Building the Baikal–Amur Mainline
Komsomol volunteers lay a railway across taiga and permafrost
In 1974 Brezhnev called the Baikal–Amur Mainline 'the construction project of the century', the Komsomol made it a shock project, and by year's end some 50,000 young volunteers had reached the taiga. The 'golden link' joining the western and eastern sections was laid in September 1984, but the 15 km Severomuysky Tunnel only opened in 2003.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 25 years earlier
- 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — 6 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 6 years later
- 1981 AIDS first described — 7 years later
- 1997 Kyoto Protocol — 23 years later
Europe
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 21 years earlier
- 1974 Carnation Revolution — same year
- 1978 John Paul II, the first Polish pope — 4 years later
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 15 years later
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 15 years later
Middle East
- 1960 Founding of OPEC — 14 years earlier
- 1978 Camp David Accords — 4 years later
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 5 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 6 years later
- 1988–1994 First Nagorno-Karabakh War — 14 years later
Africa
- 1963 The Organisation of African Unity is founded — 11 years earlier
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 7 years earlier
- 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War and Biafra — 7 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — same year
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 9 years later
Asia
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 21 years earlier
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — 8 years earlier
- 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War — 3 years earlier
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 1 year later
- 1976 Tangshan earthquake — 2 years later
Americas
- 1969 Moon landing — 5 years earlier
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 4 years earlier
- 1973 Chilean coup d'état — 1 year earlier
- 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens — 6 years later
- 1983 ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — 9 years later
Oceania
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 20 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 15 years earlier
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 18 years later
Alive at the time
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 85)
- Mao Zedong (aged 81)
- Georgy Zhukov (aged 78)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 56)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 44)
- Haile Selassie (aged 82)
- Golda Meir (aged 76)
- Jorge Luis Borges (aged 75)
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) (aged 73)
- Jean-Paul Sartre (aged 69)