February 21, 1972

1972Zhang Guohua, Chinese general and politician (born 1914)^[†]

Zhang Guohua was a Chinese lieutenant general and a politician, serving during the invasion of Tibet and the Sino-Indian War and later as a Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary for the Tibet Autonomous Region.

1972Bronislava Nijinska, Russian-American dancer and choreographer (born 1891)^[†]

Bronislava Nijinska was a Russian ballet dancer of Polish origin, and an innovative choreographer. She came of age in a family of traveling, professional dancers.

1972United States President Richard Nixon visits China to normalize Sino-American relations.^[†]

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 36th vice president under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961, and also as a representative and senator from California. His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.

1972The Soviet uncrewed spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.^[†]

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries, and the third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), it was a flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.