1972 World 600
The 1972 World 600, the 13th running of the event, was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that was held on May 28, 1972, at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. Wendell Scott was promised a good car, what he actually got was a hunk of junk. In practice, the car was 9 miles per hour off the pace; this led to jeers from his fellow drivers that he just could not drive the best level of equipment that was available at the time. Bobby Allison climbed in the car afterward and went the same speed while Wendell did the best he could with it until the engine grenaded. This resulted in Wendell obtaining a result of 22nd place DNF on lap 283.


1972 World 600
South Carolina's blue laws were in full force during the era of the race. The pace car driver was Robert "Bob" Colvin who nearly got arrested for violating the "blue laws" before he found out that they were for someone else's bad checks.


1972 World 600
In addition to watching the event live, NASCAR followers who either lived or visited the Concord, North Carolina region could listen to it on their transistor radios.


1972 World 600, Race report
It took four hours and thirteen minutes to race 400 spanning 1.500 miles (2.414 km) per lap. Amateur home video helped capture the most important 49 minutes of this event. Three cautions were waved for 24 laps. More than 80,000 spectators would see Buddy Baker defeat Bobby Allison by 24 seconds at speeds averaging 142.555 miles per hour or 229.420 kilometres per hour. The pole position speed would be 158.162 miles per hour or 254.537 kilometres per hour. Jim Vandiver would become the last-place finisher due to a transmission problem on lap 11.


1972 World 600, Race report
James Hylton became the lowest-finishing driver to finish this race. Richard Petty would suffer an engine problem. His first win from the World 600 (now Coca-Cola 600) series of racing events would come in 1975. Larry Smith, who would go on to become NASCAR's Rookie of the Year, finished sixth in this race. A Rookie of the Year from 1957, Ken Rush, would make his final NASCAR Cup Series appearance in this event. He would make a 29th-place finish out of a 31st place start.


1972 World 600, Race report
Out of the 40-car grid, all except Formula 1 driver Jackie Oliver were born in the United States. Oliver was born in Walton-on-Thames, England.


1972 World 600, Race report
Notable crew chiefs included Harry Hyde, Dale Inman, Tom Vandiver, Darrell Bryant, and Lee Gordon.


1972 World 600, Finishing order
* Driver failed to finish race † signifies that the driver is known to be deceased


1972 World Allround Speed Skating Championships
The World Allround Speed Skating Championships for Men took place on 19 and 20 February 1972 in Oslo at the Bislett stadion ice rink.


1972 World Allround Speed Skating Championships
The title holder and winner was Ard Schenk who prolonged his title to become the third speed skater to win the world allround title three times in a row, equaling the performances of Oscar Mathisen and Hjalmar Andersen.


1972 World Allround Speed Skating Championships for women
The 33rd edition of the World Allround Speed Skating Championships took place on 4 and 5 March in Heerenveen at the Thialf ice rink.


1972 World Amateur Snooker Championship
The 1972 World Amateur Snooker Championship was the fifth edition of the tournament that later became known as the IBSF World Snooker Championship. The 1972 tournament was played in venues in Wales from 4 to 20 January 1973. Ray Edmonds defeated Mannie Francisco 11–10 in the final to win the title.


1972 World Amateur Snooker Championship, Tournament summary
The first World Amateur Snooker Championship was held in 1963. Jonathan Barron, who won the title in 1970, was the defending champion for 1972.


1972 World Amateur Snooker Championship, Tournament summary
The tournament was held at venues in Wrexham, Cardiff, and Aberdare from 4 to 20 January 1973. There were four round-robin groups, with the top two players from each group progressing to a second round-robin stage. The top two players from the second-stage groups progressed to the knockout stage.


1972 World Amateur Snooker Championship, Tournament summary
Ray Edmonds defeated Mannie Francisco 11–10 in the final to win the title. The final was held on 19 and 20 January, at Sophia Gardens Pavillion, Cardiff. Edmonds was 1–6 behind at the end of the first day's play, but won five of the seven frames in the afternoon session on 20 January to reduce his deficit to two frames at 6–8. Franscico won the first frame of the third session to lead 9–6, before Edmonds levelled the match at 9–9. Edmonds took the lead at 10–9, but Francisco forced a deciding frame by winning the twentieth frame. Edmonds won the last frame to claim victory.


1972 World Amateur Snooker Championship, Tournament summary
Edmonds made the highest break of the tournament, 101, during the first group stage; and the highest break of the final, 40.


1972 World Amateur Snooker Championship, Qualifying groups
The final tables are shown below. Players in bold qualified for the next round.


1972 World Championship Tennis Finals
The 1972 World Championship Tennis Finals was a men's tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts. It was the 2nd edition of the WCT Finals and was the season-ending tournament of the 1972 World Championship Tennis circuit. The top eight points winners of the circuit qualified for the tournament which was played at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas, Texas in the United States and ran from May 8 through May 14, 1972. Ken Rosewall won the singles title and the $50,000 first prize.


1972 World Championship Tennis Finals
The final was broadcast live in the United States by NBC and watched by an estimated 21.3 million viewers. In his book, The Education of a Tennis Player, finalist Rod Laver commented "I think if one match can be said to have made tennis in the United States, this was it. ".


1972 World Championship Tennis Finals, Final, Singles
Ken Rosewall defeated  Rod Laver 4–6, 6–0, 6–3, 6–7(3–7), 7–6(7–5)


1972 World Championship Tennis Finals – Singles
In the 1972 World Championship Tennis Finals - Singles, Ken Rosewall was the defending champion, having previously won the tennis competition, and won in the final 4–6, 6–0, 6–3, 6–7(3–7), 7–6(7–5) against Rod Laver. Of particular note, the final is credited as the "match that made tennis in the United States" because its unprecedented domestic television audience of 23 million fueled a massive increase in the sport's popularity.


1972 World Championship Tennis Finals – Singles, Seeds
A champion seed is indicated in bold text while text in italics indicates the round in which that seed was eliminated.


1972 World Championship Tennis Winter Finals
The 1972 World Championship Tennis Winter Finals was a tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts. It was the 1st edition of the WCT Winter Finals and was part of the 1972 World Championship Tennis circuit. It was played in the EUR district of Rome in Italy and began on November 26, 1972.


1972 World Championship Tennis Winter Finals, Champions, Men's Singles
Arthur Ashe defeated  Robert Lutz 6–2, 3–6, 6–3, 3–6, 7–6


1972 World Championship Tennis Winter Finals – Singles
Arthur Ashe won in the final of the 1972 World Championship Tennis Winter Finals 6–2, 3–6, 6–3, 3–6, 7–6 against Robert Lutz.


1972 World Championship Tennis Winter Finals – Singles, Seeds
A champion seed is indicated in bold text while text in italics indicates the round in which that seed was eliminated.


1972 World Championship Tennis circuit
The 1972 World Championship Tennis circuit was one of the two rival professional male tennis circuits of 1972. It was organized by World Championship Tennis (WCT). The circuit included twenty-three regular events, and two circuit finals, one taking place in May, counting for the second half of the 1971 season, and the first part of the 1972 season, and a smaller one taking place in November, counting for the second half of the 1972 season.


1972 World Championship Tennis circuit, Schedule
This is the complete schedule of events on the 1972 WCT circuit, with player progression documented until the quarterfinals stage.


1972 World Championship Tennis circuit, Statistical information
These tables present the number of singles (S), and doubles (D) titles won by each player and each nation during the season, within all the tournament categories of the 1972 WCT circuit: the WCT Finals, and the regular series tournaments. The players/nations are sorted by: 1) total number of titles (a doubles title won by two players representing the same nation counts as only one win for the nation); 2) importance of those titles (a WCT Finals win equalling two regular tournaments wins); 3) a singles > doubles hierarchy; 4) alphabetical order (by family names for players).


1972 World Championship Tennis circuit, Standings
These are the standings of the top twenty singles players on the WCT circuit, at the end of the 1971 World Championship Tennis circuit, and after each edition of the WCT Finals in the 1972 season.


1972 World Championship Victory Race
The 2nd World Championship Victory Race, formally the John Player Challenge Trophy, was a motor race, run to Formula One rules, held on 22 October 1972 at Brands Hatch, Kent. The race was run over 40 laps of the circuit. Jean-Pierre Beltoise won in his BRM P180. The entry included several Formula 5000 cars.


1972 World Cup (men's golf)
The 1972 World Cup took place 9–12 November at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia. It was the 20th World Cup event. The tournament was a stroke play team event, shortened from 72 holes, after the second round, scheduled on Friday, was cancelled due to bad weather, to 54 holes with 43 teams. Each team consisted of two players from a country. The combined score of each team determined the team results. The Republic of China team of Hsieh Min-Nan and Lu Liang-Huan won by two strokes over the Japan team of Takaaki Kono and Takashi Murakami. The individual competition was won by Hsieh two strokes ahead of Kono. This was the first team victory for the Republic of China, also known as Taiwan, in the history of the World Cup, founded in 1953 and until 1967 named the Canada Cup.


1972 World Field Archery Championships
The 1972 World Field Archery Championships were held in Gorizia, Italy.


1972 World Figure Skating Championships
The 1972 World Figure Skating Championships were held at the Stampede Corral in Calgary, Canada from March 7 to 11. At the event, sanctioned by the International Skating Union, medals were awarded in men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dance.


1972 World Figure Skating Championships
The ISU Representative was John R. Shoemaker (United States) and the ISU Technical Delegates were Hermann Schiechtl (West Germany) and Donald H. Gilchrist (Canada).


1972 World Figure Skating Championships
A day before the start of the competition, Irina Rodnina / Alexei Ulanov had an accident on a lift; she was hospitalized with a concussion and an intracranial hematoma but went on to compete and win the gold medal. It was Rodnina/Ulanov's final competition together; he would team up with the silver medalist, Lyudmila Smirnova.


