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For the first time in history, all scheduled National League
and American
League games were called off by a strike. The MLBPA's representatives voted
47-0 to call a walkout in a dispute over player pensions. The
remaining four days of exhibitions were cancelled, and the April 5
season openers were postponed. The strike was resolved by April
15.[1]
New Zealand law
created the Accident Compensation
Corporation, which eliminated personal injury lawsuits in favor
of an insurance system that compensates injured persons regardless
of fault.[2]
April 2, 1972
(Sunday)
Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton, a 53 year old USAF
intelligence officer, became the subject of the largest
search-and-rescue missions in American military history. Hambleton
had been the lone survivor of a reconaissance aircraft shot down
behind enemy lines, and eluded capture by North Vietnamese forces
until his rescue eight days later. Eleven U.S. servicemen died and
four aircraft were lost during the operation. The codename of the
plane, Bat 21, later became the title of a book and a 1988
film (in which Gene
Hackman portrayed "Gene" Hambleton.[3]
Silent film legend Charlie Chaplin returned to the United
States after more than 20 years of self-imposed exile. "The Little
Tramp", now 82, had been invited back for the Academy Awards.[4]
A tornado killed six people in Vancouver, Washington, an area
generally immune from twisters. Striking at 12:51 p.m., the storm
injured 70 children at at Vancouver's Ogden Elementary School, but
none of them fatally.[6]
April 6, 1972
(Thursday)
In response to the invasion of South Vietnam by troops from the north,
more than 400 American airplanes bombed North Vietnam in the the heaviest
atttacks there since 1968.[7]
April 7, 1972
(Friday)
United
Airlines Flight 855 was hijacked enroute from Newark to Los
Angeles, and diverted to San Francisco, where the 85 passengers
were released in exchange for $500,000 ransom and parachutes. After
the 727 returned to the air, the skyjacker, Richard
McCoy, Jr. then bailed out a few miles south of Provo, Utah
from 16,000 feet.[8] McCoy
landed safely and hitchhiked home, and was not caught until two
days later.[9]
The Iraqi-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation was
signed in Baghdad, for a
term of 15 years, after which the USSR supplied increased military
aid to Iraq, as part of an
agreement "to develop their cooperation in the matter of
strengthening their defence capacity".[13]
April 10, 1972
(Monday)
United States President Richard Nixon and Soviet President Nikolai
Podgorny signed the Biological Weapons
Convention, in their respective capitals of Washington and
Moscow. Representatives from 74 other nations signed the treaty at
the Washington ceremony.[14]
Thousands of persons were killed by an earthquake that struck
in the Fars province of Iran.[15]
The body of Oberdan Sallustro, the general
manager of FIAT operations in Argentina, was found near Buenos Aires, 20 days
after he had been kidnapped by the People's Revolutionary Army. On
the same day, the terrorist organization assassionated General Juan Carlos Sanchez as he was being driven
to his office in Rosario.[16]
Fifteen mountain climbers were killed by an avalanche while
attempting to climb Manaslu,
the world's 8th tallest mountain (26,752 feet). The South Korean
financed expedition consisted of 4 Koreans, a Japanese cameraman,
and their 10 Nepalese Sherpa guides.[17]
For the first time, the deliberations of the United States
bishops of the Roman Catholic
Church were opened to the press. Seventy-five reporters were
invited to the meeting, held in Atlanta. Cardinal John Krol then delivered his speech in Latin. Cardinal Krol told reporters, "We
told you we'd let you in. We didn't tell you what language we'd
talk." [18]
The United States Senate voted 68-16
to approve the War Powers Act, which would limit the power
of the President to commit American forces to hostilities without
Congressional approval. The legislation then moved on to the
House.[20]
After a ten day strike postponement, the 1972 Major League
Baseball season opened, including the Detroit Tigers' 3-2 win over the Boston Red
Sox.[25]
Cancellations were not rescheduled, and teams played an uneven
number (154, 155 or 156) games, an imbalance that allowed Detroit
Tigers (86-70) to clinch the AL East pennant a game ahead of Boston
(85-70).
A "state of internal war" was declared in Uruguay by vote of the Genearl Assembly, the day
after the Tupamaros
renewed their attacks on government officials. The legislature
voted to give President Bordaberry emergency
powers, and the Uruguayan military began its rule of the South
American nation.[26]
For the first time since the Vietnam War had started, Haiphong,
the largest port in North Vietnam, was bombed by American
forces. The wave of B-52 runs began at dawn in retaliation for the
North's invasion of South Vietnam.[28]
The Ford Motor Company announced the
recall of all of its 1972 model year Ford Torino and Mercury Montego automobiles—436,000
cars in all—to correct a defect in the rear axles. The following
week, the company ordered a second recall of the vehicles for
further repairs.[30]
East African Airways Flight 720
crashed and burned after an aborted takeoff in Addis Ababa, killing 43
of the 107 people on board. The VC-10 was bound for London, and many of its passengers were students
returning to boarding schools after a holiday.[31]
April 19, 1972
(Wednesday)
Two American warships were bombed by a pair of MiG-17 jets
from the North Vietnam. The destroyer USS Higbee and the
light cruiser USS Oklahoma City were attacked, with the
Higbee having a gun mount destroyed and four sailors
wounded.[32]
American presidential adviser Henry Kissinger arrived in Moscow on a secret mission to
meet with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.
