Return to home
1972 Jan 1,
"Promises Promises" closed at Shubert Theater NYC after 1281
performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3438)
1972 Jan 1, Maurice Chevalier
(b.1888), French actor, singer and dancer, died in Paris. He sang
“Thank Heaven for Little Girls” in the 1958 film “Gigi.”
(SSFC, 8/8/04, Par p.2)(www.jimpoz.com)
1972 Jan 1, Kurt Waldheim
(1918-2007) of Austria began serving as the UN Secretary-General. He
continued until Jan 1, 1982.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)
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.,
private practice lawyer, and William H. Rehnquist (1925-2005),
Assistant Attorney General for Pres. Nixon, were sworn in as the 99th
and 100th members of the Supreme Court.
(AP, 1/7/98)(AP, 9/4/05)
1972 Jan 7, Poet John Berryman
(b.1914), US poet (Imaginary Jew), 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. His former wife, Eileen Simpson, died
in 2002. Simpson authored her memoir "Poets in Their Youth" in 1982.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman)(SFEC,
4/23/00, BR p.1)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A24)
1972 Jan 8, Kenneth Patchen
(b.1911), American poet, died in Palo Alto, Ca. 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Patchen)
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 RMS 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. Arson was blamed and it was scrapped.
(WSJ, 2/6/97,
p.B1)(www.ocean-liners.com/ships/queenelizabeth.asp)
1972 Jan 10, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
(b.1920) returned to Dhaka from prison in West Pakistan. He soon
promulgated an interim constitution and was sworn in first as president
of Bangladesh, then as prime minister.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ryydhzeZic)
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.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0067490/)
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)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0068128/)(SFC, 9/19/02, p.A24)
1972 Jan 14, Denmark’s King
Frederik IX (b.1899) died.
(SFC, 11/8/00,
p.B7)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9422986)
1972 Jan 15, Heavyweight Joe
Frazier (b.1944) KO’d Terry Daniels.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Frazier)
1972 Jan 22, The TV series
"Emergency" began with Julie London and Bobby Troup. It ran until 1977.
(SFC, 10/19/00,
p.A29)(www.fancast.com/tv/Emergency!/8541/synopsis)
1972 Jan 22, Britain, Denmark,
Ireland and Norway joined the European Economic Community.
(AP, 1/22/02)
1972 Jan 24, Maine Sen. Edmund
Muskie (1914-1996) won the Iowa caucus but later lost the Democratic
nomination to George McGovern.
(http://correntewire.com/post_iowa_perspective)
1972 Jan 24, The US 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 24, In Guam Shoichi
Yokoi (d.1997 at 82), a WWII Japanese soldier, was found by hunters
near the Talofofo River. He had survived since 1944 in adherence to his
army code of never surrendering. Yokoi returned to Japan as a national
hero: "It is with much embarrassment that I return."
(SFC, 9/23/97,
p.A19)(http://ns.gov.gu/scrollapplet/sergeant.html)
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 from
North Vietnam. 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. The cause of the explosion has never been established, but
was attributed by the Yugoslav and Czechoslovakian authorities to a
bomb placed on the plane by a Croatian Terrorist group, known as the
Ustasa.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1
p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovic)
1972 Jan 27, Mahalia Jackson
(b.1911), Grammy Award winning gospel singer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahalia_Jackson)
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 was
2nd in command of the IRA at the time of the massacre. The Saville
Inquiry heard its last oral testimony in 2004.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1p.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)(Econ, 2/14/04,
p.51)
1972 Jan 31, Howard Barlow
(b.1892), American radio pioneer and CBS music director (1927-1943),
died. In 1943 He moved to NBC to become conductor of the long-running
Voice of Firestone.
(www.barlowgenealogy.com/FairfieldFamilies/HDB-obit.html)
1972 Jan 31, King Mahendra
(b.1920), Nepal’s poet-king (1955-1972), passed away at Diyalo
Bangalow, Bharatpur. Crown Prince Birendra (b.1945) ascended the throne
of the kingdom. Birendra was killed by his son in 2001.
(www.nepalmonarchy.gov.np/monarcyinnepal/monarchyinnepal.php)(WSJ,
9/29/07, p.A6)
1972 Feb 1, The FAA issued a rule
requiring air carriers to use a screening system, acceptable to the
FAA, that would require screening all passengers "by one or more of the
following systems: behavioral profile, magnetometer, identification
check, physical search."
(www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5116&page=6)
1972 Feb 1, 1st scientific
hand-held calculator, the HP-35, was introduced at $395.
(www.hp-collection.org/calculators.html)
1972 Feb 2, The play "Jumpers" by
Tom Stoppard (b.1937) was first performed at the Old Vic Theatre,
London, England.
(SFEM, 1/2/00,
p.6)(www.complete-review.com/reviews/stoppt/jumpers.htm)
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.
(www.historynet.com/tdih0205.htm)
1972 Feb 5, Marianne Moore
(b.1887), American poet, died in NYC. 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)(www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/moore.html)
1972 Feb 12, Senator Kennedy
advocated amnesty for Vietnam draft resisters.
(HN, 2/12/97)
1972 Feb 13, "1776" closed at 46th
Street Theater in NYC after 1,217 performances. A film version was
released in November.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_(musical))
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. The show turned out to be a
surprise hit and soon moved to the Broadhurst Theatre and then to the
Royale where it remained until April 13, 1980. The show had a record
run until it was taken over by A Chorus Line.
(http://musicalheaven.com/g/grease.shtml)
1972 Feb 14 Bill Torrey (38), an
executive vice president with the Oakland Seals, was named the 1st
General Manager of the Islanders, a Long Island hockey team.
(http://tinyurl.com/4hfu8o)
1972 Feb 15, A left-leaning
military coup in Ecuador, led by Guillermo Rodríguez Lara,
removed, Pres. Velasco Ibarra from office for the fifth time. Military
rule continued to 1979.
(www.yachana.org/indmovs/chronology.php)(WSJ,
12/6/95, p.A-1)(USAT, 2/11/97, p.5A)
1972 Feb 15, Edgar P. Snow
(b.1905), US journalist and author (Battle for Asia, Red Star Over
China), died in Switzerland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org)
1972 Feb 16, Wilt Chamberlain
became the 1st NBA player to score 30,000 points.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_career_achievements_by_Wilt_Chamberlain)
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 declared the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment
in violation of the state constitution. 107 inmates were taken off
death row and resentenced. A similar decision was rendered in 1976 and
68 inmates were resentenced.
(www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=history)(HN,
2/18/98)(AP, 2/18/98)
1972 Feb 20, Walter Winchell
(b.1897),newspaper and radio commentator, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Winchell)
1972 Feb 20, El Salvador held
presidential elections. The blatancy of fraud employed to maintain the
PCN in power outraged and disillusioned many Salvadorans, including
members of the armed forces. Leftists protested the election fraud.
(http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/11.htm)(WSJ,
1/10/05, p.A10)
1972 Feb 21, Pres. Nixon began his
visit to China as he and his wife arrived in Shanghai. He was the 1st
US president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the
US. He brought along a bottle of Schramsberg sparkling wine from
California.
(HN, 2/21/01)(AP, 2/21/04)(WSJ, 7/1/05, p.W6)
1972 Feb 22, President Nixon met
with Mao Tse-tung in Peking and Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai in Beijing.
In 2006 Margaret McMillan authored “Seize the Hour: When Nixon Met Mao.”
(HN, 2/22/98)(Econ, 10/28/06, p.93)
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 25, Wings released "Give
Ireland Back to the Irish." Paul and Linda McCartney wrote the song in
response to the events of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland on January
30, 1972. It was soon banned by the BBC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_Ireland_Back_to_the_Irish)
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.
(WSJ, 10/16/01,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Creek_Flood)
1972 Feb 26, Soviets recovered
Luna 20 with a cargo of moon rocks.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1972 Feb 28, President Nixon and
Chinese Premier Chou En-lai signed the Shanghai Communique at the Jin
Jiang Hotel Assembly Hall on the last night of Nixon’s visit.
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)(AP, 2/28/07)
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, David Rabe's "Sticks
and Bones" premiered in New York City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_and_Bones)
1972 Mar 1, Kathy Boudin and
Bernardine Dohrn, members of the Weathermen, set explosives in the
1st-floor ladies room of the US Capitol building. [See Oct 20,1981]
(WSJ, 11/26/03,
p.A1)(http://hnn.us/articles/1155.html)
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 the Central African
Republic.
(www.etat.sciencespobordeaux.fr/_anglais/chronologie/centralafrican.html)
1972 Mar 2, In Jamaica Michael
Manley (1924-1997, Socialist and champion of the nonaligned movement,
was sworn in as prime minister.
(SFC, 3/8/96,
p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Manley)
1972 Mar 3, Sculpted figures of
Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson were completed at
Stone Mountain, GA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain)
1972 Mar 5, Greek composer Mikis
Theodorakis (b.1925) left the communist party.
(http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/1972)
1972 Mar 6, Shaquille O'Neal, NBA
center (Magic, Lakers, Oly-gold-96), was born in Newark, NJ.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaquille_O'Neal)
1972 Mar 6, Jack Nicklaus, passed
Arnold Palmer as golf's all-time money winner. He captured the Doral
Eastern Open golf tournament to run his career earnings up to
$1,477,200.
(http://440.com/twtd/archives/mar06.html)(http://tinyurl.com/5exc6t)
1972 Mar 7, Republican Richard
Nixon won the New Hampshire primary over Paul McCloskey 67.6 to 19.8%.
Democrat Edmund Muskie won over George McGovern 46.4 to 37.1%.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)(http://tinyurl.com/5dndxk)
1972 Mar 8, Pres. Nixon signed
Executive Order 11652 lifting 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)(http://tinyurl.com/64kjn2)
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 12, “The Limits to
Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of
Mankind." was presented publicly at the Smithsonian Institute in
Washington. It was translated into 30 languages and 10 million copies
of the book were sold, helping the Club of Rome gain the world stage.
Donella Meadows (1941-2001) Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and
William W. Behrens III co-authored the report.
(SFC, 2/21/01,
p.A22)(www.clubofrome.at/peccei/limits.html)
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 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 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.
(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/I_0040.htm)
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 21, The US Supreme Court,
in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a
year's residency for voting eligibility.
(AP, 3/21/08)
1972 Mar 22, The US Congress
passed the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and sent it to
the states for ratification. The amendment died in 1982 when it fell
three states short of the 38, two-thirds, needed for approval.
