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1972  Jan 3,  Don McLean received a gold record for his 8-minute-plus (8:32) hit, American Pie.
 (440 Int'l. 1/3/99)

1972  Jan 5, President Nixon ordered development of the space shuttle.
 (AP, 1/5/98)

1972  Jan 7, Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H. Rehnquist were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the Supreme Court.
 (AP, 1/7/98)
1972  Jan 7, John Berryman, US poet (Imaginary Jew), died after he jumped off a bridge. His former wife, Eileen Simpson, died in 2002. Simpson authored her memoir "Poets in Their Youth" in 1982.
 (MC, 1/7/02)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A24)

1972  Jan 9, Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said his purported biography by Clifford Irving was a fake.
 (AP, 1/9/99)
1972  Jan 9, The passenger ship Queen Elizabeth caught fire in Hong Kong during a retrofit for conversion to a floating university. Arson was blamed and it was scrapped.
 (www.cunard.co.uk)

1972  Jan 11, The TV movie "Kolchak, The Night Stalker" aired for the first time. It was followed by a series of 22 episodes that ended Mar 28, 1975.
 (http://go.to/kolchak)
1972  Jan 11, East-Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh. [see Dec 16, 1971]
 (MC, 1/11/02)

1972  Jan 14, "Sanford & Son" premiered on NBC TV. It starred Desmond Wilson and Red Foxx and became the most successful black-oriented series in TV history. The series ended in 1977.
 (SSFC, 2/11/01, BR p.1)(MC, 1/14/02)(SFC, 9/19/02, p.A24)

1972  Jan 15, Heavyweight Joe Frazier KO’d Terry Daniels.
 (MC, 1/15/02)

1972  Jan 22, Britain, Denmark, Ireland and Norway joined the European Economic Community.
 (AP, 1/22/02)

1972  Jan 23, A bootlegger sold wood alcohol to a wedding party in New Delhi and 100 people died.
 (MC, 1/23/02)
1972  Jan 23, The entire population of Istanbul went under 24 hour house arrest.
 (MC, 1/23/02)

1972  Jan 24, The Supreme Court struck down laws that denied welfare benefits to people who had resided in a state for less than a year.
 (AP, 1/24/98)

1972  Jan 25, Pres. Nixon made public the secret talks from May 31, 1971 that included a cease-fire-in-place, US withdrawal, and the return of prisoners. He made a revised offer with the concurrence of South Vietnam's Pres. Thieu. Nixon aired the eight-point peace plan for Vietnam, asking for POW release in return for withdrawal.
 (WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-19)(HN, 1/25/99)
1972  Jan 25, Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to U.S. Congress, announced her candidacy for president as Democrat.
 (HN, 1/25/01)

1972  Jan 26, A DC-9 exploded over Serbska Kamenice, Czechoslovakia, and attendant Vesna Vulovic dropped 33,300 feet and survived following a 27-day coma and a 16-month recovery.
 (SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1 p.10)

1972  Jan 27, Mahalia Jackson (60), gospel singer (He Got the Whole World), died.
 (MC, 1/27/02)

1972  Jan 30, In Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, British troops fired on a civil rights march in the Bloody Sunday massacre. 13-14 people were killed by soldiers of the First Parachute Regiment, six of whom were only 17. The British embassy in Dublin was burned down. One man who was photographed being arrested and taken into a British army Saracen was later found shot dead. The march, which was called to protest internment, was "illegal" according to British government authorities. Internment without trial was introduced by the British government on August 9, 1971. The British government-appointed Widgery Tribunal found soldiers were not guilty of killing the 13 marchers. The 1997 book "Eyewitness Bloody Sunday" by Don Mullan included 113 accounts by participants and bystanders. In 1998 an independent commission said that the identities of the soldiers would not be protected. In 2001 Martin McGuinness admitted that he was2md in command of the IRA at the time of the massacre.
 (SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.7)(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A18)(SFEM, 1/18/98, p.11)(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D4)(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A8)(MC, 1/30/02)

1972  Jan 31, Howard Barlow (79), conductor (Voice of Firestone), died.
 (MC, 1/31/02)

1972  Jan, Poet John Berryman (b.1914) leaped to his death from a bridge above the Mississippi River. He was teaching a graduate course at the Univ. of Minnesota on America’s character as revealed by its poets. Carl Rakosi took over the class.
 (SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.1)

1972  Feb 1, 1st scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, was introduced at $395.
 (MC, 2/1/02)

1972  Feb 2, Winter Olympics began in Sapporo, Japan.
 (HN, 2/2/01)

1972  Feb 5, It was reported that the United States had agreed to sell 42 F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
 (HN, 2/5/99)
1972  Feb 5, US airlines began mandatory inspection of passengers and baggage.
 (MC, 2/5/02)

1972  Feb 10, The BBC banned "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" by Wings.
 (MC, 2/10/02)

1972  Feb 12, Senator Kennedy advocated amnesty for Vietnam draft resisters.
 (HN, 2/12/97)

1972  Feb 13, "1776" closed at 46th St Theater NYC after 1,217 performances.
 (MC, 2/13/02)
1972  Feb 13, Enemy attacks, in Vietnam, declined for the third day as the U.S. continued its intensive bombing strategy. The F-105 Thunderchief or the "Thud" was the Air Force’s war-horse in Vietnam when it came to bombing campaigns.
 (HN, 2/13/98)

1972  Feb 14, The musical "Grease" opened at the Eden Theatre off Broadway, and ran for 3,388 performances.
 (http://musicalheaven.com/g/grease.shtml)

1972  Feb 15, Bill Torrey became the 1st Islander General Manager.
 (440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1972  Feb 15, President Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador was deposed for 4th time.
 (MC, 2/15/02)
1972  Feb 15, Edgar P. Snow (66), US author, journalist (Battle for Asia), died.
 (MC, 2/15/02)

1972  Feb 17, President Nixon departed on his historic 10-day trip to China.
 (AP, 2/17/98)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F7)

1972  Feb 18, The California Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty.
 (HN, 2/18/98)(AP, 2/18/98)

1972  Feb 21, President Nixon began his historic visit to China. He became the first U.S. president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the U.S.
 (AP, 2/21/98)(HN, 2/21/01)

1972  Feb 21-27, Pres. Nixon toured Red China.
 (TMC, 1994, p.1972)

1972  Feb 22, President Nixon met with Mao Tse-tung in Peking and Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai in Beijing.
 (HN, 2/22/98)(MC, 2/22/02)

1972  Feb 23, Black activist Angela Davis was released from jail where she was held for kidnapping , conspiracy and murder.
 (HN, 2/23/99)

1972  Feb 24, Hanoi negotiators walked out of the peace talks in Paris to protest U.S. air raids on North Vietnam.
 (HN, 2/24/98)

1972  Feb 26, A coal sludge spill killed 125 people and swallowed 500 homes in Buffalo Creek, W. Va. Over 132 million gallons of water and mud hit 17 little towns along Buffalo Creek.
 (SFC, 12/30/00, p.A20)(WSJ, 10/16/01, p.A1)
1972  Feb 26, Soviets recovered Luna 20 with a cargo of moon rocks.
 (HN, 2/26/98)

1972  Feb 27, President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai issued the Shanghai Communique at the conclusion of Nixon's historic visit to China.
 (AP, 2/27/98)

1972  Feb 29, Henry "Hank" Aaron became the first baseball player to sign a baseball contract for $200,000 a year.
 (HN, 2/29/00)

1972  Mar 1, Club of Rome published report "Boundaries on the Growth," a follow-up book was called "Limits to Growth."
 (SC, 3/1/02)
1972  Mar 1, David Rabe's "Sticks and Bones" premiered in New York City.
 (SC, 3/1/02)
1972  Mar 1, Wilt Chamberlain became the 1st NBA player to score 30,000 points.
 (SC, 3/1/02)

1972  Mar 2, Pioneer 10 was launched from Cape Kennedy. It carried a plaque designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake showing some details of human civilization on Earth. The craft headed to Jupiter and then continued into deep space long past expectations. In 2001 contact was re-established with the craft 7.29 billion miles distant and enroute toward the constellation Taurus. Contact was again made in 2002. Pioneer was expected to reach the red star Aldebaran in Taurus in about 2 million years.
 (SFC, 3/4/96, p.A5)(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)(SFC, 4/30/01, p.A7)
1972  Mar 2, Jean-Bédel Bokassa appointed himself President for life of Central African Republic.
 (SC, 3/2/02)

1972  Mar 3, Sculpted figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson were completed at Stone Mountain, GA.
 (SC, 3/3/02)

1972  Mar 4, Libya and USSR signed a cooperation treaty.
 (SC, 3/4/02)

1972  Mar 5, Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis left communist party.
 (MC, 3/5/02)

1972  Mar 6, Shaquille O'Neal, NBA center (Magic, Lakers, Oly-gold-96), was born in Newark, NJ.
 (MC, 3/6/02)
1972  Mar 6, Jack Nicklaus, passed Arnold Palmer as golf's all-time money winner.
 (MC, 3/6/02)

1972  Mar 8, Gen’l. John D. Lavelle, Seventh Air Force Commander in Vietnam, decreased the bombing raids against North Vietnam when he became the target of a congressional investigation.
 (SFEC, 10/18/98, BR p.8)
1972  Mar 8, The Goodyear blimp made its 1st flight.
 (MC, 3/8/02)

1972  Mar 12, The U.K. and China agreed to establish a full diplomatic relationship. China, newly admitted to the UN, said it wanted Hong Kong back.
 (SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)(HN, 3/12/98)

1972  Mar 17, Nixon asked Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation.
 (HN, 3/17/98)

1972  Mar 19, India and Bangladesh signed a friendship treaty.
 (MC, 3/19/02)
1972    Mar 19, The illegal Soviet-era journal "Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church" was 1st published. 5 issues were published up to 1987.
 (LHC, 3/19/03)