Kissinger's remained until Monday, and his visit was not announced
until the day after his return.[34]
Sweden passed the world's
first law officially recognizing change of gender, with the amendment,
effective July 1, of civil registration rules to accommodate change
of birth registrations for individuals who had undergone, or
applied to have, sex change surgery.[36]
April 22, 1972
(Saturday)
April 22, 1972. The second, widely televised demolition of a
Pruitt-Igoe building that followed the March 16 demolition.[37]
The second set of buildings in the Pruitt-Igoe complex in St. Louis were
demolished, and the process was filmed. Clips of the demolition
have been shown ever since, most notably as part of the film Koyaanisqatsi.
Films were taken of the demolition, and the cli have been s.[39]
April 23, 1972
(Sunday)
In a referendum in
France, voters approved the
treaty adding Britain, Ireland and Denmark into the Common Market, with more than 68% in
favor.[40]
April 24, 1972
(Monday)
At Basel, the six member
states of the European Economic Community
agreed to create a currency exchange rate system nicknamed the snake in
the tunnel. Fluctuation of intra-EEC rates would not vary by
more than ±1.25%, in order to maintain a consistent rate of
exchange against the American dollar.[41]
Ralph Baer was issued U.S. Patent
#3,659,285 for "A Television Gaming Apparatus and Method", which he
had perfected on May 7, 1967, making possible the home videogame
industry.[44]
Richard
Nixon and Henry Kissinger secretly discussed
strategy in attacking North Vietnam. After Kissinger estimated
that taking out dikes would "drown about 200,000 people", Nixon
responded, "I'd rather use a nuclear bomb. Have you got that?" When
Kissinger responded "That, I think, would just be too much..",
Nixon said, "I just want you to think big, Henry, for Chrissake."
The tape of the conversation was released years later.[45]
The New York Times first published the front page
story of Frank
Serpico, the honest cop fighting corruption within the
NYPD.[46]
West Germany's
Chancellor Willy
Brandt faced a vote on the rarely used konstruktives
misstrauensvoltum (constructive vote no confidence) that
permits the Bundestag to
remove the Chancellor. The vote was called by opposition leader Rainer Barzel, and
required 249 of 498 in favor of removal. The resolution received
only 247 "ja" votes, falling two short.[48]
Edmund S. Muskie, the early favorite for
the 1972 Democratic Party nomination for President, announced that
he was dropping out of the race.[49]
An astronomer with the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory announced the possible discovery of a tenth
planet. Joseph L. Brady, relying on computer calculations of
gravitational data, said that the planet would be larger than
Saturn and more than five billion miles from the Sun.[51] The
possibility was ruled out after further study.
An uprising in Burundi
by the Hutu people against the Tutsi dominated government, began
with machete attacks that killed more than 3,000 Tutsi civilians
and soliders.[52]. In
the words of one observer, "the ferocity of the ensuing repression
by the army was beyond imagination", with more than 100,000 Hutus
being massacred over the next five months.[53]. In
the genocide that followed, educated Hutu
people—schoolchildren, college students, civil servants—were
murdered, "especially anyone wearing glasses".[54]
April 30, 1972
(Sunday)
Arthur
Godfrey ended his broadcasting career with the final show of
his CBS Radio Network program, Arthur Godfrey Time, which
had run since 1945.[55]
^
"Major League Strike Cancels Openers", Oakland Tribune,
April 1, 1972, p1
^
"Accident Compensation in New Zealand", by Michael Whincup, in
Product Liability, Insurance, and the Pharmaceutical Industry:
An Anglo-American Comparison (Manchester University Press,
1990), p205
^
Darrel D. Whitcomb, The Rescue of Bat 21 (Naval Institute
Press, 1998)
^
"After 20 Years, Chaplin Comes Back to America", Oakland
Tribune, April 4, 1972, p1
^
Salahuddin Ahmed, Bangladesh: Past and Present (A.P.H.
Publishing, 2003), pp208-209
^
Thomas P. Grazulis, The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate
Windstorm (University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), pp264-265
^
"400 Bombers Hit North Viet", Oakland Tribune, April 6,
1972, p1
^
"Hijacker Parachutes With $500,000", Oakland Tribune,
April 8, 1972, p1
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