1972 World Karate Championships
The 1972 World Karate Championships are the 2nd edition of the World Karate Championships, and were held in Stade Pierre de Coubertin, Paris, France on April 21 and April 22, 1972.


1972 World Orienteering Championships
The 4th World Orienteering Championships were held in Staré Splavy, Czechoslovakia, 14–16 September 1972.


1972 World Orienteering Championships
The championships had four events; individual contests for men and women, and relays for men and women.


1972 World Outdoor Bowls Championship
The 1972 Men's World Outdoor Bowls Championship  was held at Beach House Park in Worthing, England, from 5–17 June 1972.


1972 World Outdoor Bowls Championship
Maldwyn Evans won the singles which was held in a round robin format. The Pairs Gold was won by Hong Kong, the Triples Gold by the United States and the Fours Gold went to England. Scotland lifted the Leonard Trophy with just one point more than South Africa and the United States.


1972 World Series
The 1972 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1972 season. The 69th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the American League champion Oakland Athletics and the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. The Athletics won in seven games. It was the first World Series championship for the Athletics since 1930.


1972 World Series
These two teams met again in the World Series 18 years later in 1990. Their managers would meet again in the Fall Classic 12 years later in 1984, helming different teams and swapping leagues.


1972 World Series, Background
The A's won the American League West division by 5½ games over the Chicago White Sox, then defeated the Detroit Tigers three games to two in the American League Championship Series. The Cincinnati Reds won the National League West division by 10+1⁄2 games over both the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros. The Reds dethroned the defending World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates three games to two in the National League Championship Series, marking the first year in which an LCS series in either league went the full five games since divisional play was introduced in 1969.


1972 World Series, Background
The Reds [95–59 (.617)] won one fewer game than the Pirates [96–59 (.619)] during the strike-reduced regular season and became the first team in MLB history to reach the World Series without having the best record in its respective league. In each of the first six League Championship Series, the team with the better record advanced to the World Series. (The A's (93–62 (.600)) had the best record in the American League in 1972, but the AL pennant winner the next three seasons did not.)


1972 World Series, Background
This was Cincinnati's second trip to the World Series in three years, previously falling to Baltimore in five games in 1970. It was Oakland's first-ever trip to the Series, and the first for the franchise since 1931, when the team was located in Philadelphia.


1972 World Series, Background
This was a matchup of the two premier MLB dynasties of the 1970s, with the Reds winning two World Series (1975–76) in four WS appearances, while the A's won three straight (1972–74). Iconoclastic club owner Charlie Finley's "Swingin' A's" featured day-glo uniforms, white shoes, much facial hair, colorful nicknames, and explosive personalities, while "The Big Red Machine" was a more traditional franchise with a more traditional look (including a facial-hair ban)—and an everyday lineup with three future Hall of Famers as well as all-time hits king, Pete Rose. The Series was dubbed "The Hairs vs. the Squares."


1972 World Series, Background
Oakland played the Series without its star outfielder Reggie Jackson, who was injured (pulled hamstring) stealing home in the second inning of the final game of the ALCS at Detroit on October 12. Left-handed reliever Darold Knowles was also missing for the A's, breaking his thumb on September 27, less than three weeks before the Series opener.


1972 World Series, Background
With Jackson out, the Athletics were decided underdogs. George Hendrick was inserted into center field for Jackson. And while Hendrick only went 2-for-15 (.133 avg. ), unheralded catcher Gene Tenace stepped up. Tenace had a poor regular season, hitting only .225 with five home runs. He was even worse in the AL Championship series against Detroit, going 1 for 17 (.059), although his one hit drove in the go-ahead run in Game 5. In the World Series however, Tenace was spectacular, hitting four home runs equaling the World Series mark set by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Hank Bauer. He also had nine RBI in the Series—no other Oakland player had more than one. Tenace was voted World Series MVP.


1972 World Series, Background
By contrast, the stellar Oakland pitching kept the middle of the Reds lineup quiet for most of the series. Johnny Bench (.270 avg., 40 HR, 125 RBI, NL MVP), Tony Pérez (.283 avg., 21 HR, 90 RBI), and Denis Menke (9 HR, 50 RBI), combined for only two homers and five RBI the entire Series. Perez did lead both teams with 10 hits and a .435 batting average, but all 10 hits were singles. It didn't help that the Reds' "table-setters," Pete Rose and Joe Morgan were a combined 1 for 28 through the first four games, when the Reds lost three of those games.


1972 World Series, Background
The teams were fairly equal statistically, each club totaling 46 hits with the same .209 batting average (the combined batting averages were the lowest recorded in a 7-game World Series). The Reds outscored the A's by five runs, 21–16, but all four of their losses were by a single run. Six of the seven games in the series were decided by one run, marking perhaps the most closely contested World Series in history.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 1
Oakland jumped out to a one-game series lead behind catcher Gene Tenace, who hit a home run in each of his first two at-bats. Tenace became the first player ever to homer in his two initial Series plate appearances, a feat later matched by Andruw Jones of the Atlanta Braves in 1996. Only two Oakland players collected hits, a pair each from Tenace and Bert Campaneris. The A's received a combined four innings of shutout relief from Rollie Fingers and Vida Blue to secure the victory for starter Ken Holtzman. Blue stranded the potential tying run at third base to end the game by inducing Pete Rose to ground out to second base.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 2
The Game 2 hero was A's left fielder Joe Rudi, who smacked a home run and added a sparkling, game-saving catch up against the wall in the ninth inning on a ball hit by Denis Menke. Catfish Hunter pitched eight strong innings, consistently wiggling out of trouble, and also added an RBI single in the second off Ross Grimsley. The Reds' failure to produce in the clutch was as much the story as Rudi's heroics as Cincinnati had leadoff baserunners in five innings but only scored a run in the ninth.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 2
In the ninth, Tony Pérez led off with a base hit before Rudi's catch of Menke's drive for the first out. Oakland first baseman Mike Hegan then made another great defensive play when César Gerónimo, the next Reds hitter, lined a shot that appeared headed down the line for extra bases. Hegan dove for the ball, knocked it down, and dove for the bag, barely beating Geronimo. Pérez took second and scored on a Hal McRae single through the middle.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 2
Rollie Fingers then relieved Hunter and induced pinch hitter Julián Javier to pop out to Hegan in foul territory to end the game. The World Series home loss was Reds' seventh-straight, which included three in the 1961 World Series against the New York Yankees (at Crosley Field) and two in the 1970 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 2
Jackie Robinson, the first black major league player of the modern era, made his final public appearance in Cincinnati before Game 2 (he died nine days later). In a brief speech, he expressed his desire to see a black manager in Major League Baseball, a color barrier that had not yet been broken. Two years later, Frank Robinson was  hired in October 1974 to manage the Cleveland Indians to break that barrier.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 3
Heavy storms delayed Game 3 by a day, but the Reds got back into the series behind a strong performance from starter Jack Billingham, who held the A's to three hits in eight innings. The Reds pushed across the game's only run in the seventh when César Gerónimo singled home Tony Pérez. Pérez scored despite slipping on the still damp grass as he rounded third. Oakland shortstop Bert Campaneris was apparently unaware that Perez had slipped; otherwise, it appeared Campaneris may have had a play at the plate. Clay Carroll pitched the ninth for the save.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 3
A rare trick play occurred in the eighth inning. The Reds had Joe Morgan on third and Bobby Tolan on first base with Rollie Fingers pitching to NL MVP Johnny Bench. Fingers pitched carefully to Bench before Tolan stole second base on ball three. After the stolen base, with the count 3–2 on Bench, A's manager Dick Williams visited the mound. After a long discussion, he motioned for an intentional walk to Bench. A's catcher Gene Tenace stood to catch ball four, but at the last second returned to his crouch as Fingers delivered a strike on the outside corner. Bench watched the pitch go by for strike three.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 4
A very pivotal game in the series, and it was Gene Tenace and Oakland non-starters who came through in the ninth inning to rally the Athletics to victory to put the A's up 3 games to 1.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 4
The game was a pitchers' duel between a pair of left-handed starters: Cincinnati's Don Gullett and Oakland's Ken Holtzman. Through seven innings, the game's lone run was a result of a fifth-inning home run by Tenace, his third homer of the series. With two outs in the top of the eighth inning and Dave Concepción on second base, A's manager Dick Williams replaced Holtzman with left-hander Vida Blue to face left-handed hitters Joe Morgan and Bobby Tolan. Blue walked Morgan and allowed a clutch two-run double to Tolan, giving Cincinnati the lead as the Reds seemed poised to tie the series at 2 games apiece.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 4
In the bottom of the ninth, however, with one out, the A's strung together four consecutive hits to score two runs. Pinch hitter Gonzalo Márquez singled, Tenace followed with a single, Don Mincher followed with another pinch-hit single scoring pinch-runner Allan Lewis to tie the game before a third pinch-hitter, Ángel Mangual, singled off Clay Carroll to score Tenace with the game-winner to put Oakland up three games to one. It was the first time that a team collected three pinch hits in the same World Series inning.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 5
Up three games to one and with ace Catfish Hunter on the mound, the A's looked poised to close out Cincinnati. Compounding problems for the Reds, their ace pitcher Gary Nolan, who had been battling shoulder and neck issues during the second half of the regular season, was unable to pitch Game 5, forcing part-time starter Jim McGlothlin to start instead. But two of the struggling Reds, Pete Rose and Joe Morgan who were a combined 1 for 28 at the plate in the first four games, stepped up to make key plays. Rose led off the game with a home run, and he would also drive in the game-winning run in the ninth inning. The game ended dramatically when Morgan threw out the potential game-tying run at the plate as the Reds staved off elimination.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 5
Trailing 1–0 in the second, Gene Tenace hit his fourth home run of the series, a three-run shot, to put Oakland up by two. McGlothlin was removed after pitching just three innings. The Reds cut the lead to 3–2 in the fourth on a home run by Denis Menke. Gonzalo Marquez put the A's back in front by two runs with a pinch-hit RBI single in the fourth.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 5
The Reds continued to answer. With two outs in the fifth, Joe Morgan walked. With a 3–2 count on Bobby Tolan, Morgan broke for second and was able to score when Tolan lined a base hit into right-center field. The speedy Morgan and Tolan collaborated once again in the eighth. Morgan again walked, stole second and scored on another Tolan single to tie the game at four.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 5
In the ninth, Rose singled in the go-ahead run to give the Reds a 5-4 lead. Game 3 starter Jack Billingham came in to relieve in the ninth, but the A's put runners on the corners with one out. Bert Campaneris hit a foul pop behind first base that Tony Pérez drifted back and appeared to call for. But second baseman Morgan raced over, waved Perez off, caught the ball, slipped on the grass but got up and fired a throw to nail pinch runner Blue Moon Odom, who had tagged from third.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 5
The Friday afternoon contest was the last non-weekend World Series day game. The three games in Oakland had all been scheduled to be played at night, but Game 3 was rained out, forcing Game 5 to be played on a Friday, originally scheduled as a travel day. The game was played in the afternoon (1 p.m. PT) to allow ample time for the teams to travel to Cincinnati for Game 6 the next day.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 6
Back at the friendly confines of Riverfront Stadium, the Reds tied the series at three games apiece with a rout. Johnny Bench, who had no RBI in the series to that point, broke a scoreless tie in the fourth with a homer off starter Vida Blue. The A's fought back on a Dick Green RBI double in their half of the fifth, but from then on it was all Reds. Dave Concepción had a sacrifice fly in the fifth, and Tony Pérez an RBI single in the sixth (his first RBI of the Series). The Reds then broke it open with a five-run seventh an RBI single by Joe Morgan and a pair of two-run singles by Bobby Tolan and César Gerónimo.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 7
Gene Tenace capped a spectacular World Series with two hits, two RBI and he also scored the game-winning run in the sixth inning on Sal Bando's double.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 7
Oakland scored an unearned run in the first inning off Jack Billingham when Reds center fielder Bobby Tolan misplayed a fly ball by Mangual into a three-base error. Mangual scored on a two-out single by Tenace on a ball that hit a seam in the Astroturf and bounced over the head of third baseman Denis Menke. The Reds tied the game in the fifth on a bases loaded sacrifice fly to the center field wall by Hal McRae. However, McRae was pinch hitting for Billingham who had allowed no earned runs in 13+2⁄3 innings in the series against the A's.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 7
His replacement in the sixth inning, Pedro Borbón, surrendered RBI doubles to Tenace and Bando. Bando's drive appeared catchable, but Tolan pulled up short of the wall due to a strained hamstring and the ball went over Tolan to the base of the wall. He was later removed from the game on a double switch. The Reds closed to within 3–2 in the eighth on a sacrifice fly by Perez, but A's closer Rollie Fingers shut down the Reds in the ninth.


