18 Chronology of the Life of R. Buckminster Fuller
2
The following listing provides a historical context for examining Fuller’s life. It is not
intended to be a complete listing. Rather, it presents an overview of the environment in which
Fuller matured, worked, and developed his ideas. It also includes events and innovations which
Fuller himself felt were important in humanity’s evolution.
- 1895.
- Buckminster Fuller is bom, July 12, in Milton, Massachusetts.
34First American gasoline-engine-powered automobile is de-signed.
5 X-rays are discovered.
67Tallest fabricated structure in the World is the Eiffel Tower, at 984 feet.
8 Grover Cleveland is president of the United States.
- 1896.
- William McKinley is inaugurated as president.
- 1897.
- Electron discovered.
- 1898.
- Spanish-American War begins.
- 1899.
- Fuller enters kindergarten, where he builds the first octet truss
910out of dried peas and toothpicks.
11Fuller is diagnosed as nearsighted and receives his first glasses; for the first time in his life he can see objects clearly.
12 1901 Marconi completes first transatlantic radio transmission.
1314President McKinley is assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt be-comes president.
15Mount Pelee on the island of Martinique erupts, killing thirty thousand people. This devastation leaves a powerful im-pression on young Fuller.
16The Wright brothers successfully fly the first gas-engine pro-pelled airplane.
17Ford Motor Company is founded and begins mass production of automobiles.
18 Fuller enters Milton Academy, lower school.
19 Einstein’s theory of relativity is published.
20 Fuller enters Milton Academy, upper school.
21 Fuller receives one of the first appendectomies ever performed.
22 San Francisco is devastated by earthquake and fire.
23 William Howard Taft is elected president.
24 North Pole is discovered by Admiral Peary.
25 Fuller’s father dies.
26 South Pole is discovered by Amundsen.
27 Woodrow Wilson is elected president.
28 Titanic sinks from collision with an iceberg.
2930Fuller graduates from Milton Academy and enters Harvard Uni-versity as a member of the class of 1917.
31Fuller is expelled from Harvard and reinstated after an intensive internship as an apprentice millwright in a Canadian cotton mill.
32Panama Canal is completed and opened.
33Fuller is expelled from Harvard for the second time and takes a job with Armour and Company in New York City working 3 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, six days per week.
34First transcontinental telephone is put into operation.
35Wool worth Building in New York City is completed and be-comes the tallest occupied structure in the World at sixty stories.
36 Fuller becomes engaged to Anne Hewlett.
37 Fuller enlists in United States Navy Reserve.
38 Fuller and Anne Hewlett are married, July 12.
39 United States enters World War I.
40 Russian Revolution begins.
- 1918.
- Fuller is assigned to special short course for officer training at
4142United States Naval Academy, Annapolis.
43Fuller is promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) in United States Navy.
44Fuller is assigned to active war zone in Atlantic as aide to admiral commanding cruiser and transport forces of Atlan-tic fleet.
45 Fullers’ first child, Alexandra, is bom, December 12.
- 1919.
- Fuller is assigned as ensign to temporary duty on USS George
4647Washington, the ship that carried President Wilson to France for the signing of the Versailles Treaty ending World War I.
48First two-way transatlantic radio telephone conversation occurs between President Wilson on the USS George Washington in France and Washington, DC. As the George Wash-ington's communication officer, Fuller is intimately involved.
49Word War I ends.
50Alexandra Fuller contracts infantile paralysis and spinal men-ingitis, and Fuller resigns his commission in the navy to be with her and his wife, Anne.
51Fuller takes a job as assistant export manager for Armour and Company in New York City.
52 Prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States begins.
- 1920.
- Warren Harding is elected president.
53 Women obtain the right to vote in the United States.
- 1921.
- Fuller resigns from Armour and Company to become National
5455Accounts Sales Manager for Kelley-Springfield Truck Company.
- 1922.
- The Fullers’ daughter, Alexandra, dies prior to her fourth birth-
5657day. Bucky is devastated by this incident and his inability to prevent the death of his daughter. He feels that better shelter and environmental controls might have saved her, and he begins a lifelong exploration of these issues.
58Fuller loses his position with Kelley-Springfield and begins a career as an independent entrepreneur. His first enterprise is the founding of the Stockade Corporation, which man-ufactures buildings using a revolutionary technology in-vented by Fuller’s father-in-law, noted architect J. M. Hewlett.
59The first practical self-starting automobile is put into produc-tion.
- 1924.
- Calvin Coolidge is elected president.
- 1925.
- First commercial passenger airline route is established in Amer-
6061ica between Detroit and Chicago.
- 1926.
- Fuller fails to make a profit running the Stockade Corporation,
6263loses all the money his friends have invested in the com-pany, and is fired from his position as president when the company is sold to Celotex Company.
64 Electric refrigerator is adapted for use in ordinary households.
- 1927.
- Fuller considers himself a failure and seriously contemplates
6566suicide. He decides that he might be of value to Universe, realizes that he does not have the right to end his own life, and dedicates himself as an individual to the service of all-humanity.
67Fuller writes and privately publishes his first book, 4D Time-lock.
68Fuller invents the Dymaxion House as a part of his concept of air-deliverable, mass-produced dwelling units based on his strategy of anticipatory design science.
69Fuller founds the 4D Company for research, development, and patent protection of his Dymaxion House and Car.
70 Fuller creates Energetic-Synergetic geometry.
71 The Fullers’ second child, Allegra, is born in Chicago.
72 Lindbergh is the first to fly nonstop from New York to Paris.
- 1928.
- Herbert Hoover is elected president.
- 1929.
- The word Dymaxion is created by public relations people work-
7374ing for Marshall Field Department Store, where Fuller is to display a model of what he then called his 4D House. The word is a combination of syllables from the words dynam-ic, maximum, and ion. It is copyrighted in Fuller’s name by Marshall Field and becomes his trademark over the years.
75 The Fullers move from Chicago to New York City.
76 Stock market crashes and the Great Depression begins.
7778Fuller cashes in his life insurance policies to finance taking over T-Square magazine in Philadelphia. He becomes owner, publisher, and editor and changes the name to Shelter.
