1972

Events from the year 1972 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Richard Nixon (R-CA)
* Vice President: Spiro Agnew (R-MD)
* Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger (MN)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Carl Albert (D-OK)
* Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield (D-MT)
* Congress: 92nd
==Events==
===January===
* January 2 – Pierre Hotel Robbery: Six men rob the safety deposit boxes of The Pierre Hotel in New York City of at least $4 million.
* January 5 – U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.
* January 16 – Super Bowl VI: The Dallas Cowboys defeat the Miami Dolphins 24–3 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana.
* January 24 – Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi is discovered in Guam; he had spent 28 years in the jungle and becomes the third-to-last Japanese soldier to surrender after World War II.
* January 25 – Shirley Chisholm, the first African American Congresswoman, announces her candidacy for President.
===February===
* February 4 – Mariner 9 sends pictures from Mars.
* February 5 – Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
* February 15 – Phonorecords are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
* February 18 – The California Supreme Court voids the state's death penalty, commuting all death sentences to life in prison.
* February 21 – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon makes an unprecedented 8-day visit to the People's Republic of China and meets with Mao Zedong.
* February 23 – Activist Angela Davis is released from jail. A Caruthers, California farmer, Rodger McAfee, helps her make bail.
* February 24 – North Vietnamese negotiators walk out of the Paris Peace Talks to protest U.S. air raids.
* February 26 – A coal sludge spill kills 125 people in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia.
===March===
* March 2 – The Pioneer 10 spacecraft is launched from Cape Kennedy, to be the first man-made satellite to leave the solar system.
* March 3 – Sculpted figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson are completed at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
* March 13 – Clifford Irving admits to a New York court that he had fabricated Howard Hughes' "autobiography".
* March 22 – The 92nd U.S. Congress votes to send the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification.
* March 24
** The Godfather is released in cinemas in the United States.
** Gilchrest Road, New York crossing accident: A school bus crashes into a train in Congers, New York, killing five students.
===April===
* April 10
** The U.S. and the Soviet Union join some 70 nations in signing the Biological Weapons Convention, an agreement to ban biological warfare.
** The 44th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Helen Hayes, Alan King, Sammy Davis Jr. and Jack Lemmon, is held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. William Friedkin's The French Connection wins five awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Friedkin. The film is also tied with both Norman Jewison's Fiddler on the Roof and Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show in receiving eight nominations.
* April 16 – Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive: Prompted by the North Vietnamese offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong.
* April 29 – The fourth anniversary of the Broadway musical Hair is celebrated with a free concert at a Central Park bandshell, followed by dinner at the Four Seasons. There, 13 Black Panther protesters and the show's co-author, Jim Rado, are arrested for disturbing the peace and for using marijuana.
===May===
* May 2 – A fire in the Sunshine Mine in northern Idaho kills 91.
* May 8 – U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the mining of Haiphong Harbor in Vietnam.
* May 15
** Okinawa is returned to Japan after 27 years of United States Military occupation.
** Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama is shot by Arthur Herman Bremer at a Laurel, Maryland political rally.
* May 16 – The first financial derivatives exchange, the International Monetary Market (IMM), opens on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
* May 24 – A Red Army Faction bomb explodes in the Campbell Barracks of the U.S. Army Supreme European Command in Heidelberg, West Germany; 3 U.S. soldiers (Clyde Bonner, Ronald Woodard and Charles Peck) are killed.
* May 26
** Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT I treaty in Moscow, as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and other agreements.
** The Watergate first break-in, the "Ameritas dinner", fails.
** Wernher von Braun retires from NASA, frustrated by the agency's unwillingness to pursue a manned trans-orbital space program.
* May 27
** Mark Donohue wins the Indianapolis 500 in the Penske Racing McLaren-Offenhauser. This was the first win for Team Penske in the 500.
** A second Watergate break-in attempt fails.
===June===
* June 3 – Sally Priesand becomes the first female rabbi in the U.S.
* June 4 – Angela Davis is found not guilty of murder.
* June 9 – The Black Hills flood kills 238 in South Dakota.