1972  Mar 20, In Japan 19 mountain climbers were killed on Mount Fuji during an avalanche.
 (MC, 3/20/02)

1972  Mar 21, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may not require one-year residency for voting eligibility.
 (AP, 3/21/97)

1972  Mar 22, Congress sent the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. It fell short of the two-thirds approval needed. The U.S. Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment.
 (AP, 3/22/97)(HN, 3/22/97)

1972  Mar 23, The U.S. called a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.
 (HN, 3/23/98)
1972  Mar 23, Evil Knievel broke 93 bones after successfully clearing 35 cars.
 (SS, 3/23/02)

1972  Mar 24, Great Britain imposed direct rule over Northern Ireland. The province’s parliament was suspended at the height of sectarian violence.
 (HN, 3/24/98)(SFC, 4/11/98, p.A1)

1972  Mar 26, "Only Fools Are Sad" closed at Edison Theater in NYC after 144 performances.
 (SS, 3/26/02)

1972  Mar 30, Hanoi launched its heaviest attack in four years, crossing the DMZ in the Easter offensive. The Communist Easter invasion in South Vietnam was defeated.
 (WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-19)(HN, 3/30/98)(WSJ, 10/5/98, p.A21)

1972  Mar 14, Pres. Nixon remarked "It’s better to chase girls than boys…" after columnist Jack Anderson reported that Ambassador Arthur Watson had groped flight attendants on a trip home from Paris. A Congressional investigation prompted Watson’s resignation.
 (SFC, 3/1/02, p.A3)

1972  Mar 29, J. Arthur Rank, 1st Baron Rank, industrialist, film magnate, died.
 (MC, 3/29/02)

1972  Mar, The El Nino weather pattern was noticed to have caused trade winds on the equator to turn around.
 (SFC, 10/7/97, p.A5)

1972  Apr 2, Tennessee Williams' "Small Craft Warnings," premiered in NYC.
 (MC, 4/2/02)
1972  Apr 2, In the 44th Academy Awards "French Connection," Gene Hackman and Jane Fonda won.
 (MC, 4/2/02)

1972  Apr 3, Charlie Chaplin returned to the U.S. after a twenty-year absence.
 (HN, 4/3/98)
1972  Apr 3, Ferde Grofe (80), US composer (Grand Canyon Suite), died.
 (MC, 4/3/02)

1972  Apr 4, The 1st electric power plant fueled by garbage began operating.
 (MC, 4/4/02)
1972  Apr 4, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (63), (Rep-D-NY), died.
 (MC, 4/4/02)

1972  Apr 5, Baseball season was delayed due to a strike.
 (MC, 4/5/02)

1972  Apr 7, "Crazy" Joe Gallo, flamboyant mobster, was gunned down at his 43rd birthday party in the Manhattan tourist attraction, Umberto's Clam House.
 (MC, 4/7/02)

1972  Apr 10, The United States and the Soviet Union joined some 70 nations in signing an agreement banning biological warfare: The Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention. A defector in 1990 revealed that the Soviet biological weapons program was twice the size of the highest US intelligence estimates. The convention banned the development, production, and stockpiling of bacteriological and toxic weapons.
 (AP, 4/10/97)(WSJ, 7/21/97, p.A22)(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C2)
1972  Apr 10, A 7.0 earthquake killed a fifth of the population of Iranian province of Fars.
 (MC, 4/10/02)

1972  Apr 13, The first baseball strike ended after 13 days.
 (HFA, '96, p.28)(MC, 4/13/02)

1972  Apr 16, Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon.
 (AP, 4/16/97)
1972  Apr 16, The Republic of China presented two Pandas to the US National Zoo: Hsing-Hsing (d.1999) and Ling-Ling. Ling-Ling died in 1992.
 (SFC, 4/16/97, p.C14)(HN, 4/16/98)(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A2)

1972  Apr 20, The manned lunar module from Apollo 16 landed on the moon.
 (AP, 4/20/97)

1972  Apr 21, Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke explored the surface of the moon with Boeing Lunar Rover #2.
 (AP, 4/21/97)(MC, 4/20/02)

1972  Apr 23, In the 26th Tony Awards: "Sticks & Bones" and "Two Gentlemen of Verona" won.
 (MC, 4/23/02)
1972  Apr 23, Apollo 16 astronauts explored the Moon surface. [see Apr 21]
 (MC, 4/23/02)

1972  Apr 25, Hans-Werner Grosse glided 907.7 miles (1,461 km) in an AS-W-12.
 (SS, 4/25/02)
1972  Apr 25, George Sanders (65), actor (Mr. Freeze, Batman), died.
 (SS, 4/25/02)

1972  Apr 27, Apollo 16 returned to Earth.
 (MC, 4/27/02)
1972  Apr 27, Kwame Nkrumah (62), president of Ghana, died.
 (MC, 4/27/02)

1972  Apr 30, The North Vietnamese launched an invasion of the South.
 (HN, 4/30/98)

1972  Apr, The US government filed suit against the 3 major television networks for monopolizing prime-time entertainment with their own programs. The suits were dismissed in 1974 after the Nixon White House refused to turn over subpoenaed records.
 (SFC, 12/1/97, p.A7)

1972  Apr, Douglas Osheroff, graduate student at Cornell, found that Helium-3 will become a superfluid at very cold temperatures.
 (SFC, 10/10/96, p.A15)

1972  May 2, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI (1924-72), died in Washington at age 77. Hoover had come to the forefront of federal law enforcement during the "Red Scare" of 1919 to 1920. The Watergate affair subsequently revealed that the FBI had illegally protected President Richard Nixon from investigation. Ronald Kessler later published "The FBI: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency."
 (AP, 5/2/97)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.A19)(MC, 5/2/02)

1972  May 3, Dan Blocker (43), actor (Hoss-Bonanza), died.
 (MC, 5/3/02)

1972  May 4, The remains of the ship Gjøe, a converted herring boat used by Roald Amundsen to cross the Northwest Passage (1903-1905), departed San Francisco for Oslo, Norway. A commemorative sculpture was left next to the Beach Chalet at Ocean Beach.
 (SFC, 4/17/00, p.D8)(WSJ, 4/18/00, p.A16)(Ind, 4/27/02, 5A)
1972  May 4, The Vietcong formed revolutionary government in Quang Tri South Vietnam.
 (MC, 5/4/02)

1972  May 5, Alitalia DC-8 crashed west of Palermo, Sicily; killing 115.
 (MC, 5/5/02)

1972  May 8, Sabena aircraft at Lod Intl, Tel Aviv, was captured by Palestinians.
 (MC, 5/8/02)

1972  May 11, US pilot First Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie was shot down by anti-aircraft fire after having logged 137 combat missions. His remains were entombed on Memorial Day, 1984, at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington. In 1998 his remains were exhumed and identified by DNA testing.
 (SFC, 1/20/98, p.A2)(SFC, 6/30/98, p.A1)

1972  May 13,  Milwaukee Brewers beat Minn. Twins, 4-3, in 22 innings. The game had started the evening of May 12.
 (SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1972  May 13, There was a burglary at the Chilean Embassy in Washington DC. Two members of Pres. Nixon's secret White House team, known as the plumbers, were involved. Nixon later blamed the robbery on White House counsel John Dean.
 (SFC, 2/26/99, p.A4)
1972  May 13,  115 died in a nightclub atop the 7-story Sennichi dept store (Osaka Japan).
 (SS, Internet, 5/13/97)

1972  May 15, George Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer while campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, for the Democratic presidential primary. He was left paralyzed.
 (HFA, '96, p.30)(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/98)
1972  May 15, Bus plunged into Nile River killing 50 pilgrims at Minia, Egypt.
 (MC, 5/15/02)

1972  May 18, "Me & The Chimp" last aired on CBS-TV.
 (SC, 5/18/02)
1972  May 18, Eero Aukusti Sipila (53), composer, died.
 (SC, 5/18/02)

1972  May 20, Walter Winchell (75), columnist, narrator (Untouchables), died.
 (MC, 5/20/02)

1972  May 22, President Nixon began a visit to the Soviet Union, the 1st for a US president, during which he and Kremlin leaders signed the SALT I arms limitation treaty.
 (AP, 5/22/02)(MC, 5/22/02)
1972  May 22, The island nation of Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka, which is Sinhala for resplendent land, with the adopting of a new constitution Under prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Sinhala was made the official language and Buddhism the state religion.
 (SFC, 6/20/96, p.A8)(AP, 5/22/97)(HNQ, 5/23/98)(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A25)

1972  May 25, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
 (SC, 5/25/02)

1972  May 27, "Applause" closed at Palace Theater in NYC after 900 performances.
 (MC, 5/27/02)
1972  May 27, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev signed an arms reduction agreement that became known as SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks).
 (HN, 5/27/00)

1972  May 28, White House "plumbers" broke into Democratic Nat’l. HQ at Watergate. [see Jun 16]
 (MC, 5/28/02)
1972  May 28, Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor (77), died in Paris. He abdicated the English throne to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, .
 (AP, 5/28/97)(MC, 5/28/02)

1972  May 30, Three militants of the Japanese Red Army (PFL) staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade attack at the Lod Airport in Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100 injured. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in Israel. The terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they were arrested. In 2000 Lebanon granted asylum to Kozo Okamoto. 4 other Japanese Red Army members were deported to Japan.
 (SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)

1972  Jun 2, Dion & the Belmonts held a reunion concert at Madison Square Garden.
 (SC, 6/2/02)
1972  Jun 2, Pres. Nixon in discussion with aide Charles Colson said: We want to decimate the god-damned place… North Vietnam is going to get reordered… it’s about time. It’s what should have been done years ago."
 (SFC, 3/1/02, p.A3)