(AP, 3/22/97)(HN,
3/22/97)(www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline1.html)
1972 Mar 22, 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenstadt_v._Baird)
1972 Mar 23, Pres. Nixon discussed
his orders to undermine Chilean democracy after the leak of corporate
papers revealing collaboration between ITT and the CIA to rollback the
election of socialist leader Salvador Allende.
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/index.htm)
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 24, The US announces a
boycott of the Paris peace talks as President Nixon accuses Hanoi of
refusing to "negotiate seriously."
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
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 25, In El Salvador a
group of young army officers, led by Colonel Benjamin Mejia, launched a
coup. Their immediate goal was the establishment of a "revolutionary
junta." It seemed clear, however, that the officers favored the
installation of Jose Duarte as president.
(http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/11.htm)
1972 Mar 26, "Only Fools Are Sad"
closed at Edison Theater in NYC after 144 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3626)
1972 Mar 26, Evil Knievel broke
his collarbone after successfully clearing 13 cars.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oCif2imBHU)
1972 Mar 27, 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.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/sudan-civil-war1.htm)(WSJ,
10/22/03, p.A4)
1972 Mar 29, J. Arthur Rank
(b.1888), 1st Baron Rank, British industrialist and film producer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Arthur_Rank)
1972 Mar 30, Hanoi launched its
heaviest attack in four years, crossing the DMZ in the Easter
offensive. 200,000 North Vietnamese soldiers under the command of
General Vo Nguyen Giap wage an all-out attempt to conquer South
Vietnam. The offensive is a tremendous gamble by Giap and is undertaken
as a result of US troop withdrawal, the strength of the anti-war
movement in America likely preventing a US retaliatory response, and
the poor performance of South Vietnam's Army during Operation Lam Son
719 in 1971. The Communist Easter invasion in South Vietnam was
defeated.
(WSJ, 10/5/98,
p.A21)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
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)(www.fao.org/sd/eidirect/eian0008.htm)
1972 Mar, In Zaire (CongoDRC) the
Trico II nuclear research reactor went on line.
(WSJ, 5/30/97,
p.A4)(www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/congo/index.html)
1972 Apr 1, A US baseball strike
began and lasted to April 13.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Major_League_Baseball_strike)
1972 Apr 2, Tennessee Williams'
"Small Craft Warnings," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Craft_Warnings)
1972 Apr 2, In response to the
North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, President Nixon authorized the US
7th Fleet to target NVA troops massed around the Demilitarized Zone
with air strikes and naval gunfire.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Apr 3, Charlie Chaplin
(1889-1977) returned to the US after a twenty-year absence.
(HN,
4/3/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin)
1972 Apr 3, Ferde Grofe (b.1892),
US pianist and composer (Grand Canyon Suite), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferde_Grof%C3%A9)
1972 Apr 4, In further response to
the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, US President Nixon authorized a
massive bombing campaign targeting all NVA troops invading South
Vietnam along with B-52 air strikes against North Vietnam. "The
bastards have never been bombed like they're going to be bombed this
time," Nixon privately declares.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Apr 4, Adam Clayton Powell
Jr. (b.1908), American politician, died in Florida. He was elected to
the US House of Representatives from Harlem in 1945 and became chair of
the Education and Labor Committee in 1961. He was the first black
Congressman from New York.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_Jr.)
1972 Apr 5, The Harrisburg 7 trial
ended in mistrial after 11 weeks. Philip Berrigan & Sister
Elizabeth McAllister were declared guilty, but only of smuggling
letters in & out of prison.
(www.well.com/~mareev/TIMELINE/1971-1972.html)
1972 Apr 6, Six US helicopter crew
members were killed in Vietnam during a heroic rescue attempt of Air
Force Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton (1918-2004), who had been shot down on
April 2. Five aircraft crews were shot down during the rescue attempts.
The 1988 film "Bat-21" was about their mission. Hambleton was rescued
on April 13.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 5/29/03,
p.A19)(www.taskforceomegainc.org/g095.html)
1972 Apr 6, US Capt. John W.
Ripley (d.2008 at 69) helped stop a column of North Vietnamese tanks by
blowing up a pair of bridges at Dong Ha during the 1972 Easter
Offensive of the Vietnam War.
(http://kbc3337design.tripod.com/ripley.htm)
1972 Apr 7, Richard McCoy
(1942-1974), Vietnam veteran and pilot, hijacked a United Air Lines jet
and extorted $500,000 in copycat version of the DB Cooper crime. He
parachuted 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, Z1
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McCoy,_Jr.)
1972 Apr 7, "Crazy" Joe Gallo,
flamboyant mobster, was gunned down at his 43rd birthday party in
Manhattan’s Umberto's Clam House.
(SFC, 12/30/04, p.A2)
1972 Apr 7, Sheik Abeid Amane
Karume, Zanzibari vice-president of the republic of Tanzania, was
assassinated.
(Econ, 12/13/03,
p.43)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404703463.html)
1972 Apr 10, In the 44th Academy
Awards "French Connection," Gene Hackman and Jane Fonda won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44th_Academy_Awards)
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 (BWC).
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. In 1973 the Soviet Union created
Biopreparat, an ultra secret biological weapons program that involved
laboratories at a minimum of 47 sites across Russia.
(AP, 4/10/97)(WSJ, 7/21/97, p.A22)(SFEC, 8/10/97,
p.A3)(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C2)
1972 Apr 10, A 6.9 earthquake in
the Iranian province of Fars killed over 5,000 people.
(http://bssa.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/63/6-1/2071)
1972 Apr 13, The
first US Major League baseball strike ended after 13 days.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Major_League_Baseball_strike)
1972 Apr 15, Canada’s PM Pierre
Trudeau and President Richard Nixon met in Ottawa to sign the Great
Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The agreement followed measurements that
showed that high concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen led to the
lakes being choked to death from vegetation and algae. Methods for
quantifying eutrophication had been developed by Swiss scientist
Richard Vollenweider (1922-2007).
(http://tinyurl.com/ygrc3p)(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A8)
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 16, In Japan Yasunari
Kawabata (b.1899), a Nobel laureate in literature (1968), committed
suicide without explanation.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1
p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasunari_Kawabata)
1972 Apr 17, A handful of women
were first accepted as entrants to the Boston marathon.
(SFC, 3/10/00,
p.D8)(www.boston.com/marathon/history/1972.shtml)
1972 Apr 19, The Broadway
production Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope" opened at the Playhouse
Theatre, where it ran for two months before transferring to the Edison.
It had a total run of 1065 performances. The cast included Grant, Alex
Bradford, and Hope Clarke.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Bother_Me,_I_Can't_Cope)
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)
1972 Apr 23, In the 26th Tony
Awards, held in NYC, "Sticks & Bones" won as best play and "Two
Gentlemen of Verona" won as best musical.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26th_Tony_Awards)
1972 Apr 24, Natalie Clifford
Barney (b.1876), 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)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7157)
1972 Apr 25, Hans-Werner Grosse
(b.1922), German glider pilot, glided 907.7 miles (1,461 km) in an
AS-W-12.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Werner_Grosse)
1972 Apr 25, George Sanders
(b.1906), Russia-born English actor, died of suicide. He received an
Academy Award as Best Supporting actor for his role in “All About Eve”
(1950).
(www.filmreference.com/Actors-and-Actresses-Ro-Sc/Sanders-George.html)
1972 Apr 27, Apollo 16 returned to
Earth.
(www.solarviews.com/eng/apo16.htm)
1972 April 27, The German
opposition took advantage of the crumbling Bundestag majority of the
social-liberal coalition to bring a vote of no-confidence against Willy
Brandt. In a secret vote, Rainer Barzel failed to achieve the required
majority in the Bundestag and Willy Brandt remained Federal Chancellor.
(http://tinyurl.com/dgyyl)
1972 Apr 27, Kwame Nkrumah (62),
former president of Ghana, died in Romania of cancer.
(http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/19/150104.php)
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 Apr, Iraq and the USSR signed
a Treaty of Friendship.
(www.heritage.org/research/MiddleEast/bg362.cfm)
1972 May 1, South Vietnamese
abandoned Quang Tri City to the NVA.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 May 2, The play "That
Championship Season" by Jason Miller (1939-2001) premiered in NYC off
Broadway. A film version premiered in 1982.
(http://www.bookrags.com/guides/championshipseason/)
1972 May 2, In Idaho a fire at the
Sunshine Mine precipitated the death of 91 underground employees by
smoke inhalation and/or carbon monoxide poisoning.
(www.usmra.com/saxsewell/sunshine.htm)
1972 May 2, J. Edgar Hoover
(b.1895), head of the FBI (1924-72), died in Washington. 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover)
1972 May 2, Camp Carroll was
officially surrendered to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. This was
the first major victory for the North Vietnamese Army during the Nguyen
Hue Offensive. The Viet Cong's Provisional Revolutionary Government
immediately imposed their authority in the province, as collective
farms were set up and strict rules instilled by the Viet Cong were
forced on the villagers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Quang_Tri)
1972 May 4, The remains of the
ship Gjoe, 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 5, Alitalia’s DC-8 Flight
112 crashed west of Palermo, Sicily; killing 115.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alitalia)
1972 May 7, 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Eugene_Meatyard)
1972 May 7, Justin
Ahomadegbe-Tometin (1917-2002) became president of Dahomey (later
Benin) as part of a system that rotated the office between three
leading political figures: Ahomadegbe, Hubert Maga, and Sourou-Migan
Apithy. He was overthrown on October 26.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Ahomadegb%C3%A9)
1972 May 8, In response to the
ongoing NVA Easter Offensive, President Nixon announced Operation
Linebacker I, the mining of North Vietnam's harbors along with
intensified bombing of roads, bridges, and oil facilities. The
announcement brought international condemnation of the US and ignited
more anti-war protests in America.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 May 8, A Belgian Sabena
aircraft, bound for Tel Aviv, was hijacked by 4 Palestinians. At Lod
Intl. 2 hijackers were shot and killed by Israeli military personnel,
dressed as ground engineers. One passenger died 8 days later as a
result of her wounds. The two women hijackers were subsequently
sentenced to life imprisonment.
(www.prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Terrorism_Timeline_1972.Islam)
1972 May 10, US Navy pilot Duke
Cunningham shot down 3 North Vietnamese MiGs before finessing his badly
damaged and burning F-4 out of enemy territory and over safe waters
where he and his co-pilot could eject. In 2005 as a US Congressman from
San Diego, he pleaded guilty to bribery charges in defense deals.
(WSJ, 1/5/07, p.B10)
1972 May 11, US pilot First Lt.
Michael Joseph Blassie (b.1948) 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Blassie)
1972 May 11, The SF Giants traded
Willie Mays (b.1931) to the New York Mets.
