1972 Nostalgia: When We Were Kids

January
2nd	Six men rob the safety deposit boxes of The Pierre Hotel in New York City of at least $4 million
4th	Rose Heilbron becomes the first woman judge at the Old Bailey in London
4th	Kurt Waldheim becomes the Secretary General of the United Nations
5th	U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program
7th	An Iberian Airlines passenger plane crashes into a 250-meter peak on the island of Ibiza; killing 104
9th	RMS Queen Elizabeth is destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbor
11th	East Pakistan wins independence with the name Bangladesh
13th	Prime Minister of Ghana Kofi Abrefa Busia is overthrown in a military coup
14th	King Frederick IX of Denmark dies; he's succeeded by his daughter Queen Margaret II of Denmark
24th	Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi is discovered in Guam. He had spent 28 years in the jungle
26th	Yugoslavian air stewardress Vesna Vulovic is the only survivor when her plane crashes in Czechoslovakia. She survives after falling 10,160 meters in the tail section of the aircraft
26th	The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is set up on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra
30th	British Army kills thirteen unarmed nationalist civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland. The event becomes known as Bloody Sunday
30th	Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations
31st	King Birendra succeeds his father as King of Nepal

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February
1st	The first scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) is introduced in the United States at a price of $395
2nd	A bomb explodes at the British Yacht Club in West Berlin. The only casualty is Irwin Beelitz, a German boat builder
2nd	The German militant group Movement 2 June announces its support of the Irish Republican Army
2nd	Anti-British riots throughout Ireland take place. The British Embassy in Dublin is burned to the ground, as are several British-owned businesses
3rd	The 1972 Winter Olympics begin in Sapporo, Japan
4th	Mariner 9 sends pictures from Mars
5th	U.S. airlines begin mandatory inspection of passengers and baggage
9th	The British government declares a state of emergency over the miners' strike
15th	President of Ecuador José María Velasco Ibarra is deposed for the fourth time
17th	Volkswagen Beetle sales exceed those of the Ford Model-T when the 15,007,034th Beetle is produced
18th	The California Supreme Court voids the state's death penalty, commuting all death sentences to life in prison, granting a reprieve for Charles Manson (who was on Death Row at the time of the vote)
21st	The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon
22nd	An IRA bomb kills 7 in Aldershot, England
23rd	A Lufthansa plane is hijacked and taken to Aden. Passengers are released after a ransom of 16 million German marks is agreed
24th	North Vietnamese negotiators walk out of the Paris Peace Talks to protest U.S. air raids
26th	Luna 20 comes back to Earth with a cargo of moon rocks

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March
2nd	The Pioneer 10 spacecraft is launched from Cape Kennedy, to be the first man-made satellite to leave the solar system
2nd	Jean-Bedel Bokassa becomes President of the Central African Republic
3rd	Sculpted figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson are completed at Stone Mountain, Georgia
4th	Libya and the Soviet Union sign a cooperation treaty
13th	The United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China elevate diplomatic exchanges to the ambassadorial level after 22 years
13th	Clifford Irving admits to a New York court that he had fabricated Howard Hughes' "autobiography"
19th	India and Bangladesh sign a friendship treaty
24th	Gangster Movie Classic, The Godfather is released in cinemas in the USA
24th	The British government announces the prorogation of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the introduction of 'Direct Rule' of Northern Ireland, after the Unionist government refuses to cede security powers
30th	The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnam

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April
7th	Vietnam War veteran Richard McCoy, Jr. hijacks a United Airlines jet and extorts $500,000. He is later captured
10th	The U.S. and the Soviet Union join some 70 nations in signing the Biological Weapons Convention, an agreement to ban biological warfare
10th	A 7.0 Richter scale earthquake kills 5,000 people in the Iranian province of Fars
10th	The 44th Annual Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles
13th	The Universal Postal Union decides to recognize the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese representative, effectively expelling the Republic of China administering Taiwan
16th	Apollo 16 (John Young, Ken Mattingly, Charlie Duke) is launched. During the mission, the astronauts achieve a lunar rover speed record of 18 km/h
16th	Prompted by the North Vietnamese offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong
22nd	Sylvia Cook and John Fairfax finish rowing across the Pacific
27th	A no-confidence vote against German Chancellor Willy Brandt fails under obscure circumstances
29th	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, 13 Black Panther protesters and the show's co-author, Jim Rado, are arrested for disturbing the peace and marijuana use

