WHAT ALL HAPPENED MAY TO DECEMBER 1972
Find out what all happened May to December 1972

Vietnam War: The Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running down a road after being burned by napalm. (8. June 1972)

In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while he is campaigning to become President. (15. May 1972)

The United States suffers its first loss of an international basketball game in a disputed match against the Soviet Union at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. (10. September 1972)

Kim Il-sung, already Prime Minister of North Korea and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, becomes the first President of North Korea. (28. December 1972)

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes mountains, near the border between Argentina and Chile. By December 23, 1972, only 16 out of 45 people lived long enough to be rescued. (13. October 1972)

Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th. (18. December 1972)

Staines air disaster – 118 are killed when a BEA H.S. Trident crashes two minutes after take off from London Heathrow Airport. (18. June 1972)

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 the Apollo 17 mission. (14. December 1972)

Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth. (21. May 1972)

Sino-Japanese relations: Japan establishes diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China. (29. September 1972)

The United States and the Soviet Union sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. (26. May 1972)

Apollo program: The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth. (19. December 1972)

Apollo program: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk" of Apollo 17. To date they are the last humans to set foot on the Moon. (13. December 1972)

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the case Furman v. Georgia that arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. (29. June 1972)

The Troubles: In Belfast, British Army snipers shoot five civilians dead in the Springhill Massacre. (9. July 1972)

The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism. (23. December 1972)

Last executions in Paris: Claude Buffet and Roger Bontems are guillotined at La Santé Prison. The chief executioner is André Obrecht. (Bontems had been found innocent of murder, but as Buffet's accomplice was condemned to death anyway.) (28. November 1972)

The Troubles: a car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army. Seven people are killed and over 66 injured. (13. May 1972)

In Tel Aviv, Israel, members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport massacre, killing 24 people and injuring 78 others. (30. May 1972)

In a referendum, the people of Norway reject membership of the European Community. (25. September 1972)