- July 1 -
- U.S. actress Jane Fonda tours North Vietnam, during which she is photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.
- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms becomes independent from the IRS.
- July 8 – The U.S. sells grain to the Soviet Union for $750 million.
- July 11
- The long anticipated chess match between world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, and United States champion Bobby Fischer, began in Iceland at Reykjavík.
- July 10–14 – The Democratic National Convention meets in Miami Beach. Senator George McGovern, who backs the immediate and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam, is nominated for president. He names fellow Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running mate.
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- July 18 – Anwar Sadat expels 20,000 Soviet advisors from Egypt.
- July 21
- Bloody Friday: 22 bombs planted by the Provisional IRA explode in Belfast, Northern Ireland; nine people are killed and 130 seriously injured.
- Comedian George Carlin is arrested by Milwaukee police for public obscenity, for reciting his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" at Summerfest.
- July 25 – U.S. health officials admit that African-Americans were used as guinea pigs in the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.
- July 31 – The Troubles, Northern Ireland:
- Claudy bombing ("Bloody Monday"), 10:00 AM: Three car bombs in Claudy, County Londonderry, kill nine. It becomes public knowledge only in 2010 that a local Catholic priest was an IRA officer believed to be involved in the bombings but his role was covered up by the authorities.
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- August 1 – U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, withdraws from the race after revealing he had been treated for mental illness.
In looking back to the events of July, 1972 as a 17 year-old, it's the first Presidential race where I had an introductory grasp of our nation's domestic and international politics. I had just completed my junior year in high school where I had taken a class titled, "International Relations" taught by History teacher and my freshmen football coach, Randy Enberg.
Up until that spring semester, I had only known the rather tall Mr. Enberg by his hunched over cranky demeanor on the practice field in the summer of '69, getting us ready for the fall season. Jeff Muro, who would later play linebacker for UCLA was our fullback. During practice one day he was carrying the ball through the line and hit me square in my chest with his helmet and drove me straight down on my back into the turf. Now that left an impression. Mr. Enberg just looked at me and said, "Well McIntosh, are you going to get up?"
A couple of years later, I meet a completely different man in the classroom as Mr. Enberg would start a discussion on a world topic and then let us freely discuss as students. He would essentially moderate and keep the conversation going. I loved it! For the second part of the semester, we did a research project where he guided us to independent study and we had to submit a paper with all our references to him a couple of weeks before school got out.
I had handwritten my report, put it in a folder and for the life of me forgot where I put it! I had worked in the library like two weeks straight on this thing. I went to Mr. Enberg to tell him (like... my dog ate it) but decided to tell him the truth of how I just screwed up and lost it. He looked down at me like he had on that practice field a few years prior, and said, "Meet me after school in my class." Oh shit!
So I go to his classroom and he's sitting at his desk. He tells me to pull up a chair and looks at his notebook and says, "Your report was on Israel and Arab relations, correct?" I said, "Yes." Then he says, "Tell me what you learned." We spent the next 20 minutes or so talking about Israel becoming a nation after World War II and the hot button issues of religion and politics including American and the Soviet influence in the region. Mr. Enberg gave me a B for the class.
•••••
Summer of 1972 has me buying Son of Schmilsson by Harry Nilsson and Trilogy by Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
In listening to Son of Schmilsson after many years and a lot more knowledge of Harry Nilsson's life, I realize this is the beginning of the end. I loved this album as a kid, but you can kind of hear between the record grooves that all is not well, and the extremely talented Mr. Nilsson is kind of doing it here half-ass. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good songs on this album, especially, Remember (Christmas) but you know he could have worked it a bit harder.
Trilogy by Emerson, Lake and Palmer is an album that I listened to a lot the year it came out. They really were at the forefront of progressive rock and got a lot of kids to listen to their reworks of the classics.
I have never really been a Rod Stewart fan, but all these years later I can appreciate his band, Faces as the second-string to The Rolling Stones. I say that as a high compliment as Rod after he blew up the band a few years prior. He used all the guys from Faces to back him up on his albums in the early 70's when he became a huge star. Never a Dull Moment has me listening carefully to the very tight rock and roll of Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, and Kenny Jones. In three years, Ronnie Wood would join the Rolling Stones and is still a band member today, and Kenny Jones would be the Who's drummer for a few years after Keith Moon died in 1978.
Enjoy the playlist my friends!