Events of 1932

January

• January 3 - British arrest and intern Mohandas Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel.
• January 7 - The Stimson Doctrine is proclaimed in response to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
• January 8 - In Britain the Archbishop of Canterbury forbids church remarriage of divorced persons.
• January 12 - Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.
• January 14 - Maurice Ravel's Concerto in G debuts with piano soloist Marguerite Long and Ravel conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra.
• January 15 - About 6 million are unemployed in Germany.
• January 26 - British submarine HMS M2 sinks with all 60 hands.
• January 28 - Japan occupies Shanghai.
• January 29 - Minority government of Karl Mureschi in Austria ends the governmental crisis.
• January 30 - Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley, is first published.
• January 31 - Japanese warships arrive in Nanking.

February

• February 2
• General convention of disarmament begins in Geneva.
• League of Nations again recommends negotiations between the Republic of China and Japan.
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation begins operations.
• February 4 - 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York. Japan occupies Harbin, China.
• February 11 - Pope Pius XI meets Benito Mussolini in Vatican City.
• February 15 - Clara, Lu & Em, generally regarded as the first daytime network soap opera, debuts in its morning time slot over the Blue Network of NBC Radio, having originally been a late evening program.
• February 18 - Japan declares Manzhouguo (Japanese name for Manchuria) formally independent from China.
• February 25 - Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident.
• February 27 - Mäntsälä Rebellion occurs in Finland.

March

• March 1 - Charles Lindbergh, Jr., the infant son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh, is kidnapped from the family home near Hopewell, New Jersey.
• March 7 - Four people are killed when police fire upon 3000 unemployed autoworkers marching outside the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
• March 9 - Eamon de Valera is elected President of the Executive Council. It is the first change of government in the Irish Free State in 10 years.
• March 18 - Peace negotiations between China and Japan begin.
• March 19 - Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.
• March 20 - Graf Zeppelin begins a regular route to South America.
• March 25 - Tarzan the Ape Man opens, with Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in the title role. Weismuller starred in a total of 12 Tarzan films.

April

• April - 10 000 disgruntled Newfoundlanders march on their legislature to show discontent with their current political situation; this was a flash point in the demise of the Dominion of Newfoundland.
• April - Kreuger & Toll, the company of the "Match King" Ivar Kreuger, collapses.
• April 5 - Prohibition is lifted in Finland at 10 in the morning (local time), resulting in a new mnemonic "543210".
• April 6
• U.S. president Herbert Hoover supports armament limitations.
• Trial against fraudulent art dealer Otto Wacker begins in Berlin.
• April 10 - Paul von Hindenburg is elected president of Germany.
• April 17 - Haile Selassie announces an anti-slavery law in Abyssinia.
• April 19 - German art dealer Otto Wacker is sentenced to 19 months in prison for selling fraudulent paintings he attributed to Vincent van Gogh.
• April 25 - Two of the companions of Islam's Last Prophet Muhammad were moved from their graves upon informing of water in the graves in the dream of King Faisal of Iraq in Salmaan Paak, Iraq. Their names were Hazrat Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman and Hazrat Jabir ibn Abd-Allah.

May

• May 2 - Comedian Jack Benny's radio show airs for the first time.
• May 6 - Paul Gorguloff assassinates French president Paul Doumer in Paris. Doumer dies the next day.
• May 10 - Albert Lebrun becomes the new president of France.
• May 12 - Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.
• May 13 - The Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, is dismissed by the State Governor, Sir Phillip Game.
• May 15 - Japanese troops leave Shanghai; May 15 Incident, the assassination of Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai, occurs.
• May 16 - Massive riots between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay - thousands dead and injured.
• May 20-21 - Amelia Earhart flies from USA to Derry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.
• May 29 - The first of approximately 15,000 World War I veterans arrive in Washington, D.C. demanding the immediate payment of their military bonus, becoming known as the Bonus Army.
• May 30 - German chancellor Heinrich Brüning resigns. President Hindenburg takes Franz von Papen to form a new government.

June

• June 4 - Military coup occurs in Chile.
• June 6 - The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States at 1 cent per US gallon (0.26 ¢/L) sold.
• June 14 - Bans against SS and SA overturned in Germany.
• June 20 - Benelux customs union is negotiated.
• June 24 - After a relatively bloodless military rebellion, Siam becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• June 29 - The comedy serial Vic and Sade debuts on NBC Radio.