79 1930
80 1932
81 1933
82 1934
83 1935
84 1936
8586Fuller also accepts a position as Assistant to Director of Re-search at Pierce Foundation, a division of American Stan-dard Sanitary Manufacturing Company. There, he begins two years of work on mass-produced kitchens and bathrooms.
87 Franklin Roosevelt is elected president.
8889Fuller discontinues publication of Shelter magazine after the election of Franklin Roosevelt as president of the United States because he feels that Roosevelt will correct some of the construction problems Fuller founded Shelter to edi-torialize about. Fuller also feels that it is time to stop talking and to focus more attention on doing.
90Fortune magazine publishes an article entitled ‘‘The Industry That Industry Missed,’’ which cites Fuller’s Dymaxion House as the prototype of a new mass-production housing industry.
91Fuller founds Dymaxion Corporation, through which he builds and successfully demonstrates the first prototype Dymax-ion Car in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is designed as the first stage of an experimental omnimedium, wingless trans-port vehicle to be propelled and maneuvered by rocket jet stilts, which Fuller anticipates will be invented in the future.
92Prohibition of alcoholic beverages ends in the United States. Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.
93United States bank failures reach a peak of five thousand banks in one day, and President Roosevelt declares a bank mora-torium.
94Congress gives the president the power to control money in the United States.
95 Fuller’s mother dies.
9697Fuller completes writing the book Nine Chains to the Moon. Dymaxion Car prototypes numbers two and three are completed and displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair.
98 Fuller meets with Albert Einstein, and Einstein acknowledges that Fuller’s interpretation of Einstein’s work as written in Nine Chains to the Moon is correct. Einstein also expresses amazement that Fuller could conceive of Einstein’s theo-ries as having practical application.
99100Fuller joins Phelps Dodge Corporation as assistant to the direc-tor of research. There, he continues his study of plumbing and the self-contained bathroom. At Phelps Dodge, he fi-nalizes invention of the Dymaxion Bathroom as well as a new system of automobile brakes. He also continues his study of World resources and focuses his attention on cop-per. In that study, he discovers the regular recirculation pattern of metals.
101Fuller is a frequent guest on experimental CBS television broad-casts to one hundred sets throughout New York.
- 1938.
- Nine Chains to the Moon is published.
102103Fuller travels throughout the United States with Christopher Morley.
104Fuller joins Fortune magazine staff as its science and tech-nology consultant.
- 1939.
- World War II begins.
105106Einstein and others warn President Roosevelt that the Germans might develop an atomic bomb, and Roosevelt immediate-ly authorizes research into an American atomic bomb.
- 1940.
- Fuller leaves Fortune to work on the design and construction of
107108Dymaxion Deployment Units in conjunction with the Butler Manufacturing Company of Kansas City. These are housing units developed from grain bins which Butler man-ufactures. They are employed extensively during World War II to protect delicate new radar equipment and troops in remote locations.
- 1941.
- Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and the United States enters World
109110War II.
111 Fuller gives up drinking and smoking.
- 1942.
- Fuller joins the United States Board of Economic Warfare as
112113Director of Mechanical Engineering.
- 1943.
- A full-color rendition of Fuller’s Dymaxion Sky-Ocean World
114115Map is published in Life magazine resulting in the largest printing of that magazine thus far.
- 1944.
- Fuller resigns his government position to complete designs of
116117and supervise manufacturing of the first prototype Dymax-ion House in Wichita, Kansas, in conjunction with the Beech Aircraft Company. For the project, Fuller moves to Wichita through 1946 while his wife and daughter remain in New York.
- 1945.
- President Roosevelt dies and Harry S. Truman succeeds him as
118119president.
120 First atomic bomb is exploded.
121 Word War II ends.
- 1946.
- Fuller is awarded the first cartographic projection patent since
122123the turn of the century by the United States Patent Office for the Dy maxion Map.
124The first all-electric, general-purpose, digital computer is com-pleted.
- 1947.
- Fuller invents the geodesic dome.
125126Fuller is appointed professor at Black Mountain College in North Carolina for the first of three summer sessions.
- 1948.
- Fuller accepts an appointment to teach at MIT.
127128Fuller works on several prototype geodesic structures and in-vents the geodesic dome.
129President Truman wins close reelection over Thomas Dewey. Gandhi is assassinated in India.
- 1949.
- Fuller teaches at Chicago Institute of Design in addition to
130131Black Mount College and MIT.
132 Russia explodes its first atomic bomb.
- 1950.
- Fuller begins his extensive travels in responding to invitations to
133134work and lecture at many universities and corporations around the World.
135 Korean War begins.
- 1952.
- Fuller begins work on the Ford Motor Company dome for its River Rouge headquarters.
136137Fuller and a group of Cornell University students construct the first Geoscope.
138Fuller receives Award of Merit, American Institute of Archi-tects, New York Chapter.
139 Dwight Eisenhower is elected president.
140 First commercial jetliner service is initiated.
- 1953.
- Fuller completes Ford dome. It is the first successful industrial
141142acceptance of Fuller’s concepts and the first practical ap-plication of the geodesic dome.
143Fuller directs construction of a fifty-foot tensegrity structure at Princeton University.
144 Polio vaccine is discovered and developed.
- 1954.
- Fuller receives patent for geodesic dome.
145146Fuller receives the first of his forty-seven honorary degrees, doctor of design, North Carolina State University.
147Fuller is awarded the Gran Premio, Triennale di Milano, Italy (a prestigious design award).
148Marine Corps airlifts and delivers a family-house-sized geodesic dome at sixty knots by helicopter. A picture of this opera-tion is featured on the front page of The New York Times.
149Geodesic domes are adopted as the structures to be used for all United States Marine Corps advance bases.
150Walter O’Malley, owner of Brooklyn Dodgers, asks Fuller to develop a geodesic dome to be installed over his baseball stadium.
151 Color television is introduced.
152153Supreme Court of United States orders desegregation of all schools.
- 1955.
