35 Throwback Photos That Capture 1979’s Essence

Travel back to 1979, a year when bell-bottoms ruled the streets, disco wasn’t just music—it was a lifestyle—and sideburns had their own gravitational pull.

New York City, 1979.

The Specials in 1979.

Aunties from NY in South Beach Miami, 1979.

Rhodesian woman stands next to a sedan, she has a teeshirt saying: “I’m staying, how about you”, Rhodesia, c. 1979.

Charlie and Martin Sheen on the set of “Apocalypse Now,” 1979.

1979 Minnesota football.

“Piggyback with plastic bags on head while being hit with dead fish,” 1979.

Punk girls in London, 1979.

Leftist woman handing out anti-shah manifesto. Tehran, Iran, 1979.

Skinheads march in Southend, UK, August 1979.

Easter 1979.

Two kids at a house party, 1979.

Eddie Van Halen, 1979.

Sigourney Weaver, 1979.

The blizzard of 1979, at the intersection of Surf and Broadway.

People enjoying the beach in Paignton, England, 1979.

Halloween, circa 1979.

NYC, 1979. Photo by Bruce Gilden.

7-Eleven, Rues Lane and Summerhill Road in East Brunswick, New Jersey, circa August 1979.

An Arnold Schwarzenegger yacht party, 1979.

Central Park, 1979. Photo by Jamie Kalikow.

The Carter administration installed 32 panels on the White House designed to harvest the sun’s rays and use them to heat water in 1979.

Meryl Streep at 30 years old in 1979.

The Misfits, 1979.

In 1979 the Skylab space station was meant to fall harmlessly to Earth in the Ocean. Instead it crashed near Esperance in Western Australia. The US State Department received a $400 fine for littering.

Jason Alexander, left, as an acting student at Boston University, 1979.

Jenny Agutter, 1979.

Former AC/DC frontman Bon Scott, 1979.

Carrie Fisher on a train to Norway to film parts of “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1979.

Iranian-Marxist woman outside of US embassy after forced takeover, 1979.

Bodybuilders Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lisa Lyon, 1979.

The Talking Heads, 1979.

Couple dancing in New York City, 1979.

“My parents said they had too much Thanksgiving turkey, 1979.”

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