We are all influenced by the moment of our birth. Even those of us who believe that horoscopes are nothing but silly fillers in the newspaper understand that there is a deep psychological appeal to thinking that the moment of our birth determines the course of our lives. Of course, such a line of thought can be self-defeating (why should we try to accomplish anything if everything is preordained?) - and for those of us who value the idea of self-determinacy and existential freedom, we would like to believe that we can do and be whoever we want. But of course history does matter: To be born in 1973 presents one with an entirely different set of life choices than would be true if one had been born in 1873, or 1573 or 1973 BCE. To try to deny this would be simply disingenuous. This paper explores some of the important events of the year of my own birth, 1973, events that would either in some way large or small change the course of history from that moment on or would simply mark the year in history, would serve as one of those things that people who were already grown in the year of my birth would look backward to as being important about that year.
There were, as must surely be the case in every year, both good and bad things that occurred in 1973, events that would make people look to the future with a sense of dread and other events that would make them believe that perhaps the world that would be inherited by those just being born into would indeed find the planet a more hospitable home than their parents had known. And many of the events which seemed one way at the time - or seemed wholly good or bad - will have in the intervening years turned out to be quite the opposite of what they first appeared, or become wholly ambiguous as to their meaning.
Among the events that seemed good at the time and that still remain so are the strengthening of what will become the European Union through the admission of Great Britain, Ireland, an...