I wonder how this list would differ if you wrote it from the perspective of someone in China? Russia? India?

I’ll throw “the transistor” (although you’ve got radio and TV) and “the microprocessor”; maybe “the home PC” but it raises the question about what granularity one includes.

Sputnik is often cited as a moment of change in popular literature. That kind of leads to the moon landing. Maybe “space race” – I dunno.

Those are all excellent comments.

I wasn’t sure which slot to put “the computer” in (pre or post 82) and now I realize I just didn’t include it. Doh! It, or microprocessor, or home computer, should be in there.

So should Sputnik or maybe the moon landing or something that encompasses both.

The transistor is a good point too.

I’m also realizing I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with correcting or updating this.

Anyway, thanks, these are all great, as is your point about other countries. On that I have to admit I’m just such an American… Sad but true…

When I was a kid in the 1970s, there was no cable TV (at least where I lived) and no VCR. Movies like “Wizard of Oz” came around once a year and the whole family watched it. Also, I remember kids bragging about seeing “Star Wars” a dozen times (in the theater), which seemed insane to me; now, of course, kids can watch “Star Wars,” or just the parts they like best, hundreds of times.

love it, or leave it, pal.

Lymon — be nice.

Josh — I pondered both cable and the VCR. We didn’t have cable either, but lived close enough to suburbs where friends had it, and it certainly seemed like a big deal to me. Especially MTV, though I guess that was just my age at the time. Maybe cable/vcr should be rolled into a “media choice” notion. Hmm…

I’d include satellites? Think of all the things we (in the developed world) rely on like weather data, communications, GPS, oil exploration, etc that use satellites. That’s more important, in terms of space development, than Sputnik (precursor, yes) or landing on the moon. More akin to “the Web” in terms of a system of change rather than a individual instance.

what about birth control pills? sure it’s part of the sexual revolution, but arguably it is a huge catalyst of that revolution.

Perhaps it would be better to rewrite the list to specifically focus on technological leaps over time. Or technologies which pushed a given cultural shift. So instead of sexual revolution, – the pill, etc

Good point about birth control pills. And interesting about satellites, I have to think about that. I think you’re right about its importance, but it kind of seems like one of those things like air conditioning that people don’t actually think about, they just think about certain effects thereof.

I guess I’m hesitant to shift the whole focus to technologies for exactly this reason. It’s not always just about technology — I think that’s a bias of our current era — but about culture, too. Or I think so, anyway. I guess you could reduce “rock” to “the electric guitar” or similar, but I feel like that kind of a list wouldn’t exactly get at what I’m interested in, which is more about how life … feels … for lack of a better word…

I found this to be a really neat post!

I think you should include things that change how you feel about your world. Not political stuff, but stuff that touches your life or how you’d feel about things in your immediate air space.

That’s why space exploration is not really there… Watergate doesn’t register for me either. (Maybe I’m not old enough – only 30.)

But atomic bomb? Definite yes. My world would feel very vulnerable/scary. I’d probably change my behavior to a certain extent. Companies would change certain things. Trust would carry a whole different meaning.

So is the Pill and the whole era-changing attitudes of the 60’s. Big paradigm shift there – so yes, that’s also a big change that affects someone’s personal ‘air space’.

Technology has done that in the last 10-15 years. Computers and the Web are two distinct, powerful society changers. These have absolutely changed everything on this planet. Wireless connectivity is part of the web-effect, but distinct and important in its own way.

The bombing of the twin towers rocked my world. I can still think about That Day and get a lump in my throat (also having lived in NY and been inside the Towers on many occasions). The world is not the same – at least the US, where I live is not the same innocently optimistic landscape I remember as a child in the 80’s.

Ok – had my piece.

Hi Rob: I am a little older than you and quite a bit older than some of the responders above. So I will try with what I know. I was born in 1940. So I will start with WW2.
However, I read somewhere long ago that the preiod of greatest CHANGE was from 1900 to 1950. I won’t list the changes since you have listed most of them.
In my 67 years I think WW2 was the biggest event of my life. Watch the Ken Burns movie called THE WAR for all the reasons. Ending with one of the BIG TWO. The Artomic Bomb.
Then came Rock and Roll with Elvis in 1956. Please do no forget the roll. Your period called in just ROCK but at one time it had ROLL.
Then the big events of the 1960s. From the assassination of JFK and all the others to the Civil Rights Era.
Do not underestimate the other one of the BIG TWO. Birth Control Pills. Believe me that really changed the world as musch as the atomic bomb.
Yes to the 9-ll attack and destructiopn of the World Trade Center towers. That day is the only day I have seen Americans actually afraid. You could really see fear on their faces here in Washington, D.C.
Watergate and other scandals in DC are no big deal. They happen all the time.
Vietnam was a big deal for 10 years.
The jump from black and white tv to color tv was a big jump. Now the jump from old tv to HDtv is another big jump.
The world wide web for sure. Things like Ebay,and YouTube and really bringing the world together in many many ways. I have met and become friends with European jazz musicians because of YouTube.
Great important strides in medicine and medical treatment. WW2 brought on many of these new drugs. LSD must be mentioned as a big deal in the 1960s.
There are so many other things. The above is just what comes to my mind at this moment. For a real list of inventions just google the ones invented by Thomas Edison.

Sorry for the misspellings in the above post which were really just typos.
Here is some really good information on Thomas Edison including some film and audio clips of him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
I think you should include air conditioning and not under rate its importance in the South. Much of the Southland’s new found popularity is because A/C has made it habitable. I know growing up in the Deep South ac had a big effect on me and my brother. To escape the terrible heat and humidity we would often go to two double features a day at the movies. As I often say “Air Conditioning saved the South”.
No single invention has changed the way we live for the better and the worse than the automobile.

What about Prohibition and it’s repeal, women’s suffrage, the Flapper dress (freedom from the bodice and societal strictures). I would argue (and I’m biased because I wrote an entire thesis on this) that birth control and so-called second-wave feminism wasn’t possible without the crazy drunken antics of the free-flowing flappers like Zelda Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker and the entire suffragette movement. Some people even equate women’s suffrage as the last bastion of equality that would lead to the ERA.

I’m sure we could play this game for hours and say that everything is ultimately dependent on the invention of something before it; the cotton gin, the printing press, the bible, the wheel, fire, etc. It’s a fun exercise, nonetheless.