January 4, 1972. The first scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) is introduced.

January 30, 1972. 10,000 demonstrators defy a British government ban on public assemblies and march through the streets of Derry in Northern Ireland, protesting against the policy of internment without trial of suspected IRA terrorists by the British authorities. British troops confront the rock-throwing protestors, and the British use rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons, then real bullets to break up the crowd. 13 men and youths are killed and 17 wounded.

February 21, 1972. President Nixon of the United States goes to China to meet with Chairman Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. Nixon urges CHina to join the United States in a “long march together” to achieve world peace.

April 10, 1972. The U.S. and the Soviet Union join some 70 nations in signing the Biological Weapons Convention, an agreement to ban biological warfare.

May, 1972. In Burundi a genocidal attack against the Hutu begins; more than 500,000 Hutus die.

August 12, 1972. The last American ground troops leave South Vietnam, trusting the South Vietnamese themselves to continue the fight against the communist North. The North Vietnamese army, however, is steadily advancing toward Saigon in the south in spite of the bombing of supply routes by American B-52 bombers.

September 5, 1972. At the Sumer Olympics in Munich, Germany, members of the Israeli Olympic team are taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.

October, 1972. The United States and the USSR sign a strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT) to reduce the number of atomic missiles in both countries.

November 29, 1972. Atari kicks off the first generation of video games with the release of their arcade version of Pong, the first game to achieve commercial success.

December 30, 1972. President Richard M. Nixon orders a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam as the North Vietnamese show a renewed interest in peace negotiations.