Star Wars is released
Lucas's space saga launches the blockbuster era
On 25 May 1977 George Lucas's space saga opened in cinemas. It became the highest-grossing film to that date, revolutionised visual effects and ushered in the era of blockbusters and a vast media franchise.
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Did you know
Star Wars came out in May 1977, and in September France carried out its last execution by guillotine. The death penalty was abolished there only in 1981.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 3 years later
Europe
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 24 years earlier
- 1968 May 1968 in France — 9 years earlier
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 12 years later
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 12 years later
- 1990 German reunification — 13 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — 20 years earlier
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 16 years earlier
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 8 years later
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 12 years later
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 14 years later
Middle East
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 2 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 3 years later
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 13 years later
Africa
- 1963 The Organisation of African Unity is founded — 14 years earlier
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 10 years earlier
- 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War and Biafra — 10 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 3 years earlier
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 6 years later
Asia
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 24 years earlier
- 1971–1971 Bangladesh Liberation War — 6 years earlier
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 2 years earlier
- 1976 Tangshan earthquake — 1 year earlier
- 1978 Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up — 1 year later
Oceania
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 23 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 18 years earlier
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 15 years later
Alive at the time
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 88)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 59)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 47)
- Golda Meir (aged 79)
- Jorge Luis Borges (aged 78)
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) (aged 76)
- Leonid Brezhnev (aged 71)
- Mother Teresa (aged 67)
- Ronald Reagan (aged 66)
- Richard Nixon (aged 64)