1972  Jun 3, Sally J. Priesand became the 1st female US rabbi.
 (MC, 6/3/02)

1972  Jun 4, Black militant Angela Davis was found not guilty of murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy.
 (HN, 6/4/98)

1972  Jun 5, Yugoslav president Tito visited the USSR.
 (MC, 6/5/02)

1972  Jun 6, US bombed Haiphong, North-Vietnam; 1000s were killed.
 (MC, 6/6/02)

1972  Jun 7, The musical "Grease" opened on Broadway. [see Feb 14,1972]
 (AP, 6/7/03)
1972  Jun 7, German Chancellor Willy Brandt visited Israel.
 (SC, 6/7/02)

1972  Jun 8, John Plummer, helicopter pilot and operations officer in Vietnam, ordered the bombing of the village of Trang Bang. He did not know that villagers had taken refuge there. After the bombing AP photographer Nick Ut took a photo of screaming children suffering from the dropped napalm. A photo of screaming children struck by napalm was taken and showed 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc standing naked in agony. On Nov 11, 1996 Plummer met with Phan Thi Kim at the Vietnam memorial in Washington in reconciliation. It was later disclosed that the actual pilot responsible was a South Vietnamese air force officer. In 2000 Denise Chong authored "The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc and the Photograph That Changed the course of the Vietnam War."
 (SFC, 11/12/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.A1,12)(SFC,12/18/97, p.A3)(SFEC, 8/20/00, BR p.1)

1972  Jun 9, John Paul Vann, American military adviser, was killed in a helicopter accident in South Vietnam. He posthumously was awarded the highest American civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
 (HNQ, 9/27/01)

1972  Jun 12, At a hearing in front the of a U.S. House of Representatives committee, Air Force General John Lavalle defended his orders on engagement in Vietnam.
 (HN, 6/12/99)

1972  Jun 16, Five men wearing surgical gloves were caught breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.
 (USAT, 2/13/97, p.5D)

1972  Jun 17, President Nixon's eventual downfall began when five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate hotel at 1:52 a.m. Carl Schloffler (1945-1996), undercover police officer, made the arrest. Within hours of the bust G. Gordon Liddy attempted to shred all related documents. The five burglars were soon linked to Nixon's Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP) and, as suspicion grew, Nixon conspired to obstruct an FBI investigation of the incident. Nixon's conversations about the obstruction and subsequent cover-up had been tape-recorded as part of a secret tape-recording system revealed to investigators by Nixon's schedule keeper. Jeb Magruder later wrote "An American Life." The book has been described as the most accurate description of what happened. Stanley I. Kutler later authored "The Wars of Watergate." Liddy later asserted that John Dean was really after a brochure of call-girl pictures kept by DNC secretary Ida Wells that included a picture of Dean’s girlfriend, Maureen Biner.
 (SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-2)(TMC, 1994, p.1972)(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A14)(SFC, 2/1/99, p.A3) (HNPD, 6/17/99)(SFC, 2/4/00, p.D9)(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A2)
1972  Jun 17, Chile president Allende formed a new government and the CIA prepared to oust him.
 (MC, 6/17/02)

1972  Jun 18, US Supreme Court voted 5-3 to confirm lower court rulings in the Curt Flood case, which upheld baseball's exemption from antitrust laws.
 (MC, 6/18/02)
1972  Jun 18, BEA Trident crashed after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118.
 (MC, 6/18/02)

1972  Jun 19, Ronald L. Ziegler, the president's Press Secretary, characterized the break-in that had occurred two days earlier at the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate, "a third-rate burglary." Links between the burglars and White House consultant E. Howard Hunt and the Committee to Reelect the President soon surfaced, leading to the Watergate scandals that resulted in the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974.
 (HNQ, 6/19/98)

1972  Jun 20, President Richard Nixon named General Creigton Abrams as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces.
 (HN, 6/20/98)
1972  Jun 20, Pres. Nixon recorded on tape information relating to the Jun 16 Watergate break-in. Sections of the tape were later erased, allegedly accidentally by sec. Rose Mary Woods. A panel of experts examined the tape to see if the 18-minute gap was intentional. Richard H. Bolt (d.2002 at 90), acoustic expert at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, later said that if it was an accident than it was committed at least 5 time in the 18 minutes.
 (SFC, 2/4/02, p.B5)

1972  Summer, In West Virginia the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins began its summertime culture camp, a music and arts program with workshops promoting America’s multi ethnic and racial heritage.
 (SFEC, 6/7/98, p.T1)

1972  Jun 23, President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon's resignation in 1974. In the "smoking gun" tape Pres. Nixon told his chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, to tell top CIA officials that "the president believes this (in reference to Watergate) is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again." Nixon counseled Haldeman on how to use deception to thwart an FBI investigation on how Watergate was financed.
 (SFC, 6/23/96, p.B11)(SFC, 11/19/96, p.A10)(AP, 6/23/97)

1972  Jun 24, "I Am Woman", by Helen, Reddy was released by Capitol Records.
 (MC, 6/24/02)

1972  Jun 25, Juan Peron was elected president of Argentina.
 (MC, 6/25/02)

1972  Jun 28, Nixon announced that no new draftees will be sent to Vietnam.
 (HN, 6/28/98)

1972  Jun 29, The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty could constitute "cruel and unusual punishment." The ruling prompted states to revise their capital punishment laws. Four years later, the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty for murder cases.
 (AP, 6/29/97)(MC, 6/29/02)

1972  Jun, George Balanchine and his NYC Ballet presented 22 new dances set to the music of Stravinsky: "Symphony in Three Movements."
 (WSJ, 11/21/02, p.D6)

1972  Jun, Iraq nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company controlled by British, American, Dutch and French oil companies.
 (SFC, 9/24/02, p.A10)

1972  Jul 1, Ms. Magazine started publishing.
 (MC, 7/1/02)
1972  Jul 1, "Hair" closed at Biltmore Theater in NYC after 1750 performances.
 (MC, 7/1/02)

1972  Jul 4, The first Rainbow Gathering was held in Colorado.
 (SFC, 7/4/97, p.A3)

1972  Jul 7, Athenagoras, 268th patriarch of Constantinople, died.
 (MC, 7/7/02)

1972  Jul 8, US sold grain to USSR for $750 million. Soviet grain buyers over 6 weeks purchased $750 million worth of US grain. This was later called the "great grain robbery" and the privately-held agribusiness giant Cargill played a major role. The story of Cargill was told in the 1998 book "Cargill Going Global" by Wayne Broehl Jr.
 (MC, 7/8/02)(PC, 1992, p.1040)

1972  Jul 9, Kwame Nkrumah was re-buried in Nkroful, Ghana.
 (MC, 7/9/02)

1972  Jul 10, Herd of stampeding elephants killed 24 in the Chandka Forest of India.
 (MC, 7/10/02)

1972  Jul 11, American forces broke the 95-day siege at An Loc in Vietnam.
 (HN, 7/11/98)

1972  Jul 12, George McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in Miami Beach.
 (AP, 7/12/97)

1972  Jul 14, the State Department criticized actress Jane Fonda for making antiwar radio broadcasts in Hanoi, calling them "distressing."
 (AP, 7/14/00)

1972  Jul 18, Egypt president Sadat threw 20,000 Russian military aids out.
 (MC, 7/18/02)

1972  Jul 21, In NYC 57 murders occurred in 24 hours.
 (MC, 7/21/02)
1972  Jul 21, Bloody Friday: 22 IRA-bombs exploded in Belfast.
 (MC, 7/21/02)

1972  Jul 23, The Landsat-1 satellite was launched. It viewed Earth at different wavelengths and opened a new era in sensing the planet’s resources and environment.
 (SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)

1972  Jul 25, US health officials conceded that blacks were used as guinea pigs in 40 year syphilis experiment.
 (SC, 7/25/02)

1972  Jul 29, In Britain a national dock strike occurred.
 (G&M, 7/31/97, p.A2)

1972  Jul 31, Thomas F. Eagleton was chosen by the Democratic Party convention and presidential candidate George McGovern on July 31, 1972 as the Vice presidential candidate. He withdrew from the 1972 Democratic Party ticket because of publicity surrounding his hospitalization for psychiatric treatment. The senator from Missouri was asked to withdraw by McGovern after reporters discovered and published information about his three hospitalizations for psychiatric disorders.
 (AP, 7/31/97)(HNQ, 4/25/00)
1972  Jul 31,  An IRA attack in Claudy, Northern Ireland, killed 9 people. In 2002 the case was reopened following allegations that Rev. Jim Chesney (d.1980), a deceased Roman Catholic priest, led the attack.
 (AP, 10/1/02)

1972  Jul, Robert Metcalf at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center combined packet switching from the Arpanet and single wire broadcasting to lay the foundations for computer networks. This system was called Ethernet.
 (WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)

1972  Aug 8, A special meeting of the Democratic National Committee on August 8 chose R. Sargent Shriver, the former director of the Peace Corps, as McGovern‘s running mate. The Democrat ticket was swamped in the general election by incumbent President Richard Nixon in the November 7 election.
 (HNQ, 4/25/00)

1972  Aug 11, The last U.S. ground forces withdrew from Vietnam. [see Aug 12]
 (HN, 8/10/98)

1972  Aug 12, As the last U.S. ground troops left Vietnam, B-52's made their largest strike of the war. [see Aug 11]
 (HN, 8/12/98)(AP, 8/12/01)

