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Counterculture Timeline: The Seventies: The Watergate Investigation Years 1972-1974
    EVENTS   ARTS

Mayan Sacred Calendar: Planetary Underworld: Heaven 12: Night 6: Fine tuning - 1972 - 1992

1972   month? California voters adopt coastal protection

 

1972
MUSIC / CINEMA / PUBLISHING

[June: move to Santa Monica little house with George and Barbara xx]

[Art Center full time xx]





















[ animation
lunch route
Michael's
the German's: brunches
Art Center at night
Vicki & Dave xx]



During Nixon administration:
65 conspiracy indictments:
Harrisburg Seven
Camden Seventeen
Gainsville Eight
All eventually acquitted





June 17   Five men caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel Democratic campaign headquarters:director of security for CREEP + 4 others - ?with electronic eavesdrop equipment
(during Presidential election campaigns)


 
June 23   Life magazine: photos of Vietnamese children running from napalm

 
June   Expo '72 evangelist week-long rally in Texas 80,000


 
July
1-4
  First Rainbow Gathering, Strawberry Lake, Colorado  
Aug   President Nixon says investigation by White House counsel John Dean revealed no administration officials involved in Watergate break-in

Democratic convention held in Miami due to threat of demonstrations in San Diego

 
Aug 11   Last U.S. military unit in Vietnam is withdrawn

 
Aug 12   B-52s heaviest bombing of North Vietnam

 
Sept 5   Arabs kill Israeli athletes at Munich Olympics

 
Oct   Nixon & Gromyko sign arms limitation treaty

Kissinger: "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam
US negotiating a settlement that would withdraw US troops but leave revolutionary troops, until the set-up of a newly-elected government; Saigon government refuses to agree


 
Oct 18   Congress passes the Clean Water Act over Nixon's veto

 
Nov 2   500 American Indians sit-in at BIA headquarters, Washington (Trail of Broken Treaties)

 
Nov 7   Mob figure Meyer Lansky, 71, arrested Miami

7th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses convictions of the 5 of the Chicago Seven

 
Nov   Nixon re-elected, defeats McGovern
(Also ran: Wallace, Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Edmund Muskie, John Lindsay, Shirley Chisholm) [third "People's Party"]

18-20 year olds first presidential vote

 
Nov 14   (Stock Market: Dow Jones tops 1,000 first time)

 
Nov 16   Two black students killed by buckshot Baton Rouge, Louisiana - Southern University as police clearing demos from admin bldg (Note: see Jan 10, 1972)

 
Nov 29   Phil Berrigan parolled

 
Dec   Nixon makes last attempt to get North Vietnam to submit: 18 days of "carpet" bombing of homes, hospitals, and civilians of Hanoi & Haiphong through Christmas; first B-52 pilots refuse to fly missions

 
Dec 7   Apollo 17, the last of the Apollo men on the moon walks & famous earthrise on the moon photo

 
Dec 19   Sixth biggest tanker oil spill, Gulf of Oman 115,000 tons (Sea Star)

 
Dec 29   Last: Life Magazine (after 36 years)

 
Dec 30   Nixon orders end to bombing  


1973   Watergate investigation continues

Great Stagflation of 1973-1975

Wages stop rising, just as millions of Baby Boomers enter the work force

First time more woman than men in college (50.3%)

Mississippi leads the south with 145 elected black officeholders (though only 1 black legislative representative)

when? Endangered Species Act

Arab-Israeli war followed by Arab oil embargo & energy crunch, gas lines, & the go ahead to drill for oil in Alaska; Alaska Pipeline built 1973-1975

Hoedads of Oregon formed

Chipko movement starts in Himalayas

Thailand student protests topple the government

?Maharaj Ji event at Houston Astrodome

Pig By The Tail, first American charcuterie, opens in Berkeley -> California Cuisine movement

when? Tom Hayden marries Jane Fonda

when? Alan Watts dies

Rod Hackney, young architect writing PhD at Manchester University, who had organized neighbors in Macclesfield to oppose area's demolition, gets improvement grants from town council for 34 of houses - in 1975 wins Good Design in Housing Award from U.K. Department of the Environment

Sichuan cuisine

Tom Bradley becomes first black mayor of western US city

John and Yoko moved from the Village into the Dakota

Last year of draft (ends June 30) (since 1940), US military becomes volunteer

800 free schools (only 30 in 1967) [Gitlin]

Use of "Ms."

