text: ** Princeton's conversion of the Model C stellarator to the Symmetrical Tokamak is completed, and tests match and then best the Soviet results. With an apparent solution to the magnetic bottle problem in-hand, plans begin for a larger machine to test the scaling and various methods to heat the plasma.
  ** Kapchinskii and Teplyakov introduce a particle accelerator for heavy ions that appear suitable as an ICF driver in place of lasers.
  ** The first neodymium-doped glass (Nd:glass) laser for ICF research, the "Long Path laser" is completed at LLNL and is capable of delivering ~50 joules to a fusion target.
  ** Design work on JET, the Joint European Torus, begins.
  ** J.B. Taylor re-visited ZETA results of 1958 and explained that the quiet-period was in fact very interesting. This led to the development of reversed field pinch, now generalised as "self-organising plasmas", an ongoing line of research.
  ** KMS Fusion, a private-sector company, builds an ICF reactor using laser drivers. Despite limited resources and numerous business problems, KMS successfully compresses fuel in December 1973, and on 1 May 1974 successfully demonstrates the world's first laser-induced fusion. Neutron-sensitive nuclear emulsion detectors, developed by Nobel Prize winner Robert Hofstadter, were used to provide evidence of this discovery.
  ** Beams using mature high-energy accelerator technology are hailed as the elusive "brand-X" driver capable of producing fusion implosions for commercial power. The Livingston Curve, which illustrates the improvement in power of particle accelerators over time, is modified to show the energy needed for fusion to occur. Experiments commence on the single beam LLNL Cyclops laser, testing new optical designs for future ICF lasers.
  ** The Princeton Large Torus (PLT), the follow-on to the Symmetrical Tokamak, begins operation. It soon surpasses the best Soviet machines and sets several temperature records that are above what is needed for a commercial reactor. PLT continues to set records until it is decommissioned.
  ** Workshop, called by the US-ERDA (now DoE) at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, CA for an ad-hoc two-week summer study.  Fifty senior scientists from the major US ICF programs and accelerator laboratories participated, with program heads and Nobel laureates also attending. In the closing address, Dr. C. Martin Stickley, then Director of US-ERDA's Office of Inertial Fusion, announced the conclusion was "no showstoppers" on the road to fusion energy. 
  ** The two beam Argus laser is completed at LLNL and experiments involving more advanced laser-target interactions commence.
  ** Based on the continued success of the PLT, the DOE selects a larger Princeton design for further development. Initially designed simply to test a commercial-sized tokamak, the DOE team instead gives them the explicit goal of running on a deuterium-tritium fuel as opposed to test fuels like hydrogen or deuterium. The project is given the name Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR).
  ** The 20 beam Shiva laser at LLNL is completed, capable of delivering 10.2 kilojoules of infrared energy on target. At a price of $25 million and a size approaching that of a football field, the Shiva laser is the first of the "megalasers" at LLNL and brings the field of ICF research fully within the realm of "big science".
  ** The JET project is given the go-ahead by the EC, choosing the UK's center at Culham as its site.
  ** As PLT continues to set new records, Princeton is given additional funding to adapt TFTR with the explicit goal of reaching breakeven.
  ** LANL successfully demonstrates the radio frequency quadrupole accelerator (RFQ).
  ** ANL and Hughes Research Laboratories demonstrate required ion source brightness with xenon beam at 1.5MeV. 
  ** The Foster Panel report to US-DoEs Energy Research and advisory board on ICF concludes that heavy ion fusion (HIF) is the "conservative approach" to ICF. Listing HIFs advantages in his report, John Foster remarked: "...now that is kind of exciting." After DoE Office of Inertial Fusion completed review of programs, Director Gregory Canavan decides to accelerate the HIF effort.