January 1972

January 1, 1972 (Saturday)

• Kurt Waldheim of Austria became the fourth Secretary General of the United Nations, succeeding U Thant. Waldheim served two five-year terms. It would only be after he became President of Austria in 1986 that the world would learn that Waldheim had been a Nazi officer being investigated by the UN War Crimes Commission.
• In a match between the two highest ranked college football teams in the United States, the Number 1 Nebraska Cornhuskers beat the Number 2 Alabama Crimson Tide in the Orange Bowl, 38–6, to clinch the mythical national college football championship determined by polls taken by the Associated Press and by United Press International.
• Born:
• *Barron Miles, CFL star, in Roselle, New Jersey
• *Lilian Thuram, French soccer football star, in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe
• Died: Maurice Chevalier, 83, French actor and singer

  January 2, 1972 (Sunday)

• Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, announced his new campaign, "Authenticité", to remove all traces of the former Belgian Congo's colonial past in favor of "Africanized" names, customs and dress. Having changed his own name from Joseph-Desire Mobutu, the President required citizens with European-sounding names to change them to something more authentic.
• U.S. First Lady Pat Nixon arrived in Liberia for the beginning of an 8-day tour of Africa, which also included Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
• A group of six men stole $4,000,000 worth of jewelry in the Pierre Hotel Robbery, from safe deposit boxes at the New York luxury hotel. After being tipped off by an informant, the FBI captured the robbers, but recovered only one million of the loot.
• Juliane Koepcke, the sole survivor of the Christmas Eve crash of LANSA Flight 508, was found alive by three hunters deep inside the Amazon jungle in Peru. The only survivor of 93 people on the plane, she had followed a stream for nine days until finding help.
• Serial killer John Wayne Gacy committed the first of at least 33 murders at his home in Norwood Park Township, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Gacy approached 16-year-old Timothy McCoy at the Greyhound bus terminal in Chicago and took him to the Gacy home, where he stabbed McCoy to death in the early hours of January 3. Gacy then buried McCoy's body under the crawlspace. McCoy remained unidentified until May 1986.
• Born: Álvaro Díaz González, Chilean journalist and director, in Santiago.
• Died: Lillian Gilbreth, 93, efficiency expert and heroine of ''Cheaper by the Dozen''

  January 3, 1972 (Monday)

• Mariner 9 began the first mapping of the planet Mars, after dust storms on the red planet had ceased.

  January 4, 1972 (Tuesday)

• The first scientific electronic pocket calculator, the HP-35 was introduced by Hewlett-Packard and priced at $395. Although hand-held electronic machines, that could multiply and divide had been made since 1971, the HP-35 could handle higher functions including logarithms and trigonometry.

  January 5, 1972 (Wednesday)

• From his "Western White House" residence in San Clemente, California, President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would develop the Space Shuttle as the next phase of the American space program, with dollars allocated to the first reusable spacecraft. "It would transform the space frontier of the 1970s into familiar territory," said Nixon, "easily accessible for human endeavor of the 1980s and 1990s."
• Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky was convicted of Anti-Soviet agitation and sentenced to two years in prison, five in a labour camp, and five more in internal exile.

  January 6, 1972 (Thursday)

• The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults was formally created by order of Pope Paul VI.
• The Kingdom of Bahrain granted the United States the use of a naval base in the Persian Gulf, over the objections of Iran.
• Television journalist Geraldo Rivera first attained national fame with his exposé of neglect and abuse of mentally ill patients at the Willowbrook State School on New York's Staten Island.
• Died: Chen Yi, 70, Chinese Foreign Minister

  January 7, 1972 (Friday)

• U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announced that he would run for re-election in 1972.
• Iberia Airlines Flight 602 crashed into a mountain peak while attempting to land at the Spanish island of Ibiza, killing all 104 people on board.
• At a press conference given by telephone to seven journalists assembled in Universal City, California, billionaire Howard Hughes discredited the "autobiography" that Clifford Irving had claimed to help him write.
• Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H. Rehnquist were sworn in as the 103rd and 104th justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.
• The Los Angeles Lakers won their 33rd consecutive game with a 44-point victory over the Atlanta Hawks, and extended their record to 39–3.
• Police located and defused time bombs that had been placed in safe deposit boxes in eight banks in New York, Chicago and San Francisco in July 1971. The bombs, described in an anonymous letter, sent the day before, each had a "seven-month fuse" and would have exploded in February. A ninth bomb had gone off prematurely in September.
• Died: John Berryman, 57, American poet and scholar; Berryman killed himself by leaping from the Washington Avenue Bridge to the Mississippi River, below.

