1971Events

Our president was Richard M. Nixon, Time Magazine's Man of the Year. His Secretary of State was Henry Kissinger. We were just coming out of the 1969-70 Recession and trying to deal with inflation. Nixon implemented a Wage and Price freeze for 90 days beginning on August 15th. Average per capita income was $2,650.00.

There were 3.1 million high school seniors graduating in 1971.

The Vietman War continued on. There were still 150,000 soldiers there in 1971, down from over 500,000 in the late 60's. The Selective Service System (the draft) drafted 98,000 young men that year.

NASA missions to the moon included Apollo 14 and Apollo 15. These missions came 18 months after the near disastrous Apollo 13 mission. (Do you remember it?) NASA also sent Mariner 9 to Mars to explore there.

Detroit came out with the sub-compact cars to compete with the Toyotas and Nissans from Japan. Popular cars included the Pinto, Gremlin, Vega and, of course, the Volkswagon.

SPORTS

The Baltimore Colts won the Superbowl over the Dallas Cowboys by a score of 16-13 on January 17th. Nebraska was the NCAA Champion in College football for the 2nd year in a row.

The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. Roberto Clemente was the most valuable player of the Series and Vida Blue was the most valuable player of the year.

UCLA won the NCAA basketball championship for the 5th year in a row. The Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA Championship with Lew Alcindor and Oscar Robertson. The Utah Stars won the ABA.

The two top golfers on the PGA Tour were Lee Trevino and 31 year old Jack Nicklaus.

Leading tennis players included Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, John Newcombe, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Arthur Ashe.

ENTERTAINMENT

The movie of the year went to "Love Story" which grossed over $50 million. Other movies included MASH, The Last Picture Show, Clockwork Orange, French Connection, Summer of '42, Carnal Knowledge, Klute and Willard. The movie industry was becoming paranoid about the possibility of videocassettes being used in the future. They felt their businesses would probably be ruined if people could watch movies at home.

There was a variety of music to choose from in 1971. Some of the groups and individuals are listed below:

The Rock Opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" opened on Broadway in 1971.

"Fiddler on the Roof" was the musical of the year.

"Sesame Street" was very successful on Public Broadcasting Stations as it entered its second year of broadcasting. The most popular new show on television was "All In The Family" with Archie, Edith and Meathead. Among the shows that were dropped in 1971 were Ed Sullivan, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Lassie and Hogan's Heroes. Cable TV had five million subscribers and was gradually growing.

AGRICULTURE

In 1971, corn was yielding an average of 86 bushels per acre with a price of just under $1.00 per bushel. Soybeans had an average yield of 28 bushels per acre. Hogs were worth 19 cents per pound and cattle were worth 30 cents per pound. You could buy a gallon of milk in a glass jug with a red plastic handle for about 69 cents. The new John Deere 4020 tractor was just being introduced as the hottest new thing in agriculture. There are many of those tractors still being used today.