November 1972


The following events occurred in November 1972:

[November 1], 1972 (Wednesday)

[November 2], 1972 (Thursday)

[November 3], 1972 (Friday)

  • A group of 132 sailors on board the, mostly African-American, began what has been described as "the first mass mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy". The men refused to leave the mess deck in protest over announcements, the day before, that 250 black sailors would be discharged, six of them less than honorably, and demanded to meet with ship Captain J.D. Ward. The next day, the men disobeyed a direct order to report to the flight deck, and on November 9, the men refused orders to return to the ship while in San Diego. None of the sailors were ever arrested. Some were discharged early, and most were reassigned to shore duty.

[November 4], 1972 (Saturday)

  • The CIA spy ship Glomar Explorer was launched on its first voyage. Although the 170-member crew was ostensibly conducting mining exploration on the ocean floor, the ship's true mission was to attempt recovery of the contents of a Soviet submarine that had sunk on April 11, 1968.
  • Gusty Spence, leader of the Ulster Volunteer Force, was recaptured by British authorities four months after his escape on furlough from a prison in Northern Ireland. Between his rearrest and his release in 1984, Spence renounced violence and worked towards reconciling Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.
  • Born: Luís Figo, Portuguese footballer with 127 appearances for Portugal's national team, in Almada
  • Died: Yuri Galanskov, 33, Soviet dissident poet, in a labor camp

[November 5], 1972 (Sunday)

[November 6], 1972 (Monday)

  • A fire broke out in the dining car of an express train in Japan while it was traveling through an eight-mile-long tunnel near Fukui. The smoke killed 29 people and injured another 678.
  • The first intercollegiate game of ultimate frisbee was played between Rutgers University and Princeton University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on the site of the first intercollegiate football game which had matched Princeton and Rutgers. Rutgers won, 29–27.
  • The comic strip Frank and Ernest, by Bob Thaves, made its debut. In the first strip, Frank's punchline was "Maybe the battery's getting weak, Ernie", and the sight gag was a curved flashlight beam.
  • Born:
  • *Thandiwe Newton, British actress, in London
  • *Rebecca Romijn, American model and actress, in Berkeley, California
  • Died: Edward V. Long, 64, U.S. Senator for Missouri, 64. Long's personal secretary would later tell prosecutors in Clarksville, Missouri, that Long had told her that he believed that he had been poisoned by candy which had been sent to him in the mail, although no box of candy was found and no charges were ever filed arising from Long's death. An autopsy would determine later that no traces of poison had been found, and concluded Long had died of natural causes.

[November 7], 1972 (Tuesday)

[November 8], 1972 (Wednesday)

  • HBO, the first "pay cable" television channel, was launched in the United States at 7:30 pm ET. The first evening of programming was a National Hockey League game between the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks from Madison Square Garden, followed by the film Sometimes a Great Notion, and was broadcast to 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Each household paid an additional $6.00 per month to Service Electric Cable TV for the service.
  • On the day after his re-election as President of the United States, Richard Nixon announced that he had asked for the resignations of his cabinet and everyone he had appointed to office, with plans for "restructuring and reorganizing" the entire Executive Branch.

[November 9], 1972 (Thursday)

[November 10], 1972 (Friday)

  • Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham, Alabama, to Montgomery was seized by three hijackers at local time, and flown from one airport to the next, going to Jackson, Mississippi, for refueling, then to Detroit, where the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 circled while the three men negotiated their demands, including a $10,000,000 ransom. At one point the hijackers threatened to crash the airplane into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After two days, the DC-9 landed in Havana, Cuba, where the hijackers were jailed by Fidel Castro.
  • Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, assembled the highest-ranking admirals of the United States Navy in Washington, and told them, "The Navy has made unacceptable progress in the equal opportunity area. The reason for this failure was not the programs, but the fact that they were not being used". Beginning on November 14, the U.S. Navy accelerated programs to combat racism within the service. President Richard Nixon was unhappy with Zumwalt's handling of the recent African American revolt in the Navy. Presidential Advisor Bob Haldeman wrote in his daily diary that day "The President considered Zumwalt and his Navy officers had failed to act on the blacks that refused to sail on the Constellation. The President has told Henry Kissinger to have Melvin Laird order all the men court-martialed and to be given dishonorable discharges. However instead, Zumwalt gave them active shore stations with Coca-Colas and ice cream and now he wanted John Ehrlichman to let Zumwalt know that the President was terribly displeased."
  • Born: Shawn Green, American MLB player, in Des Plaines, Illinois