- Fuller begins a development project for Brooklyn Dodgers Sta-
154155dium geodesic dome at Princeton University School of Ar-chitecture. Because it is the first such large stadium dome proposed, the project receives a great deal of newspaper publicity.
156Fuller is awarded Centennial Award and Citation by Michigan State College and Award of Merit by the United States Marine Corps.
157DEW Line geodesic radomes are first installed in the Arctic to protect radar.
158United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announces that its scientists have conceded that Malthus was wrong and that there could be enough food for all of humanity, even though a high percentage of people are starving. They attribute this inequity in global resource distribution to the political intervention of all nations.
- 1956.
- Fuller receives an appointment as a visiting lecturer at Southern
159160Illinois University. In 1959 his position at SIU becomes permanent.
161A geodesic dome is first used to house the United States display at an International Trade Fair. In this instance a one-hun-dred-foot-diameter dome is flown to Kabul, Afghanistan, in a single DC-4 airplane and erected in forty-eight hours by inexperienced Afghan workers supervised by the one American engineer Fuller was allowed to send along.
162 First transatlantic telephone cable installed.
- 1957.
- Fuller designs and supervises construction of the largest clear-
163164span structural enclosure in history. This is the 384-foot-diameter Union Tank Car Company geodesic dome in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Prior to this time, the largest such structure was St. Peter’s Cathedral dome in Rome, which is 150 feet in diameter.
165Fuller is awarded the Gran Premio, Triennale di Milano, Italy. The first dome built by Kaiser Aluminum is erected of prefabri-cated sections in Hawaii in less than twenty-two hours. The Hawaii Symphony plays a hastily scheduled concert to a capacity audience in that dome twenty-four hours after the dome sections have arrived on the island.
166 Manufacturing begins on playdomes for playground use.
167168The Dodgers move to Los Angeles, and the New York stadium dome project is canceled.
169The year is declared ‘‘International Geophysical Year’’ by many countries working together on scientific projects.
170 First satellite, Russian Sputnik, is launched by Earthians.
- 1958.
- Fuller makes the first of his many annual circuits traveling
171172around the World fulfilling his regular university appoint-ments in countries such as South Africa, India, Japan, England, and the United States.
173Fuller is awarded the Gold Medal, Scarab by the National Ar-chitectural Society.
174Fuller’s Energetic-Synergetic Geometry is examined by nuclear physicists and molecular biologists, and they find that it mathematically explains Nature’s fundamental structuring at the atomic nucleus and virus levels.
175United States nuclear submarine Nautilus makes the first cross-ing of the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole submerged below the polar ice cap.
176 1959
177 1960
178 Fuller is appointed by the State Department to visit the Soviet Union as the United States Representative for Engineering in a protocol exchange. At a dinner given by the Soviets in Fuller’s honor, they tell him that they have been following his work for twenty-nine years.
179 Fuller is appointed as university professor (research) and awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree at Southern Illinois University. He and Anne erect, and move into, one of the first geodesic dome houses near the university. He also sets up an office as his global headquarters at SIU.
180 Fuller meets with Judge Roy Hofheinz of Houston, Texas, who wants to acquire a major league baseball franchise for his city. An agreement is reached, and Fuller begins work on what will eventually become the Astrodome.
181 Fuller works with Kaiser Aluminum to produce a gold-anodized, aluminum geodesic dome which is used for the United States International Exhibit in Moscow. Premier Khrush-chev and other Russians are so thrilled by this dome that Russia buys it and leaves it as a permanent structure in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park.
182 One-year outdoor garden exhibit of Fuller’s geodesic domes, octet truss, and tensegrity structures opens at Museum of Modem Art in New York City.
183 Global jet-aircraft passenger-service network is established. Alaska and Hawaii are admitted as states.
184 The St. Lawrence Seaway opens mid-America to ocean ships. Fuller publishes The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, which is written with Robert W. Marks.
185 Fuller is awarded the following: Frank P. Brown Medal by Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute; Gold Medal of the Amer-ican Institute of Architects (Philadelphia Chapter); Roy Ed-win Crummer Award by the Crummer School of Finance and Business Administration.
186187Fuller continues intensive work on development of the stadium dome for Houston.
188 Geodesic dome is delivered fully erected to Ford Motor Com-
pany by helicopter. It is 114 feet in diameter and contains ten thousand square feet of floor
space.
189 John Kennedy is elected president.
190 Peace Corps is established.
191 1961
192193Fuller speaks to two thousand architects at the International Union of Architects’ World Congress and proposes initia-tion of Phase I of a Design Science Decade. In this phase, the World will be put on notice that the success of all humanity is not a political responsibility. Rather, such suc-cess depends on an invention initiative and a design revolu-tion.
194 Fuller is granted patent for the octet truss.
195196Over two thousand geodesic domes are produced by over one hundred companies which have been licensed by Fuller. These domes are primarily delivered by air and rapidly installed in forty countries around the World and the North and South Polar regions.
197DNA is deciphered as the genetic code and design control for all life.
198Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is the first human to orbit Earth in space.
199 1962
200201Fuller is appointed by Harvard University as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, a one-year appointment.
202Fuller establishes his ‘‘Inventory of World Resources, Human Trends, and Needs’’ at Southern Illinois University as an accounting system to examine human evolution.
203 Fuller is awarded a United States patent for tensegrity.
204205On the eve of signing a contract with Fuller’s company, Syn-ergetics, to build an efficient aluminum dome for his Houston stadium, Judge Hofheinz backs out. Instead, he signs a contract with Roof Structures.
206One Telstar communications relay satellite weighing only one-quarter ton replaces and outperforms transatlantic cables weighting seventy-five thousand tons.
207 1963
208209Fuller publishes the books Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, No More Secondhand God, Ideas and Integrities, and Education Automation.
210 Fuller is appointed to NASA’s Advanced Structures Research
211212Team which adopts his octet truss and geodesic dome as primary space structures.
213 1964
214 1965
215216Fuller is awarded the American Institute of Architects’ Allied Professions Gold Medal and the Plomado de Oro Award of the Mexican Society of Architects.
217Fuller is the subject of five half-hour television shows on Na-tional Educational Television.
218Fuller is honored in a recognition day at the University of Colorado.
