| 30th January 1972 | The British Army kills thirteen unarmed nationalist civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland. |
| 2nd February 1972 | Anti-British riots take place throughout Ireland. The British Embassy in Dublin is burned to the ground, as are several British-owned businesses. |
| 3rd February 1972 | The 1972 Winter Olympics open in Sapporo, Japan. |
| 9th February 1972 | The British government declares a state of emergency over a miners' strike. |
| 24th March 1972 | “The Godfather” is released in cinemas in the United States. |
| 22nd April 1972 | Sylvia Cook and John Fairfax finish rowing across the Pacific. |
| 18th May 1972 | Four troopers of both the Special Air Service and Special Boat Service are parachuted onto the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 in the Atlantic, after a bomb threat and ransom demand. The threat turns out to be a hoax. |
| 28th May 1972 | Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII (b. 1894)dies. |
| 18th June 1972 | Staines Air Disaster: 118 people die when a Trident 1 jet airliner crashes two minutes after take-off from London Heathrow Airport. |
| 18th June 1972 | West Germany beats the Soviet Union 3-0 to win the 1972 European Football Championships. |
| 21st July 1972 | Twenty-two bombs planted by the Provisional IRA explode in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Nine people are killed and 130 seriously injured. |
| 29th July 1972 | A national dock strike begins in Britain. |
| 31st July 1972 | Bloody Sunday: British troops move into the ‘no-go’ areas of Belfast and Derry in Northern Ireland, ending Free Derry. |
| 4th August 1972 | Dictator Idi Amin declares that Uganda will expel 50,000 Asians with British passports within three months. |
| 26th August 1972 | The 1972 Summer Olympics are held in Munich, West Germany. |
| 5-6th September 1972 | Munich Massacre: Eleven Israeli athletes are murdered at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich after eight members of the Arab terrorist group ‘Black September’ invade the Olympic Village; five guerrillas and one policeman are also killed in a failed hostage rescue. |
| 16th October 1972 | Rioting inmates cause a fire that destroys most of Maze Prison. |
| 30th November 1972 | Cod War: British Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home says that Royal Navy ships will be stationed to protect British trawlers off Iceland. |
| 26th December 1972 | Former United States President Harry S. Truman dies in Kansas City, Missouri. |