[November 11], 1972 (Saturday)

[November 12], 1972 (Sunday)

  • The hijacking of Southern Airways Flight 49 ended after 29 hours as the DC-9 made an emergency landing in Havana, after several of its tires had been shot out on takeoff by FBI agents hours before. One passenger noted later that "Everyone believed they would be dead in an hour" after the airplane took off on the damaged tires. The three hijackers – Henry Jackson, Lewis Moore and Melvin Cale – were arrested by Cuban authorities. Another Southern Airways jet flew the 27 passengers and four crew back to the United States.
  • Born: Vasilios Tsiartas, Greek footballer with 70 caps for the Greece National Team; in Alexandreia
  • Died: Rudolf Friml, 92, Czech composer of operettas and musicals

[November 13], 1972 (Monday)

  • In London, delegates from 79 nations signed the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, banning the dumping of oil, mercury, cadmium, and radioactive materials into the ocean.
  • At 8:00 in the morning, the Michigan Lottery was inaugurated as Michigan became the fourth U.S. state to begin the legal sale of lottery tickets. The "Green Ticket" game was introduced, with each 50 cent ticket having two three-digit numbers, after which drawings were held on November 24 for two sets of three-digit numbers. "A ticket which matches one of the drawn numbers entitles the holder to $25," a press release noted, "and if both numbers match, the bearer gets a chance at a 'super drawing,' in which he can win as much as $200,000. After hopeful winners have purchased 30 million tickets, a 'Million Dollar Drawing' will give previous winners a chance to line their pockets with $50,000 a year for the next 20 years.". Hundreds of ticket holders won on November 24 if they had a ticket with either "130" or "544".
  • Born: Takuya Kimura, Japanese actor, in Tokyo

[November 14], 1972 (Tuesday)

[November 15], 1972 (Wednesday)

  • In the first-ever aircraft hijacking in Australia, Ansett Airlines Flight 232 from Adelaide to Alice Springs, with 28 passengers and a crew of four, was taken over by a lone gunman.
  • In Rome, Pope Paul VI inspired a debate within the Roman Catholic Church about whether Satan was a real being, or a metaphor for evil. In addressing an audience in a speech entitled "Liberaci dal male", the Pontiff spoke in Italian, and was quoted in one translation as saying "The evil which exists in the world is the result and an effect of the attack upon us and our society by a dark and hostile agent, the devil. Evil is not only a privation, but a living, spiritual, corrupt and corrupting being".
  • India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi responded in writing to a parliamentary question from the Lok Sabha, suggesting that the Indian Atomic Energy Commission was considering the "potential economic benefits and possible environmental hazards" of developing the country's nuclear capability.
  • The U.S. city of Denver, Colorado, canceled its plans to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, after having been awarded them by the International Olympic Committee on May 12, 1970. The withdrawal followed the state referendum where Colorado voters rejected a proposition to partially fund the games. On February 4, 1973, the games would be awarded to the Austrian city of Innsbruck.
  • Born: Jonny Lee Miller, English actor; in Kingston upon Thames, London

[November 16], 1972 (Thursday)

  • At the 17th convention of UNESCO, United Nations members signed the "Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage", otherwise known as the World Heritage Convention. In the years since 1972, UNESCO has designated areas all over the planet as World Heritage Sites subject to protection.
  • The infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment came to an end as the U.S. Public Health Service ceased further operations of "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male".
  • A protest by 100 students at historically black Southern University, in Louisiana, was broken up with tear gas by 55 sheriff's deputies and 30 state troopers. Two students, Leonard Brown and Denver Smith, both 20, were killed by a shotgun blast, apparently by one of the deputies, but the shooter was never identified.
  • The Pepsi Cola Company announced a deal with Soyuzplodimport for Pepsi to be bottled and sold in the Soviet Union, making the drink the first American cola to be made in the U.S.S.R. The Soviet-manufactured Pepsi would not reach consumers until May 15, 1974, when the first bottle was sold at the Black Sea resort of Sochi in the Russian SFSR.
  • Died: Vera Karalli, 83, Russian ballerina, choreographer and actress

[November 17], 1972 (Friday)

  • After 17 years in exile, Juan Perón returned to Argentina, where he had been President from 1946 to 1955, accompanied by his wife Isabel Perón. The next day, he addressed a rally of his followers, the "Peronistas". Mr. and Mrs. Perón would become President and Vice-President in 1973, and Isabel would become President after Juan's death in 1974.