1972 World Series, Matchups, Game 7
The World Series victory for the Oakland A's was the first for the franchise since the days of Connie Mack when the team was in Philadelphia and had won in 1930. The victory ensured manager Dick Williams' return for another year. It was the Athletics' sixth World Series title, and the first of three consecutive titles. This was the last time to date that an American League team had won a World Series Game 7 on the road until 2017, when the Houston Astros did so in Los Angeles.


1972 World Series, Composite box
1972 World Series (4–3): Oakland Athletics (A.L.) over Cincinnati Reds (N.L.)


1972 World Series, Broadcasting
NBC aired the series on both television and radio. Curt Gowdy (on TV) and Jim Simpson (on radio) alternated play-by-play with team announcers Al Michaels (Reds) and Monte Moore (Athletics).


1972 World Series, Broadcasting
Tony Kubek, who had served as an in-the-stands reporter for NBC's four previous World Series telecasts, was promoted to the booth as a color analyst, becoming the first former player to serve in that capacity since Joe Garagiola in 1961.


1972 World Series of Poker
The 1972 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was a series of poker tournaments held during early May 1972 at the Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the 3rd annual installment of the World Series of Poker, and also the 2nd one to feature the freezeout structure. In comparison with the previous year's series, the number of events was cut back and the buy-ins were raised, resulting in 1 preliminary event and the Main Event both having the same buy-in of $10K (equals about $54K in 2011 U.S. dollars).


1972 World Series of Poker
The preliminary event featured 5-card stud poker and was won by Bill Boyd, the same man who won the 1971 5-card stud preliminary event. The previous years' double champion Johnny Moss was defeated early in the main event and Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston went on to win the tournament after a series of deals.


1972 World Series of Poker, Preliminary event
The preliminary event had a very small turnout, featuring only last year's 5-card stud champion Bill Boyd, and an unknown player. The event was played out on May 7th, and Boyd relieved the other player of his money, cashing for $20K. Boyd went on to win 2 more 5-card stud events in 1973 and 1974 until 5-card stud was dropped from the WSOP slate due to waning popularity.


1972 World Series of Poker, Main event
12 people were slated to appear at the main event, but due to reportedly attractive side cash games only 8 of them appeared at the tables on May 11th, the date the event was scheduled to run. Half of each player's $10K buy-in was covered by Benny Binion, who was looking to gain publicity from the event and thus draw bigger crowds into Binion's Horseshoe. The winner of previous 2 WSOP main events, Johnny Moss, took an early lead in the tournament, but soon ended up eliminated.


1972 World Series of Poker, Main event
Moss hit a set of deuces with 2-2 on a 9-7-2 flop and after a 10 came on the turn, he got all-in versus Doyle Brunson's pocket aces. However, Brunson hit a 3rd A on the river to win the hand. Moss had almost no chips left and got eliminated shortly afterwards.


1972 World Series of Poker, Main event
With 4 players left on the 2nd day of the tournament, Amarillo Slim, the would-be champion, was very short-stacked with less than 2,000 chips. Beating Brunson's pocket 10 with trip 5s on a 5-5-3 flop, Slim made his way back into the game and soon saw Jack Straus eliminated. With only 3 players (William "Puggy" Pearson, Brunson and Slim) remaining, Jack Binion led news reporters and a TV crew to the poker table. At that point, Brunson and Pearson announced they did not want to win the event.


1972 World Series of Poker, Main event
Brunson was not only afraid of not being let in on future lucrative cash games if he were to be pronounced the world champion of poker, but also of a tax audit. The players struck a deal whereupon Pearson and Brunson would let Slim win the tournament, but in return they would take the cash value of their current chip stacks from Slim's prize.


1972 World Series of Poker, Main event
Jack Binion was very cross with the outcome, as players openly changed their play to let Slim win. He held a meeting with the players in the Sombrero room of the Binion's Horseshoe, demanding that players resume fair play. Brunson laid out his reasons and Binion allowed him to withdraw from the tournament and cash his chips, while the reason for Brunson's departure was reported to be an stomachache. The sum that Brunson received in the end is disputed; some sources lay out figures as low as $20K, while according to Des Wilson, Brunson might have left the tournament with as much as half the prizepool.


1972 World Series of Poker, Main event
After Brunson left, Pearson and Slim resumed play. According to Slim, Pearson was not content with the deal and was still trying to win the tournament, but in the end Jack Binion reportedly persuaded him to soft-play Slim and thus throw the match for publicity reasons. In the final hand, Pearson raised to 700 chips with 6-6 (of unknown suits) and Slim called with K♥ J♦. A flop of K-8-8 was seen. Slim pushed his 51K-chip stack in the pot and Pearson promptly called, both players getting all their chips in the pot. Turn and river (poker) were a deuce and an 8, respectively, and Slim won with a bigger full house. However, in the end, according to The Hendon Mob, Slim walked away from the table with winnings of mere $15K, only 3 times his investment.


1972 World Series of Poker, Main event
"[Pearson] was trying [to win the tournament] right up to the last 30 minutes. That’s when it happened. They knew they couldn’t get any publicity out of it if Doyle [Brunson] won it. That’s not putting Doyle down – Doyle just wasn’t a talker in those days. And Puggy [Pearson] wouldn’t have been a good choice because about half the people he had screwed over the years were bound to say a few things. So I was the pick for winning it."


1972 World Series of Poker, Aftermath
After winning the tournament, Amarillo Slim was invited to Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show on June 12 the same year. Slim later made 10 more appearances on The Tonight Show, an appearance on CBS's Hour, and a cameo in the 1974 film California Split. His life story inspired the Kenny Rogers's song The Gambler. Slim's large media exposure contributed to the recognizance of the World Series of Poker and the popularization of poker in mainstream U.S. media and popular culture. The next year's WSOP was covered by CBS and over 7,000 newspaper articles were written about it. Time magazine featured an article on Amarillo Slim with an excerpt about WSOP and rules of poker.


1972 World Snooker Championship
The 1972 World Snooker Championship (also known as 1972 Park Drive World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between March 1971 and 26 February 1972.


1972 World Snooker Championship
Alex Higgins won his first World title beating John Spencer 37–32 in the final.


1972 World Sportscar Championship
The 1972 World Championship for Makes and International Grand Touring Trophy seasons were the 20th season of the FIA World Sportscar Championship. It was a series for FIA Group 5 Sports Cars and FIA Group 4 Grand Touring Cars. It ran from 9 January 1972 to 22 July 1972, and was composed of 11 races.


1972 World Sportscar Championship, Season results
Points were awarded to the top 10 finishers in the order of 20-15-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1. Manufacturers were only given points for their highest finishing car; any other cars from that manufacturer were merely skipped in the awarding of points.


1972 World Sportscar Championship, Manufacturers Championships, Overall Manufacturers Championship
Group 5 Sports Cars and Group 4 Grand Touring Cars were awarded points for the overall championship, but the GT class also had their own separate award.


