The 70s were crazy. And they still aren’t over.

We are in this episode looking at August 29 - September 4, 1973. This week was the culture war kickoff. The Vietnam War was still raging despite the US combat troops all leaving in March 1973.

The biggest war was now being fought in Washington DC - Watergate. On one side was good old Tricky Dick “I am not a crook” Nixon who was holding out from Judge Sirica’s slap down to cough up the White House tapes. Dick said no way.

His vice president, Spiro Agnew, announced he would never resign because of the accusations he was taking bribes - cash in paper bags - but he did finally quit that October, the first big victim of the culture war. In August he was still taking bribe…it’s a good bet..

American culture was splitting apart, never to come together again. Not yet. The pro-Vietnam War supporters versus the anti-war counter-culture, about to be enshrined in mass media by the amazing artists of the era, from movies to arts to books and then politics.

The battle over Watergate was front and center….a bellwether for the decades to come.

August 22-August 28, 1947. Two years after the US and its allies, Britain, France, Canada and Australia had won the war. Peace and prosperity has arrived, or so everyone had hoped. The US had dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. The country and the world celebrated the end.

But the reality of winning the war was proving to be quite different than imagined. In 1947 the real result wasn’t peace, just a big gigantic mess. The Big Mess.

A worldwide mess.

1947, Peak mess!

The peace dividend was nowhere to be found.

And it was much worse overseas. The world was in chaos as everyone rolled from a full-out fight against the Axis powers into a cold war against endless Soviet assaults and aggression.

The Cold War was the major issue. But not to be outdone, our English allies decided within the space of 3 months to give independence to its prize jewel, India. Unexpectedly, this triggered the great transfer of millions of people between India and Pakistan following independence and partition. The Muslims and Hindus clashed. Millions died. This was called the partition of India, one of the largest, but from the US perspective, less known crisis of the 20th century.

August 15-21, 1930. Who was Van Lear Black? And what was he a harbinger of? He wasn’t just a man with three middle names, he was the very wealthy owner of the Baltimore Sun back when newspapers were the only media that mattered.

His demise tells us about 1930, the year the depression really started to bite.

While times were bad and getting worse, people were still obsessed with two things: keeping tabs on people who were flying around the world in flimsy aircraft which today you wouldn’t step into even if it had wheels, and liquor.

Prohibition was going strong, but politicians were openly calling for its repeal, while the cops were still making a show of locking up people for having booze. The US was a country split between the wets and dries.

Meanwhile, a drought was ravaging the Midwest. Another harbinger.

But baseball, still the number one sport here in the US, provided quite a show. Batting batting averages were never higher. It was the year of everyone being a great hitter.

In politics we had a General who later became a dictator, a marine who later became a dictator and a German general turned Bolivian general. Wets and dries, drought and a rain of hits, and too many dictators, as usual.