219World Congress of Virologists announces the discovery of the protein shells of viruses, which they publicly acknowledge was anticipated by Fuller in his formulas of geodesic structures.
220President Kennedy is assassinated, and Lyndon Johnson suc-ceeds him.
221 Zip code is introduced into the United States mail system.
222 Fuller is subject of cover story in Time magazine.
223 Fuller is commissioned as the architect of the United States pavilion for the 1967 Montreal World’s Fair.
224 Fuller is a member of the meeting of ‘‘Leading Citizens of USSR-USA’’ assembled by USSR’s Academy of Sci-ences.
225 Fuller’s Design Science Decade: World Inventory, Human Trends and Needs is published.
226 Fuller’s series of articles, ‘‘Prospects of Humanity,’’ appears in Saturday Review.
227 Fuller is subject of BBC’s first science program on their new, wide-range Channel Two network.
228 Fuller is awarded Gold Key Laureate, Delta Phi Delta, National Fine Arts Honor Society.
229 United States Civil Rights Act becomes law.
230 Free-speech movement begins at University of California, Berkeley.
231 Khrushchev is ousted as leader of Soviet Union.
232 Verrazano Narrows Bridge, New York, is completed and at 4,260 feet becomes the longest suspension bridge in the World.
233 Fuller is given Creative Achievement Award of Brandeis Uni-versity.
234235First commercial intercontinental relay satellite placed in Earth orbit.
236First space walks by both United States and Soviet astronauts occur.
237Westward mobility of population is evident as California be-comes the most populous state.
238Massive electric-power failure blacks out most of northeastern United States and two provinces of Canada.
239United States forces in South Vietnam reach 184,000, and U.S. begins bombing North Vietnam.
240 1966
241242Fuller completes design for the USA Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal World’s Fair. It consists of a 250-foot-diameter geodesic sphere christened a skybreak bubble.
243Fuller receives First Award of Excellence from the Industrial Designers Society of America.
244Fuller inaugurates World Game at Southern Illinois University to demonstrate how to make the World work so that all humanity may achieve physical and economic success without individuals’ or groups’ interfering with one another.
245Fuller lectures scientists and engineers at Cape Kennedy, ex-plaining how fallout from space technology into domestic economy will bring about the first scientifically designed house, and how that house could catalyze the physical success of all humanity.
246 Fuller is appointed as Fellow of the Graham Foundation.
247248Both the Soviet Union and United States make successful land-ings of instrument packages on the Moon.
249 Time magazine runs ‘‘God is Dead’’ story.
250 Fuller is featured in cover story of Saturday Review.
251 1967
252253Fuller’s Montreal Expo ’67 Dome draws 5.3 million people in six months, setting a World’s Fair attendance record.
254Fuller is awarded the following: Appreciation Award by Mensa; Appreciation Award by Young President’s Organization, Western Area Conference; Alumnus Honoris Causa by As-bestos-Danville-Shipton High School; Centennial Award by Boston Society of Architects; Honorary Citizen by Hot Springs, Arkansas; Leadership Award by Alice Lloyd Col-lege; Order of Lincoln Medal by Lincoln Academy of Illi-nois; Fifth Thanksgiving Award by Clarke College; Golden Eagle Award for Excellence in Film by the Council on International Non-theatrical Events.
255Fuller is elected to honorary membership in Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (Harvard University) on the occasion of Fuller’s class of 1917 fifty-year reunion.
256Fuller is commissioned by United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to complete design drawings, eco-nomic analyses, and model of tetrahedronal floating city.
257Fuller is granted patent for ‘‘star tensegrity.’’
258Fuller delivers ninety public lectures, including the centennial address at American University, Beirut, Lebanon; keynote address to Austrian Architects Association; World Con-gress of Architectural Students, Barcelona, Spain; Fiftieth anniversary address, American Planners Association; First World Congress of Engineers and Architects, Tel Aviv, Israel.
259Fuller receives honorary doctor of engineering, Clarkson Col-lege of Technology, bringing his total number of honorary doctorates to thirteen.
260Fuller differentiates between human brain and mind while speaking as Harvey Cushing Orator to annual congress of two thousand members of American Association of Neuro- Surgeons.
261 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War is fought.
262263Human bone fragments 2.5 million years old are discovered in Kenya.
264 First human heart transplant is performed.
265266Fuller elected to National Academy of Design and World Acad-emy of Arts and Sciences.
267 1968
268269Fuller appointed as Distinguished University Professor at South-ern Illinois University, one of only three so honored in the ninety-nine year history of that institution.
270Fuller is awarded the following: British Royal Gold Medal of Architecture by Her Majesty the Queen on the recommen-dation of the Royal Institute of British Architects; Award for Excellence by the American Institute of Steel Construc-tion (for Expo ’67 Dome); Boss of the Year by the National Secretaries Association; Citation by Buffalo Western New York Chapter of AIA; First Architectural Design Award by
the American Institute of Architects (for Expo ’67 Dome); Gold Medal (Architecture) by the National Institute of Arts and Letters; President’s Cabinet Award by the University of Detroit; Fellowship Award by the Building Research Institute of the National Academy of Science.271Fuller receives honorary doctorates from Dartmouth College, University of Rhode Island, Ripon College, and New En-gland College.
272Fuller’s restored Dymaxion car number two is displayed at the Museum of Modem Art in New York.
273 Richard Nixon is elected president.
274 United States first orbits men around the moon.
275276Direct airline service between the United States and the USSR is initiated.
277Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy are assassinated. Police and antiwar demonstrators clash at Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
278 The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia.
279 1969
280281Fuller leads the first public World Game workshop (June 12-July 31).
282Fuller testifies on World Game before United States Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations.
283Fuller delivers Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture on ‘‘Plane-tary Planning’’ in New Delhi, India.
284Fuller publishes Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity.
285Fuller is awarded the following: Humanist of the Year Citation by the American Association of Humanists; Citation of Merit by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development; Master Designer, Product Engineer-ing, McGraw-Hill Award; Diploma of Achievement by Dean Institute of Technology.
