October 1972 - October 4, 1972 (Wednesday)

October 4, 1972 (Wednesday)

• The abbreviation "Ms." was used for the first time in the Congressional Record, in reference to U.S. Representative Bella Abzug. The other eleven women in Congress, however, continued to be referred to as "Mrs."
• The Kansas City Monarchs played for the last time as a professional baseball club.
• The first ABC Afterschool Special was telecast. The anthology drama series for children, shown once a month on a Wednesday afternoon, addressed contemporary issues and ran until 1997.
• Peter Bridge, a reporter for the defunct Newark Evening News went to jail for contempt of court for not revealing his source for a statement that the Newark Housing Authority had been offered a bribe. Bridge was the first journalist to be incarcerated after a June 29 U.S. Supreme Court ruling held that newsmen could not withhold confidential information from a grand jury investigation.