* June 12 – The first Popeyes opens in Arabi, Louisiana.
* June 14 – Hurricane Agnes kills 117 on the U.S. east coast.
* June 15 – The first U.S. Libertarian Party National Convention is held in Denver, Colorado.
* June 17
** Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee.
** The United States returns Okinawa, occupied and governed since the Battle of Okinawa, to Japan.
** Main Street Electrical Parade debuts at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Parade was also cloned for other Disney Parks worldwide
* June 23
** Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the C.I.A. to obstruct the F.B.I.'s investigation into the Watergate break-ins.
** President Nixon signs Title IX into law as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibiting gender discrimination in any educational program receiving federal funds.
* June 28 – U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that no new draftees will be sent to Vietnam.
* June 29 – Furman v. Georgia: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the death penalty is unconstitutional, converting all death sentences to life imprisonment.
===July===
* July 1
** U.S. actress Jane Fonda tours North Vietnam, during which she is photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.
** Ms. magazine begins publication.
** The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms becomes independent from the IRS.
* July 4 – The first Rainbow Gathering is held in Colorado.
* July 8 – The U.S. sells grain to the Soviet Union for $750 million.
* July 10 – The Democratic National Convention meets in Miami Beach. Senator George McGovern, who backs the immediate and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam, is nominated for President. He names fellow Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running mate.
* July 15 – The Pruitt–Igoe housing development is demolished in St. Louis, Missouri.
* July 20 - The Armstrong Air & Space Museum is dedicated to honor Neil Armstrong, first man on the Moon.
* July 21 – Comedian George Carlin is arrested by Milwaukee, Wisconsin police for public obscenity, for reciting his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" at Summerfest.
* July 23 – The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.
* July 25 – U.S. health officials admit that African Americans were used as guinea pigs in the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.
===August===
* August 1 – U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, withdraws from the race after revealing he suffered from depression and had been hospitalized three times for its treatment.
* August 4 – A huge solar flare (one of the largest ever recorded) knocks out cable lines in U.S. It begins with the appearance of sunspots on August 2; an August 4 flare kicks off high levels of activity until August 10.
* August 10 – A brilliant, daytime meteor skips off the Earth's atmosphere due to an Apollo asteroid streaking over the western U.S. into Canada.
* August 12 – The last U.S. ground troops are withdrawn from Vietnam.
* August 20 – One hundred thousand people attended the legendary Wattstax Black music concert in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in California.
* August 21 – The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida renominates U.S. President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew for a second term.
* August 22 – John Wojtowicz, 27, and Sal Naturile, 18, hold several Chase Manhattan Bank employees hostage for 17 hours in Gravesend, Brooklyn, N.Y, an event later dramatized in the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon.
===September===
* September 1 – Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky in a chess match at Reykjavík, Iceland, becoming the first American chess champion (see Match of the Century).
* September 4 – The first episode of The Price Is Right is hosted on CBS by Bob Barker. Gambit and The Joker's Wild also premiere.
* September 24 – An F-86 fighter aircraft leaving an air show at Sacramento Executive Airport fails to become airborne and crashes into a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor, killing 12 children and 11 adults.
===October===
* October 1 – Bee Gees' album, To Whom It May Concern is released in the United States.
* October 8 – R. Sargent Shriver is chosen to replace Thomas Eagleton as the U.S. vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
* October 12 – USS Kitty Hawk riot: En route to the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk; nearly 50 sailors are injured.
* October 15 – Baker v. Nelson is decided in the Minnesota Supreme Court, affirming that state law preventing same-sex marriage is constitutional.
* October 16
** A plane carrying U.S. Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana and three other men vanishes in Alaska. The wreckage is never found, despite a massive search at the time.
** Country singer Loretta Lynn makes history becoming the first female ever to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award. Her signature song, "Coal Miner's Daughter," is pivotal in earning her this award.
* October 22 - The Oakland Athletics defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 4 games to 3, to win their sixth World Series title in baseball.
* October 25 – The first female FBI agents are hired.
* October 26 – Following a visit to South Vietnam, U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger suggests that "peace is at hand."