1972  Aug 23, The Republican National Convention, meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., nominated Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for a second term. The 1989 film "Born on the Fourth of July" portrayed the riots outside the Republican National Convention.
 (SFEC, 11/3/96, Par p.2)(SFEC, 9/6/98, DB p.53)(AP, 8/23/97)
 
1972  Aug 26, The summer Olympic games opened in Munich, West Germany.
 (AP, 8/26/97)
1972  Aug 26, Sir Francis Chichester, English adventurer, died. In 1966-67 he sailed around the world alone in his 53-foot yacht, Gypsy Moth IV.
 (RTH, 8/26/99)

1972  Aug 27, US bombed Haiphong, North Vietnam.
 (MC, 8/27/01)

1972  Aug 28, Prince William of Gloucester was killed in an air crash.
 (RTH, 8/28/99)

1972  Aug 29,  Rene Leibowitz, conductor and composer, died at 59.
 (MC, 8/29/01)

1972  Aug 31, At the Munich Summer Olympics American swimmer Mark Spitz won his fourth and fifth gold medals, in the 100-meter butterfly and 800-meter freestyle relay.
 (AP, 8/31/02)
1972  Aug 31, Olga Korbut, USSR, won Olympic gold medal in floor exercises and the balance beam.
 (MC, 8/31/01)(AP, 8/31/02)

1972  Sep 1, American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.
 (AP, 9/1/97)

1972  Sep 2, Dave Wottle of the United States won the men's 800-meter race at the Munich Summer Olympics.
 (AP, 9/2/02)

1972  Sep 4, U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz won a record seventh Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter relay at the Munich Summer Olympics.
 (AP, 9/4/97)

1972  Sep 5, Terror struck the Munich Olympic games in West Germany as Arab guerrillas attacked the Israeli delegation. Palestinian terrorists killed 2 athletes and took 9 others and their coaches hostage. Eleven Israelis, five guerrillas and a police officer were killed in a 20-hour siege. The Palestinian commandos were linked to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. In 2000 the TV documentary "One Day in September" depicted the events.
 (TMC, 1994, p.1972)(AP, 9/5/97)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(WSJ, 9/8/00, p.W4)

1972  Sep 6, The Summer Olympics resumed in Munich, West Germany, a day after the deadly hostage crisis that claimed the lives of 11 Israelis and five Arab abductors.
 (AP, 9/6/97)

1972  Sep 7, Pres. Nixon said that he wanted Ted Kennedy covered by a Secret Service spy because he saw him as a political threat.
 (SFC, 2/8/97, p.A3)

1972  Sep 8, the International Olympic Committee banned Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett from further competition for talking to each other on the victory stand in Munich during the playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" after winning the gold and silver medals in the 400-meter run.
 (AP, 9/8/02)

1972  Sep 10, Muhammad Ali defeated Ken Norton in a heavyweight boxing match and avenged a loss to Norton the previous March.
 (MC, 9/10/01)
1972  Sep 10, At the Munich Summer Olympics, the U.S. Olympic basketball team lost to the Soviets, 51-50, in a gold-medal match marked by controversy because officials ordered the final three seconds of the game replayed, enabling the Soviets to win. The United States protested, to no avail. Frank Shorter of the United States won the men's marathon at the Munich Olympics.
 (MC, 9/10/01)(AP, 9/10/02)

1972  Sep 11, The troubled 20th Olympic games closed at Munich, German FR.
 (AP, 9/11/00)

1972  Sep 12, The situation comedy "Maude" premiered on CBS.
 (AP, 9/12/02)
1972  Sep 12, Icelandic gunboats sank 2 British trawlers in the North Sea in a Cod War.
 (MC, 9/12/01)

1972  Sep 13, The 1st TV broadcast of "Waltons" on CBS. [see Sep 14]
 (MC, 9/13/01)

1972  Sep 14, Jason Miller's "That Championship Season," premiered in NYC.
 (MC, 9/14/01)
1972  Sep 14, The family drama series "The Waltons" premiered on CBS. [see Sep 13]
 (AP, 9/14/97)
1972  Sep 14, Two former White House aides and five other men were indicted on charges of conspiracy in the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington.
 (MC, 9/14/01)

1972  Sep 16, "The Bob Newhart Show" premiered on CBS.
 (AP, 9/16/97)
1972  Sep 16, South Vietnamese troops recaptured Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.
 (HN, 9/16/98)

1972  Sep 17, "M*A*S*H" (MASH) premiered on CBS-TV.
 (AP, 9/17/97)

1972  Sep 19, Robert M Casadesus, French pianist and composer (Prix DiAmer), died at 73.
 (MC, 9/19/01)

1972  Sep 21, Marcos declared martial law in Philippines.
 (MC, 9/21/01)

1972  Sep 22, Dictator Idi Amin threw some 8,000 Asians out of Uganda. Deprived of its business class the nation soon plummeted into economic chaos.
 (MC, 9/22/01)(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A21)

1972  Sep 23, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law.
 (MC, 9/23/01)

1972  Sep 26, Richard M. Nixon met with Emperor Hirohito in Anchorage, Alaska, the first-ever meeting of a U.S. President and a Japanese Monarch.
 (HN, 9/26/99)

1972  Sep 28, Japan and Communist China agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations.
 (AP, 9/28/97)

1972  Sep 29, Japan followed the lead of the US and normalized relations with the People's Republic of China.
 (Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(AP,  9/28/02)

1972  Oct 1, Louis Leakey, English anthropologist, died at 68. [see Oct 4]
 (SFC, 12/10/96, p.A6)(MC, 10/1/01)

1972  Oct 4, Judge John Sirca imposed a gag order on the Watergate break-in case.
 (HN, 10/4/98)
1972  Oct 4, Louis S.B. Leakey, archaeologist and anthropologist, died at 68. [see Oct 1]
 (MC, 10/4/01)

1972  Oct 6,  In Saltillo, Mexico, a 22-car train carrying 2,000 pilgrims derailed and killed 208.
 (SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(MC, 10/6/01)

1972  Oct 11, There was a prison uprising at Washington DC jail.
 (MC, 10/11/01)
1972  Oct 11, A French mission in Vietnam was destroyed by a U.S. bombing raid.
 (HN, 10/11/98)

1972  Oct 12, 46 sailors were injured in a race riot on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.
 (MC, 10/12/01)

1972  Oct 13, Aeroflot Il-62 crashed in large pond outside Moscow and 176 died.
 (MC, 10/13/01)
1972  Oct 13, A Uruguay to Chile plane crashed in Andes Mountain. 12 of 23 were rescued as the rugby team ate crash victims to survive.
 (MC, 10/13/01)

1972  Oct 16, A light plane carrying House Democratic leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana and three other men were reported missing in Alaska. The plane was never found.
 (MC, 10/16/01)

1972  Oct 17, Bob Randall's "6 Rooms Riv Vu," premiered in NYC.
 (MC, 10/17/01)
1972  Oct 17, Peace talks between Pathet Lao and Royal Lao government began in Vietnam.
 (HN, 10/17/98)

1972  Oct 21, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho reached a cease-fire agreement. It was signed Jan 27, 1973.
 (SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)

1972  Oct 22, Operation Linebacker I, the bombing of North Vietnam with B-52 bombers, ended.
 (HN, 10/22/98)

1972  Oct 23, The musical "Pippin" opened on Broadway and ran for 1944 performances.
 (AP, 10/23/97)(MC, 10/23/01)
1972  Oct 23, Access credit cards were introduced in Great Britain.
 (MC, 10/23/01)

1972  Oct 24, Henry Kissinger in secret unauthorized talks in Paris proposed to end the war in Vietnam by this date, but was urged by Pres. Nixon to stretch the timing a few months so as to insure re-election in Nov.. A drama was made in 1995 depicting these events based on the book by Walter Isaacson: Kissinger: A Biography. The peace agreement allowed North Vietnam to keep its army in the South.
 (WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-20)(WSJ, 1/23/96, p.A-15)
1972  Oct 24, Jackie Robinson, 1st black baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers), died at 53 of complications from diabetes. In 1997 Arnold Rampersad published the biography "Jackie Robinson." Jules Tygiel authored "Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy."
 (WSJ, 10/17/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/2/00, BR p.1)(MC, 10/24/01)

1972  Oct 25, The first female FBI agents were hired.
 (HFA, '96, p.40)

1972  Oct 26, National security adviser Henry Kissinger declared, "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam.
 (AP, 10/26/97)
1972  Oct 26, Guided tours of Alcatraz by the US Park Service began.
 (MC, 10/26/01)
1972  Oct 26, Igor Sikorsky, Russian-born helicopter pioneer, died.
 (HNPD, 10/27/98)

1972  Oct 30, 45 people were killed when an Illinois Central Gulf commuter train collided with another train in Chicago's South Side.
 (AP, 10/30/97)

1972  Oct, The Washington Post first disclosed that Attorney General of the United States, John Mitchell, personally controlled a secret fund to finance intelligence operations against Democrats during the Nixon administration. The money financed spying and sabotaging Democratic primary campaigns in 1972 and included activity such as forgery of correspondence, release of false leaks to the press and seizure of confidential campaign files.
 (HNQ, 12/17/98)

1972  Oct, Money Magazine launched its 1st issue.
 (MM, Fall/02, p.26)

1972  Oct, Hanoi dropped all its political demands for dismantling the South Vietnamese government.
 (WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-19)

1972  Oct, In Turkey the National Salvation Party formed and Erbakan returned home to take leadership.
 (AP, 11/4/02)

1972  Nov 2, In Seattle, Wa., ground was officially broken for the new Kingdome. It was completed in 1976. It was destroyed Mar 26, 2000.
 (http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Field/3477/kingdome/history.htm)

