1971 Facts: This Golden Year Will Definitely Blow Your Mind!

1971 was quite an interesting year for many reasons, do you know any?

If you were born in 1971 and wonder what was special about the year, then you have come to the right place. Facts about movies, trivia, sports, celebrities, songs, politics, and much await you in this insightful article.

1971 was another year of the Gregorian calendar; it was Anno Domini (AD) and common era's (CE) 1971st year, 71st year of the twentieth century, '70s decade's second year, and 1971st year of the second millennium.

This year had two lunar eclipses from 10th February and 6th August and three partial solar eclipses on 25th February, 22nd July, and 20th August.

The world population had a 2.1% rise too, and it is the highest one recorded in history!

What more happened in 1971? If this is your question, then look no more as this article will give you a whole and sole overview of the sports, technology, music, entertainment, and pop culture history of the year 1971.

Are you into history and historical facts? Then you should not miss our interesting and insightful articles on 1968 facts and 1970s facts. We are sure you will love it!

J.B. Priestley (British Writer)

1971 was an exciting year that marked the beginning of the digital age with the invention of the microprocessor by Intel. More and more transistor technology started coming into place as things like calculators became popular.

Space too saw significant accomplishments in 1971 with the launch of the first space station by the Soviet Union. Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft sent to the orbit of another planet.

1971 was also the year when North sea oil began its production in Norway, Ireland, and the UK changed its decimalization system, and Greenpeace was originated to give a guiding hand to governments around the world to help function in a resource-efficient way.

The national public radio broadcasted for the first time Walt Disney World resort opened for operations in Florida, Charles Manson received the death penalty.

The followers of Charles Manson also received the death penalty. Mount Etna erupted, and an earthquake occurred in San Fernando Valley too!

Another important happening was the lowering of the voting age in the UK. The US, too, lowered its voting age to 18.

The US table tennis visited the People's Republic of China. Hang in there, as we reveal the many layers of unheard facts about 1971!

Ex-Beatle George Harrison got charged with plagiarism. The song of George Harrison, 'My Sweet Lord', resembled Chiffon's.

He's so fine.

But 1971 was a year of many other billboards hit songs such as 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' by Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney (September 1971), 'Just My Imagination' (running away with me) by the Temptations (April 1971), 'Indian Reservation' (the lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian) by Paul Revere and the raiders, 'The Rolling Stones' by Brown Sugar (May 1971) and not to forget the greatest hit song of all, 'Joy To The World' by Three Dog Night.

This song by Three Dog Night was sung in April 1971.

A piece of tragic news in the music industry was the death of Jim Morrison in 1971. On July 3rd, it was reported that Jim Morrison had died of heart failure.

Another strange yet funny musical fact was at the Frank Zappa concert in London.

One of the concert-goers injured Frank Zappa in jealousy as he could not withstand his girlfriend's infatuation with him! It was sad that Frank Zappa's larynx got damaged in the process, and he remained in a wheelchair for a year.

Top TV shows included the 'Mary Tyler Moore Show' on CBC, and the 'Flip Wilson' show airing on NBC. Ed Sullivan, a famous TV show host, hosted his final tv show on CBS.

Famous quotes from such tv shows and movies also became viral. Let's look at some of them.

The line "Marsha Marsha Marsha" by Jan Brady as Maureen McCormick in the Brady Bunch was a hit. In 'Dirty Harry', the line by Harry Callahan played by Clint Eastwood, "Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself," became instantly popular too.

A popular jungle from State Farm Insurance, "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there," appealed to many.

And who can forget the famous Willy Wonka, played by then Gene Wilder? Most of his lines and quotes were popular, but the one that stood out was "It's all there, black and white, crystal.

You stole fizzy lifting drinks!" became a hit.

Literature and books were also on the rise in 1971. Let's look at one such popular author of the '70s, J.B Priestly.

J.B Priestley, born in Bradford, Yorkshire, on September 13th, 1894, was a British essayist, playwright, and novelist who was renowned for his writing in various domains and shrewd characterization. J.B Priestly had an illustrious career and was a prolific writer in the '70s. He had 26 novels, volumes of essays, and 39 plays written.

J.B Priestly loved to write and continued doing so till his old age. He died on 14th August 1984.

Australian Athletes

1971 was also famous for a number of battles and wars fought. One such famous battle was the border battle between Pakistan and India that went to become a full-scale war to liberate East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

This was called the Bangladesh Liberation War, which began in March 1971 as the Pakistani military attacked civilians from Bengal. In December 1971, India entered the war after Pakistan attacked the Indian airbase.

The war ended on December 16 after Pakistan surrendered to India, making it one of the shortest wars to date! Bangladesh, therefore, achieved its independence through this war.

On the other hand was another waging war, the Vietnam war. The New York Times published the Pentagon papers from June 13th that showed people how the US government had been lying to people about it.

The information from these papers increased anti-war sentiments about the war too. Pentagon papers were reports that gave the role of the United States involvement in Vietnam and world war II in 1968.

These papers were commissioned under Robert McNamara, who was the defense secretary. Just a few years back, in 2011, these papers were made available to the public for the first time.

On the sports front, various countries achieved wins in different sports. Let's have an overview of some of these athletes, particularly Australians.

In Wimbledon men's tennis on July 3, 1971, Australia's John Newcombe defeated Stan Smith of America 6-3, 5-7, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to win his final Wimbledon singles title.