286 Fuller is appointed as Hoyt Fellow at Yale University.
287288Fuller receives honorary degrees from University of Wisconsin, Boston College, and Bates College.
289First humans land on moon. This landing is viewed live by 600,000 people in forty-nine countries.
290First remote sensing satellite is launched. It senses global tem-perature patterns and revolutionizes weather forecasting.
291 The Beatles become a global musical success.
292293Woodstock Music and Art Festival draws 300,000 young people.
294 DeGaulle resigns as leader of France.
295 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) begin.
296297Integrated circuits, fiber optics, microwaves, and fluidics all emerge as new technologies.
298 Fuller publishes I Seem to Be a Verb.
299 1970
300301Fuller is installed as Master Architect for Life by the National Chapter of Alpha Rho Chi Architectural Fraternity.
302Fuller is awarded the following: Award of Merit by the Cliff Dwellers; Eighth Lively Arts Award for Architecture by A.W.N.Y.; Gold Medal by California Polytechnic Col-lege; Gold Medal by the American Institute of Architects.
303Fuller is visiting professor at International University of Art, Venice and Florence, Italy.
304Fuller makes eighty-six major public lectures, which include the following: Marshall McLuhan Executive Seminar, Baha-mas; Dartmouth College Bicentennial; Oxford University, England; International Association of Machinists, Wash-ington, DC; Plenary Session of the United Nations; Gener-al Assembly of the World Society for Ekistics, Athens, Greece; Association for Human Resources, Boston; Archi-tects and Engineers Conference on the Planning of Jerusa-lem, Jerusalem, Israel.
305Fuller receives honorary degrees from Minneapolis School of Art, Park College, Brandeis University, Columbia Col-lege, and Wilberforce University.
306Fuller receives honorary ‘‘donship’’ as fellow of St. Peter’s College, Oxford University.
307Detroit’s oldest architectural firm endows the Buckminster Full-er Chair at the School of Architecture, University of De-troit.
308First ‘‘Earth Day’’ celebrated around the World.
309First commercial flight of Boeing 747 jumbo jet occurs. It car-ries four hundred passengers and is constructed from over 500,000 precision machined parts.
310One computer exists for every four thousand people in the United States (twice the ratio of any other country).
311109 million telephones in the United States carry 141 billion calls per year.
312231 million televisions and 620 million radios are in use around the World.
313 United States voting age is lowered to eighteen.
314315National Guardsmen kill four students at Kent State University during protest of United States invasion of Cambodia.
316 1971
317318Fuller presents his proposal for ‘‘Old Man River City’’ project to the East St. Louis community, and it is enthusiastically accepted.
319Fuller heads ‘‘Project Toronto’’ proposal for future design of that city.
320Fuller is awarded the following: Hero for the Nuclear Age Cita-tion by the Center for Teaching about Peace and War at Wayne State University; President’s Cabinet Award by the University of Detroit; Salmagundi Medal and Honorable Life Membership by the Salmagundi Club; Distinguished Research Professor by the Institute for Behavioral Re-search Experimental College.
321Fuller-designed geoscope is dedicated at Southern Illinois University.
322Fuller publishes major articles in Life, Christian Science Moni-tor, and Rolling Stone.
323Fuller receives honorary doctorate from Southeastern Mas-sachusetts University.
324NBC broadcasts a one-hour national program on Fuller entitled ‘‘Buckminster Fuller on Spaceship Earth.’’
325World Trade Center towers in New York become the tallest building in the World. Fifteen buildings in the United States are now taller than the tallest building in 1915.
326Governor Nelson Rockefeller orders riot at Attica Prison in New York quelled, resulting in the death of forty-two people.
327 1972
328329Fuller becomes ‘ ‘World Fellow in Residence’ ’ at a consortium of Philadelphia area institutions (University of Pennsylva-nia; Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges; and the University City Science Center).
330Fuller publishes Intuition and Buckminster Fuller to Children of Earth.
331Fuller receives honorary doctorates from Grinnell College, Uni-versity of Maine (Orono), and Emerson College.
332Fuller is awarded Founders Medal by Austin College and Out-standing Lecturer and Author Award by the City of An-chorage, Alaska.
333Fuller is consultant to Design Science Institute and adviser to Earth Metabolic Design.
334Fuller delivers over 120 major lectures, including the following: University of Washington (John Danz Lecturer); Univer-sity of California at Santa Barbara (‘‘Future of Man’’ se-ries); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Lecture Se-ries on World Peace); National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Annual Conference; University of Colorado Environmental Action Conference; University of Minnesota Earth Week ’72; American Philosophical So-ciety Annual Conference; IBM’s Watson Research Center in New York; Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron (one-hundredth anniversary); University of Pennsylvania, Fine Arts; Monsanto Co. International Division, Executive Session.
335 Playboy publishes an extensive interview with Fuller.
336337Fortieth anniversary issue of Architectural Forum is dedicated to Fuller.
338England’s Architectural Design magazine devotes an entire is-sue to ‘‘Buckminster Fuller Retrospective.’’
339In ‘‘Operation Deep Freeze,’’ the United States installs an en-tire research station of several buildings beneath a large stainless steel and aluminum geodesic dome at the exact South Pole.
340 President Nixon visits China and Russia.
341342Black September terrorists assassinate Israeli Olympic athletes at Munich, Germany.
343Fuller establishes his publications and research office in Phila-delphia at University City Center as part of being ‘‘World Fellow in Residence’’ there.
344 1973
345346Fuller is granted patents on ‘‘floating breakwater’’ and ‘‘ten-segrity dome.’’
347Fuller completes design project for airports of New Delhi, Bom-bay, and Madras, India, in conjunction with Shoji Sadao.
348Fuller delivers 124 major public lectures, including the follow-ing: keynote address at the Milton S. Eisenhower Sym-posium at Johns Hopkins University; University of Oregon, Eugene; National Conference on Managing the Environment, Washington, DC; Hiroshima Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Japan; University of Southern California (keynote address, World Man/World Environ-ment Symposium); Association of University Architects; National Center for State Courts; Milton Academy (175th anniversary), Milton, Massachusetts; International Medita-tion Society and Maharishi International University (World Plan Week-USA), St. Louis, Missouri; Harvard Law School Forum.