1972  Nov 7, President Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.
 (TMC, 1994, p.1972)(AP, 11/7/97)

1972  Nov 9, Bones discovered by the Leakeys, pushed human origins back a million years.
 (HN, 11/9/98)

1972  Nov 10, Hijackers diverted a jet to Detroit, demanding $10 million and ten parachutes.
 (HN, 11/10/98)

1972  Nov 11, The U.S. Army turned over its base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese army, symbolizing the end of direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.
 (AP, 11/11/97)

1972  Nov 12, Rudolf Friml (92), Czech-US composer (Bohemian suite), died.
 (MC, 11/12/01)

1972  Nov 13, The British Broadcasting Corporation celebrated it’s 50th anniversary.
 (HN, 11/13/98)
 
1972  Nov 14, The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 for the first time, ending the day at 1,003.16.
 (HFA, '96, p.18)(AP, 11/14/97)

1972  Nov 15, Circle-in the-Square Theater opened at 1633 Broadway NYC.
 (MC, 11/15/01)

1972  Nov 17, Juan Peron returned to Argentina.
 (MC, 11/17/01)

1972  Nov 19, Willy Brandt's SPD won West German elections.
 (MC, 11/19/01)

1972  Nov 22, US ended a 22 year travel ban to China.
 (MC, 11/22/01)

1972  Nov 27, Pierre Trudeau formed his Canadian government.
 (MC, 11/27/01)
1972  Nov 27, Mahalia Jackson (61), vocalist (Got Whole World in His Hands), died.
 (MC, 11/27/01)

1972  Nov, Supporters of the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee in South Dakota. A 6-month confrontation ensued between Indians and federal law enforcers. The story is told in the 1996 book "Like A Hurricane, The Indian Movement From Alcatraz to Wounded Knee" by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior.
 (SFEC, 1/5/97, BR p.8)

1972  Nov, Three hijackers threatened to crash a Southern Airways passenger flight after a stopover in Birmingham, Ala. They threatened to crash into a research reactor at Oak Ridge, Tenn. The airline turned over $ 2 million and a shootout took place in Orlando. The plane flew on to Havana where the hijackers were arrested for 8 years. They returned to Alabama in 1980 and received 20-25 year sentences.
 (USAT, 6/11/03, p.2B)

1972  Dec 2, Friedrich Christian Christiansen, German Luftwaffe general, died.
 (MC, 12/2/01)

1972  Dec 3, Convair 990A charter crashed in Tenerife, Canary Island, 155 died.
 (MC, 12/3/01)

1972  Dec 7, America's last moon mission to date was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 12:33 a.m., and landed on the moon December 11 at 3:15 p.m.. A historic photo was taken of the Earth that showed our "isolated blue planet."
 (AP, 12/7/97)(SFC, 3/13/98, p.A19)(HNQ, 7/21/99)
1972  Dec 7, In Northern Ireland Jean McConville was abducted from her home in Belfast and was never seen alive again. In 1999 the IRA admitted responsibility and revealed the location of her body.
 (SFEC, 5/30/99, p.A17)
1972  Dec 7, Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, was stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant who was then shot dead by her bodyguards.
 (AP, 12/7/97)

1972  Dec 11, Challenger, the Lunar Lander for Apollo 17, touched down on the Moon's surface. It was the last time that men visited the Moon. The last two men to walk on the surface of the moon were Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan. Cernan and Schmitt conducted the longest lunar exploration of the Apollo program (75 hours), driving the lunar rover about 36 kilometers (22 miles) in all, ranging as far as 7.37 kilometers (4.5 miles) from the lunar module Challenger and collecting some 243 pounds of soil and rock samples.
 (HNQ, 7/21/99)(HN, 12/11/99)

1972  Dec 13, Astronaut Gene Cernan climbed into his Lunar Lander on the Moon and prepared to lift-off. He was the last man to set foot on the Moon.
 (HN, 12/13/99)

1972  Dec 14, Astronauts Schmitt and Cernan blasted off from the moon to join the command module America in lunar orbit, thus ending America’s manned lunar exploration for the 20th century. Apollo 17 astronauts blasted off from the moon after three days of exploration on lunar surface.
 (HNQ, 7/21/99)(AP, 12/14/02)

1972  Dec 15, The Commonwealth of Australia ordered equal pay for women.
 (HN, 12/15/98)

1972  Dec 18, US Pres. Nixon ordered the heaviest bombing of North Vietnam that began on this day over Hanoi. "Operation Linebacker II" lasted 11 days and killed over 1600 civilians with 70 US airmen killed or captured. (The bombardment ended 12 days later.) President Nixon declared that the bombing of North Vietnam would continue until an accord was reached.
 (SFC,12/16/97, p.B1)(AP, 12/18/97)(HN, 12/18/98)

1972  Dec 19, Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
 (AP, 12/19/97)

1972  Dec 20, Neil Simon's "Sunshine Boys," premiered in NYC.
 (MC, 12/20/01)

1972  Dec 22, 6.25 earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua, and over 12,000 were killed.  Pres. Somoza was later believed to have pocketed millions of dollars in foreign aid. The diversion of funds undermined his government and helped pave the way for the 1979 revolution.
 (SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.A26)(MC, 12/22/01)
1972  Dec 22, In Vietnam Bac Mai hospital was bombed by American B-52s when they missed an air base on the outskirts of Hanoi. 18 hospital workers and patients were killed.
 (SFC,12/16/97, p.B1)

1972  Dec 23, 16 plane crash victims (Oct 13 flight from Uruguay to Chile) were rescued from the Andes after 70 died. They survived by cannibalism.
 (MC, 12/23/01)
1972  Dec 23, Charles Atlas (79), [Angelo Siciliano], body builder, died.
 (MC, 12/23/01)

1972  Dec 24, Hanoi barred all peace talks with the U.S. until the air raids stopped
 (HN, 12/24/98)

1972  Dec 26, The 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, died in Kansas City, Mo. In 1995 Robert H. Ferrell published the biography "Harry S. Truman: A Life." In 1999 Ferrell published "Truman and Pendergrast."
 (AP, 12/26/97)(WSJ, 7/19/99, p.A13)
1972  Dec 26, In Vietnam the bombing over Hanoi resumed after one day of respite and bombs hit a residential street killing 283 civilians.
 (SFC,12/16/97, p.B1)

1972  Dec 28, The skeleton of Martin Bormann, Hitler's deputy, was allegedly found in Berlin.
 (MC, 12/28/01)

1972  Dec 29, Eastern Tri-Star Jumbo Jet crashed near Everglades killing 101.
 (MC, 12/29/01)
1972  Dec 29, Life magazine ceased publication.
 (MC, 12/29/01)

1972  Dec 30, After two weeks of heavy bombing raids on North Vietnam, President Nixon halted the air offensive and agreed to resume peace negotiations with Hanoi representative Le Duc Tho.
 (AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)

1972  Dec, An American commando group planted a tap on a communications link at Vinh, north of the DMZ, and later pulled details of the North Vietnamese positions at the Paris peace talks.
 (WSJ, 7/17/00, p.A33)

1972  Vito Acconci created his work "Seed Bed," in which the artist masturbated under the raised gallery floor.
 (WSJ, 4/15/98, p.A20)

1972  Pablo Picasso drew his chilling crayon self-portrait as a skull.
 (SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)(SFC, 7/14/96, p.C11, illustr.)

1972  Chen Yifei (b.1946), Shanghai born artist, painted "Eulogy of the Yellow River." From 1980 to 1996 he worked in the US and became known as the Norman Rockwell of China. [see Yellow River below]
 (WSJ, 1/6/97, p.A10)

1972  Tom Stoppard wrote his play "Jumpers."
 (SFEM, 1/2/00, p.6)

1972  John Adair (d.1997 at 84), anthropologist, published his book: "Through Navajo Eyes."
 (SFEC,12/21/97, p.B5)

1972  Dr. Robert C. Atkins (d.2003), cardiologist, published his weight loss plan "Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution," which allowed patients to eat fat but restricted carbohydrates.
 (SFC, 4/18/03, p.A1)

1972  Richard Bach published his novel "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."
 (SFC,11/27/97, p.C1)

1972  Paul Bowles published his autobiography: "Without Stopping." In 1999 Jennifer Baichul premiered her documentary on Bowles: "Let It Come Down, The Life of Paul Bowles."
 (SFC, 7/12/99, p.E3)

1972  Carol (Dariff) Botwin (d.1997 at 68) wrote "Sex and the Teenage Girl."
 (SFC, 4/16/97, p.A21)

1972  Leo Buscaglia (d.1998 at 74), published his book "Love."
 (SFC, 6/13/98, p.A21)

1972  Herb Caen, SF newspaper columnist, wrote his 8th book "The Cable Car and the Dragons."
 (SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A13)

1972  Alex Comfort (d.2000 at 80), British author, published his "Joy of Sex." The book sold 12 million copies worldwide.
 (SFC, 3/28/00, p.E1)

1972  George Alec Affinger (d.2002 at 55) authored his 1st novel "What Entropy Means to Me."
 (SFC, 4/30/02, p.A24)

1972  S. George Ellsworth (d.1997), historian, published "Utah Heritage," a 7th grade textbook  history of the state. It was updated in 1994.
 (SFC,12/26/97, p.B6)

1972  Francis FitzGerald won a Pulitzer and National Book Award for her Vietnam book: "Fire in the Lake."
 (SFEC, 5/7/00, BR p.5)

1972  Janet Flanner wrote her book "Paris Was Yesterday."
 (SFC, 6/16/96, T-5)

1972  George Leonard Herter published his 3 volumes titled: "Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices." Herter was considered the prince of fantasy food historians.
 (SFC,12/17/97, Z1 p.1)

1972  George V. Higgins (d.1999 at 59) published "The Friends of Eddie Coyle." It was made into a 1973 film with Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle.
 (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.C10)