1972 World Sportscar Championship, Manufacturers Championships, Overall Manufacturers Championship
Cars participating in races that were not included in the Sports or GT classes (such as Group 2 Touring Cars) were skipped when awarding points for the overall championship.


1972 World Sportscar Championship, Manufacturers Championships, Overall Manufacturers Championship
Only the best 8 points finishes counted towards the championship, with any other points earned not included in the total. Discarded points are shown in brackets.


1972 World Sportscar Championship, Manufacturers Championships, GT Manufacturers Trophy
The GT class did not participate in Rounds 1 and 4. Only the best 7 finishes counted.


1972 World Weightlifting Championships
The 1972 Men's World Weightlifting Championships were held in Munich, West Germany from August 27 to September 6, 1972. There were 188 men in action from 54 nations.


1972 World Weightlifting Championships
This tournament was a part of 1972 Summer Olympics but counted as World Weightlifting Championships too. Only total medals counted for Olympic Games while Snatch and Clean & Jerk medals counted for the World Weightlifting Championships.


1972 World Weightlifting Championships, Medal table
Ranking by all medals: Big (Total result) and Small (Press, Snatch and Clean & Jerk)


1972 Wyoming Cowboys football team
The 1972 Wyoming Cowboys football team represented the University of Wyoming in the 1972 NCAA University Division football season. The Cowboys were led by second-year head coach Fritz Shurmur and played their home games at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyoming. They finished the season with a 4–7 record overall and a 3–4 record in the Western Athletic Conference to finish 5th in the conference.


1972 Yale Bulldogs football team
The 1972 Yale Bulldogs football team represented Yale University in the 1972 NCAA University Division football season. The Bulldogs were led by eighth year head coach Carmen Cozza, played their home games at the Yale Bowl and finished in second place in the Ivy League with a 5–2 record, 7–2 overall.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak
The 1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak was the last outbreak of smallpox in Europe. It was centered in SAP Kosovo and Belgrade, Serbia and the capital city respectively of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A Muslim pilgrim had contracted the smallpox virus in the Middle East. Upon returning to his home in Kosovo, he started the epidemic in which 175 people were infected, killing 35. The epidemic was efficiently contained by enforced quarantine and mass vaccination. The 1982 film Variola Vera is based on the event.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Background
By 1972 the disease was considered to be eradicated in Europe. The population of Yugoslavia had been regularly vaccinated for 50 years, and the last case was reported in 1930. This was the major cause of the initial slow reaction by doctors, who did not promptly recognize the disease.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Background
In October 1970, an Afghan family went on pilgrimage from Afghanistan, where smallpox was endemic, to Mashhad in Iran, triggering an epidemic of smallpox in Iran that would last until September 1972. By late 1971, smallpox-infected pilgrims had carried smallpox from Iran into Syria and Iraq.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Outbreak
In early 1972, a 38-year-old Kosovo Albanian Muslim clergyman named Ibrahim Hoti, from Damnjane near Đakovica, Kosovo, undertook the Hajj. He visited holy sites in Iraq, where cases of smallpox were known. He returned home on February 15. The following morning he suffered aches and was tired, but attributed this to the long bus journey. Hoti soon realized he had an infection, but, after feeling feverish for a couple of days and developing a rash, he recovered - probably because he had been vaccinated two months earlier.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Outbreak
On March 3, Latif Mumdžić, a thirty-year-old teacher, who had just arrived in Đakovica to attend school, fell ill. He had no known direct contact with Hoti. He may have been infected by one of the clergyman's friends or relatives who visited during his illness, or simply by passing the clergyman in the street. When Mumdžić visited the local medical center two days later, doctors attempted to treat his fever with penicillin (smallpox is a virus, so this was ineffective).


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Outbreak
His condition did not improve, and after a couple of days, his brother took him to the hospital in Čačak, 150 km to the north in Serbia. The doctors there could not help him, so he was transferred by ambulance to the central hospital in Belgrade. On March 9, Mumdžić was shown to medical students and staff as a case of an atypical reaction to penicillin, which was a plausible explanation for his condition. On the following day, Mumdžić suffered massive internal bleeding and, despite efforts to save his life, died that evening.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Outbreak
The cause of death was listed as "reaction to penicillin". In fact, he had contracted black pox, a highly contagious form of smallpox. Before his death, Mumdžić directly infected 38 people (including nine doctors and nurses), eight of whom died. A few days after Mumdžić's death, 140 smallpox cases erupted across Kosovo province.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Reaction
The government's reaction was swift. Martial law was declared on March 16. Measures included cordons sanitaires of villages and neighborhoods, roadblocks, a prohibition of public assembly, closure of borders and prohibition of all non-essential travel. Hotels were requisitioned for quarantines in which 10,000 people who may have been in contact with the virus were held under guard by the army.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Reaction
Mumdžić's brother developed a smallpox rash on March 20, resulting in medical authorities realizing that Mumdžić had died of smallpox. The authorities undertook massive revaccination of the population, helped by the World Health Organization (WHO), "almost the entire Yugoslavian population of 18 million people was vaccinated". Leading experts on smallpox were flown in to help, including Donald Henderson and Don Francis.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Reaction
By mid-May, the outbreak was contained and the country returned to normal life. During the epidemic, 175 people contracted smallpox and 35 died.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Legacy
The Yugoslav government received international praise for the successful containment of the epidemic, which was one of the finest hours for Donald Henderson and WHO, as well as one of the crucial steps in the eradication of smallpox.


1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, Legacy
In 1982, Serbian director Goran Marković made the film Variola Vera about a hospital under quarantine during the epidemic. In 2002, the BBC screened a television drama called Smallpox 2002, which was partly inspired by the events.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings
Between 26 November 1972 and 20 January 1973, there were four paramilitary bombings in the centre of Dublin, Ireland. Three civilians were killed and 185 people were injured. No group ever claimed responsibility for the attacks and nobody was ever charged in connection with the bombings.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings
The first bombing in Burgh Quay may have been carried out by former associates of the Littlejohn brothers who were Secret Intelligence Service provocateurs, in a successful attempt to provoke an Irish government clampdown against the Provisional IRA, while the other three bombings were possibly perpetrated by loyalist paramilitaries, specifically the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), with British military or intelligence assistance. The UVF claimed in 1993 to have carried out the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings which incurred the greatest loss of life in a single day throughout the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings
On 1 December 1972, when two separate car bombs exploded in Eden Quay and Sackville Place, Dáil Éireann was debating a bill to amend the Offences Against the State Act which would enact stricter measures against the Provisional IRA and other paramilitary groups. As a result of the two bombings, which killed two men and wounded 131, the Dáil voted for the amendment, which introduced special emergency powers to combat the IRA. It is believed that the 26 November and 1 December bombings were executed to influence the outcome of the voting. Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron commissioned an official inquiry into the bombings. The findings were published in a report in November 2004.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
The bombings in Dublin occurred at the end of what was the bloodiest year in the entire 30-year-old religious-political conflict known as the Troubles, which had erupted at the end of the 1960s. Following the Bloody Sunday incident in Derry on 30 January 1972 when the British Army's Parachute Regiment shot dead 14  unarmed Catholic civilians during an anti-internment demonstration, a torrent of anti-British sentiment was unleashed in Ireland and beyond. An angry crowd in Dublin attacked the British embassy and burnt it to the ground.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
The Official IRA responded with the 1972 Aldershot Bombing in England, at the headquarters of the Parachute Regiment. This attack killed seven civilians. In retaliation for the shootings in Derry, the Provisional IRA escalated its armed campaign with a series of bombings across Northern Ireland which led to a high number of civilian casualties.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
Four days after the Donegall Street bombing in central Belfast on 20 March which killed seven people, British Prime Minister Edward Heath announced the suspension of the 50-year-old Stormont parliament and the imposition of Direct Rule from London. This caused Ulster loyalists and unionists throughout Northern Ireland to feel profoundly angry, shocked, and betrayed; moreover, they considered it to have been another "sign of continuing Government weakness in the face of IRA violence".