349Fuller receives the following awards: Award of Merit from the Philadelphia Art Alliance; Citation of Honorary Cit-izenship from the City of Philadelphia; First Annual DVM Award from the Delaware Valley Mensa Association; Hon-orary Citizenship from Saskatchewan, Canada; Brocking-ton Visitor from Queens University, Canada.
350Fuller receives honorary doctorates from Nasson College, Ren-sselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Beaver College.
351The Fullers move to Philadelphia.
352Chicago Museum of Science and Industry creates an exhibition of Fuller artifacts which travels for two years to Min-neapolis Institute of Art, Ontario Science Center, Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Bronfman Center in Montreal, California Museum of Science and Industry in Los An-geles, Des Moines Center of Science and Industry, and East St. Louis Senior High School.
353Japan constructs two weather geodesic radomes atop Mount Fuji and issues memorial stamp, ‘‘Pearl in the Crown of Fuji-San.’’
354 Watergate scandal; congressional hearings begin.
355356Energy crisis and fuel shortages develop in United States. United States launches orbiting space station.
357Fuller makes his thirty-seventh complete circuit of Earth as he delivers 150 major public addresses including the follow-ing: centennial speaker, Notre Dame University; Prentiss M. Brown Visiting Lectureship, Albion College; Reynolds Lecturer, Davidson College; Symposium on the Science of Creative Intelligence, Tulane University; Annual Meeting of American Academy of Political and Social Science; ‘‘Perspectives on Man’’ Symposium, University of Hou-ston; American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting; Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland; Mensa Interna-tional Committee, London, England; University of Not-tingham, England.
358 1974
359360Fuller receives honorary doctorates from University of Notre Dame, St. Joseph’s College, Pratt Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and McGill University.
361Fuller is granted a New York State architect’s license.
362Fuller is awarded the following: Annual Award by the Boston Montessori Schoolhouse; Appreciation Medal by Harvard Business School Club of New York; Educator of the Year by Montessori Institute of America; Appreciation Award by Wabash Valley Association Inc.; Citation by Drexel University (Nesbitt College); Commendation by California Museum of Science and Industry.
363Fuller becomes Consultant to Team 3 Architects International, Penang, Malaysia.
364Astronauts spend eighty-five days in space aboard United States space station Sky lab.
365Nixon becomes first American president to resign, and Gerald Ford becomes president.
366Unemployment in United States rises to 6.5 percent.
367India becomes the sixth country to explode a nuclear device. Americans are given the right to own gold bullion after a forty-year prohibition, and the United States Treasury auctions off most of its gold, weakening the World gold market.
368 Oil prices quadruple.
369370Fuller publishes Synergetics, the result of a half century of work on the geometry of Nature’s coordinate system.
371 1975
372373Fuller is appointed professor emeritus at Southern Illinois Uni-versity and University of Pennsylvania.
374Fuller becomes international president of the World Society for Ekistics.
375Fuller becomes a member of Advisory Committee for Wind-works, Mukwonago, Wisconsin.
376Fuller receives patent for ‘‘Non-Symmetrical, Tension-Integrity Structures.’’
377Fuller becomes Tutor in Design Science at International Col-lege, Los Angeles.
378Fuller is awarded the following: Planetary Citizens Award by the United Nations; Distinguished Service Award Medal by Beech Aircraft; Certificate of Honor by the City and County of San Francisco; Honorary Diploma by Stowe School; Marshal Visitor Award by International House; Reward for Peace by World Unification Movement.
379Fuller is invested as a fellow in the American Institute of Architects.
380Fuller receives honorary degree from Hobart and William Smith College.
381Medard Gabel and the World Game Workshop publish Energy, Earth and Everyone with introduction by Fuller.
382The largest and richest American companies have become inter-national operations.
383Cracks found in Illinois atomic reactor cause shutdown of twen-ty-three similar reactors.
384American and Russian astronauts meet in orbit during cooper-ative space linkup.
385 The marketing of home videorecorders begins.
386 Major figures in Watergate scandal found guilty.
387 Unemployment in United States rises to 9 percent.
388389New York City narrowly avoids bankruptcy as $3 billion in debt comes due.
390 1976
391392Fuller conceives and designs synergetics exhibit for opening of Smithsonian/Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design.
393Fuller participates in convention to draft and sign a Declaration of Principles and Rights for American Children.
394Fuller proposes constructing Geoscope using steel frame of Montreal Expo ’67 Dome, which remains structurally un-damaged after fire bums off vinyl skin.
395 Fuller publishes And It Came to Pass---Not to Stay.
396397Fuller is First Distinguished Lecturer, College of Engineering, Villanova University.
398Fuller receives the following awards: Messing Award from St. Louis University Library Association; Development of
Consciousness Award from the International Meditation Society; America’s Tricentennial Resolution for Utopia over Oblivion and founding of the Buckminster Fuller Ma-trix Society at Von Braun Civic Center, Huntsville, Ala-bama; award for sixteen years of service from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Gold Medal of Honor from the National Arts Club; International New Thought Alliance Humanitarian Award; Recognition Award from Oakland Community College; Bicentennial Award from the Golden Slipper Club, Philadelphia.399Fuller completes work on the World’s first tetrahedronal book, Tetrascroll, which is conceived, illustrated, and written by him and published in limited edition.
400North and South Vietnam officially reunite, with Hanoi as capital.
401 First synthetic gene constructed.
402403Twenty-six people die from ‘‘legionnaire’s disease’’ at Ameri-can Legion Convention in Philadelphia.
404 Jimmy Carter is elected president.
405406700,000 people die in Chinese Earthquake, which is worst di-saster in recorded history.
407Fuller designs and develops two prototype geodesic domes, ‘‘Pinecone Dome’’ and ‘‘Fly’s Eye Dome.’’
408 1977
409410Fuller’s limited-edition book Tetrascroll is exhibited at the Mu-seum of Modem Art in New York.