* October 27 – Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Gateway National Recreation Area, & Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is established.
* October 30
** U.S. President Richard Nixon approves legislation to increase Social Security spending by US$5.3 billion.
** 1972 Chicago commuter rail crash: The accidental tripping of a signal at 27th Street station on the Metra Electric system in Chicago causes an IC Electric express train to telescope another, killing 45 and injuring over 300.
===November===
* November 1 – At a scientific meeting in Honolulu, Herbert Boyer and Stanley N. Cohen conceive the concept of recombinant DNA. They publish their results in November 1973 in PNAS. Separately in 1972, Paul Berg also recombines DNA in a test tube. Recombinant DNA technology has dramatically changed the field of biological sciences, especially biotechnology, and opened the door to genetically modified organisms.
* November 7 – U.S. presidential election, 1972: Republican incumbent Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern in a landslide (the election had the lowest voter turnout since 1948, with only 55 percent of the electorate voting).
* November 8 – HBO begins operating as a pay television service.
* November 11 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization: The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
* November 14 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.
* November 22 – Vietnam War: The United States loses its first B-52 Stratofortress of the war.
* November 30 – Vietnam War: White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning United States troop withdrawals from Vietnam because troop levels are now down to 27,000.
===December===
* December 8
** United Airlines Boeing 737 from Washington National to Chicago Midway crashes short of the runway, killing 43 of 61 onboard and two on the ground.
** Over $10,000 cash is found in the purse of Watergate conspirator Howard Hunt's wife.
* December 14 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the Moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17. This is the last manned mission to the Moon of the 20th century.
* December 19 – Apollo program: Apollo 17 returns to Earth, concluding the program of lunar exploration.
* December 22 – A peace delegation that includes singer-activist Joan Baez and human rights attorney Telford Taylor visit Hanoi to deliver Christmas mail to American prisoners of war (they will be caught in the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam).
* December 23 – The Pittsburgh Steelers win their first ever postseason NFL game, defeating the Oakland Raiders 13–7, on a last-second play that becomes known as the Immaculate Reception.
* December 24 – Swedish Prime minister Olof Palme compares the American bombings of North Vietnam to Nazi massacres. The U.S. breaks diplomatic contact with Sweden.
* December 25 – The Christmas bombing of North Vietnam causes widespread criticism of the U.S. and President Richard Nixon.
* December 26 – Former President Harry S. Truman dies in Kansas City, Missouri.
* December 29 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashes into the Everglades in Florida, killing 101 of 176 on board.
* December 31 – Baseball player Roberto Clemente dies in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico while en route to deliver aid to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.
==Memoriam==
* January 7
** John Berryman, poet and scholar (aged 57; Minneapolis, MN, USA)
** Emma P. Carr, spectroscopist (aged 91; Evanston, IL, USA)
* January 8 – Wesley Ruggles, film director (aged 82; Santa Monica, CA, USA)
* January 9 – Ted Shawn, dancer (aged 80; Orlando, FL, USA)
* January 16 – Ross Bagdasarian, actor, pianist, singer, songwriter and record producer, creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks (aged 52; Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
* January 17 – Betty Smith, novelist (aged 75; Shelton, CT, USA)
* January 24 – Jerome Cowan, actor (aged 74; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* January 27 – Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer (aged 60; Evergreen Park, IL, USA)
* February 2 – Jessie Royce Landis, actress (aged 75; Danbury, CT, USA)
* February 3 – John Litel, screen actor (aged 79l Woodland Hills, CA, USA)
* February 4 – Orlando Ward, general (aged 80; Denver, CO, USA)
* February 5 – Marianne Moore, poet (aged 84; New York City, NY, USA)
