1971 History, Facts, and Trivia

In 1971, cigarette advertising was banned from American television and radio, ending an era and beginning a public health reckoning that would take decades to complete. D.B. Cooper hijacked a plane, collected $200,000 in ransom, jumped out into a Pacific Northwest night, and was never conclusively identified. Jim Morrison died in Paris at 27. Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the moon. Charles Manson was convicted. The first Starbucks opened in Seattle. Ray Tomlinson sent the first networked email. All in the Family premiered and immediately became the most discussed show on television. It was a year that left fingerprints on everything that followed.

Quick Facts from 1971

• World-Changing Event: Cigarette advertising was banned from American television and radio effective January 2, 1971; the Intel 4004, the first microprocessor, was released on November 15, making personal computing theoretically possible for the first time
• Top Song: Joy to the World by Three Dog Night, the best-performing single of the year on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100
• Must-See Movies: Dirty Harry, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Last Picture Show, Billy Jack, Fiddler on the Roof, Klute, and A Clockwork Orange
• Most Famous Person in America: Warren Beatty, though Jim Morrison’s death in July made him the most discussed
• Notable Books: Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
• Price of a Hess Fire Truck: $1.69
• Price of Monopoly: $3.99
• Price of a G.I. Joe Action Figure: $6.49 to $8.29
• The Funny Guys: Monty Python’s Flying Circus, whose first film, And Now for Something Completely Different, arrived in 1971
• The Funny Guy: George Carlin
• The Funny Lady: Carol Burnett
• Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Pig, associated with generosity, diligence, and a tendency to trust people — qualities that were tested frequently in 1971
• The Habits: Watching All in the Family, arguing about whether it was appropriate to laugh
• The Conversation: Did you hear about D.B. Cooper? And what do you think about All in the Family?

Top Ten Baby Names of 1971

Girls: Jennifer, Michelle, Lisa, Kimberly, Amy Boys: Michael, James, David, John, Robert

Jennifer continued its extraordinary run at the top. Michael had been number one for boys for most of the preceding two decades. The list was remarkably stable from year to year in this era, reflecting how slowly naming conventions shifted before the acceleration of cultural fragmentation.

The Sex Symbols, Hotties, and Fashion Icons of 1971

Dyan Cannon, Catherine Deneuve, Goldie Hawn, Peggy Lipton, Ann-Margret, Caroline Munro, Ingrid Pitt, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch had been one of the defining visual figures of the late 1960s and remained so into the early 1970s. Tina Turner was performing with Ike Turner’s revue and was at the peak of the act’s commercial period. Goldie Hawn had won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1970 and was building a film career.

Hollywood Hunks and Leading Men of 1971

Richard Roundtree, Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, Warren Beatty, Sean Connery, Elvis Presley

Jim Morrison appeared on this list as he had in previous years. He died July 3, 1971, in Paris.

The Quotes

“Wrong, sir! Wrong!… You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You bumped into the ceiling, which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!” — Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a scene that terrified and confused children in 1971 and has been reconsidered as increasingly sympathetic to Wonka with each passing decade

“Did he fire six shots or only five?… Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” — Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry, a speech delivered to an incapacitated bank robber that established the definitive template for the lone-wolf cop movie

“Is it live, or is it Memorex?” — Memorex, in a campaign featuring Ella Fitzgerald shattering a glass with her voice, raising the epistemological question of whether recorded excellence could be distinguished from the real thing

“You deserve a break today.” — McDonald’s, in a campaign that simultaneously acknowledged the exhaustion of American daily life and offered a Happy Meal as the solution

“Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” — Maureen McCormick as Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch, expressing the particular anguish of the middle sibling in a line that became the shorthand for all sibling jealousy

“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” — State Farm Insurance, a jingle that has been in continuous use for over 50 years

Time Magazine’s Man of the Year

Richard Nixon, for his diplomatic opening toward China — announced in July 1971 when National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing was revealed — which constituted one of the most significant foreign policy shifts in American history. Nixon’s announcement that he would visit China upended the Cold War’s binary framework and set in motion the process that led to the full normalization of US-China relations. The selection recognized strategic achievement at a moment when Nixon’s political standing was also strong.

Miss America and Miss USA

Miss America: Phyllis George, Denton, Texas — she went on to become a sportscaster for CBS Sports and later First Lady of Kentucky
Miss USA: Michele McDonald, Pennsylvania

We Lost in 1971

Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors, whose baritone voice, theatrical stage presence, and poetic lyrics had made him one of the most distinctive figures in rock music, was found dead in a bathtub in his Paris apartment on July 3, 1971, at age 27. The official cause of death was heart failure; no autopsy was performed. Morrison had moved to Paris earlier in 1971 after being convicted of indecent exposure in Florida following a concert performance. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, where his grave remains one of the most visited in Paris. His death made him the fourth member of the so-called 27 Club that year, following Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in 1970 and Brian Jones in 1969.

Duane Allman, the slide guitarist and co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, whose playing on the band’s albums and as a session musician had made him one of the most admired guitarists of his generation, died October 29, 1971, at age 24, when his motorcycle collided with a truck in Macon, Georgia. He had been recording what would become Eat a Peach, a tribute completed and released in 1972.

Audie Murphy, the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II, who had received the Medal of Honor and 32 other medals and decorations, and who had built a subsequent career as a film actor and country songwriter, died May 28, 1971, at age 45, when the light plane he was traveling in crashed in Virginia in foggy weather. He had struggled with post-traumatic stress and addiction for years and had become one of the earliest public advocates for veterans’ mental health treatment.

Louis Armstrong, the trumpeter, singer, and bandleader who had done more than any other individual to bring jazz to a global audience and whose recordings from the 1920s through the 1960s constituted one of the most influential bodies of work in American music, died July 6, 1971, at age 69, of a heart attack.

Coco Chanel, the French fashion designer whose work had redefined women’s fashion in the 20th century — introducing the little black dress, the Chanel suit, Chanel No. 5 perfume, and the concept of comfortable, functional elegance as a design philosophy — died January 10, 1971, at age 87, at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

America in 1971 — The Context

The Vietnam War was in its eighth year of significant American involvement. President Nixon had announced a policy of Vietnamization — gradually transferring the fighting to South Vietnamese forces while withdrawing American troops — but the war continued to generate massive domestic opposition. The publication of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times in June 1971, based on a classified Defense Department study of American decision-making in Vietnam, revealed that successive administrations had systematically misled Congress and the public about the war’s progress and prospects. Nixon obtained a temporary court order blocking publication; the Supreme Court ruled against the administration in a landmark press freedom case.

The 26th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 1, 1971, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. The amendment had been driven by the argument that young men who could be drafted to fight and die in Vietnam should be able to vote. The ratification was the fastest of any constitutional amendment in American history, completed in 100 days.

The Nixon administration announced in August 1971 that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed rate, ending the Bretton Woods system that had governed international finance since 1944. The decision — known as the Nixon Shock — effectively ended the gold standard and led to the system of floating exchange rates that governs international currency markets today. The immediate economic effects included significant inflation.

Cigarette advertising was banned from American radio and television effective January 2, 1971, under the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969. The tobacco industry, anticipating the ban, had spent the final weeks of 1970 flooding broadcasting with advertisements. The ban was the first significant restriction on the advertising of a legal product in American history and began a decades-long process of reducing tobacco’s cultural visibility.

D.B. Cooper

On November 24, 1971, a man named Dan Cooper boarded Northwest Orient Flight 305 in Portland, Oregon, bound for Seattle. He passed a note to a flight attendant claiming he had a bomb and demanded $200,000 in ransom and four parachutes. The money and parachutes were delivered to the aircraft in Seattle. The other passengers deplaned. Cooper instructed the crew to fly toward Mexico at low altitude with the landing gear down. Somewhere over southwestern Washington state, he lowered the rear stairs of the Boeing 727 and parachuted into the night. He was never found. The case remains the only unsolved aircraft hijacking in American aviation history. A small amount of the ransom money was found along the Columbia River in 1980; no other trace of Cooper has been confirmed. His identity has never been established.

Pop Culture Facts and History

All in the Family, created by Norman Lear and starring Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, premiered January 12, 1971, on CBS. The show used a bigoted working-class Queens patriarch to examine American racial attitudes, gender politics, and generational conflict in ways that American television had never previously attempted. Audiences watched with a combination of recognition, discomfort, and laughter that the show itself seemed designed to create simultaneously. It was the most-watched show on American television for five consecutive seasons and is considered one of the most influential series in the medium’s history.

Dirty Harry, directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood as San Francisco Inspector Harry Callahan, opened December 23, 1971, and grossed $36 million on a $4 million budget. The film’s politics — a lone cop who operates outside legal constraints to stop a killer — were immediately controversial, praised by some as realism and criticized by others as fascist fantasy. The debate did not prevent it from launching a five-film franchise and establishing Eastwood as the defining action star of the era.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder, opened June 30, 1971. It was not a major commercial success on initial release — it grossed only $4 million against a $3 million budget — and received mixed reviews. Its subsequent cable-television broadcast in the late 1970s and early 1980s introduced it to a generation of children, for whom it became a permanent reference point. It is now considered a classic, which Wilder reportedly found gratifying and not entirely surprising.

A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel, opened in the United States in December 1971. It was one of the most controversial films of the year, receiving an X rating for its violence and sexual content. Kubrick later withdrew it from distribution in the United Kingdom after copycat crimes were linked to it — a withdrawal that lasted until after his death in 1999.

The Last Picture Show, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and based on Larry McMurtry’s novel, opened on October 22, 1971, and was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year, winning two Academy Awards. It was shot in black and white at a time when color had been the standard for years, and its elegiac portrait of a dying small Texas town in the early 1950s established Bogdanovich as a major director.

The first Starbucks opened on March 30, 1971, at 2000 Western Avenue in Seattle, near Pike Place Market. The founders — Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker — named it after the first mate in Moby-Dick. The original store sold roasted coffee beans but not brewed coffee. The company did not begin serving espresso drinks until Howard Schultz joined in 1982. Schultz later bought the company and transformed it into the chain it became.

Ray Tomlinson sent the first networked email in late 1971 using the ARPANET system, choosing the @ symbol to separate the user name from the host computer. The message he sent was a test, and he later said he could not remember its exact content, suggesting it was something like “QWERTYUIOP.” The @ symbol had existed on typewriter keyboards since the 19th century as a shorthand for commercial transactions; Tomlinson gave it a second life.

The Intel 4004, released November 15, 1971, was the first commercially available microprocessor — a complete central processing unit on a single chip. It had been designed by Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stanley Mazor. The 4004 ran at 740 kilohertz and could address 640 bytes of memory. The chip that powers a modern smartphone contains tens of billions of transistors. The 4004 contained 2,300.

George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, released in November 1970 and a massive hit through 1971, was found by a court to have been subconsciously plagiarized from the Chiffons’ 1963 hit He’s So Fine. Harrison had not deliberately copied the melody but had internalized it sufficiently that it appeared in his own composition without his recognizing it. The court found in favor of the Chiffons’ publisher in 1976. Harrison eventually purchased the rights to the song, meaning he now had to pay himself royalties whenever it was performed.

Alan Shepard hit two golf balls on the surface of the Moon on February 6, 1971, during the Apollo 14 lunar landing. Using a six-iron club head attached to a sample collection handle — smuggled aboard the lunar module in a sock — Shepard made two swings. The first was a shank; the second went, in his description, “miles and miles and miles.” The actual distance was later estimated at approximately 40 yards, assisted by the Moon’s reduced gravity and the absence of atmosphere. Golf is the only sport played on the Moon, a distinction that is unlikely to change soon.

Charles Manson and three of his followers — Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Charles Watson — were sentenced to death on March 29, 1971, for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Steven Parent, Leno LaBianca, and Rosemary LaBianca. The death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 1972 when California’s Supreme Court ruled the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. Manson died in prison in 2017.

The Crock-Pot, a slow cooker that maintained low cooking temperatures over extended periods, was introduced by Rival Manufacturing in 1971 under the Crock-Pot name. The product had been developed from an earlier bean cooker. It sold over 100 million units and permanently altered how American households approached weekday cooking, particularly after the increase in two-income households in the late 1970s.

Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles, and Ice Cream Pebbles cereals were introduced by Post Foods in 1971, using characters from The Flintstones — the first time cartoon characters had been licensed as the central identity of a breakfast cereal rather than as mascots. The licensing model was immediately copied and became the standard for children’s food marketing.

The Gillette Trac II, introduced in 1971, was the first twin-blade shaving cartridge — the beginning of an escalation in blade count that has not yet concluded. The Trac II was followed by the three-blade Mach3 in 1998, the five-blade Fusion in 2006, and subsequent variations. The industry’s trajectory suggests the upper limit has not been reached.

Nobel Prize Winners in 1971

Physics was awarded to Dennis Gabor of Hungary and Britain for his invention and development of the holographic method, the technology of holography, which produces three-dimensional images using laser light.

Chemistry was awarded to Gerhard Herzberg of Canada for his contributions to the understanding of the electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals.

Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Earl Sutherland for his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones, specifically the discovery of cyclic AMP as a second messenger — the relay system by which hormones transmit instructions into cells.

Literature went to Pablo Neruda of Chile, for poetry that, with the force of an elemental power, brings to life a continent’s destiny and dreams. Neruda, who had been a communist, a senator, and a poet, accepted the prize as his country was approaching the political crisis that would culminate in the 1973 coup.

Peace was awarded to Willy Brandt of West Germany for his Ostpolitik — his policy of reconciliation with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, which led to the normalization of relations with East Germany and Poland and contributed significantly to the easing of Cold War tensions in Europe.

Economics turned to Simon Kuznets for his empirically grounded interpretation of economic growth, which has led to new and deeper insights into the economic and social structure and processes of development — essentially, to the development of the concept of GDP and the methods for measuring it.

1971 Toys and Christmas Gifts

Weebles, the roly-poly figures that wobbled but did not fall down, launched in 1971 along with Big Jim action figures, Space Hoppers, Klackers, and Uno. The Etch-A-Sketch underwent a midlife rebrand, introducing new Hot Pink and Cool Blue frames. Uno, invented by Merle Robbins of Cincinnati and initially self-published, sold its first 5,000 copies at the family barber shop before being commercially licensed.

Broadway in 1971

Grease opened on February 14, 1972, but its workshop origins date to 1971. 

No Sex Please, We’re British, the long-running British farce, opened June 3, 1971, in London’s West End and ran for an extraordinary 16 years until January 16, 1987 — 6,761 performances, one of the longest runs in West End history.

Best Film Oscar Winner

Patton, directed by Franklin Schaffner and starring George C. Scott as World War II General George S. Patton Jr., won Best Picture at the 43rd Academy Awards on April 15, 1971, for the 1970 film year. Scott refused the Best Actor Oscar, calling awards ceremonies a “meat parade” and becoming the first performer to decline the prize. The Academy awarded it anyway. The film had been written in part by Francis Ford Coppola, who was simultaneously developing The Godfather.

Top Movies of 1971

1. Diamonds Are Forever
2. The French Connection
3. Dirty Harry
4. Billy Jack
5. A Clockwork Orange
6. Summer of ’42
7. Carnal Knowledge
8. The Omega Man
9. Klute
10. The Last Picture Show

The French Connection, directed by William Friedkin, was the critical heavyweight of the year, winning five Academy Awards, including Best Picture at the following year’s ceremony. Dirty Harry established Clint Eastwood as the decade’s defining action star. A Clockwork Orange generated the most controversy. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, not in the top ten by box office, generated the most lasting cultural impact per dollar of production.

Most Popular TV Shows of 1971

1. All in the Family (CBS)
2. The Flip Wilson Show (NBC)
3. Marcus Welby, M.D. (ABC)
4. Gunsmoke (CBS)
5. Sanford and Son (NBC)
6. Mannix (CBS)
7. Funny Face (CBS)
8. Adam-12 (NBC)
9. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS)
10. Here’s Lucy (CBS)

All in the Family was in its first season and was initially greeted by CBS executives with enough concern that they prepared a disclaimer to air before the first episode. The audience responded with ratings, making it the most-watched show on television. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in its second season, was establishing itself as one of the finest sitcoms in television history. The Flip Wilson Show featured the first Black performer to host a successful prime-time variety series since Nat King Cole in the 1950s.

1971 Billboard Number One Hits

December 26, 1970 – January 22, 1971: My Sweet Lord — George Harrison (carryover from late 1970)
January 23 – February 12: Knock Three Times — Dawn
February 13 – March 19: One Bad Apple — The Osmonds (5 weeks)
March 20 – April 2: Me and Bobby McGee — Janis Joplin (posthumous number one)
April 3 – April 16: Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me) — The Temptations
April 17 – May 28: Joy to the World — Three Dog Night (6 weeks)
May 29 – June 11: Brown Sugar — The Rolling Stones
June 12 – July 11: Want Ads — The Honey Cone
June 19 – July 18: It’s Too Late — Carole King (5 weeks)
July 19 – July 25: Indian Reservation — Raiders
July 26 – August 1: You’ve Got a Friend — James Taylor
August 2 – September 3: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart — Bee Gees
September 4 – September 10: Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey — Paul and Linda McCartney
September 11 – October 1: Go Away Little Girl — Donny Osmond
October 2 – November 5: Maggie May — Rod Stewart (5 weeks)
November 6 – November 19: Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves — Cher
November 20 – December 3: Theme from Shaft — Isaac Hayes
December 4 – December 24: Family Affair — Sly and the Family Stone
December 25, 1971 – January 14, 1972: Brand New Key — Melanie (carrying into 1972)

Joy to the World by Three Dog Night was the best-performing single of the year on the Billboard Year-End chart, spending six weeks at number one. Me and Bobby McGee, Kris Kristofferson’s song recorded by Janis Joplin three days before her death in October 1970, reached number one posthumously in March 1971 — one of the very few posthumous number ones in chart history. Carole King’s It’s Too Late, from her landmark album Tapestry, spent five weeks at number one; Tapestry spent 15 weeks at the top of the albums chart and eventually sold over 25 million copies. Maggie May was Rod Stewart’s breakthrough solo hit, spending five weeks at number one and establishing his ragged voice and storytelling style as a commercial force. Theme from Shaft by Isaac Hayes was the first film score single to reach number one, introducing orchestral funk to the pop chart and winning Hayes the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Sports Champions of 1971

World Series: The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Baltimore Orioles four games to three. Game 4 was the first World Series game played at night. Roberto Clemente hit .414 in the series with a home run in Game 7 and was named MVP. The Orioles had been heavy favorites; the Pirates’ victory was one of the more significant upsets in recent Series history.

Super Bowl V: The Baltimore Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 on January 17, 1971, in Miami, in a game so filled with turnovers and errors that it was immediately nicknamed the “Blunder Bowl.” Eleven fumbles and interceptions were committed between the two teams. Baltimore kicker Jim O’Brien kicked a 32-yard field goal with five seconds remaining to win the game. He had been a wide receiver who had kicked only occasionally before the season.

NBA Champions: The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Baltimore Bullets four games to none in the NBA Finals — the most dominant performance in Finals history at that point. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in his second season, averaged 27 points per game. Oscar Robertson, acquired in a trade from Cincinnati specifically to help Abdul-Jabbar win a championship, provided the veteran leadership. The Bucks had gone from an expansion team to champions in three seasons, a pace that has not been matched.

Stanley Cup: The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Chicago Blackhawks four games to three. Ken Dryden, a rookie who had played only six regular-season games, was the starting goaltender in the playoffs and was named Conn Smythe Trophy winner — the only rookie to win the award. The performance launched a Hall of Fame career.

U.S. Open Golf: Jack Nicklaus won at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, defeating a field that included Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino. It was Nicklaus’s second U.S. Open title.

U.S. Open Tennis: Stan Smith won the men’s title, and Billie Jean King won the women’s.

Wimbledon: John Newcombe of Australia won the men’s title and Evonne Goolagong of Australia won the women’s, defeating Margaret Court in the final. Goolagong was 19 years old and had been born to an itinerant Aboriginal family in rural New South Wales. Her victory was celebrated in Australia as a cultural breakthrough.

NCAA Football: Nebraska, under coach Bob Devaney, won the national championship with an undefeated 13-0 record. The Cornhuskers defeated Alabama 38-6 in the Orange Bowl in what was considered one of the most dominant championship performances in college football history.

NCAA Basketball: UCLA, under John Wooden, won the national championship, its fifth in seven years. Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe led a team that lacked a dominant center but won with depth and execution.

Kentucky Derby: Canonero II, a Venezuelan horse trained by Juan Arias, won the Kentucky Derby as a 25-1 longshot and went on to win the Preakness Stakes, setting up a potential Triple Crown run at the Belmont. He finished fourth in the Belmont due to a hoof infection and trainer errors that left him overraced and underrested. His story — a South American horse trained on modest resources who defeated America’s finest — was one of the more improbable in racing history.

Frequently Asked Questions About 1971

Q: Who was D.B. Cooper?
A: On November 24, 1971, a man using the name Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305, demanded $200,000 in cash and four parachutes, released the passengers and most of the crew in Seattle after the ransom was delivered, and parachuted from the rear stairs of the aircraft somewhere over southwestern Washington state. He was never found. A small amount of the ransom money turned up along the Columbia River in 1980. His identity has never been confirmed. The case remains the only unsolved aircraft hijacking in American aviation history.

Q: How did the 26th Amendment affect the Vietnam War?
A: The 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, 1971, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, driven primarily by the argument that young men subject to the draft should be able to vote. It was ratified in 100 days — the fastest ratification of any constitutional amendment. Its practical effect on the war was limited, as the war continued for four more years regardless of the expansion of the electorate.

Q: What was the Pentagon Papers case?
A: In June 1971, the New York Times began publishing classified Defense Department documents, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, showing that successive administrations had systematically misled Congress and the public about the Vietnam War. The Nixon administration obtained a court order blocking publication — the first prior restraint of a major newspaper in American history. Within weeks, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against the administration, establishing an important precedent for press freedom.

Q: When did Starbucks open?
A: The first Starbucks opened on March 30, 1971, near Pike Place Market in Seattle. The original store, founded by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker, sold roasted coffee beans but not brewed coffee. The chain did not begin serving espresso drinks until Howard Schultz joined in 1982.

Q: What made All in the Family controversial?
A: All in the Family used its protagonist Archie Bunker — a bigoted, working-class Queens resident — to satirize American racial attitudes, sexism, and generational conflict with a directness that television had never previously attempted. CBS prepared a disclaimer before the first episode. The show was immediately the most-watched on American television and generated national conversation about whether it was challenging prejudice or normalizing it — a debate that has not been fully resolved.

Q: What was the first microprocessor?
A: The Intel 4004, released November 15, 1971, was the first complete central processing unit on a single integrated circuit chip. It had been designed by Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stanley Mazor for a Japanese calculator company. The 4004 contained 2,300 transistors and ran at 740 kilohertz. Modern processors contain tens of billions of transistors and run at speeds measured in gigahertz.

In a year when cigarettes disappeared from television, D.B. Cooper disappeared into the Pacific Northwest night, Jim Morrison disappeared into Paris, and the microprocessor appeared in a Japanese calculator, 1971 managed to establish the conditions for several decades of cultural and technological change that were not immediately visible. The Crock-Pot launched. Starbucks opened. Email arrived. All in the Family changed what television was allowed to say. The 26th Amendment gave 18-year-olds the vote. None of it seemed as significant at the time as the things that were blowing up or being shut down.

More 1971 Facts & History Resources:

Most Popular Baby Names (BabyCenter.com)
Born in 1971 (OverTheHill.com)
Popular and Notable Books (popculture.us)
Broadway Shows that Opened in 1971X
1971 Calendar, courtesy of Time and Date.com
Fact Monster
1970s, Infoplease.com World History
1971 in Movies (according to IMDB)
Retrowaste Vintage Culture
1971 in Review (UPI)
1970s Slang
1970 US Census Fast Facts
Wikipedia 1971