Mind-Boggling Ways The United States Was Incredibly Different Just 50 Years Ago

Western lifestyles are structured around internet communication, but fifty years ago, people connected in different ways. They'd arrange in advance to meet up at libraries or movie theaters. Folks in the '70s didn't have the pressure of always having an encyclopedia in their pocket... if you didn't know the answer to a question, you just didn't know.

Along with portable music, music festivals took off in the 70s. Prior to Woodstock, festivals were a tamer affair, but ideals of freedom, love, and peace were spreading like wildfire through the hippie movement, which championed the art and expression of music. It all culminated in the technically-illegal Woodstock, which brought together the greatest artists of the time and changed the festival landscape forever.

At the time, lawmakers were okay with 18-year-olds dying in combat, but not having the right to vote. With all that stress at such a young age, these young soldiers surely needed a drink, but depending on their state, drinking was illegal too. There was no consensus on the age limit for alcohol, which ranged from 18 in some states to 21 in most.

In 1969, quick cash withdrawals were more involved than pressing a few buttons, as the first ATM was only just released that year. Unless you happened to go to one of the few innovative banks with these machines, you'd have to line up to speak to a teller to withdraw your money. Additionally, you might not even have had access to a bank, depending on who you were.

Life without the convenience of a smartphone was the norm in the 1970s. Companies had only just begun to talk about portable phones then, and it wasn't until 1983 that Motorola made the first one. If you wanted to talk to a friend on the go, you had to carry change for a phone booth. If you wanted to know the weather, you had to check the news!

The environmentalism movement kicked off in the 1970s when people first started understanding the impacts of pollution. It was April 22, 1970, a little over 50 years ago, when the US saw its first celebration of Earth Day. Thousands of people marched, protested, and even cleaned up their neighborhoods, all for the sake of their beloved planet Earth. It was only the beginning.

On-demand music was just starting to go portable in the '70s. You could pop the cassette tape, another new invention, into the car stereo and listen while you drove. In July 1979, you could take your music with you on the sidewalk with the first-ever Sony Walkman.

Nowadays, the Super Bowl has become the biggest game in the nation, but in the 70s it was still new. On the second Super Bowl Sunday in US history, thousands of fans were in an uproar after NBC switched off the game to show their regular programming. Ever since then, "standard practice dictates that games finish before regularly scheduled broadcasting resumes."

Since the internet didn't exist in the 70s, neither did GPS. There was no friendly Siri to guide you to your destination, only huge paper maps that were hard to unfold in the car. Until GPS was introduced in 1999, you had to really know where you were going — or admit you had no clue, and stop to ask for directions.

Most 70s couples got married in their early 20s, as soon as they believed they found "the one." Today, the new generation would rather wait until they're a bit older, which may not be the worst thing. The marriage rate has gone down in the recent decade — but so has the divorce rate.

Even the driving itself was analog. Cars had no backup cameras or blind spot alerts, so folks had to actually pay attention to the road. However, when it came to filling the gas tank, drivers got a break. Pumping gas by yourself was illegal until 1964 when Colorado made the first self-serve gas station. 23 more states followed the trend in 1968, but some states still have attendants today.

If today you find yourself in love with someone whose skin is a different shade, you can be grateful you didn't live in the 70s. It was only in 1968 that an interracial kiss was featured on television for the first time on the iconic series Star Trek. Capt. Kirk and Lt. Uhura's kiss was monumental in destigmatizing interracial relationships and showed us a glimpse into a more loving future.

Honoring soldiers and veterans has always been done with mostly talk and not enough action — that is, until more recently. Over 50 years ago, there wasn't much in the department of health and care for soldiers, veterans, and their families, and even Memorial Day was only made into a national holiday in 1971. Since then, it's become an integral part of our American society.

The Vietnam War was one of America's most polarizing conflicts. The peace-loving hippies were against the war, and anti-war protests got brutal and occasionally deadly. As bad as tensions are today, the situation was worse in Vietnam, where an estimated 282,000 American soldiers were killed in action. It was even more pressure for those in the younger generation.

A draft was enforced throughout the US requiring that men as young as 18 had to take part in the Vietnam War, whether they believed in the fight or not. The worst part was the enforced restrictions on the age group. You weren't even allowed to vote at that age. It was a much different time for young people then, and there was one age restriction that States couldn't seem to agree on.

Even U.S. finances were different in the 70s. In June 1968, the debt was just under $350 billion, which would be around $2 trillion in 2017. In June of 2018, the national debt surpassed $21 trillion, which would have been $2 trillion in 1968. While the Department of Treasury may have been doing a little better back then with its finances, most of the public was struggling.

Before 1974, a woman had to be accompanied by a man to open a credit card account; if she came by herself, or with another woman, she'd be denied service. Thanks to Representative Lindy Boggs, gender and marital status were included in the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, which assured that anyone, regardless of gender, who had decent-enough credit, could open their own account. Others were also saved by this Act.

Before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, creditors were allowed to add whatever additional charges or fees they wanted, purely on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation. It was only after the act passed in 1974 that everyone was protected and had equal access to credit lines and bank loans alike — but there were plenty of other biased regulations.