1972  Mary Keyserling (d.1997 at 87) wrote "Window on Day Care," a critical report that became a blueprint for changes in day care programs.
 (SFEC, 6/15/97, p.D10)

1972  "George and Martha" by James Marshall was published.
 (SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)

1972  Donella Meadows (d.2001 at 59) co-authored "The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind."
 (SFC, 2/21/01, p.A22)

1972  Kenneth P. O’Donnell, a secretary of JFK, and Dave Powers (d.1998 at 85), an aide to John F. Kennedy since 1946, wrote "Johnny, We hardly Knew Ye."
 (SFC, 3/28/98, p.B12)

1972  Vance Packard (1914-1996) wrote "A Nation of Strangers," a critique of the decline of the American family and loss of community ties.
 (SFC, 12/13/96, p.B6)

1972  Raymond H. Ramsay authored "No Longer on the Map," stories of places that once appeared on maps but never existed.
 (SSFC, 6/1/03, p.C3)

1972  Ismael Reed wrote his work "Mumbo Jumbo."
 (Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 14)

1972  Colin Renfrew wrote "Before Civilization." He explored the social implications of the early megalithic temples of Malta.
 (AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.44)

1972  Geoffrey de Ste. Croix (1910-2000), British Marxist historian, authored "The Origins of the Peloponnesian War." He pinned the cause of the conflict on the Spartans.
 (SFC, 2/15/00, p.A21)

1972  Robert Vaughn authored "Only Victims," an account of the 1947 HUAC hearings on the Hollywood 10.
 (WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A21)

1972  Thomas M. Disch authored his science fiction novel "334," on events following the passage of the Revised Genetic Testing Act of 2011.
 (WSJ, 1/1/00, p.R8)

1972  John Howard Yoder (d.1997 at 71), a Mennonite theologian who taught at Notre Dame, wrote "The Politics of Jesus," in part an analysis of Christian attitudes towards the state.
 (SFC, 1/9/98, p.A19)

1972  Joseph Dunn, founder of the 2 Bleecker Street Theater in NY (later the American Contemporary Theater in Buffalo), dramatized Beckett’s novel "The Unnamable."
 (SFEC, 9/30/96, p.A23)

1972  Hollywood shot a 10-minute prologue fro the film "The Exorcist" in Mosul, Iraq.
 (WSJ, 6/12/03, p.A1)

1972  The porno film "Deep Throat" starred Linda Boreman (d.2002 at 53) as Linda Lovelace. Boreman later became an anti-porn advocate.
 (SFC, 4/23/02, p.A18)

1972  Home Box Office (HBO) began transmitting programs to cable TV subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The 1st cablecast was a National League Hockey game.
 (SFC, 4/3/01, p.C1)

1972  The TV sitcom "Corner Bar" began its 2 season run.
 (SFEC, 3/30/97, DB. p.35)

1972  The TV game show "The Price Is Right" began. It was hosted by Dennis James (d.1997) up to 1979.
 (SFC, 6/5/97, p.A26)

1972  The TV series "Emergency" began with Julie London and Bobby Troup. It ran until 1977.
 (SFC, 10/19/00, p.A29)

1972  The TV series "Hec Ramsey," starred Richard Boone as a gunfighter intrigued with new methods of criminology. It was written, directed and produced by Douglas Benton (d.2000 at 75).
 (SFC, 11/24/00, p.D11)

1972  Alan Downes (1938-1996), filmed the live TV footage of 9-year-old Kim Phuc and other children as they fled down Highway One in South Vietnam to escape a village under US napalm attack.
 (SFC, 10/11/96, p.A24)

1972  The Tonight Show moved from New York to Los Angeles.
 (SFEM, 10/5/97, p.16)

1972  David Bowie released his album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars."
 (SFC, 8/20/98, p.E3)

1972  George Crumb composed "Makrokosmos."
 (SFC, 4/12/01, p.E5)

1972  Lou Harrison began composing his "Concerto for Organ and Percussion," and completed it in 1973.
 (SFC, 6/17/97, p.E1)

1972  Jascha Haifetz, virtuoso violinist, performed for the last time in Los Angeles at the  age of 72.
 (WSJ, 12/21/94, A-16)

1972  Pandit Pran Nath (1919-1996), Indian classical singer and teacher, arrived in New York. He was a master of the 600-year-old kirana style of Hindustani music that involves very minute gradations of pitch. He also redesigned the tamboura.
 (SFC, 6/18/96, p.A17)

1972  Lou Reed recorded his hit song "Walk on the Wild Side."
 (SFEC, 1/26/97 Par, p.2)

1972  The Rolling Stones did a US tour and hired Robert Frank to film a documentary. The result was the film "C-Blues." In 1999 Dora Loewenstein authored "The Rolling Stones: A Life on the Road."
 (SFEC, 4/12/98, DB p.56)(SFEM, 1/17/99, p.6)

1972  In California the Transamerica Pyramid building opened in SF.
 (SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.2)

1972  In New York the Solow Building was completed. The 50-floor building was designed by architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Also completed in New York was the World Trade Center. [see 1970]
 (WSJ, 1/3/97, p.B10)(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.2)

1972  Walter C. Righter, an Episcopal Bishop, broke a tie and voted in favor of ordaining women in the Episcopal Church. In 1998 he published "A Pilgrim’s Way."
 (SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.9)

1972  Psychiatrist Dennis Cantwell began serving as director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute and stayed there until 1991. He helped edit 5 textbooks that included: "Developmental Speech and Language Disorders" with Lorian Baker, "Psychiatric and Developmental Disorders in Children with Communication Disorder," and "Fundamentals of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry" with Syed Husein.

1972  Julian B. Backus (1944-1996) founded the Bay Area Video Coalition, Optic Nerve.
 (SFC, 12/9/96, p.B6)

1972  Bradt Publications, a publisher of travel books, was founded by George and Hilary Bradt. They began their first guidebook while on a backpacking trip through Bolivia and Peru.
 (SFEC,11/16/97, Z1 p.3)

1972  The Institute of the American Musical was incorporated by Miles Kreuger to provide an organizational shell, and donor’s tax deduction, for his collection of memorabilia pertaining to American theater.
 (WSJ, 6/3/98, p.CA4)

1972  In Olney, Texas, Jack Northrup and Jack Bishop organized the annual One-Arm Dove Hunt. It turned into an annual support meeting for amputees.
 (SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A8)

1972  J.D. Salinger (53) began a months-long courtship of Joyce Maynard (18) that culminated in her leaving Yale Univ. and moving to his farm in New Hampshire. In 1998 Maynard published "At Home in the World," that included an account of her relationship with Salinger. Maynard auctioned 14 love letters at Sotheby's for $156,500 in 1999.
 (SFEC, 9/6/98, BR p.5)(SFC, 6/23/99, p.A3)

1972  Donna Allen (d.1999 at 78), critic, author, and labor activist, founded the Women's Institute on Freedom of the Press.
 (SFC, 7/27/99, p.A17)
 
1972  The organization Negative Population Growth was established.
 (NH, 9/96, p.63)

1972  The Neighborhood Watch program was created by the National Sheriffs' Association.
 (SFC, 1/18/99, p.A18)

1972  Women were first admitted to Dartmouth College.
 (SFC, 2/11/99, p.A3)

1972  Jack Scott (d.2000 at 57) was hired as the athletic director at Oberlin College. He was the author of "The Athletic Revolution," which was initially called "Athletics for Athletes." In 1974 he assisted William and Emily Harris of the SLA from California to a hideout farm in Pennsylvania.
 (SFC, 2/8/00, p.A23)

1972  A handful of women were first accepted as entrants to the Boston marathon.
 (SFC, 3/10/00, p.D8)

1972  The SF Giants traded Willie Mays to the New York Mets.
 (SFEC,12/797, Z1 p.5)

1972  The Oakland Athletics won the World Series and brought home the first Bay Area’s  baseball world championship.
 (SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)

1972  The US basketball team lost for the first time. The US collegiates were beaten by a full-time Russian military team. The Russians also beat the Americans in the overall medal haul.
  (WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A9)

1972  Kenneth Arrow of Stanford Univ. won the Nobel Prize in economics.
 (SFC, 8/12/00, p.A22)(SFC, 10/8/01, p.A17)

1972  Richard J. Duffin (1909-1996), mathematician, was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. He worked on electrical network theory and co-authored "Geometric Programming," which introduced algorithms for achieving optimum solutions to nonlinear engineering design problems.
 (SFC, 11/12/96, p.B2)

1972  The Democratic competition for president included Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, Sen. Ed Muskie, Gov. Terry Sanford, Sen. Henry Jackson, Mayor John Lindsay, and Rep. Shirley Chisholm. George McGovern was nominated as candidate with Sen. Eagleton for vice-president. Sen. Eagleton later dropped out after it was learned that he suffered from a serious clinical emotional illness.
 (WSJ, 2/26/96, p.A-10)

1972  George McGovern defeated Scoop Jackson for the Democratic nomination. McGovern’s campaign was led by Jean Westwood (d.1997 at 73), the first woman to chair a major US political party.
 (WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A20)

1972  The Shanghai Communique was signed between the US and China at the Jin Jiang Hotel Assembly Hall on the last night of Nixon’s visit.
 (WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)

1972  The last troops were pulled out of Vietnam.
 (TMC, 1994, p.1972)

1972  Pres. Nixon lifted a 50-year secrecy ban on the exploits of the more than 6,000 Nisei, second-generation Japanese-Americans, who helped decode Japanese messages and who provided crucial information on Japanese military operations during WW II.
 (SFC, 5/26/96, Par p.14)

1972  President Richard Nixon officially recognized the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.
 (HNQ, 6/21/98)