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
On 29 May, the Official IRA declared a ceasefire, this was followed on 27 June by the Provisional IRA also declaring a ceasefire which loyalists regarded with suspicion, fearing it would lead to the British Government doing a secret deal resulting in a united Ireland. Representatives of the IRA and British Government held unprecedented secret talks in England, but these proved unsuccessful and the Provisional IRA's ceasefire ended in early July after a confrontation with the British Army in Belfast.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
When the IRA exploded 22 bombs across Belfast in what became known as Bloody Friday, many Ulster Protestants, after seeing the televised carnage of victims' remains being scraped off the street and poured into plastic bags, rushed to join paramilitary organisations such as the legal Ulster Defence Association (UDA) or the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The bombings also led the British Army to launch Operation Motorman, which saw the arrival of an addition 4,000 troops to assist in the recapture of the mostly IRA-controlled "no-go areas" in Belfast and Derry. The dismantling of these "no-go" areas, which had been set up by residents in certain nationalist/republican districts to prevent access by the security forces, effectively prohibited the IRA from enjoying the same operational freedom it had known prior to the implementation of Operation Motorman.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
The UVF was led by Gusty Spence, who was imprisoned since 1966 for a sectarian murder. In July 1972, his associates on the outside staged a fake kidnapping while Spence was on bail and he was at liberty for four months. During this period he organised the UVF into brigades, battalions, companies and platoons. These were all subordinate to the Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) based on the loyalist Shankill Road.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
He also managed to obtain an arsenal of sophisticated guns and ammunition after a raid on King's Park camp, an Ulster Defence Regiment/Territorial Army depot in Lurgan by an armed UVF gang. The UVF also stole twenty tons of ammonium nitrate from the Belfast Docks. During the spring and summer of 1972, the UDA set up barricades and no-go areas in Belfast and paraded through the city centre in a massive show of strength.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
William Craig, leader of the Unionist Vanguard movement, addressed a meeting of right-wing MPs in Westminster who belonged to the Monday Club on 19 October during which he claimed he could mobilise 80,000 men who "are prepared to come out and shoot and kill". On 28 October a bomb was found in Dublin's busy Connolly Station and fire-bombs detonated inside four Dublin hotels. On 4 November Spence was recaptured in Belfast by the British Army.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background
The Irish Government began its clampdown against the IRA in that same year. On 19 November the Provisional IRA's Chief of Staff, Sean MacStiofain was arrested in Dublin and immediately went on a hunger and thirst strike. The same month, a controversial amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, giving the Garda Síochána special powers to deal with the IRA and other subversives was brought before Dáil Éireann.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background, Keith and Kenneth Littlejohn
On 12 October 1972, an armed gang executed what was at the time the biggest bank robbery in Irish history. The robbery was carried out at the Allied Irish Bank's Grafton Street branch and the gang made off with £67,000. Four days later, Garda officers raided the Drumcondra residence of two Englishmen, brothers Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn where they recovered £11,000 of the sum taken. The brothers were arrested in England on 19 October and were flown to Ireland in March 1973 following the issuing of an extradition warrant from Dublin.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background, Keith and Kenneth Littlejohn
Prior to and during their trial, the brothers claimed to be MI6/Official IRA double-agents who were introduced to the British security forces by Pamela Dillon, Lady Onslow, the Anglo-Irish ex-wife of William Onslow, 6th Earl of Onslow. She had become acquainted with Keith Littlejohn through her work with the ex-Borstal organisation "Teamwork Associates" in London.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background, Keith and Kenneth Littlejohn
Keith Littlejohn had spent time in Borstal, whilst Kenneth had served a prison sentence from 1965 to 1968 for robbery. During an encounter with Lady Onslow, Keith told her that his brother Kenneth "had information about arms and sources of arms for the IRA which might be of interest to Her Majesty's Government. He would be prepared to make this information available only if he could be seen by a Minister whose face he could recognise from having seen him on television". She passed on Keith Littlejohn's words to her friend, Lord Carrington, the Secretary of State for Defence. A meeting took place between Kenneth Littlejohn and the Under Secretary of State for Defence, Geoffrey Johnson Smith, at her London flat on 22 November 1971. After Littlejohn had told Johnson Smith what he knew about the IRA, Johnson Smith then put him in "touch with the appropriate authorities".


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background, Keith and Kenneth Littlejohn
The Littlejohns claimed they were ordered to infiltrate the Official IRA and after this was accomplished, they were instructed by the British Ministry of Defence to act as agent provocateurs by carrying out robberies and other acts of violence in the Republic of Ireland to provoke the Irish Government into taking a stronger stance against the IRA and other republican subversives. The Ministry of Defence issued a statement acknowledging to having met Kenneth Littlejohn once to discuss information he had in his possession regarding the IRA but denied that he had worked for the Ministry and denied British Government involvement in the Dublin bank robbery.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Background, Keith and Kenneth Littlejohn
The Official IRA, while admitting to having been acquainted with the Littlejohns after the brothers arrived in Newry in 1972, denied the brothers had ever been members of the OIRA. The Littlejohns were found guilty of bank robbery on 3 August 1973 and sentenced to imprisonment; Kenneth received 20 years and Keith 15 years. The brothers escaped from Dublin's Mountjoy Prison in 1974. In 1975, Lady Onslow received minor injuries when she opened a letter bomb which failed to detonate properly.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 26 November 1972, Burgh Quay
The first of the four bombs exploded on Sunday 26 November 1972 at 1.25 a.m. outside the rear exit door of the Film Centre Cinema, O'Connell Bridge House during a late night showing of a film. The bomb went off in the laneway connecting Burgh Quay with Leinster Market injuring 40 people, some very badly, including facial, leg and serious bowel wounds. There were 156 patrons and three employees inside the cinema at the time of the blast, although were no fatalities. The force of the explosion hurled customers out of their seats and onto the floor. There was much panic as people, fearing a second bomb would explode in their midst, rushed to escape from the crowded cinema. Shops and buildings in the immediate vicinity received extensive damage.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 26 November 1972, Burgh Quay
The area was sealed off by the Garda and they launched an investigation; a ballistic officer determined that the explosion's epicentre had been on a doorstep outside an emergency door leading to the laneway. However, no trace of the bomb or explosives used were ever found at the scene. The Gardaí interviewed a number of witnesses who came forward alleging to have seen the bombers in the laneway prior to the explosion and although photofits of the suspects were drawn up, the bombers were never apprehended. The Garda Síochána believed the bombing was carried out by republican subversives, including former associates of the Littlejohn brothers.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 26 November 1972, Burgh Quay
The night following the bombing an eight-man IRA unit unsuccessfully tried to free MacStiofain, who had been taken to Dublin's Mater Hospital for treatment due to adverse effects of his hunger and thirst strike on his health. The ward in which he was kept was under heavy police guard. The armed IRA unit exchanged shots with two members of the Garda Special Branch; one detective, two civilians and one of the IRA gang suffered minor injuries from gunfire.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
On Friday, 1 December 1972 at 19:58 a blue Hillman Avenger, registration number OGX 782 K, exploded at 29 Eden Quay close to Liberty Hall tower block. The blast blew the Avenger apart and what remained of the vehicle was catapulted 18 feet away to rest outside an optician's office. A wall of flame shot up which was visible to people across the Liffey river on the opposite Burgh Quay.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
Six cars parked in the vicinity of the Avenger were set on fire, and piled on top of each other; most of the windows of Liberty Hall and other nearby buildings imploded and the edifices were damaged. Although a number of people suffered injuries – some horrific – nobody was killed. One of the injured included a pregnant woman. Customers inside the quayside "Liffey Bar", near the explosion's epicentre, were hurt by flying glass and some had open head wounds. Following the explosion, a huge crowd of people hurried to the scene where police and ambulances had already arrived.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
At exactly the same time the carbomb detonated in Eden Quay, the Belfast Newsletter received a telephone call from a man using a coin box speaking with a "Belfast English" type of accent. He issued a warning that two bombs would explode in Dublin. He gave the locations as Liberty Hall and Abbey Street behind Clerys department store. The newspaper immediately phoned the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), who in turn relayed the warnings to the Garda Control Room Dublin Castle at 20:08. A team of Gardaí were sent to investigate the area around Sackville Place and Earl Street.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
A policeman ran into a CIÉ company canteen in Earl Place warning the employees inside to clear the building as there was a bomb scare. Just after the building was evacuated, at 20:16 a silver-grey Ford Escort, registration number 955 1VZ, exploded in Sackville Place 40 feet away from its intersection with Marlborough Street, throwing people up in the air and in all directions, killing two CIÉ employees who moments before had left the canteen. The victims were George Bradshaw (30), a bus driver and Thomas Duffy (23), a bus conductor. Both men were married with children.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
Bradshaw, whose body was rendered unrecognisable by the effects of the blast, died of severe head injuries and Duffy was killed by a flying metal fragment which had lacerated his aorta. Henry Kilduff, a CIÉ bus driver later told Gardaí that he had seen Bradshaw and Duffy 10 or 20 yards away walking down Sackville Place towards Marlborough Street when the carbomb exploded beside them.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
Denis Gibney, another co-worker, informed police that Bradshaw had been headed in the direction of Liberty Hall after hearing that a bomb had gone off near there. Bradshaw was found lying badly mangled beside a damaged car and was carried into a ruined shop front where a priest performed last rites. As at Eden Quay, the Sackville Place bombing caused considerable damage to buildings and vehicles near the blast's epicentre. Sackville Place is a narrow street off O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare. There was further panic amongst the survivors when the petrol tank inside the burning bomb car exploded. A total of 131 people were injured in both explosions.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
The two bombings had immediate political ramifications. Just as the bombs were exploding in the city centre, Dáil Éireann was debating the controversial bill to amend the Offences Against the State Act, which would enact stricter measures against the Provisional IRA and other paramilitary groups. As a result of the two attacks, the Dáil voted for the amendment which introduced special emergency powers to combat the IRA. In particular this meant that a member of the IRA or any other paramilitary group could be sentenced on the sworn evidence of a senior Garda officer in front of three judges. Before the bombings, many commentators had actually believed the bill – considered by some to be 'draconian' – would be defeated.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 1 December 1972, Eden Quay and Sackville Place
Thirteen days after the double-bombing, three incendiary devices were found in Dublin – one inside Clerys department store and the other two in the toilets of the "Premier Bar" in Sackville Place. The devices had failed to explode. According to journalists Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald, the devices were planted by the same UVF bomb unit that was responsible for the Eden Quay and Sackville Place car bombs.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 20 January 1973, Sackville Place
On Saturday 20 January 1973 at 15:08, a male caller with an English accent rang the telephone exchange in Exchequer Street, Dublin, with the following bomb warning: "Listen love, there is a bomb in O'Connell Street at the Bridge". Although the call was placed from a coin box in the Dublin area, the exact location was never determined. The telephonist immediately contacted the Garda Síochána. The streets of central Dublin were more crowded than usual as Ireland was playing the All Blacks at an international rugby match being held that afternoon in Lansdowne Road.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 20 January 1973, Sackville Place
At 15:18, a man leaving Kilmartin's betting shop in Sackville Place noticed smoke or steam emanating from the boot of a red Vauxhall Victor car parked outside Egan's pub facing the direction of O'Connell Street. Its registration number was EOI 1229. About five seconds later the bomb inside the red car's boot exploded, scattering sections of the vehicle and throwing the man to his feet. The explosion was so powerful that it hurled the car's roof over adjacent Abbey Street where it landed in Harbour Place; the right hand rear hub and axle sections were blasted through a metal grill on a shop window.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 20 January 1973, Sackville Place
A CIÉ bus conductor, 21-year-old Thomas Douglas, originally from Stirling, Scotland, was passing the betting shop just as the bomb went off and the force of the blast hurled him through a shop front window where he died minutes later of shock and hæmorrhage from the multiple injuries he received in the explosion. The entire shop front was devastated and spattered with blood. Fourteen people were badly injured in the bombing which caused bedlam as hysterical Saturday afternoon shoppers sought to flee the area in panic and confusion. The carbomb detonated at almost the exact location of 1 December bomb.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, The bombings, 20 January 1973, Sackville Place
Later eyewitness accounts suggested it had been parked at the kerb several hours before it exploded. According to journalists Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald in their book UVF, the bomb was designed to cause widespread chaos and alarm throughout the city, and to inflict massive injuries upon shoppers and pedestrians as Saturday has traditionally been the busiest shopping day of the week for Dubliners.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation
No paramilitary organisation claimed responsibility for any of the bombings. The two bomb sites at Eden Quay and Sackville Place were carefully examined by members of the Garda Ballistics, Mapping, Fingerprint and Photographic sections. An Irish Army EOD officer was also part of the team. They first examined the wreckage of the bomb cars and craters left by the blasts. It was suggested that the explosives used in both attacks were of the Chlorate or Nitrate type. The concentration of blast damage to the rear section of both vehicles suggested that the bombs were placed in either the boots or behind the back seats. It was determined that timing devices were used in both the Eden Quay and the Sackville Place bombings.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation
Garda Detective Sergeant Eamon Ó Fiacháin, the head deputy of the Ballistics Section of the Garda Technical Bureau had been inside Eason's Book Shop in O'Connell Street when the bomb went off on 20 January. He immediately rushed to the scene in Sackville Place and made an examination of the area.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation
As he measured the distance of the crater and inspected the damage done to the surrounding buildings, he discovered that the wreckage of the bomb car had been moved from the exact spot where it had detonated to allow the passage of Fire Brigade engines and ambulance workers to remove the dead and injured. Upon close inspection of the car, the section showing the greatest blast intensity led him to judge that the centre of the explosion took place on the driver's side in the rear of the vehicle, between the boot and the rear of the rear bench seat.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation
He suggested the explosion itself was caused by a nitrate bomb. Among the debris he found a fragment of a test tube with traces of a white crystalline deposit. It was taken for analysis. The wreckage of the bomb car was also conveyed to the Garda Depot for technical examination. No conclusion was ever drawn as to the composition of the three bombs at Eden Quay and Sackville Place.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation, The bomb cars
Regarding the two bomb cars which exploded on 1 December 1972, Garda investigators in Belfast discovered that both vehicles had been hired in that city on 30 November 1972 by a man aged about 40 using the stolen driver's licence in the name of Joseph Fleming with an address in Derby, England. It transpired that Fleming's car had been stolen from a carpark in Ballymoney, County Antrim on 11 August 1972 and his documents including the driving licence had been taken as well. The Garda Síochána was satisfied that Fleming had had nothing to do with the two bombings.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation, The bomb cars
Descriptions of the man who hired the Ford Escort at Moley's car hire firm in Belfast's Victoria Square at 9.00 a.m. were provided. His accent was described as having been that of a cultured Englishman or a Belfast man who had spent time in England. The same man hired the Avenger at 11:30 from Avis car rentals at Aldergrove Airport. As with Moley's, the man used the Fleming driver's licence and paid with English bank notes rather than notes issued by banks in Northern Ireland. Police also discovered that Fleming's licence had been used on other occasions to hire cars. These other vehicles may have been scouting and getaway cars for the bombing team.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation, The bomb cars
The Vauxhall Victor had been hired at noon on 19 January 1973 from Belfast Car Hire (Inc.) in Grovenor Road. The following morning at 08:30 as the hirer was driving along Agnes Street, off the Shankill Road, it was hijacked by two men. He was taken away by the hijackers and held hostage inside a building until 15:00 After receiving instructions by the hijackers to report the car theft to the Tennent Street RUC station, the man was deposited at the junction of Twaddell Avenue and Ballygomartin Road. At 15:20, he walked inside the RUC station as instructed where he made a statement to the police regarding the hijacking.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation, The bomb cars
The Garda Síochána interviewed a number of witnesses who had seen the bomb cars at various locations in the Dublin area and en route. The original Northern Ireland registration plates had been retained on all three vehicles. The eyewitnesses gave descriptions of the cars' drivers and passengers which were used to make up photofits. The timing of the sightings of the cars used in the 1 December attacks indicated that the bombers had driven the vehicles down to Dublin on 30 November.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation, The bomb cars
A Garda standing outside the Drogheda Garda station on 20 January had registered all the vehicles with Northern Ireland and English registration plates. He had noted down the registration number of the red Vauxhall as it passed through Drogheda heading south towards Dublin at about 12:12; although he hadn't taken notice of the driver's appearance nor observed whether there were any passengers inside. The cars preceding and following the Vauxhall were subsequently traced, but their occupants were found to have had no connection to the Dublin attacks.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Garda investigation, The bomb cars
The suspects' photofits were circulated around hotels, guesthouses as well as bus, rail, air and train termini – all possible places where the suspects may have been observed. A photofit of the man who hired the cars in Belfast was passed on by Gardaí to the British Defence Forces. The Garda enquiries did not yield results and the bombers were never apprehended. No one has ever been charged in connection with the bombings.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, The Ulster Volunteer Force
Suspicion initially fell on the Provisional IRA and other republican groups. Shortly afterwards, however the blame shifted to loyalist paramilitary organisations, in particular, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Gardaí received a telephone call from a male caller in Belfast who gave the names of five men who he claimed were responsible for 20 January carbomb. The caller said that the five men were originally from Belfast's Sailortown area but had since relocated to new housing estates in the city. It is not known what action, if any, was ever undertaken by the Garda Síochána to follow up this telephone call.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, The Ulster Volunteer Force
On 3 February 1973, a Garda Inspector informed the Superintendent of B District, Dublin that he had received confidential information from a reliable source confirming that 1 December and 20 January bombings had been perpetrated by the UVF. This source provided the following information specifically regarding 20 January attack: "A young man named from the Shankill Road area of Belfast planted the last car bomb in Sackville Place. This man should not be confused with ... who is one of the leaders of the UDA organisation in Belfast". This pertinent information was passed on to the RUC.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, The Ulster Volunteer Force
The latter sent a reply back to the Gardaí on 12 April 1973 claiming to have "no hard evidence" on the perpetrators of the Dublin bombings. It continued to state: "We do have two persons named...from the area you mention who are believed to have UVF connections. They are fairly seasoned, the younger of the two being 40 years of age and I note you describe the person as being a young man..."