(SFEC,12/797, Z1
p.5)(www.ultimatemets.com/profile.php?PlayerCode=0201)
1972 May 13, Milwaukee
Brewers beat Minn. Twins, 4-3, in 22 innings. The game had started the
evening of May 12.
(www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN197205120.shtml)
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, Dan Blocker (b.1928),
actor (Hoss-Bonanza), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0088779/)
1972 May 13, In Osaka,
Japan, 118 died in a nightclub atop the 7-story Sennichi dept store.
(http://shippai.jst.go.jp/en/Detail?fn=0&id=CD1000133)
1972 May 15, Alabama’s Gov. George
Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer while campaigning in Laurel,
Maryland, for the Democratic presidential primary. Wallace was left
paralyzed. In 2007 Bremer was released from jail after serving 35 of
his 53 year sentence.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(AP,
5/15/97)(AP, 11/9/07)
1972 May 17, In Italy Luigi
Calabresi, head of the political dept. of the Milan police, was killed.
He had been falsely suspected of having killed the anarchist Giuseppe
Pinelli in 1969. In 1988 Leonardo Marino, a former far left Lotta
Continua militant, confessed that he drove a getaway car and that
Adriano Sofri (b.1942), a writer, had masterminded the killing. On July
28, 1988, Sofri was arrested with Ovidio Bompressi and Giorgio
Pietrostefani for the alleged murder of Calabresi. Sofri was convicted
in 2000.
(WSJ, 3/12/02,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriano_Sofri)
1972 May 18, "Me & The Chimp"
last aired on CBS-TV.
(www.tv.com/me-and-the-chimp/show/4167/summary.html)
1972 May 18, Eero Aukusti Sipila
(53), Finnish composer, died.
(http://meteli.net/eerosipila)
1972 May 19, Kathy Boudin and
Bernardine Dohrn, members of the Weathermen, set explosives in bathroom
of the US Pentagon. [See Oct 20,1981]
(WSJ, 11/26/03,
p.A1)(http://hnn.us/articles/1155.html)
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)
1972 May 22, The island nation of
Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka, which is Sinhala for
resplendent land, with the adoption of a new constitution under PM
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, The final US CORONA
reconnaissance satellite was launched.
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB186/index.htm)
1972 May 26, President Richard M.
Nixon and Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev signed in Moscow
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an arms reduction agreement that
became known as SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). The US withdrew
from the treaty in 2002.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.B5)(AP, 5/26/07)
1972 May 28, Operatives working
for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) burglarized the
Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Washington, DC,
Watergate office complex.
(http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum)
1972 May 28, Edward VIII, the Duke
of Windsor (b.1894), died of throat cancer in Paris. He had abdicated
the English throne (1936) to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson (1937).
(AP,
5/28/97)(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/edward_viii_king.shtml)
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. The terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they
were arrested. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in
Israel. 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 1, Iraq nationalized the
Iraq Petroleum Company controlled by British, American, Dutch and
French oil companies.
(SFC, 9/24/02,
p.A10)(www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/5873nation.htm)
1972 Jun 1, Hanoi admits that the
US Operation Linebacker I is causing severe disruptions.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Jun 2, Dion & the
Belmonts held a reunion concert at Madison Square Garden.
(www.softshoe-slim.com/lists/d/dion.html)
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, The Rolling Stones
began their US tour and concluded it on July 26. They 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."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_American_Tour_1972)(SFEC,
4/12/98, DB p.56)(SFEM, 1/17/99, p.6)
1972 Jun
3, Sally J. Priesand (25) was ordained the 1st female US rabbi by
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Upon ordination Rabbi Pries accepted a position at Stephen Wise Free
Synagogue in NYC where she served for seven years, first as Assistant
Rabbi and then as Associate Rabbi. From 1979-1981, she was Rabbi of
Temple Beth El in Elizabeth, New Jersey and also served as Chaplain at
Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital. Since 1981, she has served as Rabbi of
Monmouth Reform Temple in New Jersey.
(www.monmouth.com/~mrt/rabbi/bio.html)
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 (1892-1980) visited the USSR and received the Order of Lenin, the
highest national order of the USSR.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito)
1972 Jun 6, David Bowie, English
rock musician, released his album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and the Spiders From Mars."
(SFC, 8/20/98,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggy_Stardust)
1972 Jun 6, The US aircraft
carrier Coral Sea (CVA 43) launched three Marine A-6 Intruders and six
Navy A-7 Corsair attack planes toward the coast of North Vietnam.
Shortly afterward, the naval aircraft laid strings of thirty-six
1,000-pound Mark 52 mines in the water approaches to Haiphong, through
which most of North Vietnam's imported war material and all of its fuel
supply passed.
(www.history.navy.mil/wars/vietnam/minenorviet.htm)
1972 Jun 6, In Rhodesia (later
Zimbabwe) 418 people were killed in an underground explosion at a mine.
(www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-14849790.html)
1972 Jun 7, The musical "Grease"
opened at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it ran for five months before
transferring to the Royale Theatre. It had initially opened at the Eden
Theater in Manhattan on Feb 14,1972.
(AP,
6/7/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_(musical))
1972 Jun 7, German Chancellor
Willy Brandt began a 5-day visit to Israel.
(http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2506)
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. AP photographer Nick Ut took a photo of screaming
children struck by napalm that showed 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc
standing naked in agony. Alan Downes (1938-1996) filmed 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. 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, 10/11/96, p.A24)(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, Joseph Brodsky
(1940-1996), Russian poet, arrived in Ann Arbor, Mich., after being
deported from the Soviet Union. He won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Poetry.
(LSA, Fall/02,
p.10)(www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/literature/1987a.html)
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, The film “Deep
Throat” was released in NYC. Linda Lovelace, aka Linda Boreman
(1949-2002), made a hit with her film, the first movie to score a 100
from Screw Magazine. She signed for the film after a performance in
which she was mounted by a German shepherd. Boreman later became an
anti-porn advocate.
(WSJ, 4/10/97,
p.A12)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0068468/)(SFC, 4/23/02, p.A18)
1972 Jun 12, 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)(www.answers.com/topic/richard-kleindienst)
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 12, Saul Alinsky
(b.1909), founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation, died in Carmel,
Ca. He is generally considered the father of community organizing.
(SFC, 9/16/98,
p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky)
1972 Jun 12, Edmund Wilson
(b.1895), author and American literary critic, died. His novels
included “Memoirs of Hecate County” (1946). In 1995 Jeffrey Meyers
wrote a biography of Mr. Wilson, wherein he documented Wilson’s
relationships with four wives and numerous mistresses as well as his
writings. In 2005 Lewis M. Dabney authored “Edmund Wilson: A Life in
Literature.” In 2007 the Library of America published 2 volumes of his
literary criticism.
(WSJ, 4/26/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 8/26/05,
p.W6)(www.nndb.com/people/238/000084983/)(WSJ, 9/28/07, p.W4)
1972 Jun 15, Ulrike Meinhof
(1934-1976), co-leader of the Baader-Meinhof gang, was arrested in West
Germany.
(SFC, 1/10/01, p.A8)(WSJ, 4/3/09,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulrike_Meinhof)
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’s president
Allende changed his Cabinet. The two most prominent departures were
Brigadier General Pedro Palacios Cameron from Mines and Pedro Vuskovic
from Economy.
(www.rrojasdatabank.org/murder30.htm)
1972 Jun 18, A BEA Trident, Flight
BE548, crashed after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118 people.
(http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19720618-0&lang=de)
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 19, Two days after the
botched Watergate break-in, FBI official W. Mark Felt secretly assured
Bob Woodward that The Washington Post could safely make a connection
between the burglars and a former CIA agent linked to the White House,
E. Howard Hunt. Woodward’s secret source for information became known
as Deep Throat, and Felt’s name was not made public until 2005. In 2006
Mark Felt and John O’Connor authored “A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, Being
“Deep Throat,” and the Struggle for Honor in Washington.”
(http://tinyurl.com/cva26)(SSFC, 5/21/06, p.M3)
1972 Jun 19, The US Supreme Court
voted 5-3 to confirm lower court rulings in the Curt Flood case, which
upheld baseball's exemption from antitrust laws.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/407/258/)
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 times in the 18 minutes.
(SFC, 2/4/02, p.B5)
1972 Jun 21, The TV sitcom "Corner
Bar" began its 1st of 2 seasons.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, DB.
p.35)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0546094/)
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 23, Pres. Nixon signed
the federal Title IX of the Education Amendment 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)(SSFC, 6/24/07, p.E1)
1972 Jun 24, The song "I Am
Woman," by Helen Reddy, was released by Capitol Records.
(http://440.com/twtd/archives/jun24.html)
1972 Jun 28, US Pres. Nixon
announced that no new draftees will be sent to Vietnam. South
Vietnamese troops began a counter-offensive to retake Quang Tri
Province, aided by US Navy gunfire and B-52 bombardments.
(HN,
6/28/98)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Jun 29, The US Supreme Court
ruled in Furman v. Georgia that 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furman_v._Georgia)
1972 Jun 29, The US Supreme Court
ruled in Branzburg v. Hayes that “The First Amendment does not relieve
a newspaper reporter of the obligation that all citizens have to
respond to a grand jury subpoena and answer questions relevant to a
criminal investigation, and therefore the Amendment does not afford him
a constitutional testimonial privilege for an agreement he makes to
conceal facts relevant to a grand jury's investigation of a crime or to
conceal the criminal conduct of his source or evidence thereof.”
(Econ, 4/14/07,
p.35)(www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/branzburg.html)
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 Jul 1, Ms. Magazine published
its first regular issue. Ms. was launched as a "one-shot" sample insert
in New York Magazine in December 1971. The first stand-alone issue
appeared in January 1972.
(www.msmagazine.com/about.asp)
1972 Jul 1, "Hair" closed at
Biltmore Theater in NYC after 1750 performances.
(www.geocities.com/hairpages/hairhistory.html)
1972 Jul 1, The first Rainbow
Gathering began in Colorado’s Roosevelt National Forest. It has been
held annually in the United States from July 1 - 7 every year on
National Forest land.
(SFC, 7/4/97,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Gathering)
1972 Jul 2, India and Pakistan
signed the Simla Agreement that provided for a bilateral settlement of
disputes and a "Line of Control" in Kashmir. 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."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla_Agreement)(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1972 Jul 6, Pierre Messmer
(1916-2007), former member of the French Resistance, began serving as
prime minister of France under President Georges Pompidou.
