Timeline
| January 4 | Austrian Kurt Waldheim becomes Secretary-General of the United Nations. |
| January 5 | Nixon orders development of space shuttle program. |
| January 11 | Following a bloody civil war, East Pakistan gains independence and is renamed Bangladesh. |
| January 25 |  Shirley Chisholm announces her candidacy for the presidency at Brooklyn's Concord Baptist Church. |
| Feburary 4 | NASA scientists unveil the first close-up photos of Mars, sent by Mariner 9. |
| Feburary 21-27 |  President Nixon becomes the first president to visit China, establishing a new working relationship between China and the United States. |
| March 8 |  The Goodyear blimp flies for the first time. |
| March 22 | Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment. |
| March 22 | The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Eisenstadt v. Baird that the right to privacy means single people are entitled to contraceptives. |
| April 16 | The fifth American mission to the moon, Apollo 16, launches. |
| April 17 | Women are allowed to compete in the Boston Marathon for the first time. Nina Kuscsik is the first winner. |
| May 2 | J. Edgar Hoover, longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, dies. |
| May 15 | Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace is shot and paralyzed by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland. |
| May 26 | Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev sign the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) in Moscow. |
| June 4 |  Black activist Angela Davis found not guilty of murder in California. |
| June 23 | Title IX passes, prohibiting sex discrimination in sports funding in schools receiving federal money. |
| June 29 | In a 5-4 ruling in Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the death penalty is unconstitutional. |
| July 1 |  First issue of Ms. Magazine published. |
| July 10 | Democratic National Convention opens in Miami Beach. |
| August 12 | The last American ground forces are withdrawn from Vietnam. |
| September 5-6 | Eleven Israeli athletes murdered by terrorist group at Munich Olympics. |
| September 17 | First episode of MASH is aired. |
| October 25 | The FBI hires its first female agents. |
| November 5 | American Indian Movement activists occupy Bureau of Indian Affairs |
| November 14 | The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1000 for the first time. (1003.16) |
| December 11 |  Apollo 17, the last American moon mission, lands on the moon. |
| December 22 | Earthquake strikes Managua, Nicaragua. |
SOURCES
» Wikipedia: 1972
PHOTO CREDITS
(Top to bottom)
President Nixon meets with China's Communist Party Leader, Mao Tse-Tung, 2/29/1972. Source: National Archives.
The Goodyear blimp. Source: National Archives.
Angela Davis. Source: Library of Congress.
Cover of first issue of Ms. Magazine.
Launch of Apollo 17. Source: NASA.