The year was 1936, when Life magazine promised to bring the world to our doorstep.
An old-fashioned sort of world filled with pomp and ritual.
Over the last quarter century, a new world has emerged, ringing of change and discovery
and awareness.
Join us now as Life looks back at 25 of the most significant events which have shaped
our bold new era.
This is a journey through the recent 80s, the decade when Americans tried to put a battered
world back together.
A journey back into the 70s, the decade of loud change, when a new awareness liberated
millions.
A journey back, back to the turbulent 60s, the decade of rebellion, when old standards
and a way of life were suddenly blown in the wind.
Step back through time as Life looks at a quarter century that reshaped our country.
Things that often saddened us, yet revitalized us in the process.
They came out of a brilliant November Dallas day, the shots that put hope to bed and left
a nation dazed and weeping.
For one brief shining moment, the world had seemed perfectable.
Maybe we had stars in our eyes from all the glamour that JFK offered us all, or maybe
it was just a cruel way of telling us the fun was over.
But as JFK was laid to rest, the people came together like never before, united in their
grief all in one family.
And the tone of a new time for America was set.
Hardly had the dirges died away, then a new sound drifted across the Atlantic.
It wasn't long before a quartet of mouth-headed British blokes took America by storm.
Is that a Beetle hair cut you've got?
Yes.
How'd you work it out?
Well, I just got my hair clipped around and told Bill Messick.
What do your parents say about it?
They'll like it.
And why do you follow it that way?
Because I like the Beatles.
You came up with the name Beatles, and what does it really mean?
John thought of the name Beatles, and he'll tell you about it now.
It means Beatles, isn't it?
That's just a name.
You know, like shoe.
It means the shoes.
You see, we could have been called the shoes for all you know.
Their lyrics, their look, and especially that hair lifted the hearts of a whole generation.
1967 saw an unprecedented breakthrough in medicine.
Organ transplants had become commonplace, but who would have thought you could replace
the human heart?
That's exactly what happened in South Africa, as Dr. Christian Barnard made history when
he transplanted the heart of one woman into the chest of a man suffering from heart failure.
It just started immediately to beat, and I continuously could feel the atmosphere when
that heart started beating at operating theater.
It was just terrific when it started to beat.
And I turned around to my technician who was a very placid sort of boy, and I said to him,
do you think it's going to work?
And he said, yes, I'm sure it's going to work.
All the time there was the terrible low rumble of racial injustice.
It was Martin Luther King, a man of peace, who tried to do something about it.
Americans had first seen what he was up against when violence erupted in Birmingham, and the
ugly scenes were broadcast on national television.
In a supercharged atmosphere, sparks of racial antagonism flared into violence.
Firemen turned their hoses on the angry crowd.
Police dogs were brought in.
In five days, about 2,500 Negroes were arrested.
They filled the jails and other detention quarters in what Dr. King calls fulfillment
of a dream.
I just want to do God's will.
And he has allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get
to the promised land.
It took years to overcome, but not before the battlefield was soaked in martyr's blood.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee, shot in the face as
he stood alone on the balcony of his hotel room.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade
is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.
Houston, Apollo 11, how many miles out do you have it now?
Roughly about 50,000.
That's beautiful.
Right.
Just eight years after President Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon, man's fairy
tale adventure was finally being achieved.
We're now in the approach phase, everything looking good.
Altitude 4,200, go for landing, over.
We're go, same time, we're go.
Altitude, velocity, light, three and a half down, 220 feet, 15 forward, 7 forward, coming
down nicely, 200 feet, four and a half down, five and a half down.
60 seconds, 40 feet down, two and a half, picking up some dust.
Contact light, okay, engine stop.
Tangoity base here, vehicle has landed.
I'm at the foot of the ladder, that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
It could have been a moon scene, such strange sights and extraordinary sounds emanated from
a hillside near a town called Woodstock.
The summer resort area of New York State's Catskill Mountains is virtually paralyzed
this weekend by an overwhelming crowd of pop rock music bands from all over the country.
At least 300,000 young people, perhaps as many as half a million, have jammed the highways
and country roads trying to get to a music festival featuring the most popular performers
of rock and folk music.
So many people showed up, the festival was declared free and open to everyone.
Police say they're amazed at the politeness.
There has been virtually no violence.
It was the last great pageant of the 60s, celebrating the causes of a generation, peace
and love.
As the 70s began to unfold, there was anything but peace and love on the Kent State campus
in Ohio.
By order of President White, the university campus has been closed.
Please return to your dormitories and leave the campus by the shortest route as soon as
possible.
Students protested against the war and national guardsmen shot them down.
When the shooting stopped, four lay dead and Mary Ann Vecchio's lament over the body of
Jeffrey Glenn Miller became a symbol of U.S. frustration and grief over the war and symbolized
the gulf between America's young and their government.
Mad-mouthed at home, the very same government was winning accolades abroad.
