- Music videos (and MTV) begin to have an effect on record industry in the United States. Pop artists Michael Jackson and Madonna are pioneers; groups such as Duran Duran benefit.
- New Wave music, a form of synthesized pop-rock, popular throughout decade, esp in early 80s.
- House music - a new development in dance music mid-way through the decade, growing out of the post-disco scene early in the decade, later developing into acid house - a harder form of dance often associated with the developing late 1980s drug culture.
- Hair metal popular in late 80s
- Popular artists include Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Duran Duran, Madonna, U2, and a-ha.
- Massive sales for Ethiopian famine relief records by Band Aid ("Do They Know It's Christmas?") and USA for Africa ("We Are the World"), followed by Live Aid famine relief concert in London and Philadelphia. Other artists push for nuclear disarmament.
- The Hip hop scene evolves to become a powerful musical force, bringing with it several dance styles. Hip hop also brings artists like Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow and N.W.A.to the forefront; hip hop's spread outside of New York City, especially to Los Angeles, accelerates and then takes off beyond America's shores.

Television


- Television networks are challenged by cable television. In the U.S., Cheers and The Cosby Show top ratings and the Fox network is launched. CNN becomes the first 24-hour news channel.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, the first animated children's television program built exclusively around a toyline, starts a new trend of increasing the connection between children's programming and toy advertising, alarming many parents and watchdog organizations; an explosive number of toy tie-in cartoons follow.
- Animation in North America begins a dramatic comeback in production values and mainstream popular appeal both in feature films and on television.
- Soap operas gain popularity among high-schoolers and college students in the United States, thanks in part to the supercoupling of Luke and Laura on the most popular soap of the day, General Hospital.
- MTV breaks out influencing pop culture.

Film


- Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial opens in 1982 and shatters records for box office gross receipts.
- Ridley Scott's Blade Runner opens in 1982.
- Teen flicks and horror movies reach a high
- Movie sequels very common

Others


- The AIDS epidemic is identified and named.
- Assassination of John Lennon and Olof Palme, attempts on Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.
- Violent crime and drug trafficking soar to record levels in most large American cities.
- Research increases on alcohol and weight.
- Assymmetrical and bizarre hairstyles from about 1980 to 1993.
- Remove Intoxicated Drivers grows rapidly.

People

World Leaders


- Chancellor Bruno Kreisky (Austria)
- Chancellor Fred Sinowatz (Austria)
- Chancellor Franz Vranitzky (Austria)
- Prime Minister Bob Hawke (Australia)
- Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (Australia)
- President João Figueiredo (Brazil)
- President José Sarney (Brazil)
- Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Canada)
- Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (Canada)
- General Augusto Pinochet (Chile)
- Deng Xiaoping (People's Republic of China)
- President Chiang Ching-kuo (Republic of China on Taiwan)
- Prime Minister Poul Schlüter (Denmark)
- Erich Honecker (East Germany)
- President Anwar Sadat (Egypt)
- President Hosni Mubarak (Egypt)
- President Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua)
- President Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia)
- President Urho Kekkonen (Finland)
- President Mauno Koivisto (Finland)
- President François Mitterrand (France)
- Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou (Greece)
- Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (India)
- Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (India)
- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (Iran)
- President Saddam Hussein (Iraq)
- President Patrick Hillery (Ireland)
- Taoiseach Charles Haughey (Ireland)
- Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald (Ireland)
- Prime Minister Menachem Begin (Israel)
- Prime Minister Shimon Peres (Israel)
- Emperor Hirohito (Japan)
- Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone (Japan)
- Emir Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah (Kuwait)
- President Muammar al-Qaddafi (Libya)
- Pope John Paul II
- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia)
- Prime Minister Dom Mintoff (Malta)
- Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici (Malta)
- Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami (Malta)
- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia)
- President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (Mexico)
- President Samora Machel (Mozambique)
- Prime Minister Robert Muldoon (New Zealand)
- Prime Minister David Lange (New Zealand)
- Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer (New Zealand)
- Queen Juliana (Netherlands)
- General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (Pakistan)
- General Manuel Noriega (Panama)
- President Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines)
- President Corazon Aquino (Philippines)
- President Wojciech Jaruzelski (Poland)
- President Nicolae Ceauşescu (Romania)
- Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore)
- President and Prime Minister P.W. Botha (South Africa)
- President Chun Doo-hwan (South Korea)
- Premier Leonid Brezhnev (Soviet Union)
- General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union)
- King Juan Carlos (Spain)
- Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka
- Prime Minister Olof Palme (Sweden)
- Queen Elizabeth II (United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms)
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (United Kingdom)
- President George H.W. Bush (United States)
- President Jimmy Carter (United States)
- President Ronald Reagan (United States)
- Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (West Germany)
- Chancellor Helmut Kohl (West Germany)
- President Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia)
- President Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire)
- President Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)

Entertainers


- AC/DC
- Brat Pack
- David Brooks
- Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Glory)
- The Cars
- Phoebe Cates (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins)
- Tom Cruise (Top Gun, Rain Man, Risky Business, The Color of Money)
- Bo Derek
- Matt Dillon
- Dalida
- Emilio Estevez (The Breakfast Club, The Outsiders, Young Guns)
- Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones series, Star Wars series, Blade Runner, Witness)
- Jodie Foster
- Michael J. Fox (Back to the Future series, Teen Wolf)
- Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon series, Mad Max series)
- Debbie Harry (Blondie)
- Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee)
- John Hughes
- Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders)
- Michael Jackson (Thriller)
- Elton John
- Michael Keaton (Batman, Mr. Mom, Night Shift)
-