1972

Events

January

• January 1 – Kurt Waldheim becomes Secretary-General of the United Nations.
• January 4 – The first scientific hand-held calculator is introduced.
• January 7 – Iberia Airlines Flight 602 crashes into a 462-meter peak on the island of Ibiza; 104 are killed.
• January 9 – The RMS Queen Elizabeth catches fire and sinks in Hong Kong's Victoria harbor while undergoing conversion to a floating university.
• January 10 – Independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returns to Bangladesh after spending over nine months in prison in Pakistan.
• January 11 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declares a new constitutional government in Bangladesh, with himself as president.
• January 12 – In a 10-hour siege, a cell of 4 left-wing insurgents hold off a task force of 2500 army soldiers and police agents in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: eight members of the security forces and the entire insurgent cell are killed in the course of the siege.
• January 13 – Prime Minister of Ghana Kofi Abrefa Busia is overthrown in a military coup by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.
• January 14 – Queen Margrethe II of Denmark succeeds her father, King Frederik IX, on the throne of Denmark, the first queen regnant of Denmark since 1412 and the first Danish monarch not named Frederick or Christian since 1513.
• January 18 – Members of the Mukti Bahini lay down their arms to the government of the newly independent Bangladesh, 33 days after winning the war against the occupying Pakistan Army.
• January 19 – The Libertarian enclave Minerva on a platform in the South Pacific, sponsored by the Phoenix Foundation, declares independence. Soon neighboring Tonga annexes the area and dismantles the platform.
• January 20 – President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto announces that Pakistan will immediately begin a nuclear weapons program.
• January 21
• * A New Delhi bootlegger sells wood alcohol to a wedding party; 100 people die.
• * Tripura, part of the former independent Twipra Kingdom, becomes a full state of India.
• January 24 – Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi is discovered in Guam; he has spent 28 years in the jungle, having failed to surrender after World War II.
• January 26
• * Yugoslavian air stewardess Vesna Vulović is the only survivor when her plane crashes in Czechoslovakia. She survives after falling in the tail section of the aircraft.
• * The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is set up on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra.
• January 30
• * Bloody Sunday: The British Army kills 14 unarmed nationalist civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland.
• * Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.
• January 31 – King Birendra succeeds his father as King of Nepal.

  February

• February 2
• * A bomb explodes at the British Yacht Club in West Berlin, killing Irwin Beelitz, a German boat builder. The German militant group June 2 Movement claims responsibility, announcing its support of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
• * Anti-British riots take place throughout Ireland. The British Embassy in Dublin is burned to the ground, as are several British-owned businesses.
• February 3–13 – The 1972 Winter Olympics are held in Sapporo, Japan.
• February 4 – Mariner 9 sends pictures as it orbits Mars.
• February 15 – President of Ecuador José María Velasco Ibarra is deposed for the fourth time.
• February 17 – Volkswagen Beetle sales exceed those of the Ford Model T when the 15,007,034th Beetle is produced.
• February 19 – Asama-Sansō incident: Five United Red Army members break into a lodge below Mount Asama in Japan, taking the wife of the lodgekeeper hostage.
• February 21 – The Soviet uncrewed spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
• February 21–28 – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon makes an unprecedented 8-day visit to the People's Republic of China and meets with Mao Zedong.
• February 22
• * The Troubles: 1972 Aldershot bombing – A car bomb planted by the Official Irish Republican Army kills seven people outside a British military base in Aldershot, England.
• * Lufthansa Flight 649 is hijacked and taken to Aden. Passengers are released the following day after a ransom of 5 million US dollars is agreed.
• February 23 – US activist Angela Davis is released from jail. Rodger McAfee, a farmer from Caruthers, California, helps her make bail.
• February 26 – Luna 20 comes back to Earth with of lunar soil.
• February 28 – The Asama-Sansō incident ends in a standoff between 5 members of the Japanese United Red Army and the authorities, in which two policemen are killed and 12 injured.

  March

• March 1 – Juan María Bordaberry is sworn in as President of Uruguay amid accusations of electoral fraud.
• March 2
• * The Club of Rome presents the research results leading to its report The Limits to Growth, published later in the month.
• * The Pioneer 10 spacecraft is launched from Cape Kennedy, to be the first man-made spacecraft to leave the Solar System.
• * Jean-Bédel Bokassa becomes President of the Central African Republic.
• March 4
• * Libya and the Soviet Union sign a cooperation treaty.
• * The Organisation of the Islamic Conference Charter is signed.
• March 19 – India and Bangladesh sign the Indo-Bangladeshi Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace.
• March 22
• *The 92nd U.S. Congress votes to send the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification.
• *Eisenstadt v. Baird: The Supreme Court of the U.S. rules that unmarried people have the right to access contraception on the same basis as married couples
• March 25 – "Après toi" sung by Vicky Leandros wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1972 for Luxembourg.
• March 26 – An avalanche on Mount Fuji in Japan kills 19 climbers.
• March 27
• * The First Sudanese Civil War ends.
• * The Soviet Union launches Venera 8, which will make the first soft landing on Venus.
• March 30 – Vietnam War: The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone of South Vietnam

