Sure, 2024 has had lots of news – but compared with 1940, 1968 or 1973, it’s nothing exceptional
Sure, 2024 has had lots of news – but compared with 1940, 1968 or 1973, it’s nothing exceptional
You think 2024 has been packed with a ceaseless and exhausting stream of consequential events? So did Americans in 1940, 1968 and 1973.
If your standard for slow news is the first year of WWII maybe you should get a new measuring stick
Or what has been called one of the most historic and tumultuous years of a century (1968)... Yeah.
Now I gotta look up 1973. Never heard it mentioned in this context...
Answer:
- Roe vs Wade
- Vietnam War officially ended, US pulls out of Cambodia
- OPEC oil embargo started
- Wounded Knee occupation
- Major flooding of the Mississippi River
- New tallest building in the world (Sears Tower)
- Nixon goes to China and US opens official office in Beijing
- Battle of the Sexes tennis match
- Secretariat wins first triple crown in 25 years, smashing records
- "The Miller Test" for obscenity is established by the US Supreme Court
- Two notable commercial airline crashes with fatalities (both in Boston, interestingly)
- Egypt and Israel sign peace accord
- Much of the Watergate scandal played out in 73, though Nixon didn't resign until August of '74
Nixon goes to China and US opens official office in Beijing
There's an opera about that. I don't even like opera (I went because a friend did the costumes) and I really enjoyed it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_in_China
Edit: Discovered a French opera company did a production that was televised and put on YouTube. It won't be as good as seeing it live because it's a real visual spectacle, but I recommend it regardless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G72JjpMEdKs
The Conversation does know the year is only half-over, right?
And we all know why that's the case:
If that's their standard then we're already in one heck of a year.
And… it’s jinxed.