Richard Nixon signs a bill authorizing $5.5 million in funding to develop a space shuttle. The space shuttle represented a giant leap forward in the technology of space travel. Designed to function more like a cost-efficient “reusable” airplane than a one-use-only rocket-launched capsules, the shuttle afforded NASA pilots and scientists more time in space with which to conduct space-related research. NASA launched Columbia, the first space shuttle, in 1981.

On January 5, 1972, President Richard Nixon warns South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu in a private letter that his refusal to sign any negotiated peace agreement would render it impossible for the United States to continue assistance to South Vietnam.

On January 8, 1972, the NCAA grants freshmen eligibility in its two biggest team sports, basketball and football. An overwhelming majority of representatives at the annual NCAA convention vote for freshmen participation in basketball; a closer majority vote in favor of freshmen participation in football.

On January 9, 1972, the ship Seawise University (formerly the RMS Queen Elizabeth) sinks in Hong Kong Harbor despite a massive firefighting effort over two days.

On January, 9, 1972, the longest winning streak in major professional sports is snapped at 33 games when the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 120-104. A 39-point performance by the Bucks’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hands the Lakers their first loss since October 31.

On January 15, 1972, “American Pie,”, an epic poem in musical form that has long been etched in the American popular consciousness, hits #1 on the Billboard charts.

On January 19,  1972, 36-year-old Sandy Koufax, the former Los Angeles Dodgers star, becomes the youngest player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. "This is the only thing that's made having to retire early a little easier," says Koufax, who retired at age 30. "This is the biggest honor I've ever been given, not just in baseball, but in my life."

On January 24, 1972, local farmers on Guam discover Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant who fought in World War II, still hiding in the jungle—26 years after the official end of the war. Japanese soldiers had been trained that death was preferred to the disgrace of being captured alive.

In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators are shot dead by British Army paratroopers in an event that becomes known as “Bloody Sunday.” The protesters, all Northern Catholics, were marching in protest of the British policy of internment of suspected Irish nationalists. British authorities had ordered the march banned, and sent troops to confront the demonstrators when it went ahead. The soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters, killing 13 and wounding 17.

On February 10, 1972, a relatively minor rocker named David Bowie debuts the spaceman character Ziggy Stardust during a concert at Greater London's Toby Jug pub. It's one of those events that virtually nobody witnessed—but many wish they had.

About 6,000 Cambodian troops launch a major operation to wrestle the religious center of Angkor Wat from 4,000 North Vietnamese troops entrenched around the famous Buddhist temple complex, which had been seized in June 1970. Fighting continued throughout the month. Even with the addition of 4,000 more troops, the Cambodians were unsuccessful, and eventually abandoned their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese.

On February 17, 1972, the 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle comes off the assembly line, breaking a world car production record held for more than four decades by the Ford Motor Company’s iconic Model T, which was in production from 1908 to 1927.

In an amazing turn of events, President Richard Nixon takes a dramatic first step toward normalizing relations with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks. Nixon’s historic visit began the slow process of the re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China.

Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet. In December 1973, after successfully negotiating the asteroid belt and a distance of 620 million miles, Pioneer 10 reached Jupiter and sent back to Earth the first close-up images of the spectacular gas giant. In June 1983, the NASA spacecraft left the solar system and the next day radioed back the first scientific data on interstellar space. NASA officially ended the Pioneer 10 project on March 31, 1997, with the spacecraft having traveled a distance of some six billion miles.

On March 16, 1972, the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, performs two shows for inmates on Rikers Island, the notorious New York City prison complex. Brown pulls out all the stops, taking the show as seriously as any other gig and delivering a message of hope to crowds consisting of young men being held in pre-trial detention.

On March 22, 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment is passed by the U.S. Senate and sent to the states for ratification.

On March 24, 1972, _The Godfather—_a three-hour epic chronicling the lives of the Corleones, an Italian-American crime family led by the powerful Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)—is released in theaters nationwide.

At 12:01 a.m. on April 1, 1972, the first collective players’ strike in Major League Baseball history begins. The strike lasts 12 days, ending on April 13, and 86 games are cancelled, throwing the season into flux from the start.

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S. lunar landing missions, is successfully launched on its 238,000-mile journey to the moon. On April 20, astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke descended to the lunar surface from the Command Module_,_ which remained in orbit around the moon with a third astronaut, Thomas K. Mattingly, remaining on board.

