December 11, 1972

By the winter of 1972, Nixon was in the White House and the federal minimum wage stood at $1.60/hr — and the Paris peace talks over Vietnam were grinding forward with no resolution in sight, as American troop levels continued to draw down from a peak of over 500,000 just a few years earlier. On the cultural front, Don McLean's "American Pie (Parts I & II)" held the number one spot on the charts while "All in the Family" dominated television, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series with Carroll O'Connor's Archie Bunker drawing massive weekly audiences. The Los Angeles Lakers claimed the NBA championship over the New York Knicks that year, and American athletes had already competed at the Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, where the US team brought home 3 gold, 2 silver, and 3 bronze medals across the Games.