Here's What Happened The Day John Wayne Died
The day that John Wayne died was a heartbreaking moment in American history — but it turns out that a whole lot more was going on the day that The Duke departed this world.
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00:00The day that John Wayne died was a heartbreaking moment in American history, but it turns out
00:05that a whole lot more was going on the day that the Duke departed this world.
00:09John Wayne was nothing short of a Hollywood superstar.
00:12That much seems clear, given the outpouring of love expressed at his death.
00:17Despite that stardom, though, it was family that mattered most in the end.
00:21After his cancer diagnosis in 1979, Wayne was eventually hospitalized at the UCLA Medical
00:27Center, where words of encouragement flooded in.
00:30Thousands of letters were sent from around the globe.
00:33President Jimmy Carter stopped by to visit, and Wayne's last public appearance at the
00:36Academy Awards saw him met with thunderous applause.
00:40That didn't stave off the end, though.
00:42Family members said that he was doing poorly in between short bouts of recovery, and he
00:46fell into a coma shortly before dying, surrounded by his family.
00:51A spokesperson for the family said that they intended a small service for the larger-than-life
00:55actor, and they debated a number of different options — cremation and burial on an island
01:00off the coast of California, or a service at his ranch in Arizona.
01:05None of those discussions, nor the final decision the family settled on, were made public prior
01:10to the service itself, though.
01:12Ultimately, they settled on a small Catholic funeral, Wayne having actually converted just
01:17days before his death.
01:18The service was held in the early morning of June 15 at a church in Newport Beach, California,
01:23attended only by Wayne's family and closest friends, and he was buried nearby in Pacific
01:28View Cemetery.
01:30When John Wayne died, Hollywood was putting out some seriously good films.
01:34That said, it wasn't anything like the Westerns that had made Wayne a big star — quite the
01:39opposite, really.
01:40By late May 1979, a whole lot of movie buffs were waiting with bated breath for a movie
01:45that's since become a sci-fi and horror classic — Alien.
01:49And they really were waiting for a while, given that the preceding year had been full
01:53of whispers of a movie about rogue aliens.
01:55When the movie finally came out on May 25, people were literally standing in lines around
02:00the block just waiting to get into the theater, where they could watch a movie that oozed
02:04with style and edge — with a good dose of cinematic horror, of course.
02:10And yes, it's true that Alien wasn't widely released until after Wayne's funeral, but
02:15even in the few weeks it was open, it still grossed well over $22 million at the box office,
02:21putting it in third for highest-grossing movie of the month.
02:24Granted, it lost out to Rocky II and Escape from Alcatraz, but all in all, it was quite
02:29a good month to be a moviegoer.
02:31When it comes to international relations during the 1970s, you can't exactly ignore the tension
02:36between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
02:39But the 70s proved to be something of a unique time, and all thanks to something called détente.
02:44In general, détente refers to a slight warming in the relationship between the two nations
02:48from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s, including the introduction of arms reduction
02:53discussions.
02:55The late 1960s were rather promising in that regard, with the Strategic Arms Limitation
03:00Talks leading to the signing of the SALT I Treaty in 1972, which limited the number of
03:05nuclear missiles and was one of the biggest achievements of the era.
03:09While SALT I had included enough compromise, it did sidestep a couple of issues that the
03:14U.S. and USSR just couldn't see eye-to-eye on.
03:17Namely, they involved some specific bits of military technology that the two respective
03:21countries refused to limit.
03:23And those issues just came to the forefront when SALT II was on the table.
03:27On the day of John Wayne's death, those talks were coming to an end, and SALT II was signed
03:33on June 18th.
03:34The skepticism surrounding SALT II only became sharper as time went on, with American politicians
03:39doubting the Soviets' intentions.
03:41Ultimately, the treaty was never actually ratified.
03:45Nowadays, you've probably heard plenty of people complaining about gas prices at one
03:49point or another.
03:51But if you looked back to mid-1979, you'd find that Americans, and plenty of people
03:56around the world, had a lot of reason to feel true distress.
04:00The 1970s actually saw two different oil crises, one from 1973 and another that began in 1979,
04:08which cemented the lasting image of long lines of cars waiting at gas stations in the U.S.
04:13The 1979 crisis specifically was tied to the advent of the Iranian Revolution, during
04:19which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khamenei coordinated opposition to the Shah.
04:24Iran's oil production dropped significantly, effectively cutting off global access to crude
04:28oil in a way that wasn't easy to deal with.
04:31Between the decreased supply and responsive panic-buying, the price of crude oil shot
04:35upwards from $13 to $34 per barrel between 1979 and 1980.
04:41For the average American, that meant dealing with the federal government's poor solutions
04:45to the problem.
04:46The Department of Energy ruled that larger refineries should send oil to smaller ones,
04:51a choice that ultimately meant there was less gasoline available, and old systems meant
04:56that it was impossible to adequately adjust to the given problems.
05:00State governments intervened instead, mandating that consumers could only buy a certain amount
05:04of gas at a time, a decision that only exacerbated the problem.
05:09People had to go to the gas station more often, creating even longer lines.
05:13"...I couldn't get gas Tuesday, the line was about eight blocks long."
05:20In the history of the LGBTQ rights in the U.S., among its most major events were the
05:25Stonewall Riots, which have an extensive backstory of their own.
05:29That said, Stonewall wasn't the only instance of LGBTQ communities fighting back against
05:34injustice.
05:35Over in San Francisco, you have the tragic story of Harvey Milk, a prominent politician
05:40well-known for being the only openly gay person in public office in California.
