Also in 1972

• 10 of April - Tombs containing bamboo slips, among them Sun Tzu's Art of War and Sun Bin's lost military treatise, are accidentally discovered by construction workers in Shandong.
• 23 of June - Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins.
• 11 of June - The Eltham Well Hall rail crash, caused by an intoxicated train driver, kills six people and injures 126.