December 26, 1972 (Tuesday)
- In what has been described as the airstrike that "decided the entire air war over North Vietnam", Operation Linebacker II saw 220 American aircraft strike targets over a fifteen minute period, destroying a missile assembly facility, and crippling radar stations and airbases. The North Vietnamese agreed to resume peace talks after three more days of bombing. The bombings on the day after Christmas also destroyed residences and businesses on Hanoi's Kham Tien Street, killing 215 civilians.
- The Santiago, Chile, newspaper El Mercurio broke the story that the 16 survivors of the Uruguayan plane crash in the Andes mountains had turned to cannibalism to avoid starvation.
- Died: Harry S. Truman, 88, the 33rd President of the United States, died at 7:50 am in Kansas City.
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