The "Sixties"
An Age of Hopefulness
part 1: Starting with the Summer of 1960 when it became apparent that we were going to get a young president, Kennedy was 43 and Nixon was 47. And ending with President Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963,
part 2: Still the hopefulness, primarily with Civil Rights protests and activism which led to the Civil Rights Act (1964), and the Voting Rights Act (1965), also all the positive aspects of the youth culture, ending August 26-29, 1968, with the violence at the Democratic National Convention, which I believe can be correctly described as a police riot getting worse over multiple days, but many people blame the average guy or gal and blame the students and young people, who certainly were not blameless.
blame the young people and they certainly were not blameless.
Interregnum
Anger and Violence
Also internationally, with protests and coups of various sorts, at least in France and Czechoslovakia, as well as in Canada and Quebec.
The "Seventies"
Politically, the "'70s" variously start in the United States with the end of the draft (July '73), the Yom Kippur war (Oct. 6, '73 + 19 days + a continuing oil embargo and price hike), and/or Nixon's "Saturday Night massacre" (Oct. 20, 1973).
A period of blah and diminished expectations
Along with personal growth and exploration in new religious movements, renewed interest in evangelical Christianity, new and renewed interest in existing forms of meditation, biofeedback (largely new), more widespread experimentation with marijuana as well as more dangerous drugs, new freedom in dress, greater sexual experimentation (at least regarding what people could think about, and admit to themselves!), a greater flowering of civil rights in many directions — Women's rights, Hispanic-American rights, Native-American rights, Gay rights, Lesbian rights, Youth rights, Disabled Americans rights, etc, etc.
Ridiculously, in the beginning of the '70s, it was an issue whether a landlord should lease to a cohabiting couple (I think discussed by Dear Abby and elsewhere in newspapers), and a complete non-issue by the late '70s.
And ending around 1980 with Reagan's optimism (and a long debate about the extent to which his optimism was misplaced!)