(AP,
8/30/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Messmer)
1972 Jul 7, Athenagoras (b.1886),
268th patriarch of Constantinople, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Athenagoras)
1972 Jul 8, The US signed an
agreement to sell grain to USSR for $750 million. Soviet grain buyers
over 6 weeks purchased the 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.
(http://tinyurl.com/5qvx8c)(PC, 1992, p.1040)
1972 Jul 9, The body Kwame Nkrumah
(1909-1972), former head of Ghana (1952-1966), was returned to Nkroful,
Ghana, for burial.
(http://tinyurl.com/5e95hx)
1972 Jul 10, During an extended
drought a herd of stampeding elephants killed 24 in the Chandka Forest
of India.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bppys)
1972 Jul 11, American forces broke
the 95-day siege at An Loc in Vietnam.
(HN, 7/11/98)
1972 Jul 13, George McGovern
claimed the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's
convention in Miami Beach, Fla. McGovern defeated Scoop Jackson for the
nomination. McGovern’s campaign was led by Jean Westwood (d.1997 at
73), the first woman to chair a major US political party. 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. 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.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 2/26/96, p.A-10)(SFC,
8/23/97, p.A20)(AP, 7/13/07)
1972 Jul 14, The US State
Department criticized actress Jane Fonda for making antiwar radio
broadcasts in Hanoi, calling them "distressing."
(AP, 7/14/00)
1972 Jul 17, The first women since
the 1920s were officially hired as special FBI
agents.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dillinger/peopleevents/p_women.html)
1972 Jul 18, Egypt’s President
Sadat demanded that the USSR withdraw all military advisors from Egypt.
(http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/67-5-236.shtml)
1972 Jul 21, A total of 22
IRA-bombs exploded in Belfast killing 9 people including two soldiers.
130 civilians were injured in what came to be called Bloody Friday.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Friday_(1972))
1972 Jul 22, Eddy Merckx
(b.1945)), Belgian professional cyclist, won his 4th consecutive Tour
de France.
(WSJ, 10/22/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Tour_de_France)
1972 Jul 23, NASA launched the
Landsat-1 satellite. 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 24, Bhutan’s King Jigme
Dorji Wangchuck died while on safari in Kenya. His son Jigme Druk
Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck (b.1955), the 4th of his dynasty, became
king.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T5)(SSFC,
3/17/02, p.C10)
1972 Jul 25, US health officials
conceded that blacks were used as guinea pigs in the 40 year Tuskegee
Syphilis Study in Macon County, Ala. By this time 28 participants had
died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, at least 40
wives had been infected and 19 children had contracted the disease at
birth [see 1932].
(www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/)(SSFC,
1/25/04, p.A27)
1972 Jul 27, "Applause" closed at
Palace Theater in NYC after 900 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3519)
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, The British army
launched "Operation Motorman" to regain control of Catholic parts of
Belfast and Londonderry that had been closed off by IRA road barricades
since 1971. An IRA attack followed in Claudy, Northern Ireland,
and killed 9 people. In 2002 a court case was reopened following
allegations that Rev. Jim Chesney (d.1980), a deceased Roman Catholic
priest, had led the Claudy attack.
(AP, 10/1/02)(AP, 11/29/05)
1972 Jul, Robert Metcalf at
Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) combined packet switching from
the Arpanet and single wire broadcasting to lay the foundations for
computer networks. This system was called Ethernet and marked the first
Internet message. The IEEE committee 802.3 later defined the ethernet
standard.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(SFEC, 3/28/99, Z1 p.8)(Econ,
6/12/04, p.26)
1972 Jul, Actress Jane Fonda
traveled to North Vietnam and posed for a photograph with North
Vietnamese soldiers. This sealed her reputation as "Hanoi Jane." She
later regretted the photo.
(SFC, 6/21/00, p.E5)
1972 Aug 1, The 1st article
exposing Watergate scandal was published by Bernstein and Woodward.
(www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/watergate.htm)
1972 Aug 3, The US Senate ratified
the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM treaty). It banned the
construction of systems to defend against ballistic missile attacks. It
had been signed in Moscow on May 26 and entered into force on October 3.
(SFC, 10/18/99, p.A5)(www.fas.org/nuke/control/abmt/)
1972 Aug 4, Arthur Bremer (b.1950)
was sentenced to 63 years for shooting Alabama Gov. Wallace and 3
bystanders on May 15, 1972, in Laurel, Maryland. An appeal reduced the
sentence to 53 years. After 35 years of incarceration, Bremer was
released from prison on parole on November 9, 2007. He remains on
probation until 2025 and resides in a halfway house in Cumberland,
Maryland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bremer#Release)
1972 Aug 4, Uganda’s president Idi
Amin gave some 50,000 Asians 90 days to leave the country following an
alleged dream in which, he claimed, God told him to expel them.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin)
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 9, The pesticide Compound
1080, or sodium fluoroacetate, was banned as of this day 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.
(http://fluoridealert.org/pesticides/sodium.fluoroacetate.epa.90.htm)(SFC,
5/17/97, p.A17)(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A3)
1972 Aug 10, An Earth-grazing
meteoroid grazed the atmosphere above Canada. It entered the Earth's
atmosphere in daylight over Utah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Daylight_1972_Fireball)
1972 Aug 12, "Oh! Calcutta!"
closed at Belasco Theater in NYC.
(http://www.blogwaybaby.com/2005/01/bring-back-oh-calcutta.html)
1972 Aug 12, As the last US ground
troops left Vietnam, B-52's made their largest strike of the war.
(HN, 8/12/98)(AP, 8/12/01)
1972 Aug 15, In Argentina 22
members of guerrilla groups escaped from prison in the city of Rawson
and took over the airport in nearby Trelew, about 800 miles south of
Buenos Aires. Military forces guarding the airport managed to arrest
19, while three escaped by plane to Chile. 19 guerrillas were
transferred to the base Almirante Zar. On August 22 they were
machine-gunned in their cells. Alberto Camps, Mary Berger and Ricardo
Haidar survived the attack and reported the crime, only to disappear in
the late 1970s during the military dictatorship that lasted from 1976
to 1983. In 2008 federal police arrested two retired military officers
in connection with the massacre of the 16 leftist guerrillas. In 1973
journalist Tomas Eloy Martínez authored “The Passion According
to Trelew.” It was banned by the Argentine dictatorship.
(AP, 2/10/08)(
www.bither-terry.org/latinamerica/?cat=20)
1972 Aug 15, The Italian town of
Grazie di Curtatone began its Int’l. Street Painting Festival. This
revived a 16th century practice by itinerant artists who traveled from
village to village for religious and folk festivals.
(WSJ, 5/16/06, p.D6)
1972 Aug 16, 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_II_of_Morocco)
1972 Aug 17, The International
Tribunal in The Hague pronounced that the Icelanders did not have
sovereignty over the areas between 12 and 50 miles. The Icelandic
government protested and decided to take no notice of this decree.
(www.nat.is/travelguideeng/50_miles_limit_and_the_cod_war_1.htm)
1972 Aug 21, The US Republican
convention opened in Miami Beach, Florida.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Republican_National_Convention)
1972 Aug 21, The US orbiting
astronomy observatory Copernicus was launched.
(http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=6153)
1972 Aug 21, Donald A. Cameron,
British aeronaut, made the 1st hot air balloon flight over the Alps.
(www.ballong.org/peter/jesper/cia/report17.php)
1972 Aug 22, US Congress created
the Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
(www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/1995/July/Day-28/pr-1138.html)(SFC,
12/11/99, p.A18)
1972 Aug 22, In Bratislava,
Slovakia, the Novy Most (New Bridge) opened over the Danube. A section
of the Old Town was bulldozed for its creation.
(Econ, 6/17/06,
p.20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nov%C3%BD_Most_Bratislava)
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 XX Olympiad
opened in Munich, Germany. The IOC had withdrawn Rhodesia’s invitation
to the summer Olympics after several African nations threatened a
boycott.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Summer_Olympics)
1972 Aug 26, Sir Francis
Chichester (b.1901), English adventurer, died. In 1966-67 he sailed
around the world alone in his 53-foot yacht, Gypsy Moth IV.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Chichester)
1972 Aug 27, The USS Newport News
CA-148 and three other ships (USS Rowan DD-782, USS Providence
CLG-6, and USS Robison DDG-12) carried out a night time raid
against heavily defended targets at the mouth of Haiphong Harbor.
(www.tranhungdaotrip.com/CONGALionsDen.html)
1972 Aug 28, Prince William of
Gloucester was killed in an air race near Wolverhampton in the west
Midlands.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/28/newsid_2536000/2536275.stm)
1972 Aug 29, Rene Leibowitz
(b.1913), Warsaw-born French conductor and composer, died in Paris.
(http://wapedia.mobi/en/Ren%C3%A9_Leibowitz)
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 (b.1955)
of Belarus, USSR, won Olympic gold medal in floor exercises and the
balance beam.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Korbut)(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 3, In San Francisco the
Playland-at-the-Beach amusement park was bulldozed on Labor Day
Weekend. Playland shut its gates and some 40 Fascination tables were
transferred to a Market Street arcade. Fascination was invented by John
Gibbs of Los Angeles and combined the skill of bowling with the luck of
Bingo. The head of Laughing Sal was stolen on closure and turned up in
2004.
(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A1)(SSFC, 3/14/04, p.B2)(SSFC,
7/3/05, p.F6)(SFC, 5/31/08, p.B2)
1972 Sep 4, The TV game show "The
Price Is Right" returned with Bob Barker and continued for 35 seasons.
A nighttime version also began this year hosted by Dennis James
(1917-1997) up to 1977.
(SFC, 6/5/97,
p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_James)
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 1983 George Jonas authored “Vengeance,” an account of an Israeli hit
squad ordered to track down those responsible for the Munich attack. In
2000 the TV documentary "One Day in September" depicted the events. In
2005 Aaron J. Klein authored “Striking Back,” and account of Israel’s
response to the Munich attack. The 2005 the Stephen Spielberg film
“Munich” was based on the book by George Jonas.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(WSJ, 9/8/00, p.W4)(WSJ,
12/21/05, p.D10)(WSJ, 1/14/06, p.A9)
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 7, The Commissioner of
Indian Affairs in a memorandum extended federal recognition to the
Chippewa tribe of Sault Ste. Marie in Northern Michigan. The meaning of
this federal recognition was further clarified in a memorandum by the
Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs on February 27, 1974.
(http://tinyurl.com/5c8cfu)
1972 Sep 8, The Int’l. 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, At the Munich Summer
Olympics, the US 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 US protested, to no avail. Frank Shorter of the United States won
the men's marathon at the Munich Olympics.
