On the night of March 8, 1971, the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI removed files from the Media, Pennsylvania, office of the FBI. These files will now be studied to determine: one, the nature and extent of surveillance and intimidation carried on by this office of the FBI, particularly against groups and individuals working for a more just, humane and peaceful society. Two, to determine how much of the FBI’s efforts are spent on relatively minor crimes by the poor and the powerless against whom they can get a more glamorous conviction rate. Instead of investigating truly serious crimes by those with money and influence which cause great damage to the lives of many people—crimes such as war profiteering, monopolistic practices, institutional racism, organized crime, and the mass distribution of lethal drugs. Finally, three, the extent of illegal practices by the FBI, such as eavesdropping, entrapment, and the use of provocateurs and informers.
The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old.
The company was founded in 1971 as Federal Express Corporation by Frederick W. Smith, a graduate of Yale University. He drew up the company’s concept in a term paper at Yale, in which he called for a system specifically designed for urgent deliveries.
Twenty railroads eventually opted to participate in the formation of Amtrak, turning over their passenger services to the new company. 1971: Amtrak begins operations on May 1.
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is a passenger railroad service that provides medium and long-distance intercity service in the contiguous United States and to nine Canadian cities
The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the U.S. federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim being the reduction of the illegal drug trade in the United States.
Ray Tomlinson is universally credited as the creator of email as part of a program for ARPANET in 1971. Meanwhile in 1978, a 14-year-old boy, Shiva Ayyadurai began his work on an email system for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
The government held the $35 per ounce price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus completely abandoning the gold standard.
On April 4, 1975, at a time when most Americans used typewriters, childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft, a company that makes computer software.
Originally from Shanxi province, Hua rose to power as a regional official in Hunan between 1949 and 1971, first serving as the prefecture Party Committee Secretary of the Xiangtan, Mao’s home area, then as the party secretary in the province during the latter stages of the Cultural Revolution. Hua was elevated to the national stage in early 1976, and was mainly known for his unswerving loyalty to Mao. After the death of Zhou Enlai, Mao elevated Hua to the position of Premier of the State Council, overseeing government work, and of First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party, which made him Mao’s designated successor.
On 6 October 1976, shortly after the death of Mao on 9 September, Hua removed the Gang of Four from political power by arranging for their arrests in Beijing. Afterwards he took on the titles of party chairman and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Hua is thus far the only leader to have simultaneously held the offices of party leader, premier and CMC chairman.
Hua attempted moderate reforms and reversing some of the excesses of Cultural Revolution-era policies. However, because of his insistence on continuing the Maoist line and refusal to adopt large-scale reforms, he faced resistance in the upper echelons of the party. In December 1978, a group of party veterans led by Deng Xiaoping, a pragmatic reformer, forced Hua from power but allowed him to retain some titles. Hua gradually faded into political obscurity, but continued to insist on the correctness of Maoist principles. He is remembered as a largely benign transitional figure in modern Chinese political history
Apple was founded on April 1, 1976, by college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who brought to the new company a vision of changing the way people viewed computers.
Born into an educated land-owning family in Sichuan province, Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s, where he became a follower of Marxism–Leninism. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1923. Upon returning to China, Deng joined the party organization in Shanghai, becoming a political commissar for the Red Army in rural regions. In 1931, he was demoted within the party due to his support of Mao Zedong, but was promoted again during the 1935 Zunyi Conference. By the late 1930s, Deng was considered a “revolutionary veteran” because he participated in the Long March. Following the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Deng worked in Tibet as well as in southwest China to consolidate Communist control. As the party’s Secretary-general in the 1950s, Deng presided over the Anti-Rightist Campaign launched by Mao and became instrumental in China’s economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960). However, his economic policies caused him to fall out of favor with Mao so he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution.
Following Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, Deng outmaneuvered the late chairman’s chosen successor Hua Guofeng and became the de facto leader of China in December 1978. Inheriting a country beset with social conflict, disenchantment with the Communist Party and institutional disorder resulting from the chaotic policies of the Mao era, Deng started the “Boluan Fanzheng” program which brought the country back to order. From 1977 to early 1979, he resumed the National College Entrance Examination program that had been interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, initiated the historic Reform and Opening-up of China, and started a one-month Sino-Vietnamese War. In August 1980, he started China’s political reforms by setting term limits for officials and proposing a systematic revision of China’s third Constitution which was made under Hua Guofeng; the new Constitution embodied Chinese-style constitutionalism and was passed by the National People’s Congress in December 1982, with most of its content still being effective as of today. In the 1980s, Deng supported the family planning policy to cope with China’s overpopulation crisis, helped establish China’s nine-year compulsory education, and launched the 863 Program for science and technology.
While Deng never held office as the head of state/government nor as the party’s chairman/general secretary, he nevertheless exercised supreme authority in China through 1989 as Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission and as the commander-in-chief of the Chinese armed forces. During his leadership, he was characterized as “the architect” of a new brand of thinking combining socialist ideology with free enterprise, dubbed “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. He opened China to foreign investment and the global market, policies that are credited with developing China into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world for several generations and raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions. Deng was the Time Person of the Year in 1978 and 1985, the third Chinese leader and the fourth time for a communist leader to be selected. He was criticized for ordering the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, but was praised for his reaffirmation of the reform program in his Southern Tour of 1992 as well as the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese control in 1997
The San Francisco Chronicle, December 17, 1979, p. 5 reported a claim by the Church of Scientology that the CIA conducted an open-air biological warfare experiment in 1955 near Tampa, Florida and elsewhere in Florida with whooping cough bacteria. It was alleged that the experiment tripled the whooping cough infections in Florida to over one-thousand cases and caused whooping cough deaths in the state to increase from one to 12 over the previous year. This claim has been cited in a number of later sources, although these added no further supporting evidence.