# 1971: the dollar unchained The hinge year of modern money and power: Nixon closes the gold window, the Pentagon Papers break, China rejoins the world, and the microprocessor and Nasdaq seed the digital economy. *This story part of: Hinges of history* *This story led to: 1973: the postwar order breaks* *This story part of: Money and finance* ## 1971 — Founding of Greenpeace Canadian and American activists in Vancouver charter a boat to protest US nuclear testing at Amchitka, Alaska, founding the campaign that became Greenpeace, the global direct-action environmental organization. ## 1971 — The microprocessor Intel released the 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, putting a computer's processing on a single chip. Cheap microprocessors made personal computers, phones and countless devices possible. > "doing school work for the rewards it will bring in the form of good grades and teacher approval" > — Life in Classrooms > "Therefore, as perceived by their administrative superiors, these teachers comprise the top 5 or 10 percent of the instructional staff. The sample was drawn chiefly from suburban communities surrounding Chicago." > — Life in Classrooms > "In a sense he is working for the school and against it at the same time." > — Life in Classrooms > "The result, it is claimed, will be the transformation of teaching from an art to a science." > — Life in Classrooms ## January 1971 — World Economic Forum founded Klaus Schwab founded the body first known as the European Management Forum and held its first meeting in Davos. It was renamed the World Economic Forum in 1987 and hosts an annual gathering of business and political leaders. ## 8 February 1971 — Nasdaq begins electronic trading The Nasdaq opened as the world’s first electronic stock market, quoting prices by computer rather than on a trading floor. It would become the home of the technology industry and a model for markets everywhere. ## 8 March 1971 — Break-in exposes COINTELPRO On 8 March 1971 activists burglarized an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and leaked files that revealed the COINTELPRO program to the press. The disclosure forced the FBI to shut the program down and helped prompt later congressional investigations. ## 26 March 1971 — Independence of Bangladesh Bangladesh declares independence from Pakistan, triggering a nine-month liberation war that ends with Pakistani surrender in December 1971. ## April 1971 — Salyut 1, the first space station The Soviet Union launches Salyut 1, the first space station, shifting the contest from the Moon to long-duration life in orbit. The USSR would lead in space stations for decades, culminating in Mir. ## April 1971 — The Ping-Pong Diplomacy breakthrough An invitation to American table tennis players to visit China, after a chance encounter at the World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, becomes the first significant contact between the two countries in over two decades. The visit paved the way for Nixon's 1972 trip to China and is a textbook documented case of sport used deliberately as diplomatic soft power. ## 13 June 1971 — The Pentagon Papers are published The New York Times began publishing a secret government history of the Vietnam War leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. The case tested press freedom against government claims of national security. ## 17 June 1971 — Nixon declares a war on drugs President Richard Nixon called drug abuse "public enemy number one" and launched a federal campaign that reframed narcotics as a security threat to be fought rather than a public health problem. The framing pushed money, arrests, and enforcement powers toward police and set the stage for treating drug suspects as combatants. Critics, including former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman in a much-quoted later interview, argued the campaign was aimed in part at the political left and Black communities. ## July 1971 — Allende nationalizes Chilean copper Chile's congress voted unanimously to nationalize the large copper mines, taking them from the American companies Anaconda and Kennecott under President Salvador Allende. Copper was called the country's wages, and reclaiming it was hugely popular. Two years later Allende was overthrown in a US-backed coup, and the episode remains central to debates about resources, sovereignty, and outside intervention. ## 1 July 1971 — The US voting age drops to eighteen The 26th Amendment lowered the US voting age from 21 to 18, ratified faster than any amendment in history, driven by the argument that those drafted for Vietnam deserved a vote. It added millions of young voters to the rolls. ## 9 July 1971 — Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing Henry Kissinger slipped into China on a secret mission to meet Zhou Enlai, arranging the opening that would bring Nixon to Beijing the next year. It split the communist world and reshaped the Cold War balance against the Soviet Union. ## August 1971 — The Stanford prison experiment Philip Zimbardo’s simulated prison, with students as guards and inmates, was halted early as the guards turned abusive. Widely cited for decades on how roles and situations drive cruelty, it was later criticised for its methods, but it fixed a lasting question about authority and conformity. ## 9 August 1971 — Internment without trial (Operation Demetrius) The British Army and RUC launched dawn raids arresting 342 men suspected of IRA involvement and interning them without trial under the Special Powers Act. Intelligence was poor and outdated, and the operation initially targeted only nationalists, since loyalist paramilitaries were not interned until 1973. Some detainees were subjected to interrogation techniques later ruled by the European Court of Human Rights to constitute inhuman and degrading treatment. Internment intensified the conflict and boosted recruitment to the IRA. ## 15 August 1971 — Nixon closes the gold window President Richard Nixon suspended the dollar's convertibility into gold, ending the Bretton Woods system. The move ushered in an era of floating exchange rates and fiat currency. ## 13 September 1971 — Attica prison uprising ends in deadly police and guard assault New York state troopers and prison guards retook Attica Correctional Facility after a four-day inmate uprising over prison conditions, killing 29 inmates and 10 hostages in gunfire, with initial official reports falsely claiming hostages had been killed by inmates. Subsequent investigation found troopers fired indiscriminately and that injured inmates were later beaten and denied medical care. The state ultimately paid 12 million dollars to survivors in a 2000 settlement following decades of litigation. ## 1 October 1971 — Walt Disney World opens Disney World opened in central Florida, a resort far larger than Disneyland that turned swampland into one of the world’s most visited destinations. It reshaped Florida’s economy and the business of mass leisure. ## 25 October 1971 — The People's Republic takes China's UN seat The UN General Assembly voted to seat the People’s Republic of China and expel the Republic of China on Taiwan, recognising Beijing as the legitimate government. It was a turning point in the Cold War and a step toward the US opening that followed. ## 14 November 1971 — Mariner 9 becomes the first orbiter of another planet NASA’s Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars, the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, and mapped almost the whole surface once a planet-wide dust storm cleared. It revealed the great canyons and volcanoes and reset what was known of Mars. ## December 1971 — Smithsonian Agreement fixes the yen at 308 per dollar After the yen rose following the Nixon shock, the short-lived Smithsonian Agreement of December 1971 fixed the yen at 308 to the dollar. > "Then, the yen rose, triggering the short-lived Smithsonian Agreement, which fixed it at ¥308/$ in December 1971." > — Princes of the Yen ## 22 December 1971 — Founding of Médecins Sans Frontières French doctors and journalists, marked by the Biafra famine, found Doctors Without Borders in Paris to deliver emergency medical aid regardless of borders and to speak out about what they witness. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.