Word: shock
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...feel the tremors from Italy's worst earthquake since 1915. The epicenter was plotted in the Tagliamento River Valley, in the Dolomite foothills northeast of Venice, an Italian resort area and scene of bitter World War I battles. There 20 villages were badly battered by a light shock, followed by a major quake that lasted 55 seconds and measured a severe 6.9 on the Richter Scale; eleven more lesser tremors followed over a three-hour period. More than 700 people were killed under falling rubble before the shocks subsided...
Like ripples on a pond, the shock waves of Tagliamento quivered outward in a broad circle. In Venice, the campanile of St. Mark's trembled and the lagoon waters suddenly roiled. In Pisa, the Leaning Tower vibrated-but held its precarious tilt. On the Venice-Vienna railroad line, a train suddenly derailed as the tracks weaved out from under it. Shakes and masonry cracks were reported as far away as Frankfurt, Munich and the French town of Nancy...
Caroming between gloom and euphoria, the reader of such conflicting reports can hardly be blamed for a queasy feeling of futurist shock. For prophecy is no longer confined to science fiction or Jeane Dixon. It is in the laboratories, think tanks, universities - everywhere. A.D. 2000 has now replaced 1984 as the favorite year for speculation. At least 400 colleges are offering futurist courses; the World Future Society claims 18,000 members, holds international conferences and produces a semimonthly journal, The Futurist, to ponder new times...
...exciting television was in the early days--how amazing it was to have that picture come into your home. Highbrows complained that it was a moron's medium, but smarter people seized the new miracle toy and created ineffable moments. In the Caesar show, you can almost see the shock and the exhilaration on the actors' faces at what they are doing: they are in a stage, under bright lights, doing material written within the last week--but they are appearing in front of millions. And they know that millions are responding to them...
...crime wave that began in the early 1960s and continues today has been all the more disturbing to citizens because it followed nearly three decades of low or at least stable crime rates. Rising crime during a period of rising prosperity was a profound shock, particularly following an era of political calm, apparent national unity, and widespread optimism about the strength and virtue of American society. No doubt Americans of the 1830s were equally shocked when the tumult and licentiousness of the Jacksonian era followed on the remembered-and perhaps exaggerated-heroics of the Revolutionary years...