(AP,
9/10/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Summer_Olympics)
1972 Sep 11, The first trial of
serial killer Juan Corona began in Colusa County, Ca. It ended up
costing $350,000.
(www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/juan_corona/8.html)(SFC,
2/25/99, p.A13)
1972 Sep 11, Max Fleischer
(b.1889), Viennese-born cartoonist, died in California. In the 1930s he
introduced the character of 'Betty Boop' in the "Dizzy Dishes" cartoons
which brought him great fame.
(SFC, 6/13/00,
p.A22)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=7323557&page=gr)
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 14, The family drama
series "The Waltons" premiered on CBS.
(AP, 9/14/97)
1972 Sep 15, 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.
(http://www.watergate.info/chronology/1972.shtml)
1972 Sep 16, "The Bob Newhart
Show" premiered on CBS and ended in 1978. Suzanne Pleshette (1937-2008)
played Bob Newhart’s wife.
(AP, 9/16/97)(SSFC, 1/20/08, p.A2)
1972 Sep 16, South Vietnamese
troops recaptured Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North
Vietnamese Army.
(HN,
9/16/98)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Sep 17, "M*A*S*H" (MASH)
premiered on CBS-TV.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1972 Sep 18, Thousands of Gujarati
Indians began arriving in Britain following their expulsion from Uganda
by Dictator Idi Amin. Deprived of its business class the nation soon
plummeted into economic chaos.
(http://tinyurl.com/2lm7n5)(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A21)
1972 Sep 19, Robert M Casadesus
(b.1899), French pianist and composer, died in Paris. His Seventh
Symphony, Op.68, with the chorus "Israel," was premiered at Alice Tully
Hall at New York's Lincoln Center a few weeks later.
(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Casadesus-Robert.htm)
1972 Sep 19, A Black September
letter bomb killed Ami Shehori, Israeli attache at the embassy in
London.
(www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/international/middleeast/08chrono.html)
1972 Sep 20, The NBC TV series
“Madigan” premiered with Richard Widmark (1914-2008).
(SFC, 3/27/08, p.A2)
1972 Sep 21, Ferdinand Marcos
(b.1929) signed Proclamation 1081 placing the Philippines under a state
of martial rule, which lasted for the next 14 years.
(www.geocities.com/pinoytv/martiallaw.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/6g67b4)
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 Oct 1, Louis Leakey (b.1903),
Kenyan archeologist and naturalist, died in London. He was flown home
and interred at Limuru, Kenya, near the graves of his parents.
(SFC, 12/10/96,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Leakey)
1972 Oct 4, Judge John Sirica
imposed a gag order on the Watergate break-in case.
(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1791.html)
1972 Oct 6, In Saltillo, Mexico, a
22-car train carrying 2,000 religious pilgrims derailed and caught
fire. 208 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1972 Oct 8, The TV series "Hec
Ramsey" premiered with 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)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0068077/)
1972 Oct 11, There was an
attempted prison escape at the Washington DC jail. In 1975 Appellants
Frank Gorham, Jr., and Otis D. Wilkerson were indicted, along with
co-defendants Meltonia Fields and Linda Ewing, on counts of conspiracy,
introducing contraband into a penal institution, armed kidnapping, and
armed robbery, and both appellants were indicted individually on counts
of attempted escape and escape from custody. The charges grew out of
appellants' abortive attempt to escape from the D.C. jail on October
11, 1972, and their successful escape two weeks later.
(http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/523/523.F2d.1088.74-1613.74-1611.html)
1972 Oct 11, In Turkey the
National Salvation Party formed as the successor of the banned National
Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi, MNP). Necmettin Erbakan returned home
to take leadership.
(AP,
11/4/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Salvation_Party)
1972 Oct 11, A French mission in
Vietnam was destroyed by a U.S. bombing raid.
(HN, 10/11/98)
1972 Oct 12, On the US aircraft
carrier Kitty Hawk a series of incidents broke out wherein a group of
blacks, armed with chains, wrenches, bars, broomsticks and other
dangerous weapons, went marauding through sections of the ship
disobeying orders to cease, terrorizing the crew, and seeking out white
personnel for senseless beating with fists and with weapons which
resulted in extremely serious injury to three men and the medical
treatment of many more, including some blacks.
(www.history.navy.mil/library/special/racial_incidents.htm)
1972 Oct 12, US House Resolution
16444, establishing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA),
was passed by Congress and was signed by President Richard Nixon 15
days later. The island of Alcatraz was incorporated into this park.
California Congressman Phillip Burton pushed through legislation
preserving thousands of acres of forested hills, valleys and rugged
shoreline. Burton got Congress to agree to transfer the Presidio in San
Francisco to the park service if the army ever pulled out.
(www.sftravel.com/Alcatraz1950on.html)(SFEC,
6/27/99, Z1 p.1,4)(SFCM, 4/25/04, p.18)(SFC, 10/4/96, p.A21)
1972 Oct 13, Aeroflot Il-62
crashed in large pond outside Moscow and 176 died.
(http://tinyurl.com/5a6zlm)
1972 Oct 13, A Uruguay to Chile
plane carrying 45 people crashed in the Andes Mountains. The event was
concluded by December 23, 1972 when the last of 16 survivors were
rescued. The group survived by collectively making a decision to eat
flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. The book “Alive: The
Story of the Andes Survivors,” published two years after their rescue,
was written by Piers Paul Read, who interviewed the survivors and their
families.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571)
1972 Oct 16, A light plane
carrying House Democratic leader Hale Boggs (b.1914) of Louisiana and
three other men were reported missing in Alaska. Nick Begich, Alaska
congressman, his aide, Russell Brown, and the pilot, Don Jonz were also
on the plane and later presumed dead. The plane was never found.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Begich)(Econ,
9/6/08, p.35)
1972 Oct 17, Bob Randall's play "6
Rooms Riv Vu," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_Rms_Riv_Vu)
1972 Oct 17, Peace talks between
Pathet Lao and Royal Lao government began in Vietnam.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1972 Oct 18, The Federal Water
Pollution Control Act Amendments, sponsored by Senator Ed Muskie of
Maine, was passed. It was amended in 1977 and became known as the Clean
Water Act. It gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control
programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry.
(SFC, 6/2/96,
p.T-12)(http://www.osha.gov/dep/oia/whistleblower/acts/fwpca.html)
1972 Oct 18,
In Norway Lars Korvald (1916-2006) became the first Christian
Democrat to serve as prime minister.
(AP, 7/4/06)
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 21, The US Marine Mammal
Protection Act (MMPA) was enacted. Prof. Kenneth Norris (d.1998 at 74)
helped write the legislation.
(PacDis, Fall/’96, p.3)(SFC, 8/31/98,
p.A22)(www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/mmpa/)
1972 Oct 22, Operation Linebacker
I, the bombing of North Vietnam with B-52 bombers, ended. U.S.
warplanes flew 40,000 sorties and dropped over 125,000 tons of bombs
during the bombing campaign which effectively disrupted North Vietnam's
Easter Offensive. During the failed offensive, the North suffered an
estimated 100,000 military casualties and lost half its tanks and
artillery. Leader of the offensive, legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap,
the victor at Dien Bien Phu, was then quietly ousted in favor of his
deputy Gen. Van Tien Dung. 40,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died
stopping the offensive, in the heaviest fighting of the entire war.
(HN,
10/22/98)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Oct 22, The Oakland Athletics
beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-2 in a 7th game to win the World Series,
bringing home the first Bay Area’s baseball world championship.
It was the first of 3 in a row.
(SFEC, 3/1/98,
p.W39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_World_Series)(SFC, 12/28/99,
p.A1)
1972 Oct 23, Jascha Haifetz
(b.1901), virtuoso violinist, performed his farewell concert in Los
Angeles at the age of 72.
(www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608002800/Jascha-Heifetz.html)
1972 Oct 23, The musical "Pippin"
opened on Broadway and ran for 1944 performances.
(AP, 10/23/97)(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippin_(musical))
1972 Oct 23, The US Marine
Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 became law.
(www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/marprot.html)(Econ,
6/24/06, p.96)
1972 Oct 23, Cumberland Island off
the coast of Georgia was established as a National Seashore.
(SFC, 4/28/96,
p.T-8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Island_National_Seashore)
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 1983 Prof. Jules Tygiel (1949-2007) authored
"Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy." In 1997
Arnold Rampersad published the biography "Jackie Robinson."
(WSJ, 10/17/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/2/00, BR p.1)(SFC,
7/3/08, p.B5)
1972 Oct 26, 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.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a102672macgregorfund)
1972 Oct 26, National security
adviser Henry Kissinger declared, "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam.
(AP, 10/26/97)
1972 Oct 26, Igor Sikorsky
(b.1889), Ukraine-born helicopter pioneer, died in Connecticut.
(HNPD, 10/27/98)(ON, 3/06,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky)
1972 Oct 26, Major Mathieu Kerekou
(b.1933) took power in Dahomey (later Benin) in a coup and proclaimed
it a Marxist-Leninist state.
(www.answers.com/topic/ahmed-mathieu-kerekou)
1972 Oct 27, The US Noise Control
Act of 1972, Public Law 92-574, allowed states or US territories to set
noise-control laws.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/5usyxa)
1972 Oct 27, Federal legislation
established the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the Bay Area of
SF. The park was expanded from 870 acres in 1948 to 6,300 acres by 1972.
(http://usparks.about.com/library/miniplanner/blgoldengatenra.htm)(SFEC,
6/27/99, Z1 p.1,4)(SFCM, 4/25/04, p.18)
1972 Oct 29, Hijackers of a German
Lufthansa passenger jet demanded the release of the three surviving
terrorists, who had been arrested after the Fürstenfeldbruck
gunfight and were being held for trial. Palestinian guerrillas killed
an airport employee and hijacked a plane, carrying 27 passengers, to
Cuba. They forced West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were
involved in the Munich Massacre.
(HN,
10/29/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre)
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, Money Magazine launched
its 1st issue.
(www.lycos.com/info/money-magazine.html)
1972 Oct, Hanoi dropped all its
political demands for dismantling the South Vietnamese government.
(WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-19)
1972 Nov 1, Ezra Pound (b.1885),
American poet, died in Italy. In 2007 A. David Moody authored “Ezra
Pound: Poet: The Young Genius 1885-1920.”
