Historical Timeline
These are the events in the background history for Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll.
| 1973 | |
| April 30 | President Nixon accepts responsibility but not the blame for Watergate. |
| August 15 | American bombing of Cambodia ends. |
| September 2 | Major drug scandal rocks Iowa football team. |
| October 6 | Yom Kippur war breaks out. |
| October 10 | Vice-President Spiro Agnew fined after pleading 'no contest' to tax evasion charges. |
| 1974 | |
| February 5 | Patty Hearst kidnapped by Symbionese Liberation Army. |
| July 30 | House Judiciary Committee adopts three articles of impeachment against President Nixon. |
| August 9 | President Nixon resigns, President Ford sworn in. |
| September 8 | President Ford pardons ex-President Nixon. |
| 1975 | |
| January 1 | Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mardian found guilty of Watergate coverup. |
| May 15 | American merchant ship Mayaguez' crew rescued from Cambodian captors. |
| July 15 | Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft launched toward historic link-up in space. |
| September 5 | President Ford escapes an assassination attempt. |
| September 22 | President Ford escapes a second assassination attempt. |
| November 12 | California Gaming Commission reveals horse race fixing scandal. |
| 1976 | |
| May 11 | Ford signs Federal Election Campaign Act into law. |
| July 3 | Supreme Court upholds constitutionality of death penalty. |
| July 4 | United States celebrates Bicentennial. |
| August 4 | Outbreak of mysterious disease at American Legion convention. |
| November 2 | Jimmy Carter elected U.S. president. |
| 1977 | |
| January 18 | Scientists identify "Legionnaire's Disease" bacterium. |
| January 21 | President Carter pardons draft evaders. |
| May 23 | Insulin produced in lab via genetically-engineered bacterium. |
| July 22 | Deng Xiaoping restored to power in China. |
| 1978 | |
| March 16 | Former Italian Premier Aldo Moro kidnapped by Red Brigades. |
| April 18 | Senate ratifies Panama Canal treaty. |
| June 6 | Californians approve referendum slashing property taxes by nearly 60% |
| August 6 | Pope Paul VI dies at age 80. |
| September 28 | Pope John Paul I dies unexpectedly. |
| 1979 | |
| January 4 | Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of Kent State shooting victims. |
| February 1 | Ayatollah Khomeini takes control of Iran. |
| March 4 | Boston Globe reports new study showing rapidly increasing youth suicide rate. |
| March 28 | Three Mile Island accident. |
| November 4 | Iranian militants seize hostages at American Embassy in Teheran. |
| 1980 | |
| February 2 | Abscam undercover investigation implicates several public officials. |
| July 17 | Sorority girl prostitutes known as 'Harvard Hookers' arrested in Cambridge sting. |
| July 19 | United States and others boycott Moscow Olympics. |
| November 4 | Ronald Reagan elected President. |
| December 8 | John Lennon assassinated. |
| 1981 | |
| January | Solidarity strike spreads nationally throughout Poland. |
| January 20 | Series of UFO sightings in Oregon end with Crater Lake lights, seen by hundreds. |
| January 25 | American hostages return to United States from Iran. |
| March 30 | President Ronald Reagan wounded in assassination attempt. |
| April 12 | Space shuttle Columbia launched on its inaugural flight. |
| May 25 | UFO crazy infiltrates Wright-Patterson Air Force Base looking for alien bodies. |
| July 7 | President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Conner to the Supreme Court. |
| July 18 | At least 110 die in walkway collapse at Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel. |
| July 29 | Prince Charles weds Lady Diana. |
| August 3 | Air traffic controllers go out on strike. |
| October 7 | Toxic Waste releases Toxic Waste album. |
| November 4 | Massachusetts Republican candidates lose by record amounts in general election. |
| December 21 | Wild moose spotted in Cincinnati neighborhood. |
| 1982 | |
| January 29 | Philadelphia Bulletin ceases publication. |
| June 3 | Toxic Waste releases Satanic Messages album. |
| June 15 | British defeat Argentines in Falklands' War. |
| June 30 | ERA fails ratification. |
| October 12 | House panel calls for investigation of Calderone Bolivian drug family. |
| December 1 | Toxic Waste releases Pond Scum album. |
| December 2 | Barney Clark implanted with artificial heart. |
| 1983 | |
| January 19 | George Wallace wins unprecedented fourth term as Governor of Alabama. |
| February 12 | Snowstorm buries Northeast. |
| February 26 | Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip start tour of U.S. in San Diego. |
| March 2 | Final episode of M*A*S*H airs; draws estimated 125 million viewers. |
| April 8 | Over 20 inches of rain deluge Gulf Coast states. |
| August 30 | Korean Airlines flight 007 shot down by Soviets, killing 269. |
| October 25 | U.S. invades Grenada. |
| December 12 | Major corruption scandal rocks Boston Police Department and Massachusetts State Police. |
| 1984 | |
| January 1 | AT&T divestiture. AT&T monopoly broken into several regional phone companies. |
| February 2 | Toxic Waste releases Hormones on Parade album. |
| May 14 | Reverend Sun Myung Moon enters prison on income tax charges. |
| May 15 | Time magazine headlines religious revival in America. |
| July 5 | Supreme Court relaxes rules on evidence from defective search warrants. |
| July 19 | Major drug bust causes arrest of 24 related to Calderone Bolivian drug family. |
| July 23 | Vanessa Williams forced to resign as Miss America due to Penthouse pictures. |
| August 26 | Toxic Waste releases Human Vermin video. |
| September 20 | Inquiry clears Edwin Meese of wrongdoing in financial dealings. |
| December 4 | Calderone Bolivian Revenge Squads kill 8 drug enforcement agents in one week. |
| December 8 | Freak snowstorm buries New England. |
| December 20 | Marital rape outlawed in New York. |
| December 23 | Toxic Waste releases Deathbed Dance Party album. |
| 1985 | |
| February 3 | Record cold grips Northern and Central states. |
| March 21 | J. S. Bach's 300th birthday celebrated world-wide. |
| April 23 | Coca-Cola changes secret formula. |
| May 2 | 100 Hell's Angels arrested on drug, weapons charges. |
| June 24 | Reporter found guilty of stock trading fraud. |
| October 23 | New York bar indicts 9 lawyers on corruption charges. |
| December 12 | Radical environmentalists splatter cow's blood on fashion models wearing furs. |
| 1986 | |
| January 28 | Toxic Waste releases Unfit For Human Consumption album. |
| January 28 | Space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after lift-off, killing the entire crew. |
| February 18 | The price of crude oil drops to $15 per barrel. |
| April 12 | Toxic Waste concert ends abruptly when Danny Maxwell storms off the stage. He ends up in the hospital shortly afterwards. The remaining dates for the Unfit for Human Consumption tour are cancelled. |
| April 15 | American airstrikes on Libya begin, in response to evidence of a direct Libyan connection to terrorist acts. |
| April 26 | The Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic explodes, releasing radioactivity into the atmosphere. |
| June 19 | University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, the first round draft pick of the Boston Celtics, suffers a fatal cocaine-induced seizure. |
| October 10 | Federal agents seize a record of 4,620 pounds of cocaine during a bust in West Palm Beach, Florida. |
| October 26 | Postal worker Patrick Sherill kills 14 co-workers at the Edmond, Oklahoma post office. This is the first in a series of shootings that would define the term "going postal." |
| October 27 | President Ronald Reagan signs the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. |
| November 25 | The Tower Commission is established to investigate the Iran-Contra Scandal. |
| November 26 | Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home released. |