List of Famous people who died in 1972

John Leak, VC was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in battle that could be awarded at that time to a member of the Australian armed forces. Leak enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in early 1915, and served with the 9th Battalion in the Gallipoli Campaign during the First World War. Evacuated suffering from dysentery, Leak rejoined his battalion after it had been withdrawn to Egypt. Along with his unit, he transferred to the Western Front in France and Belgium, where he participated in the Battle of Pozières in July 1916. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the battle. The following month he was seriously wounded in the Battle of Mouquet Farm.

José Alberto Iglesias, better known as Tango or its diminutive Tanguito or Ramses VII, was an Argentine rock singer-songwriter. Born into a working class family from western Greater Buenos Aires, he began his career in the early 1960s as the lead singer of the nueva ola group Los Dukes, which recorded two singles released on label Music Hall. In the late 1960s, he became a leading figure in the countercultural underground of Buenos Aires, a scene that gave birth to Argentine rock, the earliest incarnation of Spanish-language rock. Tanguito is celebrated for co-writing Los Gatos' hit "La balsa", that catapulted the burgeoning rock nacional into massive popularity in the summer of 1967–68. This success led to a contract with RCA Victor which soon ended after the little impact of the 1968 single "El hombre restante". Tanguito later worked for Mandioca, Argentine rock's first independent record label founded by producers Jorge Álvarez and Pedro Pujó in 1968.

Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky was a Russian–American aviation pioneer in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. His first success came with the S-2, the second aircraft of his design and construction. His fifth airplane, the S-5, won him national recognition as well as F.A.I. license number 64. His S-6-A received the highest award at the 1912 Moscow Aviation Exhibition, and in the fall of that year the aircraft won first prize for its young designer, builder and pilot in the military competition at Saint Petersburg.

Franz Halder was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. After World War II he had a decisive role in the development of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht. He directed the planning and implementation of Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Halder became instrumental in the radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front. He had his staff draft both the Commissar Order and the Barbarossa Decree that allowed German soldiers to execute Soviet citizens for any reason without fear of later prosecution, leading to numerous war crimes and atrocities during the campaign.

Barbara Daly Baekeland was a wealthy American socialite who was murdered by her son, Antony "Tony" Baekeland. She was the ex-wife of Brooks Baekeland, who was the grandson of Leo Baekeland, inventor of Bakelite plastic.

Talal bin Abdullah was King of Jordan from the assassination of his father, Abdullah I, on 20 July 1951, until he was forced to abdicate on 11 August 1952. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Talal was a 39th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad.

Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (S.R.R.) was a librarian and mathematician from India. His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major faceted classification system, the colon classification. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. His birthday is observed every year as the National Librarian's Day in India.

Karl Josef Silberbauer was an Austrian police officer, SS member and undercover investigator for the West German Federal Intelligence Service. He was stationed in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam during World War II, where he was promoted to the rank of Hauptscharführer. In 1963, Silberbauer, by then an Inspector in the Vienna police, was exposed as the commander of the 1944 Gestapo raid on the Secret Annex and the arrests of Anne Frank, her fellow fugitives, and their protectors.

Raymond Berry Oakley III, was an American bassist and one of the founding members of the Allman Brothers Band. As such he was known for his long melodic bass runs. He is ranked number 46 on Bass Player magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time".

Bobby Dan Davis Blocker was an American television actor and Korean War veteran, who played Hoss Cartwright in the long-running NBC Western television series Bonanza.