 

1973

"Baby Bust" (birth rate drop)

MUSIC / CINEMA / PUBLISHING

RS: Goat's Head Soup
Dylan: Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Lennon: Mind Games
Harrison: Living in the Material World
McCartney: Band on the Run
Who: Quadrophenia (the record); (movie 1978)
*ZZ Top (Heavy Metal)
*Genesis
*Lynyrd Skynyrd
*Poco (with Richie Furay & Jim Messina from Buffalo Springfield)
The Harder They Come with Jimmy Cliff [album? movie?]
Elton John: Crocodile Rock
Jim Croce: Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown
*Springsteen: first
Tom Waits: first
Maria Muldaur

Bergman: Cries & Whispers
& Scenes From a Marriage
The Last Detail (Nicholson?)
The Paper Chase
American Graffiti
Serpico (Al Pacino)
Brother Sun, Sister Moon
The Sting
Sleeper (Woody Allen)
That'll Be The Day (Ringo Starr as 50s greaser)
(The Exorcist)
(Saturday Night Livers at the Village Gate)

Fear of Flying - Erica Jong
Rubyfruit Jungle - Rita Mae Brown
(Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon)
Small Is Beautiful (Economics as if People Mattered)
- E. F. Schumacher
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism - Chogyam Trungpa
The Well Body Book - Hal Bennett
The Joy of Sex - ?
Handmade Houses (A Guide to the Woodbutcher's Art)
- Boericke & Shapiro
Levi's Denim contest
(Mother Earth's Hassle-Free Indoor Plant Book
- Lynn & Joel Rapp)
The Collective Unconscience of Odd Bodkins - Dan O'Neill
Passages - Gail Sheehy

Mother Earth News started?

Dungeons & Dragons getting popular



















































[summer 1973:
saw Holy Mountain
quit Michaels
Art Center full time
Alicia & Ramon
Candy & Dave
+ model
+ Vicki & Dave xx]

Jan   100,000 demonstrate at Nixon's inaugural

 
Jan 7   Sniper shoots 6 from atop Johnson's Motor Lodge, New Orleans

 
Jan 11   Nixon ends 17 month wage-price controls

 
Jan 22   Supreme Court: Roe vs. Wade strikes down existing state anti-abortion laws

LBJ dies in Texas

 
Jan 23   Nixon announces all American troops to be out of Vietnam in 60 days

 
Jan 27   Vietnam ceasefire agreement with US (Paris)
(the same agreement as was drafted the previous October)
(23,000 American troops still left in Vietnam)
and announcement of? draft end
3 million Americans are enlisted in the military
55,000 have died in the Vietnam war
Great Exp: 58,000 dead / 153,000 wounded / 35,000 widows & orphans created
275,000 Americans experience a death in their family
1.4 million saw someone in their family wounded
6.5 million served in armed forces, 1 mill+ saw combat

 
Jan 30   James W. McCord & G. Gordon Liddy of Nixon's re-election committee, found guilty of Watergate burglary & wiretap attempt

 
Feb 12   Second dollar devaluation in 14 months - 10%

 
Feb 14   Nixon: floating exchange rate

early part of 1973 - US Stock Market starts to drop

 
Feb
16-22
  Student uprisings in Greece
 
Feb 28   250 Native Americans (AIM) re-occupy Wounded Knee, South Dakota (to May 8) (Oglala Sioux)
early 1973 - Custer, South Dakota AIM courthouse protest


 
March   Chipko "tree-hugger" movement starts in Chamoli District, Himachal Pradesh, India

 
Mar
1-19
  Dollar crisis in Europe  
Mar 6   Nixon: gas & oil price controls

 
Mar 23   Judge Sirica reveals letter from McCord saying he & others were pressured to plead guilty & commit perjury to avoid implicating others in Watergate

 
Mar 29   Last American troops withdrawn from Vietnam

Nixon declares meat price controls to stave off housewives meat boycott set to start April 1