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May
2nd	Fire in a silver mine in Idaho, United States kills 91
5th	An Alitalia DC-8 crashes west of Palermo, Sicily, killing 115
8th	U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the mining of Haiphong Harbour in Vietnam
10th	Leeds United win The FA cup
13th	Fire in a nightclub atop the Sennichi department store in Osaka, Japan, leaves 115 dead
15th	Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama is shot by Arthur Herman Bremer at a Laurel, Maryland political rally
18th	Four troopers of both SAS and SBS are parachuted onto the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, 1,000 miles off Britain in the Atlantic, after a bomb threat and ransom demand, which turns out to be bogus
19th	Three out of 6 bombs explode in the Springer Press building in Hamburg, Germany, injuring 17 (the Red Army Faction claims responsibility)
21st	In Rome, Laszlo Toth attacks Michelangelo's "Pietà" statue with a sledgehammer, shouting that he is Jesus Christ
22nd	Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka under prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, when its new constitution is ratified
23rd	The Tamil United Front (now known as Tamil United Liberation Front, a pro-Tamil organization, is founded
24th	Rangers lift the Cup Winners Cup, defeating Dynamo Moscow in the final at the Nou Camp. Their supporters invaded the pitch, causing the team to be banned from defending the trophy the following season
26th	Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT I treaty in Moscow, as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and other agreements
26th	Willandra National Park is established in Australia

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June
2nd	Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe, Holger Meins and some other members of Red Army Faction are arrested in Frankfurt am Main after a shootout
3rd	Sally Priesand becomes the first female U.S. rabbi
8th	Seven men and three women hijack a plane from West Germany to Czechoslovakia
9th	The Black Hills flood, kills 238 in South Dakota, USA
15th	Ulrike Meinhof and Gerhard Müller of Red Army Faction are arrested in a teacher's apartment in Langenhagen, West Germany
16th	108 die as two passenger trains hit debris of a collapsed railway tunnel near Soissons, France
17th	Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee
17th	The United States returns Okinawa, occupied and governed since the WW-II Battle of Okinawa, back to the government of Japan
17th	Chilean president Salvador Allende forms a new government
18th	A British European Airways Trident 1 jet airliner crashes alongside the busy A30 Staines bypass, killing all 118 passengers and crew
18th	West Germany beats the Soviet Union 3-0 to win Euro 72
23rd	U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the C.I.A. to obstruct the F.B.I.'s investigation into the Watergate break-ins
26th	Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney co-found Atari
28th	U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that no new draftees will be sent to Vietnam

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July
1st	The Canadian ketch Vega, flying the Greenpeace III banner, collides with the French naval minesweeper La Paimpolaise while in international waters to protest French nuclear weapon tests in the South Pacific
2nd	Following Pakistan's surrender to India in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, both nations sign the historic Simla Agreement, agreeing to settle their disputes bilaterally
8th	The U.S. sells grain to the Soviet Union for $750 million
10th	A stampede of elephants kills 24 people in the Chandka Forest in India
18th	118 killed as plane crashes 2 minutes after take off from London Heathrow Airport
18th	Anwar Sadat expels 20,000 Soviet advisors from Egypt
21st	22 bombs planted by the Provisional IRA explode in Belfast, Northern Ireland; 9 people are killed and 130 seriously injured
21st	Comedian George Carlin is arrested by Milwaukee, Wisconsin police for public obscenity, for reciting his “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television” at Summerfest
21st	Collision between two trains near Sevilla, Spain kills 76 people
23rd	The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite
25th	U.S. health officials admit that blacks were used as guinea pigs in the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male
31st	British troops move into the no-go areas of Belfast and Derry, Northern Ireland. End of Free Derry

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August
4th	Dictator Idi Amin declares that Uganda will expel 50,000 Asians with British passports to Britain within three months
10th	A brilliant, daytime meteor skips off the Earth's atmosphere due to an Apollo asteroid streaking over the western US into Canada
12th	The last U.S. ground troops are withdrawn from Vietnam
14th	An East German Ilyushin airliner crashes near East Berlin killing all 156 onboard
16th	The Royal Moroccan Air Force mistakenly fires upon, but fails to bring down, Hassan II of Morocco's plane while he is traveling back to Rabat
22nd	Jane Fonda makes an antiwar broadcast from a hotel room in Hanoi
26th	The Summer Olympics started in Munich, Germany