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, The Ulster Volunteer Force
The UVF have never admitted responsibility for the bombings as they later did for the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan explosions.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
There were strong allegations that British Army Intelligence assisted the loyalists in carrying out the bombings, as part of a covert operation to influence the outcome of the voting in the Dáil regarding the amendment to the Offences Against the State Act.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
A Dublin taxi driver made a statement to the Gardaí on the morning of 2 December regarding a passenger he picked up in Lower Baggot Street at 2.20 a.m. The passenger had a military-style haircut and spoke with an English accent. He first asked to be driven to the bomb sites and then wished to be driven north to Derry for the sum of £40. The driver agreed and they headed north.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
They were stopped at a Garda checkpoint at Slane and both men were questioned; when the Garda asked the passenger his name he replied "Major Glover", giving an address in London, and informed the policeman he was going to Enniskillen Barracks. During the course of the journey the man claimed he was a Major in British Intelligence and told the taxi driver that the bombings were carried out by MI5, adding that there were British soldiers in disguise in Dublin. The man also warned him that the "might of the British Army would cause more bombs in Dublin".


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
Upon reaching Enniskillen, the taxi driver was ordered down a dead-end road and the passenger told him if he wanted to get out alive he was to hand over all his money. After the frightened driver did as he was instructed he let the passenger off outside the Enniskillen RUC barracks and quickly drove back to Dublin. On 15 August 1973, at the Dundalk horse races, the taxi driver recognised the man and told a Garda Sergeant who arrested him.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
It emerged that the Englishman, who frequently visited Dublin, was mentally unstable with a criminal record for indecent behaviour and assaults against the police. His name was not Glover, he had never served with the British Armed Forces and there was no evidence to connect him with any of the bombings in Dublin.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
An anonymous letter was sent to the editor of the Irish Times on 7 December 1972, six days after the double-bombing; it claimed that


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
The bomb explosions in Dublin were not the result of action by the IRA, UDR, UVF or any other farcical Irish organisation. Five members of the British Armed Forces were involved and they left Dublin not by car or train to Ulster but by plane to Heathrow


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
The sender of the letter was never traced. A copy of the letter and envelope in which it was sent was attached to the Garda investigation report.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
On 18 December 1972, an Englishman named John Wyman was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, 1963 and sent to Dublin's Bridewell Garda station for questioning. It was discovered that he was an agent working for British Intelligence services and had inveigled Detective Garda Patrick Crinnion from C3 Branch into providing him with classified Garda documents containing information on the IRA. Both men were charged with various offences under the Act and sentenced to three months imprisonment. Neither man was linked to the bombings, nor to the Littlejohns.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
The Taoiseach at the time, Jack Lynch echoed these suspicions against British Intelligence in a televised interview he gave in 1973:


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
Well, my suspicions naturally are aroused more – we have no, as I said, indication who was responsible; and as it is now well known, a lot of people in Ireland believe that many of these unexplained activities and actions could well be related to British Intelligence or other activities of that nature.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, British Army Intelligence
These allegations of British Intelligence involvement have continued to persist even to the present day, despite the lack of evidence against British Army Intelligence or the security forces in Northern Ireland.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
Journalist Joe Tiernan published allegations that the UVF's Belfast Brigade had carried out 1 December 1972 and 20 January 1973 bombings and that the bombing unit was led by Jim Hanna, Billy Mitchell and Ken Gibson. These men were all high-ranking UVF members, and Hanna, who had a seat on the Brigade Staff (UVF leadership) was described by Martin Dillon in his book, The Dirty War as the senior UVF commander in 1973. Tiernan also suggested that the bombing unit was controlled and directed by officers from the British Army Intelligence community operating from Army Headquarters in Lisburn. Tiernan was told by Billy Mitchell in interviews conducted in the 1990s that Hanna was "run as an agent" by four officers from Army Intelligence based at Lisburn, naming them as two captains, one lieutenant, and an SAS officer.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
Tiernan's allegations regarding Jim Hanna were published in 2004 in the Barron Report, which consisted of the findings of an official inquiry into the Dublin bombings of 1972 and 1973 commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron. Cathal Goulding, former Chief of Staff of the Official IRA told Tiernan in an interview that Hanna had personally admitted to him his leading role in the bombings. Tiernan published the following allegations regarding Hanna in a book he wrote about the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings:


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
Throughout 1972/73 he [Goulding] and a number of his Official IRA colleagues held a series of meetings with UVF men, both in Belfast and Dublin, to discuss mutual working-class issues such as poverty, unemployment and bad housing in August 1973 a meeting to discuss such issues was held in the "West County Hotel" outside Dublin, attended by high-powered delegations from both organisations ... Towards the end of the evening, according to Goulding, Jim Hanna pulled him to one side and told him he wished to speak to him in confidence.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
"He asked me if we, the Official IRA, would be willing to carry out bank robberies here in the South, and they, the UVF, would claim them. Then, if we wished, they would carry out similar robberies in the North and we could claim them. He said Army Intelligence officers he was in contact with in the North had asked him to put the proposition to us as they were anxious to bring about a situation in the South where the Dublin government would be forced to introduce internment.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
When I refused to accept his proposition, as we were already on ceasefire, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Look there's no problem. You see the car bombs in Dublin over the last year, well we planted those bombs and the Army provided us with the cars. There's no problem'. When I asked him how the bombings were carried out, he said the 1972 bombs were placed in false petrol tanks in both cars. He said they travelled down the main road from Belfast to Dublin and were stopped at a Garda checkpoint at Swords [North County Dublin] but because the cars were not reported stolen and the Gardaí found nothing suspicious in them they were allowed to proceed."


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
There was no mention in the Garda files of the cars used in the 1 December bombings as having been stopped at a Garda checkpoint in Swords or anywhere in the Republic of Ireland either that day or the previous day. Physically, Hanna was tall with red hair. He was about 25 years old at the time of the bombings. None of the eyewitness accounts mention a red-haired man in his mid-twenties as either a driver or passenger of the bomb cars seen in Dublin before the explosions.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
Journalist Kevin Myers, who knew Hanna quite well, confirmed that Hanna was the senior military commander in the UVF during this time period with links to British Army Intelligence. However, while he acknowledged the possibility that Hanna had carried out the Dublin bombings, he suggested that he was a "fantasist" who often "embellished or made up stories to make himself seem more impressive". Tiernan also alleged that Billy Mitchell was involved in the 1974 Dublin bombings, in which 26 people died.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Jim Hanna
Jim Hanna was shot dead in April 1974 by UVF associates in an internal dispute. Mitchell, Ken Gibson and Cathal Goulding are also deceased. Gibson had succeeded Hanna as the UVF Chief of Staff following his killing.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Albert Baker's claims
Albert Baker, known by the nickname of "Ginger", was a former British Army soldier who deserted his regiment in July 1972 to join the then legal UDA. He was the ringleader of an East Belfast UDA unit known as the "Romper Room" gang which carried out a series of brutal "romperings". These were beatings and torture sessions followed by killings in UDA punishment centres called "Romper Rooms" after the children's television programme of the same name. He was convicted in 1973 of four sectarian murders and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment which he served in England rather than Northern Ireland.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Albert Baker's claims
In 1974, at the murder trial of James McCartan (one of his victims), he testified against his former UDA colleagues, however the evidence he produced was dismissed as "unreliable" by the trial judge and the case subsequently dismissed. Whilst in prison he made a number of allegations against RUC collusion in loyalist paramilitary attacks. He also claimed that the UDA had perpetrated the 1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, adding that one of the bombers was a member of the UDA's Inner Council, two others have since been imprisoned for other offences, and another has been shot dead. Baker's brother told journalist Frank Doherty of the Sunday World, that Albert claimed he had delivered explosions for the bombings from the UDA Londonderry Brigade and drove them from Eglington, County Londonderry down to the bombing team in Belfast. This unit then drove the carbombs to Dublin.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Albert Baker's claims
According to information given to Frank Doherty by members of Baker's family, 1 December bombings were planned by the UDA in the "Rangers Club", Chadolly Street in east Belfast's Newtownards Road area. One of the cars which had detonated in Dublin had been hired from a Belfast car firm by a "well-dressed Englishman" using a stolen driver's licence in the name of Joseph Fleming. Doherty claimed the "well-dressed Englishman" was a senior UDA member who was originally from England but was living in east Belfast in 1972. He had connections with Albert Baker.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Allegations, Albert Baker's claims
The UDA leadership had publicly threatened to launch attacks in the Republic of Ireland with the aim of forcing the Irish Government into taking a more "hardline stance towards the IRA".


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings
The four bombings in Dublin were not the last. On 17 May 1974 during the evening rush hour, two units from the UVF's Belfast and Mid-Ulster Brigades exploded three no-warning carbombs in central Dublin, killing 26 civilians and injuring close to 300. Ninety minutes later, a fourth car bomb went off in Monaghan, killing another seven people. The Dublin bombs detonated in Parnell Street, Talbot Street, and South Leinster Street – all located in the city centre. The bomb in Monaghan exploded in North Street.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings
According to Joe Tiernan, RUC Special Patrol Group officer John Weir, and British Army psychological warfare operative, Colin Wallace, the bombings were organised by the Mid-Ulster UVF brigadier, Billy Hanna, who personally led the Dublin bombing teams. Hanna (no relation to Jim), a former sergeant in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) who had won the Military Medal for gallantry in the Korean War, had founded the brigade in his hometown of Lurgan in 1972. Senior UVF member Robin Jackson also helped carry out the Dublin attacks. Tiernan suggested that the bombs were transported to Dublin by Jackson in his poultry lorry with Hanna as his passenger. After Billy Hanna was shot dead outside his home in July 1975, Jackson assumed command of the Mid-Ulster UVF.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings
As in 1972 and 1973, nobody was ever charged in connection with the bombings which had been carried out on the third day of the Ulster Workers' Council Strike, however on 15 July 1993, the UVF issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Later years
In 2003, a bronze memorial sculpture, dedicated to the three victims of the 1972 and 1973 bombings, was unveiled in Sackville Place at its junction with Marlborough Street. The sculpture, entitled "Fallen Bouquet", is set into the pavement and was designed by Thomas Duffy, posthumously born son of the bus conductor killed in the 1 December attack, whose widow had been pregnant. It was commissioned by Dublin City Council and CIÉ.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Later years
Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron commissioned an official inquiry into the bombings. The findings were published in a report in November 2004. The Inquiry concluded that it "seemed more likely than not" that the bombing of the Film Centre Cinema on 26 November 1972 was "carried out by Republican subversives as a response to a Government 'crackdown' on the IRA and their associates" and to influence the outcome of the voting in the Dáil regarding the passage of the controversial amendment to the Offences Against the State Acts.


1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings, Later years
Regarding 1 December 1972 and 20 January 1973 carbombings, the Inquiry concluded that confidential information obtained by the Gardaí indicated the three attacks were perpetrated by the UVF, "but no evidence was ever found to confirm this. Nor was there any evidence to suggest the involvement of members of the security forces in the attacks". The Dublin City Coroner's Court held an inquest in February 2005 into the deaths of George Bradshaw, Thomas Duffy, and Thomas Douglas. The jury of three men and four women returned a verdict of unlawful killing by persons or persons unknown for the three dead men.


1972 bombings in Italy
The October 21–22, 1972 bombings in Italy were nine terrorist attacks that took place during the night. The target of the attacks were a number of trains headed to Reggio Calabria, bringing workers to the city for the protest march scheduled for the next day. The attack was part of a larger set of bombings perpetrated by neo-fascist terrorists belonging to the National Vanguard, linked to the Movimento Sociale Italiano party and Francesco Franco, leader of the revolt in Reggio Calabria sparked by the choice of Catanzaro as regional capital.


1972 bombings in Italy, Political situation
In July 1970, after the decision from the Italian Government to make Catanzaro regional capital of Calabria instead of Reggio Calabria a major protest strike begun in Reggio, led by both leftists and right-wing workers unions. After five days of rioting, the right-wing National Italian Workers' Union (CISNAL), led by Francesco Ciccio Franco, took the lead of the revolt, turning it to a full revolt against police forces and the formerly allied leftist unions, and became the informal leader of the rebel Action Committee and of the revolt. The Italian Communist Party (PCI), the main leftist party of the country, dissociated itself from the protest after it turned violent.


1972 bombings in Italy, Political situation
On July 22, 1970, a bomb exploded on "Treno del Sole", the Palermo-Turin train, in the Calabrian city of Gioia Tauro, killing 6 persons and wounding 136. The Gioia Tauro massacre was linked to the revolt. In 1993, a former member of the 'Ndrangheta (a Mafia-type criminal organisation based in Calabria), Giacomo Lauro, said he had supplied the explosives to people linked to the leaders of the revolt. On February 4, 1971, one was killed and 13 people were injured when three grenades were thrown into a crowd demonstrating outside the headquarters of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement in Catanzaro. By their own admission, many of the urban-guerilla style actions during the revolt were coordinated and led by members of National Vanguard.


