PROFILBARU.COM

Decades:	1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s;
See also:	; List of years in South Africa;

The following lists events that happened during 1972 in South Africa.

Incumbents

3 – Abram Onkgopotse Tiro is expelled from the University of the North and students protest the expulsion.
4 – South Africa and Lesotho decide to establish reciprocal consular representation.

A South African Special Forces team carry out a submarine-borne raid on the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam using the SAS Emily Hobhouse, a Daphne class submarine.
The South African Police deploys to South West Africa.
Conscription for all white males is extended from 9 to 12 months, followed by a 19-day annual call-up for five years.
Operation Plathond, a joint South African Defence Force and South African Bureau of State Security operation, is launched to train dissident Zambians in the Caprivi Strip, South West Africa.

2 February – Hendrick Ramaala, long-distance runner.
4 February – Sthandiwe Kgoroge, actress.
21 February – Mark Andrews (rugby player), rugby player.
12 March – Arno Carstens, singer-songwriter, lead singer of Springbok Nude Girls.
22 March – Baby Cele, actress.
26 March – Willem Jackson, football player
3 April – Alfred Ntombela, actor.
21 June – Irene van Dyk, South African and New Zealand netball player.
23 June – Slindile Nodangala, actress.
15 July – Sophie Ndaba, actress.
16 August – James Dalton (rugby player), rugby player.
25 August – Elmarie Gerryts, pole vaulter.
8 September – Os du Randt, Springboks rugby player.
16 October – Jacques Nienaber, Springboks coach.
28 October – David James, actor.
31 October – Shaun Bartlett, former soccer player & coach.
14 November – Florence Masebe, actress.
7 December – Sean Dundee, football player.
16 December – Kuli Roberts, journalist, TV presenter, author
23 December – Somizi Mhlongo, choreographer, actor and radio personality.
26 December – Colleen Piketh, lawn bowler^[2]

11 August – Max Theiler, South African-American virologist and physician and Nobel Prize laureate. (b. 1899)

2 December – Sir Pierre van Ryneveld, head of the South African Air Force (b. 1891)

In March the South African Railways places the first of seventy Class 35-000 General Electric type U15C diesel-electric locomotives in branchline service.^[3]^[4]

^ Archontology.org: A Guide for Study of Historical Offices: South Africa: Heads of State: 1961-1994 (Accessed on 14 April 2017)
^ "Glasgow 2014 - Colleen PIKETH Profile". results.glasgow2014.com. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
^ South African Railways Index and Diagrams Electric and Diesel Locomotives, 610 mm and 1065 mm Gauges, Ref LXD 14/1/100/20, 28 January 1975, as amended
^ Paxton, Leith; Bourne, David (1985). Locomotives of the South African Railways (1st ed.). Cape Town: Struik. pp. 141–142. ISBN 0869772112.