In many areas of the country, women and people of color could even be legally denied higher education because of their physical characteristics. It wasn't until 1972 that President Richard Nixon pushed the Higher Education Act, which included Title IX. It became legislative law that made discrimination in education illegal across the entire country.

Prejudice had also crept into the housing market. If you weren't the "right" color or sex, or if you didn't believe in the "right" religion, you could never have the home of your choice or even a home at all. It was thanks to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that, over time, more people could begin their home ownership where they wanted.

You'd be hard-pressed to find the same diversity in the 1970s U.S. government that we have today, and we know that's saying something. Even in the Supreme Court, the judges failed to represent what equal law looks like as they were all white men until, in 1981, 200 years after the court was established, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman among the judges.

It wasn't all hard-hitting news in the '70s, though. Air travel was more fun back then: remember when planes actually had room to breathe? Sure, you may have had to put up with a few clouds drifting over from the smoking section, but that's a small price to pay for a little extra legroom.

The '70s was the decade of disco, and you couldn't turn a corner in most cities without spotting at least one or two discotheques packed with people. With the signature move of the '70s being a simple finger point, it's no wonder those dance floors were so packed!

Believe it or not, this is what a computer looked like in the '70s. Even with the technology being so new to the average consumer, these digital dinosaurs still probably weren't as complicated as the Macs of today.

Before they became the sleek and sterile eyesores they are today, most fast-food joints actually had some character back in the day. Let's just hope their burgers were a little less pink-slimy back then! But we can totally see that the employee uniforms haven't improved all that much since the '70s.

Today, all the world's music is at our fingertips — in the '70s, jamming your favorite tunes solo meant throwing on a pair of bulky headphones and plopping down next to the stereo. At least you didn't have to worry about anyone gunking up your earbuds!

If you thought the New York City subways were awful now, the trains of the '70s would make today's transit look like luxury. But, like most New Yorkers, it looks like these commuters opted to suck it up and make the best of it.

In the '70s, owning a custom van was the epitome of cool, as neon colors and bold designs turned heads as you cruised down the highway. Today, you can find most of these vans parked outside concert venues peddling knockoff t-shirts.

Ah, Christmas morning. What fun it was to race down at the crack of dawn, rip every last shred of wrapping paper off your presents, and spend the rest of the day racing slot cars with dear old dad.

The 1970 season was a big one for the sport of football, as it marked the first to be played after the AFL-NFL merger. It's safe to say that retro football jerseys are still lightyears better looking than the "modern" styles of today.

There was really nothing better than a '70s amusement park. The snacks were tastier, the prizes were bigger, and the Gravitron didn't fly off its hinges after every other ride... usually, anyway. There's just something about amusement parks or carnivals in the '70s that scream "small town America"!

Back in the day, supermarkets were quaint and tidy, filled with clean and straightforward packaging instead of the busy, in-your-face designs of today. Is it cereal, or an adventure to a magical cartoon world? Make up your mind, Kellogg's! We have a sneaking suspicion that groceries were a lot cheaper back then, too.

A summer getaway in the '70s always included water, and pools like these were popular features at many hotels. Much nicer than those chlorine-bombed bathtubs they try to pass off at Marriotts these days, right? The only downside to public pools is the germs, but that was true in the '70s and today, anyway.

Roller skating was all the rage in the '70s, and there was no better place to get your four-wheeled groove on than at the local roller disco. As the guy in office clothes on the left can attest, the funkadelic outfits were clearly optional. But they probably made the experience even groovier.

Cozy kitchens will always be in style, but there's just something about one out of the '70s that screams "good food was made here." Unfortunately, kitchens from this decade also gave us things like lime cheese salad and liver sausage pineapple. Yuck. At least we have all those earthy jewel tones to look back on fondly.

Every kid bolted out the door when the jingle of the ice cream man echoed through the neighborhood — a fact that rings true even still today. Sadly, SpongeBob ice pops weren't a thing back in the '70s. But we know for a fact that '70s kids enjoyed a Fudge Pop every now and then!

The beaches of this era were magical, if only because you could actually park near the water. What most people wouldn't give these days to grab a few chairs from the trunk and set them out right there instead of dragging an umbrella and three coolers 50 yards to the sand.

Before everyone got cars, it was bikes that took you from point A to point B. Cruising on a Schwinn was a great way to get exercise, though, admit it: you felt pretty darn cool when you and a group of friends coasted down the block together.

High fashion has certainly changed since the '70s. What most people don't know is that these four ladies actually inspired the creation of Skittles (just kidding). In all seriousness, we kind of miss the days when people wore all the colors of the rainbow. In today's sea of black, white, and gray, it'd be nice to see a bright yellow pea coat!

Shoes are like potato chips: you can't have just one (pair). The '70s, however, made the platform shoe the must-have footwear of the era, creating a generation of deceivingly tall people... and lots of twisted ankles. Hey, at least they looked cool! And as we all know, uncomfortable shoes will never go out of style (unfortunately).

Fake news wasn't a problem back when young Timmy Thompson from the cul-de-sac was launching newspapers onto your doorstep. A few may have landed on the roof, but, hey, he was trying his best!