The Summer Olympics of 1972 were marred by what has come to be known as the Munich massacre. On September 5, 1972, a group of eight Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Black September organization broke into the Olympic Village and took eleven Israeli athletes hostage in their apartment. In all, eleven Israeli athletes and coaches were killed, along with one German police officer. The subsequent standoff in the Olympic Village lasted for almost 18 hours.

Two were shot dead at the apartment housing the athletes. The extremists threatened to kill the remaining Israelis unless 200 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel were released.

The captors and remaining 9 hostages were transferred by helicopter to board a plane bound for an undetermined Arab country. During a botched German rescue attempt at the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck, all the surviving Israeli hostages were killed by a Palestinian who threw a grenade into the helicopter carrying the hostages.

All but three of the Palestinians were killed as well. Two of those three were supposedly killed later by the Mossad. Jamal Al-Gashey is believed to be the sole survivor, and is still living today in hiding in an unspecified Arab country. The Olympic events were briefly suspended but Avery Brundage, the International Olympic Committee president, decided that "the Games must go on" and the games resumed a day later.

Israel would later launch a response known as Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God. This entailed a series of Israeli air strikes and assassinations of those suspected of planning the murders.

The events of the Munich massacre were chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary, 'One Day in September.' An account of the aftermath is documented in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film 'Munich.'