(Econ, 10/20/07,
p.117)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound)
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 7, Jesse Helms
(1921-2008) of North Carolina, who had switched to the Republican Party
in 1970, was elected to the US Senate, the first Republican from NC in
the 20th century.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A2)
1972 Nov 7, California voters
passed Proposition 20 allowing 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)(http://igs.berkeley.edu/library/htCoastalCommission2003.html)
1972 Nov 7, Delaware elected
Joseph Biden (b.1942) as one of its US Senators. Biden was re-elected
in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996 and 2002.
(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A15)
1972 Nov 8, The Green Channel of
Manhattan became Home Box Office (HBO). Time Life gained control of HBO
in March, 1973. HBO soon began transmitting programs to cable TV
subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The 1st cablecast was a National
League Hockey game.
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.B1)(SFC, 4/3/01, p.C1)
1972 Nov 9, The "Trail of Broken
Treaties" caravan, an Indian protest, 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)(http://siouxme.com/lodge/treaties.html)
1972 Nov 10, Three black men
successfully hijacked a Southern Airways DC-9 after a stopover in
Birmingham, Ala., and flew to multiple locations in the United States
and one Canadian city and finally to Cuba with $2 million (actual cash,
Presidential "grant" totaled $10 million) and 10 parachutes. Co-pilot
Halroyd was wounded; they threatened to crash the plane into one of the
Oak Ridge nuclear installations; at McCoy Air Force Base, Orlando, the
FBI shot out the tires; they forced pilot William Haas to take off. The
plane finally landed in Havana; two were sentenced in Cuba to 20 years,
one to 15 years. They returned to Alabama in 1980 and received 20-25
year sentences.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings)(USAT,
6/11/03, p.2B)(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1972 Nov 11, The US Army turned
over its base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese army, symbolizing
the end of direct US military involvement in the Vietnam War.
(AP, 11/11/97)
1972 Nov
12, Rudolf Friml (b.1859), Czech-US composer (“Indian Love Call,” “The
Donkey Serenade”), died in Los Angeles, California.
(www.musicals101.com/who3.htm)
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 with a revival of Mourning Becomes
Electra.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_in_the_Square_Theatre)
1972 Nov 17, Juan Peron
(1895-1974) returned to Argentina from Spain for a short time after 17
years of exile.
(www.jstor.org/pss/2502592)(www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/1972/1972-1-11.htm)
1972 Nov 19, Willy Brandt's SPD
won West German elections. Willy Brandt was the 1st German chancellor
to seek early elections via a vote of confidence.
(http://tinyurl.com/bs7oe)(Econ, 6/11/05, p.49)
1972 Nov 22, US Pres. Nixon ended
a 22 year travel ban to China. The ban had been put in place on
February 8, 1963.
(www.on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/nov22.htm)
1972 Nov 27, In Canada Marc
Lalonde was appointed as the Minister of Health as Pierre Trudeau
formed his Canadian government.
(www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/est-pre/20052006/HLTH-SANT/HLTH-SANTr56-PR_e.asp?printable=True)
1972 Nov 30, American troop
withdrawal from Vietnam was completed, although 16,000 Army advisors
and administrators remained to assist South Vietnam's military forces.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Nov, Maryland ratified the
Equal Rights Amendment.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/5bflsq)
1972 Dec 2, In Australia Neville
Bonner (1922-1999) became the first Aborigine to be elected to the
federal Parliament. In 1971 he became the first Aboriginal person to
sit in the Commonwealth parliament when he was chosen to fill a vacancy
in the Senate caused by the resignation of a Liberal senator for
Queensland.
(SFC, 2/6/99,
p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1972)
1972 Dec 2, Friedrich
Christian Christiansen (92), German Luftwaffe general, died. He was
born at Wyk on Foehr, Germany, on December 12, 1879. Christiansen was
appointed officer commanding occupied Holland, a post he held until the
end of the war when he was imprisoned by the Allies. On his release
from prison he retired to West Germany and died at Innien.
(www.theaerodrome.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-11160.html)
1972 Dec 3, A Spantax Convair 990A
charter carrying West German tourists crashed in Tenerife, Canary
Island, and 155 died.
(www.secret-tenerife.com/2006/03/tenerife-air-disasters-in-perspective.shtml)
1972 Dec 4, Kenneth Parnell
(1931-2008), convicted sex offender, kidnapped Steven Stayner (7) in
Merced, Ca. Parnell had already served 3 years for molesting an
8-year-old boy in Bakersfield in 1952. Stayner (14) escaped in 1980
along with Timmy White (5) of Ukiah, Parnell was again sent to prison
and was paroled in 1985. In 2004 Parnell returned to prison after
trying to procure an African American boy.
(SFC, 1/23/08,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Parnell)
1972 Dec 5, Gough Whitlam became
prime minister of Australia. He served to Nov 11, 1975.
(http://tinyurl.com/cr24r)
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. It landed on the moon December 11 at 3:15 p.m.
and took a historic photo 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 7-1972 Dec 8, Two
skeletons were found on the Ulap fairgrounds in Berlin. They were later
identified as Hitler's deputy Martin Bormann (1900-1945) and Ludwig
Stumpfegger, one of Hitler’s doctors.
(http://greyfalcon.us/restored/myPictures/Martin%20Bormann.htm)
1972 Dec 7, Jean McConville was
abducted from her home in Belfast and was never seen alive again. Her
10 children were put into foster care. In 1999 the IRA admitted
responsibility and revealed the general location of her body. Her body
was found in Aug, 2003.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.A17)(AP, 11/1/03)
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 9, Louella Parsons,
Hollywood gossip columnist, died. In 2005 Samantha Barbas authored “The
First Lady of Hollywood,” a biography of Parsons.
(www.mamievandoren.com/louella.html)
1972 Dec 10, Amnesty
International, founded in London in 1961, launched its first worldwide
campaign for the abolition of torture on Human Rights Day, with the aim
to make torture "as unthinkable as slavery."
(http://archive.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT400051997?open&of=ENG-390)
1972 Dec 10, Kenneth Arrow
(b.1921) of Stanford Univ. shared the Nobel Prize in economics with
John R. Hicks (1904-1989) of Oxford, England.
(SFC, 10/8/01,
p.A17)(http://economics.about.com/cs/nobelwinners/l/blnobel.htm)
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 11, In Paris peace
negotiations between Kissinger and Le Duc Tho collapsed after Kissinger
presented a list of 69 changes demanded by South Vietnamese President
Thieu. President Nixon now issues an ultimatum to North Vietnam that
serious negotiations must resume within 72 hours. Hanoi does not
respond. As a result Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II (see Dec
18), eleven days and nights of maximum force bombing against military
targets in Hanoi by B-52 bombers.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
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)(http://tinyurl.com/5ry8re)
1972 Dec 18, The heaviest bombing
of North Vietnam, under orders from US Pres. Nixon, began 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. In 2002 Marshall L. Michel III
authored “The 11 Days of Christmas,” an account of the B-52 bombings.
(SFC,12/16/97, p.B1)(AP, 12/18/97)(HN,
12/18/98)(WSJ, 1/22/02, p.A18)
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.
(www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/97/sp720-97.html)
1972 Dec 22, Diana Sue Sylvester
(22) was raped and killed in the SF Sunset District after walking home
from UCSF. In 2006 John Puckett (72), a retired carpet installer in
Stockton, was arrested for the murder based on DNA evidence. In 2008
Puckett (74) was convicted of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 4/22/06, p.B1)(SFC, 2/22/08, p.B7)
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. The group survived by collectively making a
decision to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571)
1972 Dec 23, A 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)(http://tinyurl.com/58jfg)
1972 Dec 24, Charles Atlas
(b.1892), Italian-born body builder, died in Long Beach, NY. Atlas was
born as Angelo Siciliano in Acri, Italy, and moved to the US in 1905.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397860/)
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. North Vietnam agreed to
resume peace negotiations within five days of the end of bombing.
(SFC,12/16/97,
p.B1)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1972 Dec 29, Eastern Airlines
Flight 401, a Lockheed Tri-Star Jumbo Jet carrying 176 people, crashed
into the Florida Everglades. 75 people survived. In the end, the crash
was blamed on the crew's preoccupation with a landing gear light.
(http://www3.gendisasters.com/florida/1415/everglades,-fl-jumbo-jet-crash,-dec-1972)
1972 Dec 29, Life magazine ended
publication with the issue titled Year in Pictures.
(www.pastpaper.com/List-Life1972.htm)
1972 Dec 29, US Operation
Linebacker II ended what had been the most intensive bombing campaign
of the entire war with over 100,000 bombs dropped on Hanoi and
Haiphong. Fifteen of the 121 B-52s participating were shot down by the
North Vietnamese who fired 1200 SAMs. There were 1318 civilian deaths
from the bombing, according to Hanoi.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
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 31, Roberto Clemente
(b.1934), baseball player, died in a plane crash while enroute from
Puerto Rico to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua. In 2006 David
Maraniss authored “Clemente.”
(WSJ, 4/2/01, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.D7)
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 (b.1940),
Brooklyn-based artist, created his work "Seed Bed," in which the artist
masturbated under the raised gallery floor.
(WSJ, 4/15/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_Acconci)
1972 Sol LeWitt (1928-2007),
NY-based American artist, made his blue crayon wall drawing: "132. A
Grid Covering a Wall…" on exhibit at the SF Museum of Modern Art. He is
the author of "Sol LeWitt: Critical Texts."
(SFEM, 1/12/97, BR
p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_LeWitt)
1972 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
drew his chilling crayon self-portrait as a skull.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)(SFC, 7/14/96,
p.C11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso)
1972 Chen Yifei (b.1946), Shanghai
born artist, painted "Eulogy of the Yellow River," as China’s Yellow
River dried up for the 1st time in history before reaching the Yellow
Sea. From 1980 to 1996 he worked in the US and became known as the
Norman Rockwell of China.
(WSJ, 1/6/97, p.A10)(SFC, 3/4/02, p.A3)
1972 John Adair (1913-1997),
anthropologist, published his book: "Through Navajo Eyes."
(SFEC,12/21/97, p.B5)
1972 George Alec Affinger (d.2002
at 55) authored his 1st novel "What Entropy Means to Me."
(SFC, 4/30/02, p.A24)
1972 Dr. Robert C. Atkins
(1930-2003), 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 John Berger (b.1926), English
art critic and novelist, authored his Booker Prize-winning novel “G.”
Berger won the Booker Prize for his novel "G." He later authored "A
Seventh Man."
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M2)(SSFC, 8/7/05,
p.C1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berger)
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 (1920-2000),
British author, published his "Joy of Sex." The book sold 12 million
copies worldwide.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.E1)
1972 Timothy Crouse authored “The
Boys on the Bus,” an account of the press pack covering the 1972
presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon and George McGovern.
