Monday, January 8, 1973. Kissinger gets yelled at.

Lê Đức Thọ confronted Henry Kissinger in anger about the Christmas bombings, yelling at Kissinger for more than an hour.  Somewhat ironically for a country that was heir to the Viet Minh effort against the French, particularly for a former prisoner of the French, he did so in French.

Lê Đức Thọ

The Brazilian government kidnapped six left wing opponents of the military regime and murdered them.  While it in no way excuses what occurred, at least one of those murdered was a left wing extremist with a long history in left wing movements in South America.

Mexican television networks Telesistema Mexicano and Televisión Independiente de México, merged to create a Televisa.

Friday, January 5, 1973. Airport Screening makes its US debut.

Mandatory screening of airline passengers went into effect in the United States.

Salt Lake City Airport.

The Canadian Parliament unanimously condemned the 1972 "Christmas" bombing of North Vietnam by the United States.  This infuriated President Nixon, who was otherwise busy with an Executive Order designed to reorganize the Federal Government and cut the number of White House staff, 4,000, in half.

Mali and Niger broke diplomatic relations with Israel and the Netherlands recognized German Democratic Republic, i.e., East Germany.

The Republic of Ireland amended its constitution removing the "special position" of the Catholic Church, making reference to other religions present in Ireland, and reducing the voting age from 21 to 18.  The special position had been resisted by the Catholic Church at the onset of its inclusion but included due to the insistence and influence of Éamon de Valera.

Joe Biden was sworn in as Senator from Delaware at a chapel at the Wilmington, Delaware hospital where one of his sons was hospitalized following a December 18 accident that killed Biden's first wife and his daughter.

Aerosmith released its first album, which was called Aerosmith.  On the same day, Bruce Springsteen released his famous debut studio album, Greetings from Ashbury Park, N.J.  Both albums showed an evolution away from the Rock & Roll of the 1960s.

Tuesday, December 26, 1972. Harry S. Truman dies, Operation Lineback II resumes, the Soviet Union changes Chinese sounding names.

Harry S. Truman died at age 88.

His health had been in steady decline since 1964, when he sustained a fall.

The former President and his wife Bess held the first and second Medicare Cards, conveyed upon them by President Johnson in honor of their support for government health care, something he was far ahead of his time on, and depending upon your views, something that the country still has not caught up with.

220 American aircraft hit targets over North Vietnam over a fifteen-minute period.  A missile assembly facility together with airbases and radar installations were destroyed.

Truman was the last U.S. President who did not hold a university degree.  He had a fairly difficult early life, in no small part due to the economic conditions that prevailed in Missouri and his humble beginnings.  His service in World War One, which he entered through the Missouri National Guard and in which he became an officer, started his rise to later office.  Indeed, in no small way, the Missouri artilleryman of World War One would not have become President but for that experience.

This set the stage, combined with airstrikes over the next three days, for a return by North Vietnam to the Paris Peace Talks.

The Soviets changed the name of nine cities in Siberia that had been seized by Imperial Russia from China in the 1860. The prior names, the Soviets thought, sounded too Chinese.