December 8, 1972 (Friday)
- United Airlines Flight 553 Boeing 737 from Washington to Chicago crashed at 2:29 p.m. while attempting to land at Chicago Midway Airport during an ice storm. Killed were 43 of 61 persons on board, and two people in a house at 3722 W. 70th Place. The dead included Dorothy Hunt (a CIA employee and the wife of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt), CBS News reporter Michelle Clark, and Illinois Congressman George W. Collins.
- Florida became the first state, since the June 29 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Furman v. Georgia, to reinstate capital punishment. Governor Reubin Askew signed the bill into law a week after it had passed both houses of the State Legislature.
- Dr. Mahmoud Hamshari, the PLO representative in France, was fatally wounded by a bomb, planted near his telephone by agents of Israel's Mossad, in retaliation for his suspected role in the 1972 Munich Massacre. After the explosive had been placed during Hamshari's absence, an agent telephoned him and asked enough questions to confirm his identity. The bomb was then detonated by remote control, possibly by a signal through the telephone line.
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Famous quotes containing the word december:
“Work—work—work,
In the dull December light,
And work—work—work,
When the weather is warm and bright—
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.”
—Thomas Hood (1799–1845)