1972

Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 - 1972 - 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977

Events

• Prime minister of Sweden, Olof Palme compares the American bombings of North Vietnam to Nazi massacres. The US breaks diplomatic contact with Sweden.
• January 2 - Major robbery in Pierre Hotel, New York. $4 million dollars worth of valuables stolen.
• January 5 - President of the United States Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program.
• January 4 - Kurt Waldheim becomes the Secretary General[?] of United Nations.
• January 9 - RMS Queen Elizabeth is destroyed by fire (Hong Kong harbor[?]).
• January 9 - Rose Heilbron[?] becomes the first woman judge in the United Kingdom (Old Bailey, London).
• January 11 - East Pakistan becomes Bangladesh
• January 14 - King Frederik IX of Denmark[?] dies - his daughter Queen Margaret II of Denmark ascends to the throne at January 16
• January 24 - Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi[?] discovered in Guam. He had spent 28 years in the jungle
• January 26 - Yugoslavian air stewardress Vesca Vulovic is the only survivor when her plane crashes in Czechoslovakia.
• January 30 - Bloody Sunday: United Kingdom forces kill thirteen Roman Catholic civil rights marchers in Northern Ireland.
• January 30 - Pakistan withdraws from the British Commonwealth
• February 1 - First scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) introduced (price $395)
• February 3 - Sapporo Winter Olympics begin.
• February 4 - Mariner 9 sends pictures from Mars
• February 5 - Bob Douglas[?] becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
• February 9 - British government declares a state of emergency over a miners' strike
• February 17 - Sales of the Volkswagen Beetle model exceed those of Ford Model-T -(15 million)
• February 18 - The California Supreme Court[?] invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison.
• February 21 - February 27 - President Richard M. Nixon makes an unprecedented eight-day visit to Communist China and meets with Mao Zedong.
• February 21 - The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
• February 23 - Lufthansa plane hijacked to Aden. Passengers are released after ransom on 16 million D-marks.
• February 25 - Terrorism: Germany gives $5 million to an Arab terrorist as ransom for the passengers and crew of a hijacked a jumbo jet.
• March 2 - Launch of Pioneer 10 spacecraft.
• March 8 - The Goodyear[?] blimp flies for the first time
• March 13 - Britain and China resume full diplomatic relations after 22 years. Britain withdraws its consulate from Taiwan.
• March 19 - India and Bangladesh sign a friendship treaty.
• March 24 - In a bid for peace, Britain takes over direct rule of Northern Ireland.
• March 30 - Vietnam War: The Eastertide Offensive[?] begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnam.
• April 16 - Apollo 16 launched
• April 18 - Roland Corporation founded in Osaka
• April 27 - Constructive Vote of No Confidence against German Chancellor Willy Brandt fails under obscure circumstances.
• May 9 - Three out of six bombs explode in Springer[?] newspaper building in Hamburg, West Germany. 17 dead.
• May 15 - Governor George C. Wallace[?] of Alabama is shot by Arthur H. Bremer[?] at a Laurel, Md., political rally.
• May 21 - In Rome, Laszlo Toth attacks Michelangelo's Pieta[?]-statue with a hammer
• May 22 - Ceylon becomes republic of Sri Lanka
• May 26 - Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev sign SALT treaty[?] in Moscow.
• May 26 - Willandra National Park is established in Australia.
• May 30 - The Angry Brigade goes on trial.
• June 2 - Andreas Baader and some other members of Red Army Faction are arrested in Frankfurt am Main after a shootout.
• June 4 - Angela Davis found not guilty of murder
• June 14 - June 23 - Hurricane Agnes kills 117 in US east coast.
• June 15 - Ulrike Meinhof and Gerhard Müller of Red Army Faction are arrested in a teacher's apartment in Hannover, West Germany.
• June 17 - Watergate break-in, Washington, D.C.
• Return of Okinawa from United States' control to Japan.
• June 29 - Supreme Court of the United States rules that the death penalty is unconstitutional
• July 18 - Anwar Sadat sends Soviet military advisors home.
• August 4 - Idi Amin declares that Uganda will expel 50.000 asians with British passports to Britain within three months;
• September 1 - Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky in Reykjavik Chess tournament and becomes the first American chess champion.
• September 5 - Eleven Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich are killed after eight members of an Arab terrorist group Black September invade Olympic Village; five guerillas and one policeman are also killed.
• September 14 - West Germany and Poland renew diplomatic relations.
• September 17 - Uganda announces that there is Tanzanian troops in its territory.
• September 23 - Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law in Philippines.
• October 2 - Denmark joins EEC. Faroe Islands stay out.
• October 5 - United Reformed Church founded out of Congregational and Presbyterian Churches.
• October 13 - Fairchild passenger plane transporting a rugby team crashes in Andes. They are found alive December 20 but they have had to resort to cannibalism to survive.
• October 17 - Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visits Yugoslavia.
• November 5 - Group of Amerindians occupies the Bureau of Indian Affairs
• November - Richard M. Nixon defeats George McGovern in the U.S. presidential election
• December 22 - Earthquake destroys Managua, capital of Nicaragua.
• December 28 - The bones of Martin Bormann identified in Berlin.
• December 29 - An Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 crashes into the Everglades killing 99 of 163 onboard

