Directory

1932 CE

The Chaco War erupts between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the Gran Chaco, becoming one of South America’s deadliest conflicts of the 20th century; the Siamese revolution of 1932 peacefully ends centuries of absolute monarchy in Siam and establishes a constitutional government; the 1932 Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles, showcasing athletic achievement amid the hardships of the Great Depression; the January 28 incident in Shanghai sees Japanese forces clash with Chinese troops, heightening tensions in East Asia and foreshadowing broader conflict; the Colombia–Peru War breaks out over disputed Amazonian territory, leading to months of fighting before a negotiated settlement; and the May 15 incident in Japan results in the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi by young naval officers, signaling a shift toward militarism in Japanese politics.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 12 – Hattie W. Caraway of Arkansas becomes the first woman to be elected to the United States Senate, succeeding her late husband, Thaddeus Caraway, in a special election,source
  • February 2 – A general World Disarmament Conference begins in Geneva. The principal issue at the conference is the demand made by Germany for Gleichberechtigung ("equality of status" i.e. abolishing Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, which had disarmed Germany) and the French demand for sécurité ("security" i.e. maintaining Part V).source
  • February 18 – Japan declares Manchukuo (Japanese name for Manchuria) formally independent from China.source
  • February 25 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 German presidential election.source
  • April 11 – 1932 German presidential election: Paul von Hindenburg is re-elected as Reichspräsident, defeating Hitler.source
  • May 6 – The politically powerful General Kurt von Schleicher meets secretly with Adolf Hitler. Schleicher tells Hitler that he is scheming to bring down the Brüning government in Germany and asks for Nazi support of the new "presidential government" Schleicher is planning to form. Schleicher and Hitler negotiate a "gentlemen's agreement" where in exchange for lifting the ban on the SA and SS and having the Reichstag dissolved for early elections this summer, the Nazis will support Schleicher's new chancellor.source
  • May 10 – Albert Lebrun becomes the new president of France.source
  • May 13 – The Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, is dismissed by the State Governor, Sir Philip Game.source
  • May 26 – Judgement in Donoghue v Stevenson handed down in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, creating the modern concept of a duty of care in British law.source
  • May 30 – German chancellor Heinrich Brüning is dismissed by President von Hindenburg. President Hindenburg asks Franz von Papen to form a new government, known as the "Government of the President's Friends", which is openly dedicated to the destruction of democracy and the Weimar Republic. The downfall of Brüning is largely the work of Schleicher, who has been scheming against him since the beginning of May. Schleicher takes the position of Defense Minister in his friend Papen's government.source
  • June 4 – The Papen government in Germany dissolves the Reichstag for elections on July 31 in the full expectation that the Nazis will win the largest number of seats.source
  • June 14 – The Papen government lifts the ban against the SS and SA in Germany.source
  • July 31 – July 1932 German federal election sees the Nazis become the largest party in the Reichstag, winning 37% of the vote.source
  • August 11 – To celebrate Constitution Day in Germany, Chancellor Franz von Papen and his interior minister Baron Wilhelm von Gayl present proposed amendments to the Weimar constitution for a "New State" to deal with the problems besetting Germany.source
  • August 30 – Hermann Göring is elected as Speaker of the German Reichstag.source
  • September 9 – The Cortes Generales (Parliament) of the Second Spanish Republic approves the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia which grants full autonomy for Catalonia for the first time in modern history.source
  • September 12 – The very unpopular Papen government in Germany is defeated on a massive motion of no-confidence in the Reichstag. With the exceptions of the German People's Party and the German National People's Party, every party in the Reichstag votes for the no-confidence motion. Papen has Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag for new elections in November.source
  • September 23 – The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, concluding the country's unification under the rule of King Abdulaziz.source
  • September 24 – After his party's victory in the election to the Swedish Riksdag's second chamber, Social Democrat Per Albin Hansson becomes the new prime minister of Sweden, after Felix Hamrin.source
  • October 1 – Gyula Gömbös becomes Prime Minister of Hungary, the first time a member of the radical right has become the country's head of government.source
  • October 3 – Iraq becomes an independent kingdom under Faisal, ending the British mandate.source
