Ethiopia’s annexation of Eritrea as a province in 1962 leads to a thirty-one-year struggle for independence.

Gold's official role in the international monetary system ends by the 1970s, but the metal remains a highly regarded reserve asset: approximately forty-five percent of all the world's gold is held by governments and central banks for this purpose.

All nations continue to accept gold as a medium of international payment.

Cyprus is formally divided, with ethnic Turks controlling the island’s northeastern third and ethnic Greeks controlling the rest.

Greece forms a socialist government.

Nationalistic communist governments, increasingly independent of communist party lines, form in Albania, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Smallpox is officially eradicated from the globe in October 1979.