[November 18], 1972 (Saturday)

  • The USS Sanctuary became the first U.S. Navy ship to transport women sailors assigned to sea duty, with 40 enlisted women and 30 nurses assigned to work with the 480 men. The recommissioning of the ship was carried out as "part of a pilot program to evaluate the utilization of women for shipboard duty."
  • The women's national soccer football teams for England and Scotland both made their international debuts, with England overcoming a 2–1 deficit to beat Scotland 3–2 in a game in Scotland at Greenock in Renfrewshire. Midfielder Sylvia Gore scored England's first national goal.
  • Died: Danny Whitten, 29, guitarist for the band Crazy Horse and later for Neil Young, died of an overdose of alcohol and Valium, on the same day that he was fired by Young, who had given him fifty dollars and an airplane ticket.

[November 19], 1972 (Sunday)

  • In elections in West Germany, the Social Democrat Party led by Chancellor Willy Brandt, in coalition with the Free Democrats, regained a majority of 271 seats in the 496 member Bundestag. Rainer Barzel's Christian Democrats and its partner the Christian Socialists won 177 and 48 seats, respectively.

[November 20], 1972 (Monday)

[November 21], 1972 (Tuesday)

  • The Fourth Republic of South Korea era began with a 91.5% approval of the Yusin Constitution in a national referendum, giving President Park Chung-hee dictatorial powers, including the right to appoint legislators. The Yusin Constitution would be abandoned after Park's assassination in 1979.
  • The second phase of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union began in Geneva. A treaty was signed in 1979, but was not ratified by the United States.
  • In Epping, British daredevil Stephen Ladd successfully rode his motorcycle through a tunnel of fire created by blazing bales of hay, but then persuaded organizers to let him try again as the flames got fiercer. On his second run, Ladd's motorcycle failed inside the tunnel, and he died of his burns.
  • The 1970 convictions of five members of the Chicago 7 were reversed by an appellate court, which concluded that Judge Julius J. Hoffman had committed numerous errors. The cases were never retried.
  • Born: Krzysztof Szafrański, Polish racing cyclist, in Prudnik, Poland
  • Died: Kim Du-han, 54, South Korean mobster, anti-communist activist, soldier, politician

[November 22], 1972 (Wednesday)

  • An American Boeing B-52 Stratofortress was shot down, the first to be downed by enemy fire in the Vietnam War.
  • After his death penalty sentence was set aside, mass murderer Richard Speck was re-sentenced to 1,200 years in prison, at the time the longest American jail term ever ordered.

[November 23], 1972 (Thursday)

  • The Soviet Union's fourth and final attempt at launching a rocket powerful enough to carry a crewed lunar orbiter failed. The N1 rocket, similar to the American Saturn V, was launched successfully in a secret test, but exploded at an altitude of. "As pieces fell from the sky across the Kazakhstan steppes", wrote one observer later, "so did Russia's dreams of flying cosmonauts to the Moon".
  • A sinkhole in Crystal River, Florida "swallowed" a home. The house was destroyed as it sank, over a matter of hours, into a pit on Thanksgiving morning.
  • Born: Alfie Haaland, Norwegian footballer, in Stavanger
  • Died: Marie Wilson, 56, American radio and television comedian who portrayed Irma Patterson, the title character of ''My Friend Irma''

[November 24], 1972 (Friday)

[November 25], 1972 (Saturday)

[November 26], 1972 (Sunday)

  • Norway's Defense Minister Johan Kleppe announced that a foreign submarine, hunted for two weeks in the Sognefjord, had escaped back to sea. It was speculated that the object had been a Soviet sub, and that it had been allowed to slip away to avoid further tensions.
  • Born:
  • *Christopher Fitzgerald, American theatrical actor, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
  • *Arjun Rampal, Bollywood actor, in Jabalpur, India

[November 27], 1972 (Monday)

  • In the first episode of the fourth season of Sesame Street, the character of "The Count" was introduced. True to his name, the friendly children's show puppet vampire helped children count.

[November 28], 1972 (Tuesday)

[November 29], 1972 (Wednesday)

[November 30], 1972 (Thursday)