411Fuller delivers over one hundred major lectures, including the following: Distinguished Half Century Lecturer, Univer-sity of Houston; Third Annual Ezra Pound Lecture, Uni-versity of Idaho; Grauer Lecture, University of British Co-lumbia; Creative Presentations Seminar with Werner Erhard; American Management Association, New York; Habitat Conference, Southwest Texas State University; American Association of Humanistic Psychology; UN-ESCO Round Table Conference on ‘‘Challenge of the Year 2000,’’ Paris, France; United Nations University; United States Air Force Academy.
412Fuller is honored at ‘‘Buckminster Fuller Day,’’ proclaimed by governor of Massachusetts and mayors of Boston and Cambridge.
413 Fuller receives the following awards: First Annual Heald Award from Illinois Institute of Technology; Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award from League for the Hard of Hearing; Stevens Honor Award from Stevens Institute of Tech-nology; ‘‘The Golden Plate Award’’ from the American Academy of Achievement; Planetary Citizens Award from the United Nations; Engineering and Science Award from Drexel University; Eli Whitney Award from Connecticut Patent Law Association; Honorary Citizen from Park For-est, Illinois; Distinguished Speaker from the United States Air Force Academy; Achievers Award in Architecture from the Samsonite Corporation.
414415Fuller travels on lecture tour of the Far East sponsored by the United States Information Agency and the State Depart-ment.
416Fuller continues as Philadelphia’s ‘‘World Fellow in Resi-dence,’’ University Professor Emeritus at Southern Illinois University and University of Pennsylvania, and consultant to Architects 3 International and Tutor in Design Science at International University.
417 First oil flows through the Alaska pipeline.
418419Twenty-five-hour blackout leads to extensive looting and van-dalism in New York City.
420 Department of Energy added to president’s Cabinet.
421422President Carter pardons Vietnam war draft evaders as one of his first acts in office.
423United States Census Bureau announces that, for the first time, a majority of Americans live in the Sunbelt states of the South and the West.
424 Fuller’s Synergetics Folio is published.
425 1978
426427Fuller makes one of his numerous presentations before a United States Senate Committee and describes how satellites could be used for taking daily inventories of everything from World resources to public opinion.
428 Fuller appears in Honda advertisement.
429430Fuller receives citation from the Regents of the University of Minnesota and the Medal of Merit from the Lotus Club.
431Fuller continues his numerous speaking engagements, which include the following: World Congress of the New Age in Florence, Italy; ‘‘Wholistic Health’’ Conference in Wash-ington, DC; Aspen Healing Arts Conference; keynote
speaker at Annual Conference of the Society for College and University Planning; keynote speaker for Colorado En-ergyfest; Peter Goldmark Memorial Lecture at Elec-tromedia Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark; Vikram Sarabai Memorial Lecture at Nehru Foundation in India; Guggenheim Lecture, National Air and Space Museum. Fuller is scholar in residence at the University of Massachusetts and attends an informal gathering of World leaders at D’Arros in the Seychelles.432Fuller is honored at ‘‘Buckminster Fuller Day,’’ jointly pro-claimed by governor of Minnesota and mayors of Min-neapolis and St. Paul.
433Fuller becomes senior partner in the New York Architectural firm of Fuller & Sadao PC.
434World population growth rate begins to decline, confirming Fuller’s earlier prognostications.
435Scientists propose a ‘‘global electrical circuit’’ which would double the amount of electricity available for practical use on Earth. This strategy was first publicly proposed by Full-er in 1969 in an address to a World Game workshop.
436Largest snowstorm in the history of northeastern United States; $1.4-million roof of Hartford Coliseum collapses hours after audience of five thousand leaves under weight of only 4.8 inches of wet snow. At that time Fuller’s geodesic domes are handling much greater Arctic snow loads of over three hundred pounds per square foot.
437Last case of smallpox in the World is eradicated. This is the first instance of complete disease eradication in recorded his-tory.
438 World’s first test-tube baby is born in England.
439440Two Soviet cosmonauts break record by spending 140 days orbiting the Earth in space station.
441President Carter mediates peace talks between President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel.
442Pope Paul VI dies, and newly elected Pope John Paul I dies after a reign of only thirty-four days. He is succeeded by Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian Pope in 456 years.
443Fuller makes an extensive visit to People’s Republic of China and finds people anxious to industrialize using his ‘‘De-sign-Science Revolution’’ strategy.
444 1979
445446Fuller publishes Synergetics 2, which amplifies and expands on the material in Synergetics.
447Fuller is invested into the Order of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and Priory of King Valdemar the Great in Copenhagen, Denmark.
448 Fuller publishes Buckminster Fuller on Education.
449450Fuller receives the following awards: Quest Medal of St. Ed-ward’s University; First Annual Humanities Award from the World Symposium on Humanity; American-Israel Arts, Sciences and Humanities Award from the State of Israel Bonds; First Lifelong Learning Award from Metro-politan State University; Raymond A. Dart Award (‘‘The Steel Brain’’) from the United Steelworkers Association; John Scott Award from the City of Philadelphia.
451Fuller continues intensive speaking engagements, including the following: keynote address at Mind Child Architecture Conference at New Jersey Institute of Technology; Flag Day Ceremony at Betsy Ross House and Radio City Music Hall; Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Calgary.
452Fuller becomes chairman of the board of R. Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Architects, Inc., an Ohio architectural firm.
453Fuller becomes senior partner of Buckminster Fuller Associates, London, England.
454Fuller is awarded honorary degrees by International College, Southern Illinois University, and Alaska Pacific Univer-sity.
455Medard Gabel and The World Game Laboratory publish Ho-ping: Food for Everyone.
456Gossamer Albatross is first human-powered vehicle to fly across English Channel. This is possible because scientific technology has developed materials which accomplish much more while using fewer resources.
457Radiation accident and near meltdown at Three-Mile Island nu-clear power plant leads to reevaluation of nuclear power program.
458 Egypt and Israel sign peace treaty.
459460Chrysler Corporation asks federal government for $4 billion in aid to avoid bankruptcy.
461 Iranian hostage crisis begins.
462 Fuller publishes Critical Path.
463 1980
464 Fuller patents ‘‘tensegrity truss.’’
465466Fuller is honored with exhibition and gold medal from Ameri-can Academy of Arts and Letters.