Two decades of icy hostility between China and the U.S. began to thaw when President
Nixon made his historic visit to China for talks with Chairman Mao that led to a joint
communique.
What we have said in that communique is not nearly as important as what we will do in
the years ahead to build a bridge across 16,000 miles and 22 years of hostility which have
divided us in the past.
The way had been paved by the secret skill of Henry Kissinger and President Nixon's week-long
visit astonished and excited the world.
In fact, this crack in the Great Wall had opened communications with the Chinese on
all levels.
This was the week that changed the world.
Changed too was the status of American women.
50 years in the coming, ERA, a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women,
was passed by Congress in 1972.
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States
or any state on account of sex.
Thirty-eight states were needed to ratify the bill before it could become a law, and
what took place was a fierce battle between ERA supporters and their vocal opponents.
If the equal rights amendment were ratified, these girls could be forced to go to combat.
God didn't intend women for NFL football or combat.
It will take a miracle to get the equal rights amendment ratified in the current climate.
We are realists.
The miracle didn't happen, but by its very existence, ERA has helped to right many of
the inequities between the sexes.
Again, the U.S. Constitution was called into question as Watergate, the name of a Washington
office building, became the most infamous word of the 70s.
It housed the offices of the Democratic National Committee, and in an attempt to steal political
secrets, agents of President Nixon's reelection campaign got caught red-handed.
An investigation examined this question.
What did the president know, and when did he know it?
I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their
president is a crook.
Well, I'm not a crook.
The nation watched the dramatic congressional hearings as the president's men denied that
Nixon himself had known of the crime.
President Nixon had no knowledge of or involvement in either the Watergate affair itself or the
subsequent efforts of a cover-up of the Watergate.
But when White House counsel John Dean took the stand, he painted a picture of the president
as a lying schemer who believed he was above the law.
Now, I guess you're fully aware, Mr. Dean, of the gravity of the charges you have made
under oath against the highest official of our land, the president of the United States.
Yes, I am.
And being so aware, do you still stand on your statement?
Yes, I do.
Nixon was implicated further by White House tape recordings he himself had ordered.
Finally, to escape impeachment, Nixon became the first U.S. president ever to resign from
office.
I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
Vice President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office.
Sure, we've done some things wrong in this administration.
And the top man always takes the responsibility, and I've never ducked it.
But I want to say one thing.
Mistakes, yes, but for personal gain, never.
Another helicopter departure came after 30 years of conflict as the war in Vietnam was
finally coming to an abrupt end.
On April 29, 1975, with North Vietnamese troops pressing in on the city of Saigon, it became
a race against time to evacuate all Americans and as many loyal Vietnamese as possible.
On grounds of the American embassy in Saigon, this was the principal point of pickup for
Americans and some Vietnamese waiting to be evacuated.
The whole compound is surrounded by a high wall.
The people here were herded into groups.
All they could take was hand luggage.
Fifty at a time, they took off for the carriers waiting in the South China Sea.
They fled any way they could, on foot, on motorcycles, in buses and trucks.
It all seemed a fitting nightmare conclusion to a war of inestimable cost to humanity,
a war which had broken presidents, reshaped governments, and bitterly divided Americans.
But if Vietnam had divided Americans, the bicentennial helped bring us back together.
The 4th of July, 1976, marked our 200th birthday, and Americans celebrated in unique ways throughout
this land of great diversity.
It was with unbounded relief and joy that we unfurled our long stored flags.
What a glorious 4th, and how proudly we hailed it.
Courageous acts were hard to come by in the 70s, especially around the Middle East, where
hatred between Arab and Jew deepened with each year.
But in 1977, Egypt's president Anwar Sadat took matters into his own hands and traveled
to Israel, the first visit there ever for an Arab leader.
It was a personal touch, part of what Sadat has called his sacred duty in coming to Israel.
And when he came to Golda Meir, he said, Madam, I have waited a long time to meet you.
But the real bargaining for peace still lay ahead, to be moderated by President Carter
at Camp David.
When we first arrived at Camp David, the first thing upon which we agreed was to ask the
people of the world to pray that our negotiations would be successful.
Those prayers have been answered far beyond any expectations.
The Camp David summit agreement between Egypt and Israel is being hailed this morning as
an extraordinary accomplishment on the road to peace.
The scene in the White House last night was almost unbelievable.
Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt in a bear hug that celebrated the two
agreements worked out in 13 days of negotiating at Camp David.
Two dates, two images, events that took place 444 days apart, the capture and release of
the hostages in Iran.
It had all started on November 4th, 1979, when with the blessing of the Ayatollah Khomeini,
Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American hostages.
The most powerful country in the world was at the mercy of a fanatic and his followers.
When we came home, all we could do was sit and hope and pray.
And that we did for more than a year before our prayers were answered.
From confetti-strewn avenues to the portals of the White House itself, the new American
heroes were energetically welcomed home.