(WSJ, 12/1/07,
p.W10)(www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a3133.asp)
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 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 Elizabeth Ewing authored
“Underwear: A History.”
(SSFC, 12/31/06, p.E3)
1972 Francis FitzGerald (b.1940)
authored "Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in
Vietnam." Her book won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
(SFEC, 5/7/00, BR
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_FitzGerald)
1972 Janet Flanner (1892-1978),
American writer, authored "Paris Was Yesterday." She served as the
Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until she
retired in 1975.
(SFC, 6/16/96,
T-5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Flanner)
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 (1910-1997)
wrote "Window on Day Care," a critical report that became a blueprint
for changes in day care programs.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, p.D10)(http://tinyurl.com/5emcq3)
1972 UCSF Prof. Henry L. Lennard
(1923-2005) authored “Mystification and Drug Abuse.” He critiqued the
medical profession for being too eager to embrace drug treatments for
mental illness and for being too ready to classify interpersonal and
emotional difficulties as mental disorders.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.A25)
1972 Edna Lewis (1917-2006),
authored her 1st cookbook “The Edna Lewis Cookbook.” She went on to
become a doyenne of Southern cuisine.
(SFC, 2/14/06, p.B7)
1972 James Marshall (1942-1992)
authored his children’s book "George and Martha."
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
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 Robert O. Paxton authored
“Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order.”
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.85)
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 (b.1938),
African-American writer, authored "Mumbo Jumbo."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Reed)
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 Paola Timiras (1923-2008),
Italian-born UC Berkeley professor on aging, authored “Physiological
Basis of Aging and Geriatrics.” A 4th updated edition was published in
2007.
(SFC, 9/20/08,
p.B5)(http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/358/12/1312)
1972 Robert Vaughn authored "Only
Victims," an account of the 1947 HUAC hearings on the Hollywood 10.
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A21)
1972 Eudora Welty (1909-2001),
Mississippi based writer, authored "The Optimist’s Daughter." In 1973
it won her a Pulitzer Prize.
(SSFC, 3/29/09, p.G5)
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 for the film "The Exorcist" in Mosul, Iraq.
(WSJ, 6/12/03, p.A1)
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 Johnny Carson moved the
“Tonight Show” from New York to Burbank, Ca., and established Los
Angeles as the center of popular culture.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.32)
1972 George Crumb (b.1929)
composed "Makrokosmos" for amplified piano. It was 1st performed in
Colorado Springs on January 8, 1972.
(SFC, 4/12/01,
p.E5)(www.georgecrumb.net/comp/makro1.html)
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 In San Francisco the 14-story
Alexis Apartments were built at 380-390 Clementina and Fifth St.
(SSFC, 8/23/09, p.C2)
1972 The $32 million Transamerica
Pyramid building opened in San Francisco. It was designed by William
Pereira.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 5/29/04, p.C2)
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: The
Personal Story of the Episcopal Bishop Charged with Heresy for
Ordaining a Gay Man Who Was in a Committed Relationship."
(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR
p.9)(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n9_v50/ai_n27531797)
1972 Herb Peterson (1919-2008), a
McDonald’s operator in Santa Barbara, Ca., created the Egg McMuffin.
(WSJ, 1/30/06, p.B2)(WSJ, 4/5/08, p.A7)
1972 Psychiatrist Dennis Cantwell
(1939-1997) began serving as director of the UCLA 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.
(www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/DennisP.Cantwell.htm)
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 In Los Angeles 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 The Campus Crusade for Christ
organized “Explo ‘72” at “Godstock” in Dallas, Texas. The organization
for the first time embraced rock music to attract young people.
(WSJ, 1/18/08, p.W11)
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 Dr. 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)(www.wifp.org/pcabout%20us.html)
1972 The National Sheriffs'
Association (NSA) created the Neighborhood Watch program.
(SFC, 1/18/99,
p.A18)(www.citizencorps.gov/programs/watch.shtm)
1972 The American Institute for
Public Service introduced the Jefferson Awards to honor community
service.
(SFC, 7/23/05, p.B6)(www.aips.org/index.html)
1972 Dartmouth College in New
Hampshire, chartered in 1769, began admitting women.
(SFC, 2/11/99,
p.A3)(http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Dartmouth+College)
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 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 President Richard Nixon
signed a public law officially recognizing the third Sunday in June as
Father's Day.
(HNQ, 6/21/98)
1972 Pres. Richard Nixon created
the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) in
the midst of his re-election campaign as the US textile industry was
under pressure from Japan and Taiwan.
(WSJ, 11/10/05, p.A10)
1972 Alfred McKenzie (d.1998 at
80), 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)(www.arlingtoncemetery.net/mckenzie.htm)
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 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. The federal law prevented California’s Montrose Chemical
Co. from dumping DDT into the ocean off the Palos Verdes peninsula.
(SFC, 1/18/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/18/97, p.A22)(Pac.
Disc., summer, ‘96, p.5)
1972 The US Federal Election
Campaign Act limited expenditures for communications media and provided
for criminal penalties.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)
1972 James J. Needham (1926-2007)
became the 1st full-time chairman of the NYSE. He ran the exchange for
4 years.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.A6)
1972 The Chicago futures market
first began trading financial derivatives. Leo Melamed, a former
lawyer, launched currency futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
(WSJ, 11/19/04, p.A8)(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey
p.9)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.79)
1972 Frank Serpico, police
officer, exposed corruption in the NYC police force.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A3)
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 Carlos Bueno (d.2001 at 60),
California painter and muralist, encouraged Self-Help Graphics to
sponsor the 1st Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration in Los
Angeles.
(SFC, 9/6/01, p.E8)
1972 "San Francisco’s Telegraph
Hill," a history of the Telegraph Hill neighborhood, was first
published. It was reissued in 2000.
(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A15)
1972 Herb Peterson (1919-2008), a
McDonald’s operator in Santa Barbara, Ca., created the Egg McMuffin.
(WSJ, 1/30/06, p.B2)(WSJ, 4/5/08, p.A7)
1972 Psychiatrist Dennis Cantwell
(1939-1997) began serving as director of the UCLA 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.
(www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/DennisP.Cantwell.htm)
1972 Ken Bannister began handing
out Chiquita banana stickers at photo trade shows to garner attention.
People responded by sending him banana-related items. This led him to
found his Int’l. Banana Museum in Altadena.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.49)
1972 Julian B. Backus (1944-1996)
founded the Bay Area Video Coalition, Optic Nerve.
(SFC, 12/9/96, p.B6)
1972 Privacy was added to the
California state Constitution as an inalienable right.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1972 Judge Allen Broussard
(1929-1996) was the first African American to be elected president of
the California Judges Assoc.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, Z1 p.7)
1972 In Los Angeles 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 LA Mayor Sam Yorty switched
from the Democratic to the Republican Party.
(WSJ, 6/8/98, p.A1)
1972 In SF the Raphael House at
1065 Sutter St. opened as the city’s 1st homeless shelter for families.
(SSFC, 3/18/07, p.F2)
1972 The Marin Town and Country
Club was closed after area residents passed a ballot measure that
required voter approval prior to any new development.
(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A19)
1972 Roy W. Fairchild (d.1998 at
77) co-founded the Lewis Marshall Lloyd Center for Education and
Counseling as an on-campus teaching facility at SF Theological Seminary
in San Anselmo, Ca.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.C11)
1972 Kermit Lynch opened Kermit
Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley, Ca. He focused on importing
small-production French wines. In 2005 the French government announced
that he would be awarded the insignia of Chevalier de la Legion
d’Honeur.
(SFC, 12/22/05, p.F5)
1972 Charles W. "Scott" Hope (d.
1997 at 74) co-founded the SF Network Ministries to serve San
Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The non-denominational Christian
church constructed affordable housing, operates a training center for
residents and the homeless, provides pastoral care to people who are
HIV positive and other works. He wrote for the Network Journal, a
monthly publication of the Ministries.
(SFC, 12/2/97, p.A22)
1972 Steve Nakajo organized the
1st Nihonmachi Street Fair in San Francisco’s Japantown.
(SFEC, 8/6/00, p.C1)
1972 San Francisco Mayor Joseph
Alioto won re-election.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A10)
1972 SF accepted an urban design
plan that lowered the maximum heights of downtown buildings to 700 feet.
(SSFC, 4/27/08, p.B3)
1972 San Francisco Mayor Joseph
Alioto promoted Gladys Cox Hansen to city archivist.
(SFC, 4/14/96, p.Z1, p.3)
1972 In San Francisco Paul
Trafficante (d.2001 at 80) won his integration suit for the ParkMerced
complex against Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., where rental practices
had created a "white ghetto."
(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A15)
1972 In San Francisco Sandra
Sakata (d.1997 at 57) opened her boutique Obiko in Pacific Heights. The
shop thrived and she moved to a downtown location and won international
acclaim.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.C2)
1972 The See family sold their
South San Francisco, Ca., chocolate and candy business to Warren
Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Buffet named Charles
Huggins as See’s Candies top officer. Huggins retired at the end of
2005.
(SSFC, 1/15/06,
p.D6)(www.ifa.com/Library/Buffet.html)
1972 SF State College was renamed
California State University, SF.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, Z1 p.4)
1972 Four locomotives of the
Northwestern Pacific Railroad derailed in the Eel River Canyon.
(SFEC, 9/7/97, Z1 p.1)
1972 Henry B.R. Brown (1926-2008)
and Bruce Bent opened their Reserve Fund, the first money market mutual
fund.
(WSJ, 8/16/08, p.A7)
1972 John J. Rigas incorporated
Adelphia Communications in Pennsylvania. The name came from the Greek
word for “brother.” He took the company public in 1986.
(USAT, 7/9/04,
p.3B)(www.answers.com/topic/adelphia-communications)
1972 Ford became 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 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, which made the
slide-rule obsolete.
(SFC, 3/3/99,
p.A11)(www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/index.html)
1972 The term hypervisor
originated in IBM's CP-370 reimplementation of CP-67 for the
System/370, released this year as VM/370. The term hypervisor call
referred to the paravirtualization interface, by which a "guest"
operating system could access services directly from the (higher-level)
control program – analogous to making a "supervisor call" to the (same
level) operating system.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor)
1972 The compact disc (CD) was
introduced.
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1972 Tom Perkins co-founded
Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a venture capital firm in
Silicon Valley, Ca.
(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.A14)
1972 Half Price Books was founded
by Pat Anderson (1932-1995) and Ken Gjemre.
(WSJ, 1/17/97, p.B1)
1972 Steve Prefontaine, a
University of Oregon runner and middle-distance running prodigy, became
Nike's first endorsed athlete.
