- Jan 1 "Company" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 690 performances
- Jan 1 "On the Town" closes at Imperial Theater NYC after 65 performances
- Jan 1 "Promises Promises" closes at Shubert Theater NYC after 1281 performances
- Jan 1 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
- Jan 1 International Book Year begins
- Jan 1 KDSD TV channel 16 in Aberdeen, SD (PBS) begins broadcasting
- Jan 1 Policewomen are enlisted as full members of South African Police Force for the first time.
- Jan 1 58th Rose Bowl: #16 Stanford beats #4 Michigan, 13-12
- Jan 1 38th Sugar Bowl: #3 Oklahoma beats #5 Auburn, 40-22
- Jan 1 38th Orange Bowl: #1 Nebraska beats #2 Alabama, 38-6
- Jan 2 "Rothschilds" closes at Lunt-Fontanne Theater NYC after 505 performances
- Jan 2 Mariner 9 begins mapping Mars
- Jan 2 AFC Championship Game: Miami Dolphins beat Baltimore Colts 21-0
- Jan 2 An anti-internment rally is held in Belfast, North Ireland
- Jan 2 NFC Championship Game: Dallas Cowboys beat San Francisco 49ers 14-3
- Jan 3 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in Callender Street, Belfast, injuring over 60 people
Tennis Open
Jan 3 60th Men's Australian Open: Ken Rosewall beats Malcolm Anderson (7-6, 6-3, 7-5)
Ken Rosewall
- Jan 3 60th Women's Australian Open: Virginia Wade beats Evonne Goolagong (6-4, 6-4)
- Jan 4 Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.
- Jan 5 Largest crowd at Cleveland Arena (Cavs vs Lakers-11,178)
- Jan 5 NYC transit fare rises from 30 cents to 35 cents
- Jan 5 US President Nixon signs a bill for NASA to begin research on a manned space shuttle
Event of Interest
Jan 5 President of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman freed by the newly elected President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
- Jan 6 US female Figure Skating championship won by Janet Lynn
- Jan 6 US male Figure Skating championship won by Kenneth Shelley
- Jan 6 Vladimir Bukovski is exiled from USSR
- Jan 7 Iberian Airlines 'plane crashes into 800ft peak on island of Ibiza, 104 die
- Jan 7 LA Lakers win their 33rd straight game, setting a still standing NBA record for longest streak
- Jan 7 Lewis F. Powell Jr. becomes a US Supreme Court Justice
- Jan 7 William Hubbs Rehnquist sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice
Music Premiere
Jan 8 Dmitri Shostakovich' 15th Symphony premieres in Moscow
Dmitri Shostakovich
- Jan 8 NCAA announces freshman can play on teams starting in fall
Event of Interest
Jan 9 Billionaire Howard Hughes says Clifford Irving's autobiography is a fake
Howard Hughes
- Jan 9 Retired passenger liner Queen Elizabeth destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbour
- Jan 9 LA Lakers 33 game winning streak snapped by a loss to the Bucks 120-104
- Jan 9 British coal miners begin a national strike, the first for half a century
- Jan 10 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman arrives in Dacca, East-Pakistan
- Jan 10 Triple album set "Concert for Bangladesh" released in UK
- Jan 11 East-Pakistan becomes independent state of Bangladesh
- Jan 11 Abu Sayeed Chudhury becomes President of Bangladesh and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman premier
- Jan 12 Tigers sign a lease to build a $126M domed stadium (doesn't happen)
- Jan 13 Bernice Gera wins anti-discrimination case against the National Baseball Congressl, initiated March 15, 1971 to be allowed to umpire
- Jan 13 An army commander stages a bloodless coup in Ghan, while the prime minister is in London
- Jan 14 "Sanford & Son" starring Redd Foxx premieres on NBC TV
- Jan 14 WMAH TV channel 19 in Biloxi, Mississippi (PBS) begins broadcasting
- Jan 14 WMAU TV channel 17 in Bude, Mississippi (PBS) begins broadcasting
- Jan 14 WMAW TV channel 14 in Meridian, Mississippi (PBS) begins broadcasting
Event of Interest
Jan 14 Margrethe II of Denmark becomes the first Queen of Denmark since 1412
Margrethe II
Boxing Title Fight
Jan 15 Heavyweight Joe Frazier KOs Terry Daniels
Joe Frazier
- Jan 16 Atje Keulen-Deelstra becomes European all-round lady skating champ