July

• July 5 - Antonio de Oliveira Salazar becomes the fascist prime minister of Portugal (for the next 36 years).
• July 7 - French submarine Sromethee sinks off Cherbourg - 66 dead.
• July 8 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22.
• July 12
• Norway annexes northern Greenland.
• Hedley Verity establishes a new first-class cricket record by taking all ten wickets for only ten runs against Nottinghamshire on a pitch affected by a storm.
• July 17 - Bloody Sunday of Altona in Germany - armed communists attack a national socialist demonstration - 18 dead. Many other political street fights follow.
• July 28 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army to forcibly evict the Bonus Army of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C.. Troops dispersed the last of the Bonus Army the next day.
• July 30
• 1932 Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles.
• Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first animated cartoon to be presented in full Technicolor, premieres in Los Angeles, California. It releases in theaters, along with Eugene O'Neill's experimental play Strange Interlude (starring Norma Shearer and Clark Gable), and will go on to win the first Academy Award for Best Animated Short.

August

• August - Beginning of farmers' revolt in Midwestern United States.
• August 1 - Beginning of the second International Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration.
• August 2 - First positron is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
• August 6 - First Venice Film Festival is held.
• August 7 - Raymond Edward Welch (1894 - 1964) became first one legged man to scale the 6,288 ft. Mount Washington, NH.
• August 10 - A 5.1 kg chondrite-type meteorite broke into at least seven fragments and struck earth near the town of Archie in Cass County, Missouri.
• August 18 - Auguste Piccard reaches altitude of 16,197 meters with an air balloon.
• August 30 - Hermann Göring is elected as a chairman of German senate.
• August 31 - Total solar eclipse visible from northern Canada through NE Vermont, New Hampshire, SW Maine, and the Capes of Massachusetts.

September

• September 9 - The Generalitat reinstated, Catalonia regains political autonomy inside the 2nd Spanish Republic from September 25.
• September 11 - Canadian operations end on the Great Gorge and International Railway.
• September 18 - Actress Peg Entwistle commits suicide jumping from the letter H of the (then) "Hollywoodland" sign.
• September 20 - Mohandas Gandhi begins a hunger strike in Poona prison.
• September 23 - The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• September 28 - According to Prussian statistics, 115 people have been killed in political riots during the year.

October

• October 15
• Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.
• The Michigan Marching Band (then called the Varsity band) debuts Script Ohio at the Michigan versus Ohio State game in Columbus.
• October 19 - Wedding of Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden and Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
• October 23 - Fred Allen's radio comedy show debuts on CBS.

November

• November 1 - San Francisco Opera House opens.
• November 7 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century airs on radio for the first time.
• November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.
• November 9
• Riots between conservative and socialist supporters in Switzerland - 13 dead, 60 injured.
• A hurricane and huge waves kills about 2,500 in Santa Cruz del Sur in the worst natural disaster in Cuba history.
• November 16 - New York City's Palace Theatre fully converts to a cinema, which is considered the final death knell of vaudeville as a popular entertainment in the United States.
• November 19 - Second wife of Joseph Stalin is found dead in her home.
• November 21 - German president Hindenburg begins negotiations with Adolf Hitler about the formation of a new government.
• November 24 - In Washington, DC, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
• November 30 - The Cipher Bureau breaks the German Enigma cipher.

December

• December 3 - Hindenburg names Kurt von Schleicher as a German chancellor.
• December 12 - Japan and Soviet Union reform their diplomatic connections.
• December 19 - BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.
• December 25 - Earthquake in the Kansu Province in China: 70,000 dead.
• December 27 - Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.

Undated

• Heath Hen becomes extinct.
• Female suffrage granted in Brazil.
• Beginning of the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay.
• Mars Bar is sold for the first time.
• Zippo lighters are developed.
• Zero-length springs are invented, revolutionizing seismometers and gravimeters.
• The Kennedy-Thorndike experiment shows that measured time as well as length are affected by motion, in accordance with the theory of special relativity.
• James Chadwick discovers the neutron.
• Geneticist J. B. S. Haldane publishes The Causes of Evolution and thereby unifies the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.
• Republican Citizens Committee Against National Prohibition established for repeal of prohibition in U.S.
• Prontosil, the first oral antibiotic, is discovered by Gerhard Domagk, but no publication occurs until 1935.