On September 1 in the same year, John Newcombe lost in the first round of the US open as Jan Kodes beat him to become one of the finalists 6-2, 6-7, 6-7, 3-6.

On March 13, Margaret Court won her 10th Australian singles title in the Australian Open women's tennis as she defeated her opponent Evonne Goolagong from Australia 2-6, 7-6, 7-5.

On June 5, 1971, Evone Goolagona won the grand slam singles by beating another fellow Australian, Helen Gourlay, in the French Open women's tennis 6-3, 7-5.

American Athletes

Did you know that in 1971 the world population was 3,761,000,000? Many people with many problems and achievements too.

For instance, the popular Starbucks opened its first store in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington. The world's space station Salyut 1 orbited for 175 days before it landed in the Pacific after an intentional disintegration. In December, the UAE was created in 1971 after gaining its independence from British rule after 80 years!

Coming to problems, well, there were a couple of them in Northern Ireland as rioting continued to increase according to the IRA campaign to end the British government rule. Let's learn a little more about 1971 before we hit the topic of American athletes.

In fact, the year 1971 saw the admission of the People's Republic of China in the general assembly of the United Nations. Ironically, the Republic of China was, in fact, one of the founding members of the United Nations in 1945.

A man by the name of Dan D.B Cooper got a handsome amount of $200,000 as ransom money as he hijacked the plane mid-air. It is said that after he got the money, Dan D.B Cooper took off with his parachute into the night and was never seen again.

One of the many famous gifts in 1971 was space hoppers, Uno, and Etch-A-Sketch in cool blue or new hot pink frames.

Every kid's dream place to be, the Walt Disney World theme park started for the first time in October 1971. Back the complex of Disney world did not have as many rides as it does now.

It consisted of the fort wilderness resort, magic kingdom part, Polynesian, and the contemporary. The park was located near Orlando, Florida.

The location of the park was actually a swampland when Walt Disney purchased it. The announcement to create the park was made in 1965 by Disney, but he died before he could see the park.

Walt Disney's brother Roy oversaw the entire process post his demise throughout the late '60s, and Roy died just after the park opened in 1971. Back then, a ticket to Disney world cost $3.50 and was exclusive of any other rides.

Coming to sports again, this time, let's look at some American athletes and their accomplishments.

Evel Knievel from America set the world record of jumping over 19 cars with his Harley Davidson XR-750 motorcycle in California's raceway. This daredevil record was held for 28 years. When Evel Knievel visited Australia, he jumped over 16 buses and other motorized obstacles as well. Wherever Evel Knievel went, his records soared higher and higher.

In 1971 America hosted its Pan American games which was a continental multi-sport event. It was conducted from July 30 to August 13 in 1971 at Cali, Colombia.

Around 2935 athletes from 32 national Olympic committees participated in 17 different sports in the games. 15 nations won gold and 20 at least some medal in any event. The USA topped the list with 106 gold medals, 73 silver, 44 bronze, totaling up to 223 medals.

Of the many talented US athletes was Fran Shorter, a son of army personnel who had a double victory in the Pan American games of 1971 by winning both a marathon and 10,000-meter run.

Richard Nixon (President of United States)

Richard Milhous Nixon was one of the prominent US presidents who was born on January 9, 1913, and served as the United States 37th president from 1969 to 1974. Nixon was a member of the Republican party, a senator and representative from California, and was previously the vice president from 1953 to 1961.

Richard Nixon resigned from the white office post the Watergate scandal after he oversaw the end of United States Of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. He also supervised the first moon landing by a man, had a detente with China and the Soviet Union, and established an environmental protection agency before resigning.

Nixon was the person who eventually concluded America's role in the Vietnam war in 1973. The diplomatic relations of America and China were a result of his visit to China in 1972. Simultaneously, he also got the USA the anti-ballistic missile treaty with the Soviet Union. During his tenure, power was transferred from federal control to state control.

Richard Nixon imposed a 90-day price and wage control, began the war on cancer, and enforced desegregation in southern schools. In fact, he was later also re-elected in 1972 after beating his opponent George McGovern. Nixon died in April 1994.

Wight Pop Festival

After all the science and technological endeavors of 1971, how about we get to some pop culture news? One of the popular music festivals in Britain, the Isle of Wight festival, is known to happen in Newport on the Isle of Wight, England, yearly. Initially, it was a counterculture event that took place from 1968 to 1970.

But to date, the 1970 event has been by far the largest event with an enormous amount of attendance. In fact, in 1971, the parliament even constructed an additional section to the Isle of Eight County Council Act 1971.

This helped prevent any open-air gathering that consisted of more than 5000 people without any special permission from the council. Since 2012 this event has been revived again.

Going back in pop culture history, these original events were created by Ray Foulk and Ron Foulk under their company Fiery Creations Ltd. The venues used then were Afton Down, Wooton, and Ford farm. In fact, did you know that the 1969 pop festival featured the famous Bob Dylan and his band?

Aftermath Of WW 2

World War Two was one of the impactful events that happened. But what was even more impactful was the aftermath of world war 2, so let's head to some facts! One of the informative events of 1972 was the development of the US space shuttle program.

The aftermath of the war was a new start to several countries, including European colonial countries, the United States, USSR, and other allied countries. Europe was divided into two parts; one was a soviet led Eastern block and the other an US-led Western block.

The two superpowers US and USSR, engaged in a cold war, mostly nuclear power-related. Japan and Western Europe got through their losses via the American Marshall program.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 1971 facts then why not take a look at 1981 facts, or 1978 facts.