Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins
A jungle highway opened the way for chainsaws and fires
In 1970 Brazil's military government began building the Trans-Amazonian Highway and settling the 'empty' rainforest. Ranchers, loggers and soy farms followed the roads. Since then, by various estimates, about a fifth of the Amazon forest has disappeared. Scientists warn that beyond a tipping point parts of the planet's largest rainforest could turn into savanna.
Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1945 Founding of the United Nations — 25 years earlier
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 23 years earlier
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 22 years earlier
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 21 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 10 years later
Europe
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 17 years earlier
- 1961 Berlin Wall built — 9 years earlier
- 1968 May 1968 in France — 2 years earlier
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 19 years later
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 19 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — 13 years earlier
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 9 years earlier
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 15 years later
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 19 years later
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 21 years later
Middle East
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — 22 years earlier
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 9 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 10 years later
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 20 years later
Africa
- 1960 Year of Africa — 10 years earlier
- 1963 The Organisation of African Unity is founded — 7 years earlier
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 3 years earlier
- 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War and Biafra — 3 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 4 years later
Asia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 25 years earlier
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 17 years earlier
- 1970 Bhola cyclone — same year
- 1971–1971 Bangladesh Liberation War — 1 year later
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 5 years later
Oceania
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 16 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 11 years earlier
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 22 years later
Alive at the time
- Pablo Picasso (aged 89)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 81)
- Mao Zedong (aged 77)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 52)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 40)
- Harry S. Truman (aged 86)
- Haile Selassie (aged 78)
- Nikita Khrushchev (aged 76)
- Golda Meir (aged 72)
- Jorge Luis Borges (aged 71)