After nearly five decades as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover dies, leaving the powerful government agency without the administrator who had been largely responsible for its existence and shape.

On May 11, 1972, Mexican American labor organizer and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez begins a hunger strike. The strike, which he undertook in opposition to an Arizona law severely restricting farm workers' ability to organize, lasted 24 days and drew national attention to the suffering of itinerant farm workers in the Southwest.

During an outdoor rally in Laurel, Maryland, George Wallace, the governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate, is shot by 21-year-old Arthur Bremer. Three others were wounded, and Wallace was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The next day, while fighting for his life in a hospital, he won major primary victories in Michigan and Maryland. On June 8, Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and one of Wallace's opponents for the Democratic nomination, famously visited him in the hospital to wish him well. He remained in the hospital for several months, bringing his third presidential campaign to an irrevocable end.

On May 22, 1972, President Richard Nixon arrives in Moscow for a summit with Soviet leaders.

On May 26, 1972, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Richard Nixon, meeting in Moscow, sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreements. At the time, these agreements were the most far-reaching attempts to control nuclear weapons ever.

Angela Yvonne Davis, a Black communist activist and former philosophy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, is acquitted on charges of conspiracy, murder and kidnapping by a jury in San Jose, California.

Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, visits Alabama Governor George Wallace, perhaps the single most famous supporter of racial segregation in modern history, as he recovers from an assassination attempt on June 8, 1972. The two were both seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

In the early morning of June 17, 1972, five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, an office-hotel-apartment complex in Washington, D.C. In their possession were burglary tools, cameras and film, and three pen-size tear gas guns. At the scene of the crime, and in rooms the men rented at the Watergate, sophisticated electronic bugging equipment was found. Three of the men were Cuban exiles, one was a Cuban American, and the fifth was James W. McCord, Jr., a former CIA agent. That day, the suspects, who said they were “anti-communists,” were charged with felonious burglary and possession of implements of crime.

On June 18, 1972, a Trident jetliner crashes after takeoff from Heathrow Airport in London, killing 118 people. The official cause of this accident, which becomes known as the Staines air disaster, remains unknown, but investigations later show that the pilot (who suffered from a heart condition) failed to maintain the recommended airspeed.

On June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon’s advisor, H.R. Haldeman, tells the president to put pressure on the head of the FBI to “stay the hell out of this [Watergate burglary investigation] business.” In essence, Haldeman was telling Nixon to obstruct justice, which is one of the articles Congress threatened to impeach Nixon for in 1974.

On June 23, 1972, Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 is enacted into law. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. It begins: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” As a result of Title IX, any school that receives any federal money from the elementary to university level—in short, nearly all schools—must provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics.

President Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteer for such duty. He also announced that a force of 10,000 troops would be withdrawn by September 1, which would leave a total of 39,000 in Vietnam.

In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as “cruel and unusual punishment,” primarily because states employed execution in “arbitrary and capricious ways,” especially in regard to race. It was the first time that the nation’s highest court had ruled against capital punishment.

On July 1, 1972, the first standalone issue of the feminist publication Ms. Magazine debuts—and the issue sells out quickly. Launched during an era when male-run women’s magazines typically focused on topics like getting and keeping a man, beauty regimens, recipes and parenting, Ms. addressed weighty issues like economic inequality and reproductive rights head on, seeking to engage and empower women in all aspects of their lives. Founders Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pittman Hughes vowed to translate “a movement into a magazine.”

The last U.S. ground combat unit in South Vietnam, the Third Battalion, Twenty-First Infantry, is deactivated and begins departing for the United States. The unit had been guarding the U.S. air base at Da Nang. This left only 43,500 advisors, airmen, and support troops left in-country. This number did not include the sailors of the Seventh Fleet on station in the South China Sea or the air force personnel in Thailand and Guam.

Delegates entering the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach are harassed by 3,000 antiwar demonstrators, many painted with death masks. The rest of the convention is marked by demonstrations outside the meeting hall; hundreds of protestors are arrested and many are injured when police use riot-control agents.

On September 1, 1972, in what’s billed as the “Match of the Century,” American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer defeats Russian Boris Spassky during the World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland.