1972  Richard Kleindienst (1923-2000) was sworn in as the attorney general after John Mitchell left to head the Committee to Re-Elect the President.
 (SFC, 2/4/00, p.D9)

1972  The US Senate ratified the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM treaty). It banned the construction of systems to defend against ballistic missile attacks.
 (SFC, 10/18/99, p.A5)
1972  The US signed an anti-ballistic missile pact with the Soviet Union.
 (SFC, 11/2/96, p.C1)

1972  The US Congress passed the Women’s Rights Amendment.
 (TMC, 1994, p.1972)

1972  The US Noise Control Act of 1972 allowed states or US territories to set noise-control laws.
 (SFC, 1/3/02, p.A5)

1972  Federal legislation established the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the Bay Area of SF.
 (G, Winter, p.5)

1972  In Idaho the Sawtooth National Recreation Area was created.
 (SFC, 12/11/99, p.A18)

1972  The "Trail of Broken Treaties" caravan wan an Indian protest that ended in vandalism and chaos at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. The story is told in the 1996 book "Like A Hurricane, The Indian Movement From Alcatraz to Wounded Knee" by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior.
 (SFEC, 1/5/97, BR p.8)

1972  The federal Title IX of the Education Amendment was passed for nondiscrimination and affirmative action. It was most often associated with bolstering women’s sports programs. It was an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
 (GEG, 6/96, p.4)(SFC, 6/23/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/25/02, p.D9)

1972  The Supreme Court Eisenstadt vs. Baird decision struck down a law that banned the distribution of birth control devices to unmarried people.
 (SFC, 7/25/97, p.A8)

1972  The Supreme Court Furman vs. Georgia ruling began a 4-year moratorium on capital punishment in the US. Justice Potter wrote: "These sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual," when only a few of the murderers eligible for capital punishment are actually sentenced to death.
 (SFC, 7/25/97, p.A8)(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.A1)

1972  Alfred McKenzie, a former Tuskegee Airman and current pressman for the Washington DC Government Printing Office, filed suit contending that he and fellow black employees had long been passed over for promotions that went to whites. After many appeals the suit was won and in 1987 the office agreed to pay $2.4 million in back wages to several hundred employees.
 (SFC, 4/11/98, p.A15)

1972  California voters allowed the creation of the Coastal Commission to regulate construction along the coast. In 2002 a state appeals court ruled it unconstitutional.
 (SFC, 12/31/02, p.A1)

1972  Florida inmate Michael Costello, a convicted murderer, filed suit complaining of overcrowding and poor medical treatment in the state’s prisons. He won and forced court orders to reduce crowding.
 (SFEC,12/14/97, p.A2)

1972  Oregon passed the first bottle-and-can bill. It marked the beginning of major recycling efforts.
 (Smith., 4/95, p.32)

1972  In Knoxville, Tenn., the sale of liquor by the glass was banned until this year.
 (SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)

1972  The US ended its Pioneer space program.
 (SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-11)

1972  The US government outlawed the pesticide DDT. It followed the suit filed by Ralph Abascal (d.1997 at 63) of California Rural Legal Assistance on behalf of six farmworkers.
 (SFC, 1/18/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/18/97, p.A22)

1972  The US Federal Election Campaign Act limited expenditures for communications media and provided for criminal penalties.
 (SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)

1972  A federal law prevented the Montrose Chemical Co. from dumping DDT into the ocean off the Palos Verdes peninsula.
 (Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.5)

1972  Frank Serpico, police officer, exposed corruption in the NYC police force.
 (SFC, 9/24/97, p.A3)

1972  Ford was the first company to equip vehicles with air bags.
 (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1972  John DeLorean left GM to start a car company in Northern Ireland.
 (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1972  Industry experts in 1996 picked the 1972 Corvette Stingray as the number 9 favorite car.
 (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1972  Atari was founded by Nolan Bushnell, 2 years after he built the first videogame, Computer Space. He conceived Pong and it was built by Al Alcorn.
 (Wired, 10/96, p.168)

1972  Seymour Cray left Control Data Corp. and co-founded Cray Research Inc. There he built the Cray-1 and Cray-2 supercomputers. They were used to help the defense system create sophisticated weapons systems and the oil industry to construct geologic models for predicting mineral deposits.
 (SFC, 9/24/96, p.A6)

1972  Hewlett-Packard introduced a pocket-size calculator.
 (SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)

1972  Intel Corp. brought out the 8008 microprocessor, the first to use 8-bit addressing. it had 3,500 transistors.
 (TAR, 1996, p.21)

1972  Genentech was founded with $10,000 per month funding for R&D with Kleiner Perkins as the largest investor. Robert A. Swanson (d.1999 at 52), investment banker, and Herbert Boyer, UCSF biochemist, founded Genentech in 1976.
 (SFEM,11/2/97, p.8)(SFC, 12/7/99, p.D4)

1972  Half Price Books was founded by Pat Anderson (1932-1995) and Ken Gjemre.
 (WSJ, 1/17/97, p.B1)

1972  Ms. Magazine began publishing.
 (SFEC, 9/8/96, zone 1 p.6)

1972  Nike Shoes began production.
 (SFEC, 9/8/96, zone 1 p.6)

1972  Owens Corning, maker of insulation and other building products, stopped selling asbestos products. In 1998 it offered $1.2 billion to settle its asbestos related lawsuits, which numbered about 176,000 cases.
 (SFC, 12/15/98, p.A3)

1972  Bernard B. Jacobs (1916-1996) became the president of the Shubert Organization, which owns Broadway theaters and produced such plays as Cats and Amadeus.
 (SFC, 8/28/96, p.C2)

1972  Federal Express was founded by Fred Smith in Memphis.
 (SFEC, 9/8/96, zone 1 p.6)(SFEC, 3/28/99, Z1 p.8)

1972  A Stetson Hat Factory moved to St. Joseph, Mo.. The hats are handmade and take 43 steps to produce.
 (SFC, 7/31/98, p.A14)

1972  Time Magazine bought Home Box Office Inc.
 (WSJ, 1/11/00, p.B1)

1972  Ray Tomlinson, an engineer at Bolt Beranek and Newman, wrote the first crude electronic mail program.
 (SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.3)

1972  The Stanford Positron Electron Asymmetric Ring (SPEAR), a type of electron accelerator was constructed.
 (SFC, 5/1/97, p.A7)

1972  The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Fermilab, near Chicago was completed for $235 million under the direction of Robert Rathbun Wilson (d.2000 at 85). It was capable of accelerating protons to 400 billion electron volts.
 (SFC, 1/22/00, p.A21)

1972  The British Journal of Cancer published a paper by Andrew Wyllie, Alastair Currie and John Kerr that described the process of programmed cell death called apoptosis.
 (SFEC, 1/12/97,  Z3 p.7)

1972  American scientists imported a troop of Japanese snow monkeys, macaques, to Dilley, Texas. By 1995 the troop had quadrupled in size and expanded out of the bounds of its original 50-acre compound.
 (WSJ, 10/27/95, p.A-1)

1972  The international community defined the second as the time it takes an atom of cesium 133 to tick through exactly 9,192,631,770 resonant cycles after it has passed through an electromagnetic field. A new atomic clock, NIST F-1, premiered Dec 20, 1999.
 (SFC, 12/30/99, p.A2)

1972  Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia was established as a National Seashore.
 (SFC, 4/28/96, p.T-8)

1972  The Audubon society acquired the Sabal Palm Sanctuary near Brownsville, Texas.
 (T&L, 10/1980, p.14)

1972  US Federal legislation established the Golden Gate National Recreation Area which includes Fort Baker.
 (The Park, Summer "95)

1972  The National Clean Waters Act was passed. It was sponsored by Senator Ed Muskie of Maine.
 (SFC, 6/2/96, p.T-12)(Hem., 12/96, p.128)

1972  The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed.
 (SFC, 6/26/96, p.A6)

1972  The pesticide Compound 1080, or sodium fluoroacetate, was banned by the EPA. It had been used against coyotes but other animals were dying from its use. It was reinstated in 1985 for use in livestock protection collars. DDT was banned.
 (SFC, 5/17/97, p.A17)(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A3)

1972  Routine vaccination of children in the US for smallpox ceased.
 (WSJ, 10/19/01, p.A9)

1972  Richard McCoy, A Vietnam veteran and pilot, hijacked a United Air Lines jet and extorted $500,000 in copycat version of the DB Cooper crime. He parachuted off the plane into a Utah desert, but was caught with the money in his house and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He escaped and died in a shootout with FBI agent Nicholas O’Hara in Nov, 1974.
 (SFEC, 11/17/96, zone 1 p.5)

1972  The Cracker Jack Co. was purchased by Borden and sold to PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division in 1997.
 (SFC, 2/11/98, Z1 p.6)

1972  Hewlett-Packard introduced the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, which made the slide-rule obsolete.
 (SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)

1972  The compact disc (CD) was introduced.
 (NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)

1972  Monsanto ceased producing PCBs in Anniston, Alabama. In 2001 Monsanto agreed to a $40 million settlement for toxic pollution.
 (SFC, 4/25/01, p.A5)

1972  David McTaggart (d.2001), one of the founders of Greenpeace Int’l., sailed his small boat into the French nuclear-testing site at Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific.
 (SFC, 3/24/01, p.A22)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A31)

1972  John Wayne Gacy began to lure young men and boys to his home in Chicago for sex, then tortured and strangled them. He was arrested in 1978.
 (SFEC, 11/22/98, p.A2)

1972  Bill Chase and 5 members of the Chase Band died in a plane crash. Lead guitarist Angel South (aka Lucien Gondron d. 1998 at 55) had struck out on his own solo career.
 (SFC, 6/6/98, p.A23)