- Jan 16 Super Bowl VI: Dallas Cowboys-24, Miami-3 in New Orleans Super Bowl MVP: Roger Staubach, Dallas, QB
- Jan 17 Section of Memphis' Highway 51 South renamed Elvis Presley Boulevard
- Jan 17 Seven men who were held as internees escape from the prison ship HMS Maidstone in Belfast Lough, North Ireland
- Jan 17 "My Hang-Up Is You" single released by Freddie Hart (Billboard Song of the Year 1972)
- Jan 18 Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Brian Faulkner bans all parades and marches in Northern Ireland until the end of the year
- Jan 18 Garfield Todd, former Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia and his daughter Judith, supporters of black majority rule in the country, are arrested
Hall of Fame
Jan 19 Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra, & Early Wynn elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
Yogi Berra
- Jan 20 Six oil exporting countries conclude meetings with Western oil companies; an agreement is reached to raise the price of crude
- Jan 20 Number of people out of work and claiming unemployment benefit in UK rises to over 1 million
- Jan 21 Assam's North East Frontier Agency becomes Arunachal Pradesh territory
- Jan 21 Belgian government of Eyskens-Cools forms
- Jan 21 Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura become separate states of Indian union
- Jan 21 Mizoram, formerly part of Assam, creates an Indian union territory
- Jan 22 "Emergency" with Robert Fuller premieres on NBC TV
- Jan 22 22nd NBA All-Star Game: West beats East 112-110 at LA
- Jan 22 An anti-internment march is held at Magilligan strand, County Derry; as the march nears the internment camp it is stopped by members of the Green Jackets and the Parachute Regiment of the British Army, who used barbed wire to close off the beach
- Jan 23 Ard Schenk becomes European all-round skating champion
- Jan 23 Bootlegger sells wood alcohol to wedding party-100 die-New Delhi
- Jan 23 Entire population of Istanbul under 24 hour house arrest
- Jan 23 NFL Pro Bowl: AFC beats NFC 26-13
- Jan 24 WRIP (now WDSI) TV channel 61 in Chattanooga, TN (IND) 1st broadcast
- Jan 24 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
- Jan 25 25th NHL All-Star Game: East beats West 3-2 at Minnesota
- Jan 25 7' Ohio State center Luke Witte is stomped in face during a brawl in a game with Minnesota
- Jan 26 Serbian air stewardess Vesna Vulovic survives 10,160m fall without parachute - world's highest fall without a parachute
- Jan 27 Two Royal Ulster Constabulary officers shot dead by IRA in an attack on their patrol car in the Creggan Road, Derry
- Jan 27 The British Army and the Irish Republican Army engage in gun battles near County Armagh; British troops fire over 1,000 rounds of ammunition
Music Premiere
Jan 27 World premiere of Scott Joplin's rediscovered opera "Treemonisha" at Morehouse College in Atlanta
Scott Joplin
- Jan 28 Oral Roberts' Eddie Woods grabs 30 rebounds for 2nd consecutive game
- Jan 28 The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association place "special emphasis on the necessity for a peaceful incident-free day" at the next march on 30 January in an effort to avoid violence
- Jan 29 5th ABA All-Star Game: East 142 beats West 115 at Louisville
- Jan 30 Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations
- Jan 30 'Bloody Sunday': 27 unarmed civilians are shot (of whom 14 were killed) by the British Army during a civil rights march in Derry; this is the highest death toll from a single shooting incident during 'the Troubles'
Event of Interest
Jan 31 Aretha Franklin sings at Mahalia Jackson's funeral
Aretha Franklin
- Jan 31 Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev becomes 11th King of Nepal
- Jan 31 Military coup ousts civilian government of Ghana
- Jan 31 US launches HEOS A-2 for interplanetary observations (396/244,998)
- Jan 31 British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to House of Commons on 'Bloody Sunday', "The Army returned the fire directed at them with aimed shots and inflicted a number of casualties on those who were attacking them with firearms and with bombs"