Births

January-February

• January 1 - Tzaims Luksus, American artist and fashion designer
• January 3
• Dabney Coleman, American actor
• Neil Levang, American musician
• Coo Coo Marlin, American race car driver (d. 2005)
• January 5
• Johnny Adams, American musician (d. 1998)
• Umberto Eco, Italian scholar and author
• January 6 - Stuart A. Rice, American chemist
• January 13 - Joseph Cardinal Zen, Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong
• January 16 - Dian Fossey, American zoologist (d. 1985)
• January 18 - Robert Anton Wilson, American author
• January 22 - Piper Laurie, American actress
• January 25 - Nikolay Anikin, Soviet cross-country skier
• January 26 - Coxsone Dodd, Jamaican record producer (d. 2004)
• January 29
• Tommy Taylor, English footballer (d. 1958)
• George Allen, English footballer
• January 30 - Knock Yokoyama, Japanese comedian and politician
• February 1 - John Nott, British polictian
• February 3 - Peggy Ann Garner, American actress (d. 1984)
• February 6 - François Truffaut, French film director (d. 1984)
• February 7 - Gay Talese, American author
• February 8 - John Williams, American composer and conductor
• February 9 - Gerhard Richter, German painter
• February 11
• Jerome Lowenthal, American pianist
• Dennis Skinner, British politician
• February 12 - Julian Lincoln Simon, American economist and author (d. 1998)
• February 14 - Alexander Kluge, German author and film director
• February 16 - Harry Goz, American actor (d. 2003)
• February 18 - Miloš Forman, Czech film director
• February 20 - Adrian Cristobal, Filipino writer (d. 2007)
• February 22 - Edward Kennedy, American politician
• February 22 - Robert Opron, French automotive designer
• February 23 - Majel Barrett, American actress
• February 24 - Michel Legrand, French composer
• February 25 - Faron Young American singer (d. 1996)
• February 26 - Johnny Cash, American singer (d. 2003)
• February 27 - Elizabeth Taylor, English-born actress
• February 28 - Don Francks, Canadian actor

March-April

• March 4
• Ryszard Kapuściński, Polish journalist
• Miriam Makeba, South African singer
• Ed Roth, American car designer (d. 2001)
• Frank Wells, American entertainment businessman (d. 1994)
• March 6 - Bronisław Geremek, Polish social historian and politician (d. 2008)
• March 12
• Barbara Feldon, American actress
• Andrew Young, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
• March 16 - Don Blasingame, Major League Baseball player and Japanese baseball manager (d. 2005)
• March 17 - Donald N. Langenberg, American physicist
• March 18 - John Updike, American author
• March 21 - Walter Gilbert, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• March 25 - Gene Shalit, American film critic
• March 30 - Ted Morgan, French-born author, biographer, and journalist
• April 1
• Gordon Jump, American television actor (d. 2003)
• Debbie Reynolds, American actress
• April 2 - Michael Vernon, Australian consumer activist (d.1993)
• April 4
• Anthony Perkins, American actor (d. 1992)
• Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian film director (d. 1986)
• April 8 - Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail, King of Malaysia
• April 9
• Armin Jordan, Swiss conductor (d. 2006)
• Carl Perkins, American musician (d. 1998)
• April 11 - Joel Grey, American actor
• April 12
• Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lankan politician (assassinated) (d. 2005)
• Tiny Tim, American musician (d. 1996)
• April 21 - Elaine May, American movie director
• April 23 - Halston, American fashion designer (d. 1990)
• April 25 - William Roache, British actor (Coronation Street)
• April 26 - Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
• April 27
• Casey Kasem, American disc jockey and voice actor
• Gian-Carlo Rota, Italian-born mathematician and philosopher (d. 1999)