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September
6th	Eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich are murdered after 8 members of the Arab terrorist group Black September invade the Olympic Village; 5 guerillas and 1 policeman are also killed in a failed hostage rescue
14th	West Germany and Poland renew diplomatic relations
17th	Uganda announces that there are Tanzanian troops in its territory
18th	São Paulo Metro is inaugurated in Brazil
19th	A parcel bomb sent to the Israeli Embassy in London kills 1 diplomat
21st	Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos issues Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law
24th	An F-86 fighter aircraft leaving an air show at Sacramento Executive Airport fails to become airborne and crashes into a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor, killing 12 children and 11 adults
25th	In a national referendum Norway rejects membership in the European Economic Community
27th	The Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China is signed in Beijing
29th	Sino-Japanese relations: Japan normalizes diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan)

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October
1st	The first publication reporting the production of a recombinant DNA molecule, marks the birth of modern molecular biology methodology
2nd	Denmark joins the European Community. The Faroe Islands stay out
5th	The United Reformed Church is founded out of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches
6th	A train crash in Saltillo, Mexico kills 208 people
12th	On the way to 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
13th	A Fairchild FH-227D passenger aircraft transporting a rugby union team crashes at about 14,000' in the Andes mountain range, near the Argentina/Chile border. Sixteen of the survivors are found alive December 20 but they have had to resort to cannibalism to survive
16th	A plane carrying U.S. Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana and 3 other men vanishes in Alaska. The wreckage has never been found, despite a massive search at the time
16th	Rioting inmates cause a fire that destroys most of the Maze Prison
25th	The first female FBI agents are hired
25th	Belgian Eddy Merckx sets a new world hour record in cycling in Mexico City
26th	Following a visit to South Vietnam, U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger suggests that "peace is at hand."
28th	The first flight of the Airbus A300, the first airliner built by Airbus
29th	The Black September group hijacks a Lufthansa Boeing 727 over Turkey, and demands the release of 3 of their comrades still held for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic games

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November
7th	Republican incumbent Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern in a landslide (the election had the lowest voter turnout since 1948, with only 55 percent of the electorate voting)
11th	The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam
14th	The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time
19th	Seán Mac Stíofáin, a leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, is arrested in Dublin after giving an interview to RTÉ
22nd	The United States loses its first B-52 Stratofortress of the war
29th	Atari kicks off the first generation of video games with the release of their seminal arcade version of Pong, the first game to achieve commercial success
30th	White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning United States troop withdrawals from Vietnam due to the fact that troop levels are now down to 27,000
30th	British Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home says that Royal Navy ships would be stationed to protect British trawlers off Iceland

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December
2nd	Edward Gough Whitlam becomes the first 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
7th	Apollo 17 (Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt), the last manned mission to the Moon to date, is launched
7th	Provisional Irish Republican Army kidnaps Jean McConville in Belfast
7th	Imelda Marcos is stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant; her bodyguards shoot him
8th	United Airlines Boeing 737 from Washington National to Chicago Midway crashes short of the runway, killing 43 of 61 onboard and 2 on the ground
8th	Over $10,000 cash is found in the purse of Watergate conspirator Howard Hunt's wife
8th	International Human Rights Day is proclaimed by the United Nations
11th	Apollo 17 lands on the Moon
14th	Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17. This was the last manned mission to the moon of the 20th century
15th	The Commonwealth of Australia ordains equal pay for women
16th	The Constitution of Bangladesh comes into effect
16th	Portuguese army kills 400 Africans in Tete, Mozambique
19th	Apollo 17 returns to Earth, concluding the program of lunar exploration
21st	East and West Germany recognise each other
22nd	Australia establishes diplomatic relations with China and West Germany
22nd	A peace delegation that includes singer-activist Joan Baez and human rights attorney Telford Taylor visit Hanoi to deliver Christmas mail to American prisoners of war; they will be caught in the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam
23rd	A 6.25 Richter scale earthquake in Nicaragua kills 5,000-12,000 people in the capital, Managua; President Somoza will later be accused of pocketing millions of dollars worth of foreign aid intended for relief
24th	Prime minister of Sweden, Olof Palme compares the American bombings of North Vietnam to Nazi massacres. The US breaks diplomatic contact with Sweden
25th	The Christmas bombing of North Vietnam causes widespread criticism of the U.S. and President Richard Nixon
26th	Former United States President Harry S. Truman dies in Kansas City, Missouri
28th	The bones of Martin Bormann are identified in Berlin
29th	Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashes into the Everglades in Florida, killing 101 of 163 onboard