List of Famous people who died at 72

John Button was an English rallycross driver and the father of 2009 Formula One World Champion Jenson Button. His best overall results were both in 1976, as the runner-up in the Embassy/RAC-MSA British Rallycross and TEAC/Lydden Rallycross championships.

Arnold Gehlen was an influential conservative German philosopher, sociologist, and anthropologist.

Shelagh Delaney, FRSL was an English dramatist and screenwriter. Her debut work, A Taste of Honey (1958), has been described by Michael Patterson as "probably the most performed play by a post-war British woman playwright".

Ralph Leonard Kirkpatrick was an American harpsichordist and musicologist, widely known for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas as well as for his performances and recordings.

Jean Amédée Hoerni was a Swiss-American engineer. He was a silicon transistor pioneer, and a member of the "traitorous eight". He developed the planar process, an important technology for reliably fabricating and manufacturing semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits.

Jacobus Hendricus ("Jack") van Lint was a Dutch mathematician, professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, of which he was rector magnificus from 1991 till 1996.