What was life like in 1964?

Answer 1

To learn what life was like in 1964, you'd need to specify which part of the world you have in mind.

Generally speaking, you'd see a big difference if you went back to 1964. Even people who were around in those days would be amazed at the difference. It's easier to describe 1964, as with other periods in history, by talking about the differences between then and today.

In 1964:

Telephones had dials instead of push-buttons or sensor pads.

Computers existed, but not as we know them; they were huge things used only in industry, research, and government. The personal computer was a fair way off.

There were calculators, but they were great big plug-in things like supermarket checkout registers, but with buttons instead of pads.

When you telephoned a large organization, your call went to a switchboard where an operator used a lot of plugs on cables, which were plugged into sockets labelled with the name or number of the person or department you were calling.

There were no telephone menus ready to direct you when you rang an organization, and there were no answering machines in domestic use.

Television sets were quite large, their cabinets usually made of wood, with very small screens. Television was black and white; color television had been invented but wasn't readily available.

Microwave ovens for domestic use didn't exist.

Motor vehicles were mostly clumsy, noisy, and very smelly.

Pollution was largely disregarded and considered necessary if we were to achieve anything much.

Asbestos was still widely used although it was known to kill people; as with tobacco, reports of its deadly nature were kept quiet.

Environmental concerns were limited to a very few scientists and people able to use sufficient commonsense to see things could be handled in better, cleaner ways.

Wild animals were generally thought of as either a nuisance or something to kill, unless they were fairly small and pretty or cuddly.

Tobacco smoking happened everywhere, and nobody believed the weird people who said it wasn't good for you. Tobacco companies advertised everywhere, telling us smoking made us look cool and sophisticated and (for men) tough and adventurous (not much has changed there).

The oral contraceptive pill was available on prescription in some countries, and receiving huge amounts of publicity from people who claimed it would be the end of family life and the cause of promiscuity for all.

Eating habits in western developed countries, especially in urban areas, were not what we'd consider healthy today.

These are just a few differences that spring to mind.

Politicians, politics and governments, all of them, were exactly the same as today,because these things never change. People, all of them, in 1964 were the same sort of people as they were a hundred or a thousand years earlier, and as they will be in a hundred or a thousand years time.

For a good, basic chronology for 1964, have a look at the link below.

Answer 2

Like today