H. Rap Brown (+ 3 others?) convicted for Oct. 16,71 robbery

 
Apr 16-17   US bombs Laos  
Apr- Sept   ROTC unable to meet quota of officers for six months in a row  
Apr 30   Nixon accepts resignation of H.R. Haldeman & John Ehrlichman & fires John Dean

 
May 10   John Mitchell & Maurice Stans, former Nixon Cabinet members, & financier Robert Vesco indicated for Vesco's illegal 200,000 dollar contribution to Nixon campaign

 
May 11   Daniel Ellsberg charges dropped

 
May 15   Bobby Seale's campaign for Oakland mayor ends in defeat

 
May 20   17 of Camden 28 found not guilty (of destroying draft files)

 
May 29   Tom? Bradley elected in Los Angeles (first black mayor)

 
June 25-29   John Dean testifies in front of Senate Select Committee, indicting himself, Nixon, Ehrlichman, Mitchell & others, & revealing the use of "hush money" and an "enemies list"

 
June 13   Nixon declares 60 day retail price freeze

 
July 16   Nixon's secret recording system is exposed

 
July 26   Nixon defies prosecutors' subpoenas of his tapes & appeals his case until October 19

 
Aug 15   US bombing of Cambodia ends

 
Aug 31   Gainsville 8 (veterans) acquitted

 
Sept   Chile coup overthrows Salvador Allende; Sept 11 Allende killed

John Lennon to Los Angeles with May Pang & Spector sessions

Sept 20 Jim Croce (30) dies in a plane crash

[Michael's + Art Center xx] [Vicki & Dave]

 
Oct   Oil talks fail & various OPEC countries cut off oil deliveries to other countries, including U.S., causing shortages (to March 1974)

Retrial of Chicago 7 on contempt charges; of 159 charges, only 13 upheld - ?all released?

 
Oct 10   Spiro Agnew resigns as Vice President

 
Oct 20   "Saturday Night Massacre": Nixon fires special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Attorney General Elliot Richardson & Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resign.

 
Oct 23   Eight impeachment resolutions introduced in the US House of Representatives

 
Nov 3   Froines & Weiner of Chicago Seven acquitted of contempt charges

 
Nov 7   Congress finally (after nine attempts) passes War Powers legislation, over Nixon's veto - limits President's power to commit armed forces to hostilities abroad without Congressional approval

 
Nov 10   Stock Market drops 24.4 points

 
Nov 16   Nixon signs bill to build Alaska pipeline

 
Nov 19   Stock Market drops 28.67 points

 
Nov 21   Inexplicable 18 1/2 minute gap discovered in Nixon's subpoened tape

 
Nov 26   Stock Market drops 29.05 points, to lowest in 11 years (since May 28, 1962 JFK confrontation with steel industry)

 
Nov 30   OPEC quadruples oil prices
(?was 2 dollars/barrel) ?so 8 dollars/barrel?

 
Dec 4   Dellinger, Rubin, & Hoffman of Chicago Seven, and their attorney William Kunstler, found guilty of contempt charges levied at them by Judge Hoffman, but given no further sentence.
Davis, Hayden, and attorney Leonard Weinglass acquitted of contempt charges.

 
Dec 31   6-month oil embargo starts, recession  


1974   Inflation speeds up but ?unemployment starts = Great Stagflation of 1973-1975 (U.S.)
Worldwide Stagflation of 1974-76


Senate Watergate hearings

First Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty signed

Pinochet rule starts

"Boldt" decision, Washington state: Warm Springs, Yakima, Umatilla & Nez Perce tribes entitled to take up to half salmon & steelhead runs from the Columbia River based on 1855 treaty

First "Witkars" (white cars for free use within the city) put into use in Amsterdam

Abbie Hoffman (facing cocaine charge) goes underground

Joanne Little accused of murder of killing jailer (in self-defense against rape) (acquitted Aug 15, 1975)

?Portugal coup ends W. Europe's oldest dictatorship

Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy"

Gas shortages get worse through March 19

Dalkon shield sales end

Briarpatch Network, informal organization of small businesses practicing openness, honesty, service, and sharing, founded -- see earlier date?
Briarpatch Network starts, grows to 450 members, dedicated to running small businesses with openness, honesty, service and sharing

