1986 – 40 years ago in Britain
Looking back at 1986, it was a year when two halves of Britain went in…
1986 – 40 years ago in Britain
Looking back at 1986, it was a year when two halves of Britain went in different directions. With the year-long miners’ strike defeated in 1985, industrial areas saw a further surge in unemployment and a sense of despondency. But in London, it was a different world. Financial deregulation in the City of London powered the…
Iran on the eve of the 1979 revolution
Iran is on the verge of revolutionary change not seen since the Shah was overthrown in 1979. So, I thought it would be interesting to look at how Iran was being covered by the global media in 1978, the year before the country became an Islamic republic. Nobody doubted in 1978 that Shah Mohammad Reza…
1976 – 50 years ago in Britain
I turned 13 years of age in 1976 and was at secondary school in Buckhurst Hill, Essex. Let’s look back at a year when we experienced a never ending summer with a resulting drought. Before that, Prime Minister Harold Wilson suddenly resigned for reasons that didn’t seem very obvious. He’d just won election only two…
School summer holidays in the 1970s
2025 marked an astonishing 50 years since I went on a school holiday to Chamonix in France. So, I returned to Chamonix, not having been there since 1975. I don’t know what I expected to find or experience. But the memories came flooding back of a very eventful school summer break. In the mid-1970s, I…
Zoomers challenge Boomer office culture
Gen-Z is challenging the Boomer office culture of the 1980s and they might have a point.
Plane hijacked by samurai wielding terrorists
Imagine your plane being hijacked by nine fanatical ninjas wielding Samurai swords. That was the nasty surprise that lay in store for passengers on Japan Airlines Flight 351 in March, 1970. Members of the Japanese Red Army Faction suddenly leaped from their seats wielding the deadly swords and demanding control of the plane. You may…
Investigating the Amityville Horror – new truths!
It was a multiple murder within a family that shocked America. In November 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr drugged his parents, two brothers and two sisters and killed them one by one with a rifle. A year later, the house was bought by a newly married couple who then experienced a series of horrific incidents they…
Short Sharp Shock abolished by Thatcher
When the Tories came to power in 1979, fighting crime was high on the agenda. There was even a flirtation with the idea of restoring capital punishment, which Thatcher was understood to favour. But the landmark policy was the introduction of the so-called Short Sharp Shock regime with special detention centres imposing military-style discipline on…
Lester Maddox and the politics of segregation
American chat show host Jimmy Kimmel has just been taken off air by ABC/Disney after pressure from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – which is supposed to be an independent media regulator, but has acted in a very partisan manner. However, this is nothing new. Back in 1970, the pro-segregation ex-Governor of Alabama, Lester Maddox,…
The Unsolved Murder of Dian Fossey
There’s an astonishing number of unsolved murders from the 1980s and it’s very striking how varied these cases are. Mobsters, members of cults, victims of homophobia, and racist homicides. Some of the stories are truly sinister so let’s investigate. The People’s Temple and a cult defector In 1980, Jeannie Mills, her husband Al, and daughter…