  April

• April 4 - The U.S. formally recognizes Bangladesh.
• April 10
• * The U.S. and the Soviet Union join some 70 nations in signing the Biological Weapons Convention, an agreement to ban biological warfare.
• * Tombs containing bamboo slips, among them Sun Tzu's Art of War and Sun Bin's lost military treatise, are accidentally discovered by construction workers in Shandong.
• * The 6.7 Qir earthquake shakes southern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX, killing 5,374 people in the province of Fars.
• * The 44th Annual Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.
• April 13 – 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.
• April 16
• * Apollo 16 is launched. During the mission, the astronauts, driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle, achieve a lunar rover speed record of 17 km/h.
• * Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive – Prompted by the North Vietnamese offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong.
• April 26 – The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar enters service with Eastern Airlines.
• April 27
• * Ikiza: Burundi government forces begin a 4-month genocide against the Hutu people, killing 100,000–300,000.
• * A no-confidence vote against German Chancellor Willy Brandt fails under obscure circumstances.
• April 29 – The fourth anniversary of the Broadway musical Hair is celebrated with a free concert at a Central Park bandshell, followed by dinner at the Four Seasons. There, 13 Black Panther protesters and the show's co-author, Jim Rado, are arrested for disturbing the peace and for using marijuana.

  May

• May 2 – Fire at the Sunshine Mine, a silver mine in Idaho, kills 91.
• May 5 – An Alitalia DC-8 crashes west of Palermo, Sicily; 115 die.
• May 7 – General elections are held in Italy.
• May 10 – Operation Linebacker and Operation Custom Tailor begin with large-scale bombing operations against North Vietnam by tactical fighter aircraft.
• May 13 – A fire in a nightclub atop the Sennichi department store in Osaka, Japan, kills 115.
• May 21 – In St. Peter's Basilica, Laszlo Toth attacks Michelangelo's Pietà statue with a geologist's hammer, shouting that he is Jesus Christ.
• May 22
• * The Dominion of Ceylon becomes the republic of Sri Lanka under prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, when its new constitution is ratified.
• * Ferit Melen forms the new government of Turkey
• May 23 – The Tamil United Front, a pro-Tamil organization, is founded in Sri Lanka.
• May 26
• * Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT I treaty in Moscow, as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and other agreements.
• * Willandra National Park is established in Australia.
• May 27 – Mark Donohue wins the Indianapolis 500 in a Penske Racing McLaren–Offenhauser.
• May 30
• * Lod Airport massacre: Three Japanese Red Army members operating on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations kill 26 and injure 80 people at Lod Airport, Israel.
• * The Troubles: The Official Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.

  June

• June – Iraq nationalizes the Iraq Petroleum Company.
• June 3 – Sally Priesand becomes the first American woman to be ordained as a rabbi within Judaism.
• June 5–16 – The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment is held in Stockholm, Sweden
• June 8
• * Seven men and three women hijack a plane from Czechoslovakia to West Germany.
• * Vietnam War: Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a naked nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running down a road after being burned by napalm.
• June 9 – The Black Hills flood kills 238 in South Dakota.
• June 11 – Henri Pescarolo and co-driver former World Drivers' Champion Graham Hill win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Equipe Matra MS670.
• June 12 – Popeyes was formed in Arabi, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana, in St. Bernard Parish.
• June 14–23 – Hurricane Agnes kills 117 on the U.S. East Coast.
• June 14 – Japan Airlines Flight 471 crashes outside New Delhi airport, killing 82 of 87 occupants.
• June 16 – 108 die as two passenger trains hit the debris of a collapsed railway tunnel near Soissons, France.
• June 17
• * Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee.
• * Chilean president Salvador Allende forms a new government.
• June 18
• * Staines air disaster: 118 die when a British European Airways Trident 1 jet airliner crashes two minutes after takeoff from London Heathrow Airport.
• * West Germany beats the Soviet Union 3–0 in the final to win Euro '72.
• * Hong Kong's worst flooding and landslides in recorded history with of rainfall in the previous three days. 67 people die due to building collapses in Mid-levels districts landslide and building collapses, with a further 83 due to flooding-related fatalities. It is the second worst fatality due to building collapses, and the worst flooding in Hong Kong's recorded history.
• June 23
• * Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the C.I.A. to obstruct the investigation by the F.B.I. into the Watergate break-ins.
• * The United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Barber, announces a decision for the pound sterling to move to a floating exchange rate. Although intended to be temporary, this remains permanent. Foreign exchange controls are applied to most members of the sterling area.
• June 30 – The International Time Bureau adds the first leap second of this year to Coordinated Universal Time.