hat the USSR was to buy US$ 750 million worth of US grain over the next 3 years.
29/6/1972. The US Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.
28/6/1972, US President Nixon announced that no more draftees would be sent to Vietnam.
17/6/1972. American biggest political scandal, Watergate, began when five burglars were caught breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex, Washington DC, with photographic and surveillance equipment. See 30/1/1973.
29/5/1972. Brezhnev and Nixon signed SALT-2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty).
22/5/1972. US President Richard Nixon arrived in Moscow, the first visit to the Soviet Union by an American President..
15/5/1972, George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, was shot and injured by a White assailant, Arthur Bremer, aged 21. Wallace, known for his racist and segregationist policies (see 2/9/1963), was campaigning for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination.
2/5./1972, J Edgar Hoover, American founder of and head of the FBI, died in Washington DC.
15/4/1972, US bombers made heavy raids on North Vietnam.
30/3/1972, North Vietnam launched a major attack on the South. On 15/4/1972 the US made heavy bombing raids on North Vietnam. North Vietnam abandoned guerrilla tactics and launched a major conventional invasion, with tanks and heavy artillery. The South Vietnamese city of Quang Tri fell on 1/5/1972 and South Vietnam seemed to have lost the war. However the US responded with massive air power and smart bombs. North Vietnamese forces were driven back to the dividing line and Hanoi proposed peace talks in October 1972. Under domestic pressure to end US involvement in Vietnam, Nixon could not refuse this offer.
21/2/1972, US President Nixon landed in China to forge links with Prime Minister Chou En Lai and Chairman Mao Tse Tung. China still objected to US support for the Taiwan regime.
For more events of Vietnam War see South East Asia
26/12/1971. The US resumed bombing of North Vietnam.
10/12/1971, The John Sinclair Freedom Rally is held at the University of Michigan. Performers included John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
12/10/1971, Dean Acheson, US statesman, died aged 78.
25/9/1971, Hugo LaFayette Black, US Supreme Court judge who upheld civil rights, died (born 1886).
30/6/1971. The 26th amendment to the US constitution was passed, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.
17/6/1971, Disneyland admitted its 100-millionth visitor, Valerie Suldo of New Jersey.
29/4/1971, US combat deaths in Vietnam now exceeded 45,000.
25/4/1971, 200,000 protested in Washington DC against the Vietnam War. 12,000 protestors were arrested over the following week.
7/4/1971, US President Nixon promised to withdraw 100,000 troops from Vietnam by Christmas.
14/2/1971, President Richard Nixon installed a secret taping system in the White House. It was on this system that the Watergate tapes were recorded.
13/2/1971, South Vietnamese troops, with US airctaft and artillery backing, entered Laos.
3/2/1971, Andrew Truxal, US academic, died aged 71.
31/12/1970, US Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution (see 7/8/1964), thereby denying President Nixon any further authority to widen the Vietnam War. Nixon, however, ordered further offensives. See 27/1/1973.
29/9/1970, The U.S. Congress gave President Richard Nixon authority to sell arms to Israel.
29/6/1970, US troops completed their withdrawal from Cambodia.
9/5/1970, Protests in Washington DC, USA, against US intervention in Cambodia.
4/5/1970. 4 students were shot dead at Kent State University, Ohio. There had been a wave of campus protests over the entry of US troops into Cambodia. On 4/5/1970 between 1,500 and 3,000 students gathered on the campus at Kent University, contravening an order by Ohio State Governor banning all protests, peaceful or otherwise. At about midday, the National Guard began to use tear gas to break up the demonstration. Some of the students picked up the canisters and hurled them back, and also threw stones. The Guardsmen then opened fire without warning, killing two male and two female students wh