05:45On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by a man named Dan
05:51White.
05:52Fast forward half a year, and White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, a verdict that
05:58angered the gay community.
06:00On May 21, 1979, they took to the streets in protest, an event that would become known
06:06as the White Night Riots, and what started as a peaceful march to City Hall eventually
06:10turned to violence when the police arrived, causing longstanding tensions to boil over.
06:16After that, the political scene began to change.
06:19Bearing in mind that elections were on the horizon, well-established politicians tried
06:23to cultivate their image.
06:25Mayor Dianne Feinstein actually gained quite a bit of support from the gay community by
06:30promising changes and greater diversity, even taking lunch in the Castro District,
06:35which was known for being historically welcoming to LGBTQ-plus folks.
06:39"...for from the great diversity of our city can be forged a common effort."
06:45While there might be plenty of lesser-known facts about the European Union, the coalition
06:49itself isn't all too mysterious.
06:51What may be less familiar to non-Europeans is the European Parliament, the legislative
06:56body for the EU made up of directly elected officials.
07:00Interestingly enough, its first elections had just finished by the time of John Wayne's
07:04death in mid-1979.
07:07This was history in the making, at least on paper.
07:09In practice, the truth was far less glamorous.
07:13The truth is, most Europeans just didn't care in the slightest about the elections.
07:17The Guardian called it, quote, "...the universally designated bore of the year," and one official
07:22even commented,
07:23"...I am loathe to admit it has been a non-event."
07:26The numbers support that exact same sentiment, with barely more than half of eligible voters
07:31even turning up at the polls.
07:33Without getting too deep into the nitty-gritty of decades of economic policy, up until the
07:381970s, the federal government was making decisions using decades-old systems.
07:43But those old policies started to fall apart for multiple reasons.
07:46The exorbitant costs of the Vietnam War, the two different energy crises and oil shortages
07:51of the 1970s, and a poor understanding of available data that led to policies which
07:56exacerbated problems rather than solving them.
08:00Inflation continued to rise throughout the 1970s, jumping from 1 percent in 1964 to 14
08:06percent in 1980, and by the end of the decade, most Americans believed that inflation was
08:11to blame for the worsening economy and flagging businesses.
08:15People were expecting the government to take a special interest in driving inflation down,
08:19but policymakers struggled to find an acceptable solution.
08:23Drastic times called for drastic measures, and the American public was about to experience
08:27something known as the Volcker Shock.
08:29Paul Volcker became chair of the Federal Reserve on August 6, 1979, and he set out to fix the
08:35inflation problem, albeit by controversial means.
08:39In effect, he forced two separate major recessions over the course of just a few years, a choice
08:45that would cause unemployment to skyrocket to nearly 11 percent in 1982.
08:50He was ultimately successful when it came to inflation.
08:53It was down to 3.4 percent by 1987, but the public was understandably angry, finding themselves
09:00in the midst of the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression.
09:03And I've never seen people so panicky and so afraid.
09:07There were some pretty big things going on around the world in mid-1979, whether that
09:11be due to world politics or notable deaths.
09:14But sports have also been quite the constant, and so fittingly, on the day of John Wayne's
09:18death.
09:19There was also a bit of competition happening elsewhere in the world.
09:23Specifically, that was the French Open tennis tournament, which took place at the Roland-Garros
09:27Stadium in Paris.
09:29On June 11, thousands of fans packed into the hot, sunny stadium, where on the final
09:33day of the tournament, they were treated to something of a surprising match.
09:37On one hand, there was the Swedish tennis player Bjorn Borg, who had come into the competition
09:42as one of the top-seeded players and proved himself worthy of that distinction, dominating
09:47in earlier matches of the tournament.
09:49But on the other hand, there was relative newcomer Viktor Peccei, the only professional
09:53tennis player from his native country of Paraguay.
09:56Peccei had spent fairly little time in major, publicized tournaments, mostly just racking
10:00up achievements in smaller and lesser-known competitions.
10:04But upon arriving in Paris, he was at the center of upset after upset, and he quickly
10:08became the fan favorite.
10:10He managed to work his way into the finals, playing with determination and poise in equal
10:14measure, and even though Borg pulled out the win, Peccei, and those around him, had nothing
10:19but hope for his future.
10:21If you turned your eye away from the U.S. and Europe in 1979, you would find another
10:26part of the world in a very notable state of flux — the Middle East.
10:30And while there wasn't a specific event that took place on June 11, that date does sit
10:34in a period of time that changed the region forever.
10:38For the most part, that story starts with the Iranian Revolution.
10:42The U.S.-backed shah had become widely unpopular in recent years due to a combination of a
10:46weakened economy and repressive policies.
10:49People began turning to the teachings of religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who became
10:54the leader of the country after the deposition of the monarchy in February of that year.
10:59But that single event would ultimately cause a domino effect across not only political
11:03borders, but across time itself.
11:06For one, the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran actually led Saddam Hussein
11:11to become the president of neighboring Iraq in July, as he saw Khomeini as a potential
11:15threat — an assessment that eventually led to multiple wars over the next few decades.
11:21Not only that, but Khomeini also helped push new ideologies to a very responsive public
11:26— political Islam, for example, a concept that became its own form of protest and ultimately
11:32spawned groups like the Taliban.
11:34On top of that, he also fostered an anti-Western sentiment that quickly grew — one which
11:39truly came to light with the Iran hostage crisis later that same year.