Like the word hostage or woodstock or watergate, Three Mile Island had no special significance
before events catapulted the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania nuclear power plant into prominence.
When the cooling system there broke down, radioactive steam leaked through the four-foot
thick walls and into the air.
But it wasn't until later, during the slow, careful cleanup, that we realized we had been
on the verge of a full-fledged meltdown, making Three Mile Island the symbol of one of the
world's most vexing and dangerous problems.
As we entered the decade of the 80s, it was this Olympic hockey game that helped give
Americans a new surge of national pride, as a bunch of American college boys faced the
fierce old pros of the USSR, who had not lost a game in 12 years.
A big victory would mean a lot, and with just 15 seconds to play, the U.S. team fought to
hold on to their one-goal lead.
Hold on,ièrement!
Another bright spot was the official joining of Prince Charles and Chi Dai.
750 million watched on television what was being called the wedding of the century.
We are gathered here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation
to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.
This is what all the people wanted.
We are the world sang the voices of America's top rock stars in a historic song fest for the
famine in Africa.
In one unprecedented night, dozens of musicians sang their hearts out for an Ethiopia ravaged by the most
lethal drought in modern history.
Their words rang out and touched a sympathetic world raising nearly 100 million dollars which helped to bring a population back from the edge of starvation.
Until Rock Hudson's death in 1985, the country had been unwilling to fully acknowledge an epidemic called AIDS.
Even though Surgeon General Coop had issued straightforward warnings regarding promiscuity.
If you don't know what you're doing or with whom you're doing it, then don't do it.
But it was the sight of the once strapping movie idol who for 30 years had symbolized the very image of a leading man now dying before our eyes that forced the public to come to grips with the AIDS epidemic.
This was his last public appearance on July 15th of this year. Some publicity shots with Doris Day.
At this point he had known for a year he had AIDS. A week later he flew to Paris for treatment and the world knew it.
In the end, Rock Hudson's public disclosure that he was dying of acquired immune deficiency syndrome did more for making the public aware of AIDS than any other single event.
His last public words read by Burt Lancaster at an AIDS benefit summed up the urgent message.
I'm not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive work.
1986. Amidst Rockets' red glare, we rededicated our Lady of Liberty.
The American people rallied. We rekindled the spirit of 76. And in doing so, we rededicated ourselves to democracy.
Just one year later, the Dow Jones average plummeted a terrifying 508 points. More than one third of the market's total worth was lost by the time the final bell tolled.
He's gonna be selling it!
In trading rooms on Wall Street there was panic. Sell orders flooded in. Stocks also plummeted overseas and the price of gold skyrocketed. Outside the New York Stock Exchange, a sense of disbelief.
Panic, complete panic. Everyone's going crazy.
Although our new age was still victim to the whims of man, and especially his tendency to panic, reform measures and the same sophisticated computers that had helped trigger the sell-off now gave hope that 1929 and the Great Depression that followed was not in the cards for today.
In the cards, though, was the real possibility of lessening the danger of nuclear annihilation. The summit meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev were the first real rays of hope between the superpowers for decades.
They met in a series of dramatic sessions aimed at a nuclear arms reduction treaty.
The importance of this treaty transcends numbers. We have listened to the wisdom in an old Russian maxim. The maxim is, Doviyai, no proviyai. Trust, but verify.
You repeat that at every meeting. I like it.
Today, I for the United States and the General Secretary for the Soviet Union have signed the first agreement ever to eliminate an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons. We have made history.
It was the summer when Mother Nature said no more, when pollution of all kinds became a national crisis, a summer when medical waste washed up on our beaches, when acid rain killed our trees, and a drought of historic proportions ravaged the Midwest.
It was a summer when forest fires burned down nearly half of Yellowstone National Park, a summer that seemed to tell us that the greenhouse effect might already be upon us. But contrasting these toxic scenes are the battles of the environment we have won.
Rivers cleaned, wilderness protected, endangered species like the bald eagle, the very symbol of our nation, made to thrive again. The question is, can we now meet this, our greatest challenge, to save the environment?
In our final event, we reached once again for the stars, this time the shuttle Discovery.
Balanced on its mighty plume of flame, Discovery made for the stars. Suddenly the dream was ours again.
It had been two and a half years since the image of the Challenger was burned into our national consciousness when it exploded in a ball of fire.
Now a new flight was being dedicated to the old, and America could shake its sorrow and get on with it. Get on with its vision of the future. Get on with the spirit of discovery and challenge that have always and will always make America great.
Commander out now rotating the nose down, standing by for nose gear and touchdown.
Discovery, welcome back. A great ending to the new beginning.
We have just witnessed 25 landmark events from the past 25 years. Some were achievements of the highest order. Others should act as stern warnings.
A few were testaments to the nobility of humans, and still others showed the depths to which we sometimes sink. Taken together, these events tell us much about the new precarious age in which we live.