U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz wins his seventh gold medal at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Spitz swam the fly leg of the 400-meter medley relay, and his team set a new world-record time of 3 minutes, 48.16 seconds. Remarkably, Spitz also established new world records in the six other events in which he won the gold. At the time, no other athlete had won so many gold medals at a single Olympiad. The record would stand until Michael Phelps took home eight gold medals at the Beijing Games in 2008.

During the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early morning of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were part of a group known as Black September, in return for the release of the hostages, they demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In an ensuing shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman. Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial services for the slain athletes.

At Furstenfeldbruck air base near Munich, an attempt by West German police to rescue nine Israeli Olympic team members held hostage by Palestinian terrorists ends in disaster. In an extended firefight that began at 11 p.m. September 5 and lasted until 1:30 a.m. on September 6, all nine Israeli hostages were killed, as were five terrorists and one German policeman. Three terrorists were wounded and captured alive.

After nearly 40 years of riding across millions of American TV and movie screens, the cowboy actor William Boyd, best known for his role as Hopalong Cassidy, dies on September 12, 1972 at the age of 77.

On September 15, 1972, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVM) forces recapture Quang Tri City after four days of heavy fighting, with the claim that over 8,135 NVA (North Vietnamese Army) had been killed in the battle.

Racial violence flares aboard U.S. Navy ships on October 12, 1972. Forty six sailors are injured in a race riot involving more than 100 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk en route to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. The incident broke out when a Black sailor was summoned for questioning regarding an altercation that took place during the crew’s liberty in Subic Bay (in the Philippines). The sailor refused to make a statement and he and his friends started a brawl that resulted in sixty sailors being injured during the fighting. Eventually 26 men, all Black, were charged with assault and rioting and were ordered to appear before a court-martial in San Diego.

On the afternoon of October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 begins its descent toward Santiago, Chile, too early and crashes high in the Andes Mountains. After more than two unthinkably harrowing months, 16 of the 45 who boarded the plane will be rescued—and sometimes referred to as the Miracle in the Andes.

The Clean Water Act becomes law on October 18, 1972. After centuries of reckless treatment of American rivers, streams, lakes and bays, the landmark act institutes strict regulations on pollution and quality controls for the nation’s waters for the first time in its history.

In Saigon, Henry Kissinger meets with South Vietnamese President Thieu to secure his approval of a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out at the secret peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris.

Richard Nixon defeats Senator George McGovern (D-South Dakota) and is re-elected President of the United States.

Wealthy socialite Barbara Baekeland is stabbed to death with a kitchen knife by her 25-year-old son, Antony, in her London, England, penthouse. When police arrived at the scene, Antony was calmly placing a telephone order for Chinese food.

The United States loses its first B-52 of the war. The eight-engine bomber was brought down by a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile near Vinh on the day when B-52s flew their heaviest raids of the war over North Vietnam. The Communists claimed 19 B-52s shot down to date.

On November 29, 1972, Pong—the groundbreaking electronic video game—was released by the American game manufacturer Atari Inc., essentially launching what is now the $200+ billion home video game industry.

On December 2, 1972, the Temptations earn the last of their four chart-topping hits when “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” reaches #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Just weeks after being elected the junior senator from Delaware, Joe Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, are killed in a car accident while out shopping for a Christmas tree on December 18, 1972, when a tractor-trailer strikes their vehicle.

Following the breakdown of peace talks with North Vietnam just a few days earlier, President Richard Nixon announces the beginning of a massive bombing campaign to break the stalemate. For nearly two weeks, American bombers pounded North Vietnam.

The Apollo lunar-landing program ends on December 19, 1972, when the last three astronauts to travel to the moon splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean. Apollo 17 had lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 10 days before.

On December 23, 1972, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Oakland Raiders, 13-7, on rookie running back Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception" touchdown in the waning seconds of a playoff game—one of the greatest plays in NFL history.

Comedian Bob Hope gives what he says is his last Christmas show to U.S. servicemen in Saigon. Hope was a comedian and star of stage, radio, television and over 50 feature films.

On December 26, 1972, former President Harry S. Truman dies in Independence, Missouri.

Roberto Clemente, future Hall of Fame baseball player, is killed along with four others when the cargo plane in which he is traveling crashes off the coast of Puerto Rico. Clemente was on his way to deliver relief supplies to Nicaragua following a devastating earthquake there a week earlier.