  January 8, 1972 (Saturday)

• The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who popularized transcendental meditation, announced his "World Plan", with the goal of establishing 3,600 centers, each with 1,000 teachers apiece. By 1976, however, interest in "TM" began to decline and the plan was never realized.
• Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15 in A Major was performed for the first time, at the Moscow Conservatory.
• Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was released from the Mianwali jail and allowed to leave Pakistan after more than nine months' imprisonment. Two days later, after flying to London and Delhi, he returned to Dhaka to become the first President of Bangladesh.
• Died: Kenneth Patchen, 60, American poet

  January 9, 1972 (Sunday)

• Shortly after midnight, Britain's 280,000 coal miners walked off the job in the first nationwide miners' strike since 1926. As the strike dragged on, Britain was forced to go to the Three-Day Week.
• The , largest ocean liner ever built, was destroyed by a fire as it sat in Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. The ship was being renovated to become "Seawise University".
• The Los Angeles Lakers finally lost after 33 consecutive wins, falling to the Milwaukee Bucks, 120–104.
• Died: Liang Sicheng, 70, "Father of Modern Chinese Architecture"

  January 10, 1972 (Monday)

• Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the "Bangabandhu" and "Father of Bangladesh", returned to Dhaka at to a hero's welcome.
• In Britain, Birmingham's Sunday Mercury broke the story of toxic waste dumping in the Midlands, and the government's indifference to complaints. The public outcry that followed would lead to the passage of environmental legislation on March 30.
• In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a violent confrontation between members of the Nation of Islam left two sheriff's deputies dead and 14 other policemen injured. Two NOI members were killed, and 17 civilians were hurt.
• Born: Thomas Alsgaard, Norwegian Olympic cross-country gold medalist, in Enebakk
• Died: Aksel Larsen, 74, Danish politician

  January 11, 1972 (Tuesday)

• Bill France Jr. succeeded his father as President of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing NASCAR. Over the next 28 years, France oversaw the growth of stock car racing to a multibillion-dollar industry and one of the most popular sports in the United States.
• The Night Stalker, starring Darren McGavin, was broadcast as the ABC Movie of the Week. Watched by viewers, it was the highest rated made-for-television movie to that date, and would lead to a weekly television series for McGavin.
• Born: Marc Blucas, American actor known for Buffy the Vampire Slayer; in Girard, Pennsylvania

  January 12, 1972 (Wednesday)

• The first regulations limiting exposure to asbestos were announced by the United States Department of Labor. Widely used in construction because of its fireproof nature, asbestos had been proven to be carcinogenic in the long term.
• The Detroit Tigers signed a 40-year lease for a dollar domed stadium, to be built downtown. Detroit voters, however, would refuse to approve funding a bond issue to pay for the dome, and it would never be built. The team would continue to play at Tiger Stadium until moving to the outdoor Comerica Park in 1998.
• Born: Espen Knutsen, Norwegian hockey star, in Oslo

  January 13, 1972 (Thursday)

• While he was out of the country for treatment of an eye ailment, Kofi Abrefa Busia, the Prime Minister of Ghana, lost his job when the government was overthrown in a bloodless coup, led by Lt. Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, leader of the "National Redemption Council". Dr. Busia lived the rest of his life in London. Acheampong was overthrown in 1978 and was executed the following year.
• U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that 70,000 American troops would be pulled out of Vietnam by May 1, cutting the existing force of 139,000 by half.
• Alabama Governor George C. Wallace announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination. The previous day, the Internal Revenue Service had dropped its investigation of Wallace's brother Gerald. Historian Stephen E. Ambrose suggested in his 1989 book Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972, that President Nixon had brokered a deal in order to ensure his re-election in 1972. With Nixon and Hubert Humphrey having announced their candidacies earlier in the week, all three major contenders in the 1968 election were in the 1972 race.
• A plane, taking West Germany's Chancellor Willy Brandt home after his visit to the United States, came within of colliding with Eastern Airlines Flight 870, as both planes were flying at northeast of Jacksonville, Florida. A spokesman for the Professional Air Traffic Controllers' Association said on January 15 that the incident had been reported to him by controllers at the Jacksonville airport.
• Born:
• *Nicole Eggert, American actress, in Glendale, California
• *Vitaly Scherbo, Belarusian gymnast, winner of six Olympic gold medals in 1992, in Minsk