• The United Kingdom begin to train Special Air Service for anti-terrorist duties.
• Sally Priesand becomes the first female rabbi.
• Steve Jobs graduates from Homestead High School and enrolls in Reed college in Portland but drops out after one semester
• Kim Il Sung becomes president of North Korea.
• First Cray super computers
• Japanese begin building a railway tunnel between Honshu and Hokkaido
• Stephen Hawking is confined to wheelchair
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms becomes independent from IRS.
• The "tea house" Mellow Yellow opens on the Amstel River[?] in Amsterdam, pioneering the legal sale of marijuana in the Netherlands

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1972 in film
  • The Godfather
  • Cabaret
  • Deliverance
• 1972 in literature
• 1972 in music
  • Deep Purple releases Machine Head
• 1972 in sports
• 1972 in television
  • January 14 - Sanford & Son premieres on NBC.
  • M*A*S*H premieres
• James Herriot - All Creatures Great and Small

Births

• January 30 - Tim Jones, Gonzo Journalist
• February 11 - Dennis Iliohan[?], Dutch football player.
• February 15 - Jaromir Jagr, ice hockey star
• February 17 - Denise Richards, actress
• February 17 - Philippe Candeloro[?], figure skater
• February 17 - Billie Joe Armstrong, musician ("Green Day")
• February 29 - Antonio Sabato Jr.[?], actor
• March 6 - Shaquille O' Neal, basketball player
• March 15 - Mark Hoppus, musician ("Blink 182")
• March 17 - Mia Hamm, soccer player
• March 22 - Elvis Stojko, figure skater
• March 23 - Judith Godrèche, actress
• April 4 - Stefan Wolpe, composer
• April 4 - Adam Clayton Powell Jr.[?], American politician
• May 20 - Busta Rhymes, rap music singer
• May 21 - The Notorious B.I.G., musician (+ 1997)
• June 29 - Samantha Smith, U.S. activist.
• August 30 - Cameron Diaz, actress

Deaths

• January 1 - Maurice Chevalier, French entertainer, surgical complications
• January 14 - King Frederick IX of Denmark
• January 26 - Mahalia Jackson, gospel music singer
• February 11 - Jan Wils[?], architect
• February 20 - Walter Winchell, journalist
• March 27 - M. C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist
• March 29 - Lord J. Arthur Rank[?], movie theater owner
• April 4 - Stefan Wolpe, composer
• May 2 - J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director
• May 13 - Dan Blocker[?], actor
• May 22 - Margaret Rutherford, actress
• May 28 - Edward VIII, king in 1936 (+ 1894)
• October 1 - Louis Leakey, British paleontologist
• October 24 - Jackie Robinson (Baseball Hall of Famer)
• October 26 - Igor Sikorsky, aviation engineer
• November 1 - Ezra Pound, poet
• November 25 - Henri Coanda, aerodynamics pioneer
• November 28 - Sibylla[?], queen of Sweden.
• December 26 - Harry S Truman, US president, heart failure.
• December 31 - Roberto Clemente (baseball Hall of Famer)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - John Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper[?], John Robert Schrieffer[?]
• Chemistry - Christian B Anfinsen[?], Stanford Moore[?], William H Stein[?]
• Medicine - Gerald M Edelman[?], Rodney R Porter[?]
• Literature - Heinrich Böll
• Peace - Not awarded.
• Economics - John Hicks, Kenneth Arrow