1972  The ship Queen Elizabeth, the world’s largest ocean liner, sank after a major fire in Hong Kong harbor. It had been purchased by Tung Chao-yung at a bankruptcy sale in Florida. He had hoped to turn it into a floating school.
 (WSJ, 2/6/97, p.B1)

1972  Six US helicopter crew members were killed in Vietnam during a heroic rescue attempt of Air Force Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton. The 1988 film "Bat-21" was about their mission.
 (SFC,11/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 5/29/03, p.A19)

1972  A coal sludge spill killed 125 people and swallowed 500 homes in Buffalo Creek, W. Va.
 (SFC, 12/30/00, p.A20)

1972  Saul Alinsky, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation, died in Carmel.
 (SFC, 9/16/98, p.A5)

1972  Natalie Clifford Barney, lesbian writer and US expatriate, died in Paris. In 2002 Suzanne Rodriguez authored "Wild Heart, A Life: Natalie Clifford Barney’s Journey From Victorian America to the Literary Salons of Paris."
 (SSFC, 10/27/02, p.M6)

1972  Roberto Clemente (b.1934), baseball player, died in a plane crash while enroute to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
 (WSJ, 4/2/01, p.A20)

1972  Henry Darger, writer, died. He had spent as many as 40 years working on a 15,000 page novel titled "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the  Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. He illustrated the work with some 300 watercolors that were lifted and recomposed from popular sources.
 (SFC, 9/20/97, p.E1)

1972  Wickliffe Preston Draper, a wealthy reclusive New Yorker, died. He distributed some $5 million to 2 race-oriented foundations. The Pioneer Fund, which he had helped to found, was the primary beneficiary and later funded the research for "The Bell Curve," which argued that blacks are genetically inclined to be less intelligent than whites or Asians.
 (WSJ, 6/11/99, p.A1)

1972  Max Fleischer (b.1889), Viennese-born creator of the Betty Boop cartoon, died in California.
 (SFC, 6/13/00, p.A22)

1972  Ralph Eugene Meatyard (b.1925), photographer, died. His work included a series of photos called The Family Album of Lucybelle Carter" based on the short story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" by Flannery O’Connor.
 (SFC, 10/5/02, p.D10)

1972  Marianne Moore (b.1887), American poet, died. Her longest work was the 1923 poem "Marriage." In 1998 her the book: "The Selected letters of Marianne Moore" was edited by Bonnie Costello, Celeste Goodridge and Cristanne Miller.
 (WSJ, 1/8/98, p.A7)

1972  Pablo Neruda, Chilean Nobel laureate poet, died. One of his last works, "The Book of Questions," was published in an English translation in 1991.
 (SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.2)

1972  Kenneth Patchen (b.1911), American poet, died. He was bed-ridden in his later years from a debilitating spinal injury. His works included "Before the Brave" and "Hurrah for Anything."
 (HN, 12/13/99)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.D6)

1972  Edmund Wilson, American literary critic, died. Jeffrey Meyers wrote a biography of Mr. Wilson in 1995, wherein he documented Wilson’s relationships with four wives and numerous mistresses as well as his writings.
 (WSJ, 4/26/95, p.A-14)

1972  In Angola Barcelo de Carvalho, aka "Bongo," recorded the album "Angola 72" in the Netherlands. The music’s predominant rhythm is semba, described as the origin of Brazil’s Samba. The album was smuggled into Angola and became very popular but was banned by the government. It was re-released in the US in 1997. One of its songs was featured in the 1997 French film "When the Cat’s Away."
 (SFC,10/24/97, p.E1)

1972  In Australia Neville Bonner (d.1999 at 76) became the first Aborigine to be elected to the federal Parliament.
 (SFC, 2/6/99, p.A21)

1972  In Britain environmental activists founded WWOOF, Weekend Workers on Organic Farms. Weekend was later replaced by Willing.
 (SFEC, 8/15/99, p.T9)

1972  In Brazil singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil returned home from exile. Gil then served as minister of culture in his home city of Salvador.
 (SFEC, 6/22/97, DB p.58)
1972  The hospital ship S.S. Hope sailed to Brazil to train doctors and nurses for a year under Project Hope.
 (SFC, 9/28/02, p.A17)

1972  The Tutsi-led government in Burundi killed some 100,000 Hutus.
 (SFC, 8/31/99, p.A14)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1972  Canada established diplomatic relations with China.
 (SFC, 12/31/96, p.A11)

1972  In Canada Trudeau’s government increased the value and duration of unemployment benefits and decreased the period required to qualify.
 (WSJ, 2/7/97, p.A17)
1972  Mel Lastman, founder of the Bad Boy discount appliance chain, was elected mayor of North York, a municipality just north of Toronto. He went on to win 11 straight elections.
 (SFC,12/897, p.A15,17)

1972  China’s Yellow River dried up for the 1st time in history before reaching the Yellow Sea.
 (SFC, 3/4/02, p.A3)

1972  The East Germans recruited US citizens for spying. in 1997 US Federal officials arrested Theresa Marie Squillacote, a former Pentagon lawyer, her husband Kurt Alan Stand, and James Michael Clark for espionage that began with the recruitment of Stand in 1972 by the East Germans.
 (SFC, 10/7/97, p.A14)

1972  In Egypt UNESCO half  funded a 30 million dollar project to move the temple of the goddess of Isis, known as the Pearl of Egypt, from Philae Island, which vanished beneath Lake Nasser, to Agilkia Island now also called Philae.
 (NG, May 1985, R. Caputo, p.591)

1972  India and Pakistan signed the Shimla Agreement. [It seems to be for providing a protocol for settling differences.] Article 6 of the accord clearly states : "Both governments agree... to discuss further the modalities and arrangements for the establishment of durable peace and normalization of relations," including "a final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir."
 (WSJ, 10/5/95, p. A-15)(WSJ, 10/25/95, p.A-19)

1972  Abdullah Sungkar (d.1999) and Abu Bakar Baasyir co-founded the al Mukmin Islamic boarding school in Ngruki, Java. The school went on to produce almost all of Indonesia's to terrorists.
 (WSJ, 9/2/03, p.A1)

1972  In Iraq Ayatollah Sayed Mohammad Baqir Al-Hakim was imprisoned and tortured by the Hussein regime. He was rejailed 5 years later and in 2002 led the Supreme Council for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), based in Iran, and its 8,000 fighters.
 (SFC, 10/4/02, p.J1)

1972  In Italy Luigi Calabresi, head of the political dept. of the Milan police, was killed. In 1988 Leonardo Marino, a former far left Lotta Continua militant, confessed that he drove a getaway car and that Adriano Sofri, a writer, had masterminded the killing. Sofri was convicted in 2000.
 (WSJ, 3/12/02, p.A22)

1972  In Jamaica Michael Manley, Socialist and champion of the nonaligned movement, was elected as prime minister.
 (SFC, 3/8/96, p.A21)

1972  In Japan Shoichi Yokoi (d.1997 at 82), a soldier who survived in Guam from 1944-WW II in adherence to his army code of never surrendering, returned to Japan as a national hero: "It is with much embarrassment that I return."
 (SFC, 9/23/97, p.A19)

1972  In Japan Yasunari Kawabata, a Nobel laureate in literature, committed suicide without explanation.
 (SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)

1972  The Moroccan Air Force attempted to shoot down a Boeing 727 carrying King Hassan II. The attempt failed and the coup leaders were arrested. Gen. Mohammad Oufkir was shot to death for the attack. In 2000 a letter was produced that implicated Abderrahmane Youssoufi, the prime minister, in conspiracy with Oufkir.
 (SFC, 7/24/99, p.A9)(SFC, 12/15/00, p.D2)

1972  Mauritius set up an export-processing zone on the recommendations of Jose Poncini, economist, watchmaker and island historian.
 (WSJ, 7/14/98, p.A11)

1972  In the Philippines a conflict between the government and Muslim rebels began.
 (WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A1)

1972  The Soviets introduced the Tu-154 airplane. It was their version of the Boeing 727. The three-engine Tupolev 154 first flew passengers and has since become a workhorse of fleets in Russia, the former Soviet bloc and China. The jet can carry between 156 and 180 passengers and has a range of 2,400 miles at a maximum speed of 560 mph.
 (SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)(AP, 7/2/02)

1972  In Singapore the Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned because their male followers refused compulsory military duty.
 (SFC, 7/2/96, p.A10)

1972  The Somali language first became a written language.
 (SFEC, 10/10/99, Z1 p.6)

1972  The Addis Ababa accords ended fighting between north and south Sudan. It made the south a self-governing region. Pres. Gaafar Muhammed Nimeiri ended the 17 year civil war in the Sudan between the north and south.
 (NG, May 1985, p.609)(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A4)

1972  Mar, In Zaire the Triga II nuclear research reactor went on line.
 (WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A4)

1972  In Zimbabwe 418 people were killed in an underground explosion at a mine.
 (AP, 7/30/02)

1972-1973 El Nino currents led to the collapse of the Peruvian anchovy industry.
 (SFC, 3/23/98, p.A7)

1972-1974 In Brazil a group of rebels formed in the state of Para, the only rural armed movement against the dictatorship.
 (SFC, 6/14/96, p. A14)

1972-1980 The 5th Betty Crocker [General Mills advertising icon] made her appearance.
 (WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)

1972-1981 Kurt Waldheim of Austria served as the Secretary-General of the UN.
 (SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)

1972-1988 The Great Salt Lake of Utah roughly doubled in size over this period.
 (NH, 9/97, p.16)

1972-1994 A computer error miscalculated payments to 695,000 Social Security recipients to a total of $850 million in retirement benefits over this period.
 (SFC, 10/4/96, p.A3)

Go to 1973