May-June

• May 7
• Jenny Joseph, English poet
• Jordi Bonet, Canadian artist
• May 8
• Phyllida Law, Scottish actress
• Sonny Liston, American boxer (d. 1970)
• May
• May 19 - Alma Cogan, English singer (d. 1966)
• May 25
• John Gregory Dunne, American writer (d. 2003)
• Roger Bowen, American actor (d. 1996)
• K.C. Jones, American basketball player and coach
• June 4
• John Drew Barrymore, American actor (d. 2004)
• Maurice Shadbolt, New Zealand writer (d. 2004)
• June 9 - Jack Imel, American singer
• June 12 - Rona Jaffe, American novelist (d. 2005)
• June 15 - Mario Cuomo, American politician
• June 18
• Dudley R. Herschbach, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• Geoffrey Hill, English poet
• June 22 - Prunella Scales, English Actress
• June 25 - Peter Blake, English artist
• June 27 - Anna Moffo, American soprano (d. 2006)
• June 28 - Pat Morita, American actor (d. 2005)
• June 29 - Brian Hutton, Baron Hutton, British Law Lord

July-August

• July 2 - Dave Thomas, American fast-food entrepreneur (d. 2002)
• July 4 - Otis Young, African-American actor (d. 2001)
• July 7 - Eileen Lemass, Irish politician
• July 9 - Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense
• July 12 - Otis Davis, American runner
• July 16
• Tim Asch, Anthropologist, photographer and ethnographic filmmaker
• Max McGee, American football player (d. 2007)
• July 21 - Ernie Warlick, American football player
• July 29 - Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker, U.S. Senator
• August 1 - Meena Kumari, Indian actress (d. 1972)
• August 2
• Lamar Hunt, American sportsman
• Peter O'Toole, Irish actor
• August 6 - Howard Hodgkin, British painter and print-maker
• August 7 - Dr. Maurice Rabb, Jr., African American ophthalmologist
• August 8 - Mel Tillis, American singer
• August 11 - Fernando Arrabal, Moroccan-born writer
• August 12 - Charlie O'Donnell, American game show announcer
• August 17 - V. S. Naipaul, West Indian-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• August 18 - William R. Bennett, Premier of British Columbia

September-October

• September 4 - Dinsdale Landen, British actor (d. 2003)
• September 7 - Paul Getty, American-born philanthropist (d. 2003)
• September 8 - Patsy Cline, American singer (d. 1963)
• September 11 - Peter Anderson, English footballer
• September 18 - Nikolai Rukavishnikov, cosmonaut (d. 2002)
• September 22 - Algirdas Brazauskas, President of Lithuania
• September 25
• Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist (d. 1982)
• Charles Stanley, American televangelist
• September 26
• Richard Herd, American actor
• Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India
• September 27 - Oliver E. Williamson, American economist
• September 29 - Mehmood, Indian actor (d. 2004)
• September 30 - Shintaro Ishihara, Japanese author and politician
• October 4 - Milan Chvostek, Canadian television director
• October 5 - Michael John Rogers, English ornithologist (d. 2006)
• October 8 - Ray Reardon, Welsh snooker player
• October 9 - David Plowden, American photographer
• October 10 - Harry Smith, English footballer
• October 11 - Dottie West, American singer/songwriter (d. 1991)
• October 12 - Dick Gregory, American comedian and activist
• October 13 - Jean Edward Smith, American political scientist and biographer
• October 18 - Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuanian politician
• October 19 - Robert Reed, American actor (d. 1992)
• October 20
• Rosey Brown, American football player (d. 2004)
• William Christopher, American actor
• October 24
• Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• Robert Mundell, Canadian economist, Nobel Prize laureate
• October 25 - Harry Gregg, Irish footballer and football manager
• October 27 - Sylvia Plath, American poet and author (d. 1963)
• October 28 - Suzy Parker, American actress (d. 2003)