Nairopa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, founded

Comet Kahoutek

ca 1974 - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and followers set up International University in Fairfield, Iowa to teach Transcendental Meditation

telephone message machines

SoHo

  1974

MUSIC / CINEMA / PUBLISHING

RS: Only Rock & Roll
*Joni Mitchell: Court & Spark
   & Miles of Aisles
Lennon: Walls & Bridges
Eric Clapton: 461 Ocean Blvd (August)
Elton John: Bennie and the Jets
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama
David Essex: Rock On
*Queen (Heavy Metal)
*Gentle Giant
*Electric Light Orchestra
*Germany: Tangerine Dream
*Toots & The Maytals: first
Maria Muldaur
Dylan: Planet Waves & Blood on the Tracks [which was first?]
1974-75 Rolling Thunder Revue tour (+ Dylan & Ginsburg visit Kerouac's grave)
Reggae

TV: (Kojak), Coneheads on Saturday Night Live

Garrison Keillor? starts Prairie Home Companion

Chinatown (Roman Polanski with Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway)
(Monty Python & the Holy Grail)
Lenny (w Dustin Hoffman)
Equus
Wim Wenders: Alice in the Cities
Werner Herzog: The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (not to US)
Tanner: Le Retour d'Afrique
The Conversation (Coppola) is this the master plot one? no
(Godfather, Part II)
(The Sting)

Robert Pirsig: Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Repair
Carlos Castaneda: Tales of Power
The Dispossessed - Ursula LeGuin
The Power Broker - Robert Caro
Spiritual Community Guide
A Pilgrim's Guide to Planet Earth
The Connection
Native Funk & Flash - Jacopetti
How to Grow More Vegetables . . . - J Jeavons
The Gardener's Catalogue
Country Furniture
Gary Snyder - Turtle Island
Rolling Thunder - Doug Boyd
New Age Journal founded by
East West Journal editor Robert Hargrove,
advertising director Eric Utne, and other staff
CoEvolution Quarterly (first) (spring)
All the President's Men (the book)
Fear of Flying

Streaking (yes)

Answering machines

Digital watches

People Magazine started (Feb)

Isle of Calif mural behind SaMo post office (LA Fine Arts Squad)

Farallones Institute founded


Jan 30   Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden - starts first tour in 8 years

 
Feb 4   Patty Hearst, 19, kidnapped by the SLA

 
Mar   Pentagon requests additional $474 million for Saigon military aid; Congress (House) denies funding request for the first time since the 1964 Tonkin Gulf resolution

 
Apr 1   Jane Fonda arrives in Vietnam on second visit

 
Apr 15   Patty Hearst & 8 others rob San Francisco bank

 
May   Mohawks establish Ganienkah settlement in Adirondack Mountains Park, New York

 
June   Ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the USSR

Nature publishes Sherwood Rowlands of U.C. Irvine's pioneer research on depletion of the ozone layer


[June- July: with W to Stanford, Chuck & Donna, Candy & Dave, Jeb & Carol, Berkeley: Connie -
+ Guatemala - July: CP xx]

 
July 30

  Watergate: House Judiciary Committee adopts three articles of impeachment.
Supreme Court upholds subpoena on Nixon tapes.
Nixon turns them over July 30 & Aug 5.

 
Aug   Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics founded in Boulder, Colorado, by Allen Ginsberg & Anne Waldman

 
Aug 5   Watergate: Tape transcripts indicate Nixon impeded the investigation

 
Aug
8 & 9
  Nixon resigns, Ford sworn in
______________________________________
Note from email feedback on this timeline:
I remember being at a concert on Aug 8 of Crosby, Stills, and Nash & Young
when I first heard the news from stage ( I believe it was Stephen Stills who announced it). There was an American Flag in the crowd on a short pole that was waving wildly
right after the announcement. I will never forget that moment. Show was held at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City NJ.
_______________________________________
Note from me:
Two years went by while the US paid attention to nothing other than a (badly needed) clean-up of its political system!!!! In 2005 we are reaping the rewards of not paying attention to what was happening in the rest of the world! We could have been spending our energy on changing over from smokestack industries, the global marketplace, trade deficit, dealing with global warming and getting ourselves off of oil! Ok, end of soapbox.

 

On to The Seventies: Keep on Keepin' On 1974-1976