* February 7
** Walter Lang, film director (aged 75; Palm Springs, CA, USA)
** Bob Woodward, screen actor (aged 62; Granada Hills, CA, USA)
* February 20 – Walter Winchell, American journalist (aged 74; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* February 22
** Dan Katchongva, Native American traditional leader (aged 112; Hotevilla, AZ, USA)
** Tedd Pierce, animator (aged 65; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* February 27 – Pat Brady, screen actor (aged 57; Green Mountain Falls, CO, USA)
* March 9 – Basil O'Connor, lawyer and chairman of the International Red Cross (aged 80; Phoenix, AZ, USA)
* March 11
** Fredric Brown, science fiction and mystery writer (aged 65; Tucson, AZ, USA)
** Zack Wheat, baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers) (aged 83; Sedalia, MO, USA)
* March 13 – Len Ford, American football player (Cleveland Browns) (aged 46; Detroit, MI, USA)
* March 16 – Pie Traynor, baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates) (aged 73; Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
* March 20 – Marilyn Maxwell, actress and entertainer (aged 50; Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
* March 27 – Lorenzo Wright, track and field athlete (aged 45; Detroit, MI, USA)
* March 29 – Enoch A. Holtwick, educator (aged 91; Greenville, IL, USA)
* March 31 – Jack Merchant, men's hammer throw athlete (aged 72; Berkeley, CA, USA)
* April 2 – Gil Hodges, baseball player and manager (aged 47; West Palm Beach, FL, USA)
* April 3 – Ferde Grofé, composer (aged 80; Santa Monica, CA, USA)
* April 4 – Adam Clayton Powell Jr., politician (aged 63; Miami, FL, USA)
* April 9
** John S. Battle, 56th Governor of Virginia (aged 81; Charlottesville, VA, USA)
** James F. Byrnes, 104th Governor of South Carolina (aged 89; Columbia, SC, USA)
* May 2 – J. Edgar Hoover, first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (aged 77; Washington, DC, USA)
* May 3 – Bruce Cabot, film actor (aged 68; Woodland Hills, CA, USA)
* May 4 – Edward Calvin Kendall, chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (aged 86; Princeton, NJ, USA)
* May 5
** Reverend Gary Davis, blues and gospel singer (aged 76; Hammonton, NJ, USA)
** Frank Tashlin, animator (aged 59; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* May 11 – Michael Blassie, U.S. Air Force lieutenant (aged 24; An Lộc, (South) Vietnam)
* May 13 – Dan Blocker, American actor (Bonanza) (aged 43; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* June 8 – Mary van Kleeck, labor activist (aged 88; Kingston, NY, USA)
* June 13 – Felix Stump, admiral (aged 77; Bethesda, MD, USA)
* June 20 – Howard Deering Johnson, businessman, founder of Howard Johnson's (aged 75; Milton, MA, USA)
* July 27 – Allen J. Ellender, U.S. Senator from Louisiana; President pro tempore during the 92nd Congress (aged 81; Bethesda, MD, USA)
* August 11 – Max Theiler, virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (aged 73; New Haven, CT, USA)
* September 8 – Warren Kealoha, Olympic swimmer (aged 69; Honolulu, HI, USA)
* September 25 – Max Fleischer, animator (aged 89; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* October 16 – Hale Boggs, U.S. Representative from Louisiana's 2nd congressional district and Majority Leader during the 92nd Congress (aged 58; AK, USA)
* October 24 – Jackie Robinson, first African-American in Major League Baseball (aged 53; Stamford, CT, USA)
* November 1 – Ezra Pound, poet (aged 87; Venice, Italy)
* November 11 – Berry Oakley, musician (aged 24; Macon, GA, USA)
* November 14 – Martin Dies Jr., lawyer and politician (aged 72; Lufkin, TX, USA)
* November 17 – Thomas C. Kinkaid, admiral (aged 84; Bethesda, MD, USA)
* November 18 – Danny Whitten, musician (aged 29; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* November 29 – Carl W. Stalling, composer (aged 81; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* December 3 – Bill Johnson, African American dixieland jazz double-bassist (aged 100; New Braunfels, TX, USA)
* December 12 – Thomas H. Robbins Jr., admiral (aged 72; New London, CT, USA)
* December 26 – Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States from 1945 to 1953, 34th Vice President of the United States from January to April 1945 (aged 88; Kansas City, MO, USA)
* December 31 – Roberto Clemente, baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates) (aged 38; Carolina, PR, USA)
==External links==
* 1972 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 20