WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO JUNE 1972
Find out what all happened January to June 1972

The Troubles: A Provisional IRA car bomb kills seven and injures 148 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was the first of many car bomb attacks by the group. (20. March 1972)

Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive – The North Vietnamese 320th Division forces 5,000 South Vietnamese troops to retreat and traps about 2,500 others northwest of Kontum. (25. April 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)

The Universal Postal Union decides to recognize the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese representative, effectively expelling the Republic of China administering Taiwan. (13. April 1972)

Actor Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s. (2. April 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)

Bloody Sunday: British Paratroopers open fire on and kill fourteen unarmed civil rights/anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland. (30. January 1972)

Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations. (30. January 1972)

The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon. (21. February 1972)

Faulty electrical wiring ignites a fire underneath the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and non-functional elevators lead to 118 fatalities, with many victims leaping to their deaths. (13. May 1972)

Italian publisher and former partisan Giangiacomo Feltrinelli is killed by an explosion near Segrate. (14. March 1972)

Four Black September terrorists hijack Sabena Flight 571. Israeli Sayeret Matkal commandos recapture the plane the following day. (8. May 1972)

20 days after he is kidnapped in Buenos Aires, Oberdan Sallustro is murdered by communist guerrillas. (10. April 1972)

Ceylon adopts a new constitution, thus becoming a Republic, changes its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations. (22. May 1972)

Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds. (23. June 1972)

The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets. (2. March 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)

The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment. (18. February 1972)

Vietnam War – U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation. (8. May 1972)

The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to "Greenpeace Foundation". (4. May 1972)