1972

1972 is a leap year starting on Saturday (click link for calendar).

Years:
1969 1970 1971 - 1972 - 1973 1974 1975
Decades:
1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s
Centuries:
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1972 in aviation 1972 in Canada
1972 in film
1972 in literature
1972 in music
1972 in sports
1972 in television

Table of contents

1 Events

1.1 January
1.2 February
1.3 March-April
1.4 May-June
1.5 July-September
1.6 October
1.7 November
1.8 December
1.9 unknown dates

2 Year in topic
3 Births

3.10 January-April
3.11 May-August
3.12 September-December

4 Deaths
5 Nobel Prizes
6 Heads of state in

Events

Prime minister of Sweden, Olof Palme compares the American bombings of North Vietnam to Nazi massacres. The US breaks diplomatic contact with Sweden. The last major epidemic of smallpox in Europe breaks out in Yugoslavia.

January

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 the 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 Frederick IX of Denmark dies - his daughter Queen Margaret II of Denmark ascends to the throne at January 16.
January 16 - Pruitt-Igoe housing complex is destroyed.
January 24 - Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi discovered in Guam. He had spent 28 years in the jungle.
January 26 - Yugoslavian air stewardress Vesna Vulovic is the only survivor when her plane crashes in Czechoslovakia.
January 30 - Bloody Sunday - the British Army kills 13 unarmed Roman Catholic civil rights marchers in Northern Ireland.
January 30 - Pakistan withdraws from the British Commonwealth.
January 31 King Mahendra of Nepal dies, becoming the second king to die that month, and is succeeded by his son, Birendra.

February

February 1 - First scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) introduced (price $395).
February 2- Anti-British riots throughout the Republic of Ireland take place. The British Embassy in Dublin is burned to the ground as are several British owned offices and shops.
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 the People's Republic of 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-April

March 2 - Launch of Pioneer 10 spacecraft.
March 8 - The Goodyear blimp flies for the first time.
March 13 - The United Kingdom and People's Republic of China elevate diplomatic exchanges to the ambassadorial level.
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.
April 29 - The fourth anniversary of the Broadway musical Hair is celebrated with a free concert at a Central Park bandshell, followed by dinner at the Four Seasons. There, thirteen Black Panther protesters and the show's co-author, Jim Rado, are arrested for disturbing the peace and marijuana use.

May-June

May 9 - Three out of six bombs explode in Springer newspaper building in Hamburg, West Germany. 17 dead.
May 15 - Governor George Wallace of Alabama is shot by Arthur H. Bremer at a Laurel, Md, political rally.
May 17 - The closing notice is posted for the Broadway musical Hair.
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 I 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 Langenhagen, West Germany.
June 17 - Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee.
June 17 - Return of Okinawa from United States' control to Japan.
June 23 - Watergate Scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins.
June 29 - Supreme Court of the United States rules that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

July-September

July 1 - The Broadway production of the musical Hair closes after 1,752 performances.
July 1 - Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins are captured after a bloody shootout with the police in Frankfurt.
July 18 - Anwar Sadat sends Soviet military advisors home.
July 23 - The United States launches Landsat 1, first Earth-resources satellite.
August 4 - Idi Amin declares that Uganda will expel 50.000 Asians with British passports to Britain within three months.
August 16 - The Royal Moroccan Air Force mistakenly fires upon, but fails to bring down, Hassan II of Morocco's plane while he was traveling back to Rabat.
September 1 - Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky in Reykjavik Chess match and becomes the first American chess champion (see Match of the Century).
September 5-6 - Munich Massacre: 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 in a failed hostage rescue.
September 14 - West Germany and Poland renew diplomatic relations.
September 17 - Uganda announces that there are Tanzanian troops in its territory.
September 21 - Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos issued Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.
September 29 - Sino-Japanese relations: Japan normalized diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China.

October

October 2 - Denmark joins EEC. Faroe Islands stay out.
October 5 - United Reformed Church founded out of Congregational and Presbyterian Churches.
October 12 - En route to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. Nearly 50 sailors are injured.
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.
October 30 - US President Richard Nixon approves legislation to increase Social Security spending by US$5.3 billion.

November

November 5 - Group of Amerindians occupies the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
November 7 - U.S. presidential election, 1972: Republican incumbent Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern (the election had the lowest voter turnout since 1948 with only 55 percent of the electorate voting).
November 11 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
November 14 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.
November 18 - Kevin Roche born in Napier New Zealand.
November 22 - Vietnam War: The United States loses its first B-52 Stratofortress of the war.
November 30 - Vietnam War: White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning American troop withdrawals from Vietnam due to the fact that troop levels are now down to 27,000.

December

December 2 - Gough Whitlam becomes the first Australian Labor Party Prime Minister of Australia for 23 years. He is famously sworn in on the election night and his first action using executive power is to withdraw all Australian personnel from the Vietnam War.
December 22 - An earthquake destroys the capital of Nicaragua, Managua.
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.

unknown dates

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, Oregon 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.

Year in topic

1972 in film
- The Godfather
- Cabaret
- Deliverance
1972 in literature
1972 in music
- Deep Purple releases Machine Head
1972 in sports
- September 4 - Mark Spitz wins his seventh swimming gold medal at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, becoming the first Olympian to win seven gold medals.
1972 in television
- January 14 - Sanford & Son premieres on NBC.
- M*A*S*H premieres
James Herriot - All Creatures Great and Small

Births

Deaths

January 1 - Maurice Chevalier, French entertainer, surgical complications
January 8 - Kenneth Patchen, poet and painter
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 24 - Cristobal Balenciaga, couturier
March 27 - Sharkey Bonano, jazz musician (b. 1904)
March 27 - M. C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist
March 29 - Lord J. Arthur Rank, movie theater owner
April 4 - Stefan Wolpe, composer
April 8 - Andrea Feldman, actor
May 2 - J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director
May 13 - Dan Blocker, actor
May 22 - Margaret Rutherford, actress
May 28 - Edward VIII, king in 1936 (b. 1894)
July 7 - King Talal, King of Jordan
July 21 - Ralph Craig, American athlete
August 14 - Oscar Levant, pianist and actor
August 28 - His Royal Highness Prince William of Gloucester in an aircrash
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 - Havergal Brian, composer
November 28 - Sibylla, princess of Sweden
December 3 - Bill Johnson, jazz musician (b. 1872)
December 24 - Gisela Richter, art historian
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

Years: 1969 1970 1971 - 1972 - 1973 1974 1975
Decades: 1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century 1972 in aviation 1972 in Canada 1972 in film 1972 in literature 1972 in music 1972 in sports 1972 in television