467Fuller travels to Brazil and views implementation of indus-trialization strategies he first described in 1942.
468Fuller is awarded honorary degrees by Roosevelt University, Georgian Court College, and Newport University.
469Fuller delivers over ninety major lectures, including the follow-ing: Sam Raybum Public Affairs Symposium, East Texas State University; Distinguished Visitors Series, Columbus, Indiana; International Dome Symposium; American Teach-ers of Mathematics Conference; Symposium on Hunger sponsored by The Hunger Project; Windstar Foundation, Snowmass, Colorado; Digital Equipment Corporation; Chamber of Commerce, Budapest, Hungary; Science of Mind Institute Seminar; Belgium Television Communica-tions Conference, Liege.
470Fuller is appointed to presidential commission to further devel-op the ‘ ‘Global 2000 Report’’ outlining the crisis in energy and the global environment. He is also appointed to the Congressional Committee on the Future.
471Fuller is honored with recognition days by the State of Illinois and the City of Buffalo, New York.
472Fuller receives the following awards: Academician from the American Academy and the Institute of Arts and Letters; Special Award from Erie County, New York; First Dean’s Award from the State University of New York at Buffalo Architectural School; Honorary Royal Designer for Indus-try from the Royal Society of Arts (England); adjunct pro-fessor of humanities from Texas Wesleyan University.
473 The Fullers move to Pacific Palisades, California.
474475City of Los Angeles leases a fifty-foot-diameter Fly’s-Eye Dome as the theme building for its bicentennial celebra-tion.
476Grip-Kitrick edition of Fuller’s Dymaxion Map issued. It is the largest, most accurate whole Earth map in human history.
477 Reagan is elected president of United States.
478 Mount St. Helen’s volcano erupts.
479480United States and fifty other countries boycott Moscow Olym-pic Games, primarily in protest of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.
481$1.5-billion federally guaranteed loan granted to Chrysler Cor-poration.
482 1981
483484Fuller becomes chairman of Fuller-Patterson Corporation and Buckminster Fuller Research Park.
485Fuller continues as World Fellow in Residence, University City Science Center, Philadelphia; university professor emer-itus, Southern Illinois University and University of Penn-sylvania; senior partner, Fuller & Sadao PC; chairman of the board, R. Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Archi-tects, Inc; senior partner, Buckminster Fuller Associates; and consultant to Team 3 Architects International.
486Fuller is awarded honorary degree by Texas Wesleyan Univer-sity, bringing his total number of honorary degrees to for-ty-seven.
487Fuller is honored at Recognition Day in Austin, Texas, and with ‘‘Resolution of Honor’’ from the State of California.
488 Fuller is inducted into the Housing Hall of Fame.
489490Fuller is awarded Nesbitt College Honor Citation, Drexel University.
491American hostages in Iran are freed minutes after Reagan is inaugurated as president.
492First reusable space shuttle is launched into orbit around the Earth and completes a successful two-day mission.
493Sandra Day O’Connor becomes first woman Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
494 1982
495496Fuller designs and develops tensional Dymaxion hanging book-shelf and deresonated tensegrity dome.
497 Fuller publishes Grunch of Giants.
498499Fuller designs and supervises construction of Dymaxion ‘‘Big Map,’’ a basketball-court-sized Dymaxion Map on which global resources and policies can be graphically displayed. He displays this map and its capabilities to members of the United States Congress.
500 Fuller receives the following awards: President’s Fellow Award
501 from Rhode Island School of Design; Distinguished Ser-vice Award from the World Future Society; Regents Lec-turer From the University of California at Los Angeles. Fuller delivers over seventy major lectures, including the fol-
502503lowing: World Game Workshop; Touche Ross & Com-pany; New Alchemy Institute; American Society for Train-ing and Development; Harvard University; Wellness Con-ference, Institute for the Advancement of Human Behav-ior; American Society of Interior Designers; World Affairs Conference; Insights into the Future Symposium; Smithso-nian Institute; University of Pennsylvania.
504 Fuller has the star Tau Persei located on Charles C. Gates Planetarium Dome dedicated to him.
505 Fuller is inducted into the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame.
506 Fuller publishes Inventions and Humans in Universe (with Dr. Anwar Dil).
507 Fuller is awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan, the highest civilian award given by the United States government.
508 Fuller patents ‘‘Hanging Storage Shelf Unit.’’
509 Aluminum 415-foot-diameter dome is erected to house Howard Hughs’s Spruce Goose airplane in Long Beach, California. This becomes the largest clear-span dome in the World.
510 Walt Disney World erects a 165-foot-diameter steel-and-alumi-num geodesic sphere using the theme ‘‘Spaceship Earth’’ at its EPCOT Center in Orlando, Florida.
511 AT&T agrees to break up into smaller companies in response to a thirteen-year lawsuit.
512 The United States unemployment rate reaches 10.8 percent, which is the highest rate since the Great Depression.
513 First permanent artificial heart is installed in a human.
514 Fuller continues as World Fellow in Residence, University City Science Center, Philadelphia: university professor emer-itus, Southern Illinois University and University of Penn-sylvania; senior partner, Fuller & Sadao PC; chairman of the board, R. Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Archi-tects Inc.; senior partner, Buckminster Fuller Associates; consultant to Team 3 International Architects; and chair-
515 1983
516517man, Fuller-Patterson Corporation and Buckminster Fuller Research and Development Park.
518Fuller is honored in ‘‘Integrity Day’’ declarations by Cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Santa Cruz; Orange and Tulare Counties; and the State of California. The declara-tions honor his last series of public-speaking engagements, called ‘‘Integrity Days,’’ which were founded on his expe-rience that personal integrity was ultimately the most important issue with which any individual has to deal.
519R. Buckminster Fuller dies on July 1, 1983, in Los Angeles after suffering a massive heart attack while visiting his comatose wife, Anne, at Good Samaritan Hospital. He has been evaluated in excellent health just three weeks earlier by a doctor in Boston. Anne never recovers from the coma and dies thirty-six hours later.