(www.regi-shoes.com/Nike-sneakers-streetwear-bags-12-page-1.html)
1972 Owens Corning, Ohio-based
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)(http://tinyurl.com/6glsle)
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)(www.shubertorganization.com/organization/news/article.asp?id=7)
1972 A Stetson Hat Factory moved
to St. Joseph, Mo. The handmade hats took 43 steps to produce.
(SFC, 7/31/98, p.A14)
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 The Audubon society acquired
the Sabal Palm Sanctuary near Brownsville, Texas.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.14)
1972 The Alaska Continental
Development Corp. merged with the financially troubled Alaska Airlines.
The airline soon became profitable in part due to the Alaska oil
pipeline.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/6obvr7)
1972 Virginia named a new state
university after George Mason, paying tribute to one of the least
remembered of the major figures among the Founding Fathers. Mason was
among those who opposed adopting the draft US constitution because it
had no language to protect individual rights.
(AP, 3/28/06)
1972 In West Virginia the Augusta
Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College was founded as a unique
program for the promotion of traditional music, arts, and crafts.
(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.T1)(http://tinyurl.com/5cpecu)
1972 Exxon Corp. was registered in
Nebraska after it paid an undisclosed amount to Gov. Exon in order get
a license.
(SFC, 6/11/05,
p.B4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon)
1972 Monsanto ceased producing
PCBs in Anniston, Alabama. In 2001 Monsanto agreed to a $40 million
settlement for toxic pollution.
(SF, 4/25/01, p.A5)
1972 Procter & Gamble Co.
launched its Dawn dishwashing liquid.
(WSJ, 6/13/07, p.D7)
1972 Three scientists from the US
National Institutes of Health developed a formula to calculate a
patient’s bad cholesterol using easily measured numbers. The Friedewald
formula set LDL equal to total cholesterol minus HDL minus
(triglycerides/5).
(WSJ, 4/19/05, p.D4)
1972 A team under surgeon Harry
Buncke (1922-2008) performed the first toe-to-thumb transplant at San
Francisco’s Franklin Hospital, later called Ralph K. Davies Medical
Center. Buncke came to be called the father of microsurgery.
(SFC, 5/21/08,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Buncke)
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 Color TV sets outsold black
and white TV sets for the 1st time.
(SFC, 3/18/04, p.E1)
1972 In Florida as many as 2
million old tires were unloaded a mile offshore from Fort Lauderdale to
create an artificial reef that could attract a rich variety of marine
life, and to free up space in clogged landfills. Decades later the idea
proved to be huge ecological blunder.
(AP, 2/16/07)
1972 Wickliffe Preston Draper
(b.1891), 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickliffe_Draper)
1972 Seaman Schepps (b.1881), NYC
jewelry designer, died.
(WSJ, 10/8/04, p.W10)
1972 Mohammad Moussa became Prime
Minister of Afghanistan.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/)
1972 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 The jellyfish population in
the Black Sea exploded following the completion of a dam in a section
of the Danube that runs between Serbia and Romania.
(WSJ, 11/27/07, p.A14)
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 The Access credit cards were
introduced in Great Britain.
(www.cardsense.co.uk/credit-card-history.html)
1972 Sydney Brenner, a biologist
at Cambridge Univ., began working out the connections of every cell in
the nervous system of a nematode worm called C. elegans. Over 14 years
he and his team mapped the worms complete nervous system, for which he
won a Nobel Prize (2002).
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.82)
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 Brazil’s rubber-bearing
Madeira-Mamore railway ceased running.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.34)
1972 Communist Party officials
told Muslim men to change their names to something more Bulgarian. A
protest in Breznitsa left 8 dead.
(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A12)
1972 In Burma Sein Lwin headed the
army unit that exacted a deadly suppression of workers' protests.
(AP, 4/10/04)
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 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 Daniel Abraham Yanofsky
(d.2000 at 74), a chess grandmaster and Winnipeg City Councilman, was
awarded the Order of Canada.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A17)
1972 Stephen Reid, a member of the
Stopwatch Gang trio, was sentenced to prison. He escaped 2 times but
was recaptured and was released in 1987. In 1986 he authored
"Jackrabbit Parole" while in prison. The gang was estimated to have
stolen some $15 million in 140 North American robberies. In 1999 he was
again caught following a robbery in Victoria and was convicted of
attempted murder and other charges.
(SFC, 6/25/99, p.A10)(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D16)
1972 Chile’s dept. of tourism,
SERNATUR, was established.
(SFC, Z-1, 4/28/96, p.5)
1972 The documentary film "Chung
Kuo China" was directed by Michelangelo Antonioni at the behest of the
Chinese government during the cultural revolution.
(SFEC, 1/17/99, DB p.43)
1972 The Yellow River dried up for
the 1st time in history before reaching the Yellow Sea. Toxins from
cities and factories continued to make the river unfit for irrigation
and human use along much of its route.
(SFC, 3/4/02, p.A3)
1972 Costa Rica created the
1,680-acre Manuel Antonio National Park.
(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.C5)
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 SAP, a German business
software company based in Walldorf, Baden-Wurttemberg, was founded by
Hasso Plattner and 4 other dissidents from IBM.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.73)(Econ, 10/28/06, p.78)
1972 In Egypt Hosni Mubarak was
appointed commander of the air force and deputy minister for military
affairs.
(AP, 7/9/04)
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 Shafik Handal (1930-2006)
became leader of the Salvadoran Communist Party.
(AP,
1/24/06)(www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060130/news_1m30handal.html)
1972 Finland introduced
comprehensive schools, a merger of specialist academic and vocational
institutions, in the north and into the rest of the country over the
next 4 years. In 2006 Finland ranked at the top in OECD Program for
International Student Assessment (PISA) tests.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.66)
1972 Scientists discovered an
extinct natural nuclear reactor in a uranium mine in Gabon. Research
revealed it had operated intermittently for a few million years from
about 2 billion years ago.
(SFC, 11/29/04, p.A4)
1972 India enacted a Wildlife
Protection Act. It banned the hunting of tigers, the capture and sale
of bears (dancing bears) as well as the catching of snakes. In 2001
animal performances on the streets were banned. Snake charmers felt
their livelihood threatened.
(SFC, 7/8/02, p.A3)(SFC, 12/4/04, p.B10)(Econ,
6/25/05, p.41)
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 Israel began establishing two
army posts in Gaza, which later become the communities of Netzarim and
Kfar Darom.
(AP, 8/15/05)
1972 Arkady Gaydamak (20) arrived
in Israel from Russia. By 2006 estimates of his wealth varied from
between $800 million to more than $4 billion. He said he made all of
his money on the Russian stock exchange. Gaydamak was never been
convicted of a crime, but faced an international arrest warrant because
of a French investigation into alleged arms trafficking to Angola in
the early 1990s.
(AP, 11/21/06)
1972 In Kenya skull 1470 was found
by Bernard Ngeneo, a member of a team led by anthropologist Richard
Leakey, at Koobi Fora on the east side of Lake Rudolf (now Lake
Turkana) in Kenya. Its estimated age is 1.9 million years.
(www.123exp-biology.com/t/01174157121/)
1972 Libya’s leader Muammar
Qaddafi proclaimed his Third Universal Theory, aimed at turning Libya
into a model of applied socialism and popular democracy.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.61)
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 Mexico after guerrillas
ambushed and killed 18 troops, the army detained at least 90 men in the
village of El Quemado and took many of them to 3 different military
bases that served as "concentration camps." A 2006 government report on
Mexico’s “dirty war” said 7 of the men died from being tortured.
(AP, 2/27/06)
1972 Abu Daoud at a cafe in Rome
with fellow PLO guerrilla leader Abu Iyad and his assistant, Mohammed
al-Omari, read in a newspaper that the International Olympics Committee
had refused the PLO's request to send a Palestinian delegation to the
Munich Olympics. They decided to “participate in their own way.” Daoud
was given the task of doing the operation's groundwork. Daoud first
acknowledged having a role in the 1972 Munich operation in the 1999
book: "Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich."
(AP, 2/24/06)
1972 The conflict between the
government and Muslim rebels began. A full-scale guerrilla war began in
which some 120,000 people were killed by 1999.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A19)
1972 Kamal Helbawy, a London-based
Egyptian and speaker on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood, was invited
to Saudi Arabia to set up the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.24)
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 The Soviet Union began
producing more private cars than trucks.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.94)
1972 In Singapore the Jehovah’s
Witnesses were banned because their male followers refused compulsory
military duty.
(SFC, 7/2/96,
p.A10)(www.singapedia.com.sg/entries/j/jehovahs_witnesses.html)
1972 The Somali language first
became a written language.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, Z1 p.6)
1972 In Sri Lanka the Tamil New
Tigers (TNT) was founded by Velupillai Prabhakaran, an
eighteen-year-old school dropout, who was the son of a minor government
official. TNT abandoned the political process altogether and geared
itself for violence. The Tamil rebellion began and thousands were
killed in the ultra-leftist campaign. Suicide bombers of the Tamil
Tigers later killed Pres. Ranasinghe Premadasa and former Indian Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
(SFC, 6/20/96,
p.A8)(www.onwar.com/aced/data/tango/tamil1983.htm)
1972 In Taiwan Giant Manufacturing
began producing bicycles for foreign and domestic buyers. By 2008 it
was the world’s largest bicycle maker.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.79)
1972 Bulent Ecevit (1925-2006)
succeeded Ismet Inonu (1884-1973) as head of the Republican People’s
Party. In 1974 he became prime minister of Turkey.
(Econ, 3/19/05, Survey
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BClent_Ecevit)
1972 In Uganda Idi Amin’s State
Research Bureau stuffed the chief justice into the boot of a car, after
which he was never heard of again.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.60)
1972 In Zaire (later Congo DRC)
Joseph-Desire Mobutu (1930-1997) changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko
Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, which meant "the all-powerful warrior who,
because of his inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to
conquest leaving fire in his wake.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko)
1972 Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko
passed a law granting Tutsis citizenship. He revoked it in 1981.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.39)
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)
1972-1974 Ji Pengfei (1910-2000) served as China’s
foreign minister. He later headed the committee that drafted the Basic
Law, a mini-constitution for Hong Kong after the 1997 handover.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A21)
1972-1975 Soul music peaked in Philadelphia. In 2004
John A. Jackson authored “A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall of
Philadelphia Soul.”
(SSFC, 11/7/04, p.M3)
1972-1979 In Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) black rebels
fought an insurgency against the minority white rule of Ian Smith’s
government.
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.92)
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)
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