1976

A kaleidoscopic social history of the year that shaped the modern world

Searing heat, political turmoil, revolution in popular culture: 1976 was without doubt the year that scorched, leaving in its wake a new landscape on which to build a new era.

On the political scene, Harold Wilson abruptly resigned as prime minister; Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe resigned in advance of his arrest and sensational Old Bailey trial for conspiracy and incitement to murder; and the Tories elected 'Milk Snatcher' Margaret Thatcher as their party leader. The IRA’s long-running demands for the reunification of Ireland exploded into a campaign of wholesale terrorism on the British mainland. Meanwhile, the Black Panther was finally arrested and brought to justice, and the curious case of John Stonehouse, the UK’s last Postmaster General, came to its climax. Throw in the fact that Southampton defied 500:1 odds to win the FA Cup, and the irresistible rise of punk rock, triggered by the iconic moment when the Sex Pistols were let loose on an unsuspecting teatime-television audience, and 1976 proves itself a truly pendulum year that divides the old from the new - recaptured here in fully living, human detail.