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The year 1972 was incomparable, the longest year in history. The authorities that oversaw the Coordinated Universal Time, a regulatory agency created by a consortium of nations, determined that an adjustment was needed to time that year, to better align the seasons, and so added two seconds to the world’s clocks, thus making 1972 unmatched … Continue reading
On May 19, 1972 — the 82nd birthday of Ho Chi Minh, communist leader of North Vietnam – shortly before midnight, a woman known only as Anna entered the women’s bathroom on the fourth floor of the Air Force wing in the Pentagon, the massive US military headquarters just outside Washington, DC. Shortly after, at … Continue reading
In February 1972, US Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the controversial Southern politician who years before had run for the presidency on a platform of racial segregation — a Republican who had defected from the Democratic ranks in 1964 — sent a memo to Attorney General John Mitchell declaring that John Lennon, the former … Continue reading
On August 5, 1972, one of the biggest raids staged in America’s so-called “war on drugs” took place when a task force of state, local and federal law enforcement agencies combined to take down a secretive group of hippie LSD dealers and hashish smugglers known as the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. Police and federal agents … Continue reading
In 1972, American electronics manufacturer CTI announced that it was eliminating its home stereo system division to concentrate on one marketing area: 8-track players for cars. Bad move. By 1972, audio cassettes, with their smaller footprint, easier storage and increased audio facility — thanks to the introduction of Dolby B noise reduction technology in 1971 … Continue reading
Beginning with the 1972 models, all cars, trucks, vans and utility vehicles were required to have seat belts as standard equipment – which was rather late in the game, because doctors have been calling for the installation of seat belts in cars since the 1930s. Those early physicians knew that seat belts could reduce traffic … Continue reading
In 1972, the “@” symbol made its debut in the world’s first networked emails. Credit for the adoption of the symbol to separate user names from computer hosts goes to Ray Tomlinson, a long-time computer scientist at the company Bolt, Beranek and Newman, which had won the contract in the late 1960s to create ARPANET, … Continue reading
On July 21, 1972, comedian George Carlin was arrested at Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Summerfest and charged with violating that state’s obscenity laws after performing his controversial routine, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” originally contained in his album Class Clown, recorded May 27, 1972 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California. “There are … Continue reading
The video game era began in 1972 with the release of the Magnavox Odyssey, an at-home game console with primitive games consisting of nothing more than dots and lines – but nonetheless the world’s first home video game. In 1966 Ralph Baer, Chief Engineer for Equipment Design at the defense contractor Sanders Associates, began work … Continue reading
In January of 1972 the first tenants moved into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, an astounding piece of architecture that completed the twin towers of the massive development. At their completion the towers were the tallest buildings in the world (a short-lived distinction, since the taller Sears Tower … Continue reading
Mark Walston 