Sinceramente quell’anno è stato impegnativo per la sottoscritta e di conseguenza ricordo ben poco, per non dire tabula rasa.
Sì, certo, su Wikipedia c’è di sicuro qualche notizia, ma se non vi basta, sappiate che non tutto è perduto e i ricordi non sono più affidati solo alla memoria di chi c’era!

In nostro soccorso arriva What Happened in my birth year? un sito che ci impiega una quaresima, ma racconta per filo e per segno ogni cosa rilevante successa nel mondo proprio l’anno della vostra nascita, non senza un filo di ironia.

Nel mio caso, questo è quanto:

In 1976, the world was a different place.
There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo. Or Friendfeed, for that matter.
In 1976, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was Rocky. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.
Remember, that was before there were DVDs. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D computer effects.
Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to Rocky. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Black and White in Color. The top actor was Peter Finch for his role as Howard Beale in Network. The top actress was Faye Dunaway for her role as Diana Christensen in Network. The best director? John G. Avildsen for Rocky.
In the year 1976, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was Trinity by Leon Uris. Oh, that’s many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it? Look at the cover!
In 1976 the first commercial Concorde flight takes off. The trial against jailed members of the Red Army Faction begins in Stuttgart, West Germany. The United States vetoes a United Nations resolution that calls for an independent Palestinian state. Western Sahara declares independence. General Murtala Mohammed of Nigeria is assassinated in a military coup. The first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opens. Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. As a measure to curb population growth, the minimum age for marriage in India is raised to 21 years for men and 18 years for women. The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 is won by Brotherhood of Man, representing the United Kingdom, with their song Save Your Kisses for Me. The chimes of Big Ben stopped when part of the chiming mechanism disintegrated through metal fatigue. The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars, taking the first close-up color photos of the planet’s surface. The video game of the day was Breakout.
That was the world you were born into.
Since then, you and others have changed it.
The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to Saul Bellow. The Nobel Peace prize went to Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan. The Nobel prize for physics went to Burton Richter and Samuel Chao Chung Ting from the United States for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind. The sensation this created was big. But it didn’t stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn’t it?
The 1970s were indeed a special decade. Women’s liberation continued. The hippie culture faded. There was an opposition to the Vietnam war, and nuclear weapons. The environmentalist movement began. Tom Wolfe coined the decade the “Me decade” due to a new self-awareness. Mao Zedong died and the market began to liberate in China. There was an oil crisis. After the first oil shock, gasoline was rationed in many countries. In Eastern Europe, Soviet-style command economies begin showing signs of stagnation. The Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, witness the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian Arab terrorists. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Who, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Bee Gees, Abba and others play their music. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all die at the age of 27. The space mission Apollo 13 nearly ends in disaster. Egypt signed the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. There was a revolution in Iran. The world sees its first general microprocessor. The C programming language makes its debut. Consumer video games show up on the scene. Microwave ovens become commercially available. Margaret Thatcher was victorious in the UK elections.
In 1976, a new character entered the world of comic books: Captain Britain. Bang! Boom! But that’s just fiction, right? In the real world, in 1976, Melissa Joan Hart was born. And Scott Caan. Colin Farrell, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life.
It’s 2012. The world is a different place.

LdC