1972 bombings in Italy, Political situation
In February 1971, the revolt was suppressed. Prime minister Emilio Colombo offered to build the Fifth Steelwork Centre in Reggio including a railroad stump and the port in Gioia Tauro, an investment of 3 billion lire which would create 10,000 jobs, which softened the people of Reggio and helped to quell the revolt. The issue of Calabria's capital was resolved by a Solomonic decision: Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria became Calabria's joint regional capitals, Catanzaro as the seat of the regional administration and Reggio Calabria as the seat of the regional parliament.


1972 bombings in Italy, Political situation
The revolt ended up by being taken over by neo-fascists (relevant was also the role of the militant neo-fascist movement National Vanguard) and led to unexpected electoral fortunes for the Italian Social Movement at the Italian general election in May 1972, when Franco was elected senator. The neo-fascists benefitted, because the Christian Democrats were divided, and the PCI supported the suppression of the riots.


1972 bombings in Italy, Workers protest
The leftist unions led by the Italian General Confederation of Labour, who abandoned the revolt after the first five days due to violence and exploitation by the neo-fascists, set up a workers march in Reggio on October 22, 1972, named Conferenza del Mezzogiorno, in order to show the city that workers from the whole country were supporting their requests but rejecting the means of violence.


1972 bombings in Italy, Workers protest
On a less evident level, the unions desire was to weaken the apparent influence of CISNAL and Francesco Franco, demonstrating that the majority of workers were with them. For the first time in Italian unions history, a major national rally was held in southern Italy. The industrial powerhouse of the country was in the north, while the political hub is in the center, so the southern part was usually underrepresented in the unionist action.


1972 bombings in Italy, Workers protest
Twenty trains were chartered to bring workers from northern and central Italy, especially from the FIAT plant in Turin. One thousand shipbuilders from Genova Ansaldo shipyards booked a whole ship for their trip.


1972 bombings in Italy, Bombs
In order to impair the rally, right-wing terrorists placed bombs on the railway. The track in Cassino was bombed. Some trains were assaulted by people while crossing stations, some of them trying to join the protest, some trying to infiltrate the workers as agent provocateur. Taunts from some bystanders to the workers, as Roman salutes and insults, were a common occurrence during the trip.


1972 bombings in Italy, Bombs
In Priverno-Fossanova station, near Latina, a bomb blew up on a train coming from Bologna, causing only five injured. A new train was brought, and the workers continued their trip. A bomb was detonated on the stairs of the Palace of Justice of Latina. Two bombs exploded in Roccella Jonica, destroying two pylons of the telephone lines.


1972 bombings in Italy, Bombs
On the Rome–Reggio Calabria railway a bomb is detonated in the Valmontone station. After the explosion, police found another unexploded device at the entrance of the Palmi gallery. Between Lamezia Terme and San Pietro a Maida another bomb exploded damaging the railway track. Near Gioia Tauro, the town of the Freccia del Sud massacre, two explosive devices were found on the railway tracks.


1972 bombings in Italy, Bombs
Despite the bombings and the disruptions of rail service, over 40,000 people managed to reach Reggio Calabria. The unionist organizers were under great strain, fearing attacks or bombings on the march course, and were doubtful if marching was a sound thing to do after the attacks. Some workers begun the march autonomously, and were followed by the rest of the crowd. The parade received some stone throwing from provokers, but resisted responding to the violence. Ultimately, the protest became a strong message to the city and a great blow to Franco's power, effectively closing an age of turmoil in the city.


1972 bombings in Italy, Aftermath
According to the neo-fascist activist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, who at the time belonged to National Vanguard, the group had been responsible for the bombs. Senator Francesco Ciccio Franco was investigated for distributing leaflets hostile to the anti-fascist demonstration. Subsequent judicial investigations of charges of provocation and terrorism ended with his acquittal.


1972 bombings in Italy, In popular culture
Songwriter Giovanna Marini dedicated a song to the event, entitled "I treni per Reggio Calabria".


1972 in Afghanistan, Incumbents
Domestic politics are overshadowed by economic hardship resulting from the worst drought the country has ever experienced. The lack of rain over large areas in 1971 has decimated the sheep population, which constitute the principal source of protein for a meat-eating nation; food crops also suffered severely. The year 1972 brings little relief, and the flow of people into Pakistan and Iran in quest of food continues. Both these countries again respond generously to the government's appeal for external assistance, and later in the year UN agencies give substantial help.


1972 in Afghanistan, Incumbents
Even so, by the fall the situation in some provinces, particularly Ghor, becomes desperate. Some 50,000-100,000 people, many of them women and children, face starvation. At this juncture, the UN Children's Emergency Fund rushes food, medicine, and clothing to the distressed area, and many people who would otherwise have perished are kept alive. The king and his government work tirelessly to overcome the national emergency, but the country's resources are still limited, communication with many outlying regions is not easy, and effective relief work is handicapped by local traditions of autonomy.


1972 in Afghanistan, Incumbents
One bright spot is the growing importance of the tourist industry. Foreign travelers naturally follow the excellent roads, constructed mainly with Soviet and U.S. help, that link the major cities, and are little tempted to go beyond the direct overland route from Europe to India and Nepal, in which Afghanistan is an essential link. Thus they are little affected by the distress in the outlying areas, and the foreign exchange that they bring into the country proves invaluable to the government. In foreign affairs Afghanistan's traditional policy of neutrality is strictly observed, and relations with all its neighbours remain friendly. No attempt is made to take advantage of Pakistan's difficulties, but, at the same time, economic and cultural contacts with India continue.


1972 in Afghanistan, December 1972
After a massive vote of no confidence in the lower house of parliament, King Zahir Shah accepts the resignation of the government of Abdul Zahir, which had come under severe criticism for its alleged failure to cope with the emergency. The king appoints Mohammad Musa Shafiq to form a new administration which takes office later in the month.


1972 in Afghanistan, December 1972
Shafiq had been prominent in shaping the constitution of 1964, which banned members of the royal family from public office, and had thereby brought to an end the quasi-dictatorship of Gen. Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law, who had virtually ruled Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963. The new prime minister sets to work to deal with the economic crisis, mobilizing young officials, students, and army officers into a relief corps to distribute the foreign aid that pours into the country from the U.S. and from international agencies. Even so, it is estimated that approximately 80,000 people have died of starvation before supplies could reach them.


1972 in American television
This is a list of American television-related events in 1972.


1972 in Australia
The following lists events that happened during 1972 in Australia.


1972 in Australian literature
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1972.


1972 in Australian literature, Births
A list, ordered by date of birth (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of births in 1972 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of death.


1972 in Australian literature, Deaths
A list, ordered by date of death (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of deaths in 1972 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of birth.


1972 in Bangladesh
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1972nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 972nd  year of the 2nd millennium, the 72nd  year of the 20th century, and the  3rd   year of the 1970s decade.


1972 in Bangladesh
The year 1972 was the first year after the independence of Bangladesh. It was also the first year of the first post-independence government in Bangladesh.


1972 in Bangladesh, Economy
Note: For the year 1972 average official exchange rate for BDT was 7.70 per US$.


1972 in Belgian television
This is a list of Belgian television related events from 1972.


1972 in Belgian television, Deaths
This Belgian television-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .


1972 in Brazilian football
The following article presents a summary of the 1972 football (soccer) season in Brazil, which was the 71st season of competitive football in the country.


1972 in Brazilian football, Campeonato Brasileiro Série B
Sampaio Corrêa declared as the Campeonato Brasileiro Série B champions.


1972 in Brazilian football, Campeonato Brasileiro Série B, Promotion
No club was promoted to the following year's first level.


1972 in Brazilian football, Brazil national team
The following table lists all the games played by the Brazil national football team in official competitions and friendly matches during 1972.


1972 in Brazilian television
This is a list of Brazilian television related events from 1972.


1972 in British music
This is a summary of 1972 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year.


1972 in British music, Year-end charts, Best-selling albums
A list of the top twenty best-selling albums of 1972 was published in the issue of Record Mirror dated 13 January 1973, and a top fifty was later reproduced in the first edition of the BPI Year Book in 1976. However, in 2007 the Official Charts Company published album chart histories for each year from 1956 to 1977, researched by historian Sharon Mawer, and included an updated list of the top ten best-selling albums for each year based on the new research. The updated top ten for 1972 is shown in the table below.


1972 in British radio
This is a list of events in British radio during 1972.


1972 in British television
This is a list of British television related events from 1972.


1972 in Burundi
The following lists events that happened during 1972 in Burundi.


1972 in Cambodia
The following lists events that happened during 1972 in the Khmer Republic.


1972 in Canadian television
The following is a list of events affecting Canadian television in 1972. Events listed include television show debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel launches.


1972 in Cape Verde
The following lists events that happened during 1972 in Cape Verde.


1972 in Chile
The following lists events that happened during 1972 in Chile.


1972 in Croatian television
This is a list of Croatian television related events from 1972.


1972 in Croatian television, Deaths
This Croatian television-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .


1972 in Danish television
This is a list of Danish television related events from 1972.


1972 in Denmark, Events
14 January: Fredrick IX of Denmark dies. He is succeeded by his oldest daughter, Margrethe.


1972 in Dutch television
This is a list of Dutch television related events from 1972.


1972 in Estonia
This article lists events that occurred during 1972 in Estonia.


1972 in Estonian television
This is a list of Estonian television related events from 1972.


1972 in German television
This is a list of German television related events from 1972.


1972 in Iceland
The following lists events that happened in 1972 in Iceland.


1972 in India
Events in the year 1972 in the Republic of India.


1972 in Iran
This is the current revision of this page, as edited by MrLinkinPark333 (talk | contribs) at 00:59, 24 June 2020 (content added at 22:35, February 20, 2015  in this article was copied from April 1972). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this version.


1972 in Iran
The following lists events that happened during 1972 in Iran.


1972 in Iraq
The following lists events that happened during 1972 in the Iraqi Republic.


1972 in Irish television
The following is a list of events relating to television in Ireland from 1972.


1972 in Israel, Events, Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The most prominent events related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict which occurred during 1972 include: