What happened in 1972

“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”

Roberta Flack · 6 weeks at #1 in 1972

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1. Jan 1Brand New KeyMelanie2 wks
2. Jan 15American Pie (Parts I & II)Don McLean4 wks
3. Feb 12Let's Stay TogetherAl Green1 wk
4. Feb 19Without YouNilsson4 wks
5. Mar 18Heart Of GoldNeil Young1 wk
6. Mar 25A Horse With No NameAmerica3 wks
7. Apr 15The First Time Ever I Saw Your FaceRoberta Flack6 wks
8. May 27Oh GirlThe Chi-lites1 wk
9. Jun 3I'll Take You ThereThe Staple Singers1 wk
10. Jun 10The Candy ManSammy Davis, Jr. with The Mike Curb Congregation3 wks
11. Jul 1Song Sung BlueNeil Diamond1 wk
12. Jul 8Lean On MeBill Withers3 wks
13. Jul 29Alone Again (Naturally)Gilbert O'Sullivan6 wks
14. Aug 26Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)Looking Glass1 wk
15. Sep 16Black & WhiteThree Dog Night1 wk
16. Sep 23Baby Don't Get Hooked On MeMac Davis3 wks
17. Oct 14BenMichael Jackson1 wk
18. Oct 21My Ding-A-LingChuck Berry2 wks
19. Nov 4I Can See Clearly NowJohnny Nash4 wks
20. Dec 2Papa Was A Rollin' StoneThe Temptations1 wk
21. Dec 9I Am WomanHelen Reddy1 wk
22. Dec 16Me And Mrs. JonesBilly Paul3 wks

Dates are the first chart week at #1 in 1972; weeks count only those in 1972.Find the #1 song on your birthday →

1. Jan 9The Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, ending a 33-game winning streak, the longest in major American professional team sports.
2. Jan 30Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth of Nations in protest of its recognition of breakaway Bangladesh.
3. May 15The Ryukyu Islands were returned to Japan by the United States, and the U.S. occupation government was abolished.
4. May 21Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth.
5. Jun 17Five men were arrested for attempted burglary on the offices of the Democratic National Committee, igniting the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of US president Richard Nixon more than two years later.
6. Sep 1In a match widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation, American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer became the 11th World Chess Champion with his victory over Soviet Boris Spassky.
7. Sep 5The Palestinian militant group Black September took hostage eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany; all of the hostages were killed less than 24 hours later.
8. Oct 13Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into a remote area in the Andes mountains near the border of Chile and Argentina; the 16 remaining survivors were not rescued until more than two months later.
9. Nov 7United States presidential election: U.S. President Richard Nixon is re-elected in the largest landslide victory at the time.
10. Nov 8American pay television network Home Box Office (HBO) launches.
11. Dec 14Upon completing the third extra-vehicular activity of Apollo 17, American astronaut Gene Cernan became the last person to date to walk on the Moon.
12. Dec 18Vietnam 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.
13. Dec 23The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, surviving by cannibalism.
14. Dec 28The last scheduled day for induction into the military by the Selective Service System. Due to the fact that President Richard Nixon declared this day a national day of mourning due to former President Harry S Truman's death, approximately 300 men were not able to report due to most Federal offices being closed. Since the draft was not resumed in 1973, they were never drafted.

Event summaries from Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Each links to its article.

• U.S. President

  Richard Nixon

• UK Prime Minister

  Edward Heath

• Prime Minister of Canada

  Pierre Trudeau

• President of France

  Georges Pompidou

• German Chancellor

  Willy Brandt

• Prime Minister of Japan

  Eisaku Satō → Kakuei Tanaka

• Soviet leader

  Leonid Brezhnev

Everyone who held the office at some point in 1972, from Wikidata.

A selection of the best-documented titles on Wikidata, by first release year; not a box-office ranking.

• Drea de MatteoAmerican actress · Jan 19
• Nikki HaleyAmerican accountant and politician, 116th Governor of South Carolina · Jan 20
• Gabriel MachtAmerican actor · Jan 22
• Amy Coney BarrettAmerican jurist, academic, attorney, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States · Jan 28
• Mike JohnsonAmerican politician, 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives · Jan 30
• Robyn LivelyAmerican actress · Feb 7
• Big ShowAmerican wrestler and actor · Feb 8
• Billie Joe ArmstrongAmerican singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and producer · Feb 17
• Taylor HawkinsAmerican singer-songwriter and musician (died 2022) · Feb 17
• Shaquille O'NealAmerican basketball player · Mar 6

From Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0.