November-December

• November 3 - Albert Reynolds, eighth Taoiseach of Ireland
• November 4
• Thomas Klestil, President of Austria (d. 2004)
• Noam Pitlik, American actor and director (d. 1999)
• November 11 - Germano Mosconi, Italian journalist
• November 10 - Roy Scheider, American film actor (d. 2008)
• November 12 - Jerry Douglas, American actor
• November 13 - Richard Mulligan, American actor (d. 2000)
• November 15 -
• Clyde McPhatter, American singer (d. 1972)
• Petula Clark, British singer, actress, and songwriter
• November 18 - Yoyoy Villame, Philippine Novelty singer and movie actor (d. 2007)
• November 20 - Richard Dawson, British-born comedian and game show host
• November 22 - Robert Vaughn, American actor
• November 27 - Benigno Aquino, Jr., Filipino politician and senator (d. 1983)
• November 29
• Jacques Chirac, President of France
• Diane Ladd, American actress
• December 2 - Manuel Puig, Argentinian writer (d. 1990)
• December 5
• Sheldon Lee Glashow, American physicist
• Little Richard, American singer
• December 6 - Don King, American boxing promoter
• December 7
• Ellen Burstyn, American actress
• Paul Caponigro, American photographer
• December 9 - Bill Hartack, American jockey
• December 9 - Morton Downey, Jr., American television personality (d. 2001)
• December 21 - Edward Hoagland, American essayist
• December 24
• On Kawara, Japanese conceptual artist
• Earl Dodge, American temperance movement leader
• December 28
• Dhirubhai Ambani, Indian businessman (d. 2002)
• Dorsey Burnette, American singer (d. 1979)
• Roy Hattersley, British politician
• Nichelle Nichols, American actress and singer
• date unknown
• Basil Blackshaw, Irish artist
• Mohamed Hamri, Moroccan artist (d. 2000)
• Irene Jai Narayan, Fiji politician
• Blaze Starr, American dancer

Deaths

January - June

• January 8 - Eurosia Fabris, Italian Catholic Blessed (b. 1866)
• January 13 - J. Ernest Mangnall, English football manager (b. 1866)
• January 21 - Giles Lytton Strachey British writer and biographer (b. 1880)
• January 24 - Sir Alfred Yarrow, English shipbuilder and philanthropist (b. 1842)
• January 26 - William Wrigley Jr., U.S.chewing gum industrialist (b. 1861)
• February 10 - Edgar Wallace, English novelist and screenwriter (b. 1875)
• February 16 - Ferdinand Buisson, French pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1841)
• March 1 - Frank Teschemacher, American musician (b. 1906)
• March 6 - John Philip Sousa, American band leader, conductor, and composer (b. 1854)
• March 7 - Aristide Briand, French statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1862)
• March 14 - George Eastman, American inventor (b. 1854)
• March 31 - Eben Byers, American steel tycoon and socialite (radiation poisoning) (b. 1880)
• April 4 - Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1853)
• April 20 - Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician (b. 1858)
• April 26 - William Lockwood, English cricketer (b. 1868)
• April 27 - Hart Crane, American poet (b. 1899)
• May 3 -
• Henri de Gaulle, father of Charles de Gaulle (b. 1848
• Charles Fort, American researcher of the unusual (b. 1874)
• May 7 - Paul Doumer, President of France (assassinated) (b. 1857)
• May 15 - Tsuyoshi Inukai, Prime Minister of Japan (assassinated) (b. 1855)
• May 17 - Frederick C. Billard, Commandant of the United States Coast Guard (b. 1873)
• May 22 - Lady Gregory, Irish writer and folklorist (b. 1852)
• June 21 - Major Taylor, American cyclist (b. 1878)
• June 22 - Tommy Treichel, American professional wrestler (b. 1892)

July - December

• July 2 - Manuel II of Portugal, last king of Portugal (b. 1889)
• July 6 - Kenneth Grahame, English author (b. 1859)
• July 7 - Henry Eyster Jacobs, American Lutheran theologian (b. 1844)
• July 22 - Errico Malatesta, Italian Anarchist (b. 1853)
• July 23 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviation pioneer (b. 1873)
• July 23 - Tenby Davies, Welsh half-mile world champion runner (b. 1884)
• September 16 - Ronald Ross, English physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1857)
• September 20 - Wovoka, Paiute visionary
• September 23 - Jules Chéret, French poster designer (b. 1836)
• October 5 - Christopher Brennan (b. 1870)
• October 17 - Lucy Bacon, American painter (b. 1857)
• December 19 - Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against Japanese occupation of Korea (executed) (b. 1908)
• Edward Bernstein, German socialist (b. 1850).

Nobel prizes

• Physics - Werner Karl Heisenberg
• Chemistry - Irving Langmuir
• Physiology or Medicine - Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, Edgar Douglas Adrian
• Literature - John Galsworthy
• Peace - not awarded

Notes