  • November 21 – German president Hindenburg begins negotiations with Adolf Hitler about the formation of a new government.source
  • December 1 – Germany returns to the World Disarmament Conference after the other powers agree to accept gleichberechtigung "in principle". Henceforward, it is clear that Germany will be allowed to rearm beyond the limits imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.source
  • December 8 – Gregor Strasser resigns as the chief of the NSDAP's organizational department in protest against Hitler's "all or nothing" strategy.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort to assassinate Emperor Hirohito of Japan. The Kuomintang's official newspaper runs an editorial expressing regret that the attempt failed, which is used by the Japanese as a pretext to attack Shanghai later in the month.source
  • January 22 – The 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising begins; it is suppressed by the government of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez.source
  • January 24 – Marshal Pietro Badoglio declares the end of Libyan resistance.source
  • January 28 – January 28 incident: Conflict between Japan and China in Shanghai.source
  • January 31 – Japanese warships arrive in Nanking.source
  • March 2 – The Mäntsälä rebellion ends in failure; Finnish democracy prevails. The Lapua Movement is condemned by conservative Finnish president Pehr Evind Svinhufvud in a radio speech.source
  • March 5 – Dan Takuma, prominent Japanese businessman and director of the Mitsui Zaibatsu conglomerate is assassinated by the radical right-wing League of Blood group.source
  • April 6 – U.S. president Herbert Hoover supports armament limitations at the World Disarmament Conference.source
  • April 29 – Korean pro-independence paramilitary Yun Bong-gil detonates a bomb at a gathering of Japanese government and military officials in Shanghai's Hongkou Park, killing General Yoshinori Shirakawa and injuring Mamoru Shigemitsu and Vice Admiral Kichisaburō Nomura.source
  • May 10 – There are violent scenes in the German Reichstag building in Berlin as Hermann Göring and other Nazi MRDs attack the Defense Minister General Wilhelm Groener for his lack of belief in a supposed Social Democratic putsch. After the debate, General Schleicher tells Groener that he has lost the confidence of the Army and must resign at once.source
  • May 15 – May 15 Incident, an attempted military coup in which Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai is assassinated by naval officers. Japanese troops leave Shanghai.source
  • June 24 – After a relatively bloodless military rebellion, Siam becomes a constitutional monarchy.source
  • July 9 – The Constitutionalist Revolution starts in Brazil with the uprising of the state of São Paulo.source
  • July 17 – Altona Bloody Sunday: In Altona, Germany, a bloody clash with heavy police involvement occurs when Nazi marchers enter a working class area with many communist supporters; 18 are killed.source
  • July 20 – The Preußenschlag in Germany. The political coup gives Franz von Papen control of Prussia, the most powerful state in Germany, and is a major blow to German democracy.source
  • August – A farmers' revolt begins in the Midwestern United States.source
  • September 9 – Beginning of the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia because of delimitation problems and others.source
  • September 17 – A speech by Laureano Gómez leads to the escalation of the Leticia Incident between Colombia and Peru.source
  • September 17 – Start of the Han–Liu War over Shandong.source
  • October 25 – George Lansbury becomes the leader of the opposition British Labour Party.source
  • November 2 – The Emu War, a nuisance wildlife management military operation, begins in Australia.source
  • November 3 – Strike by transport workers in Berlin. The Nazis and the Communists both co-operate in support of the strike. The Nazi-Communist co-operation damages the Nazis at the upcoming election with many right-wing voters switching back to the German National People's Party.source
  • November 9 – Geneva massacre: Military of Switzerland fire on a socialist anti-fascist demonstration in Geneva leaving 13 dead and 60 injured.source
  • December 10 – The Emu War in Australia ends in failure.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • April 5 – The first Alko stores are opened in Finland at 10 in the morning (local time) following the end of Prohibition in that country, resulting in a new mnemonic "543210".source
  • May 20–21 – Amelia Earhart flies from the United States to County Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.source
  • June 20 – The Benelux customs union is negotiated.source
  • July 21 – The British Empire Economic Conference opens in Ottawa, Canada.source
  • August 18–19 – Scottish aviator Jim Mollison becomes the first pilot to make an East-to-West solo transatlantic flight, from Portmarnock, County Dublin, Ireland to RCAF Station Pennfield Ridge, New Brunswick, Canada, in his de Havilland Puss Moth high-wing monoplane The Heart's Content.source
  • November 27 – The Second Eastern Women's Congress opens in Tehran, Iran.source

Religion & Belief

  • February 11 – Pope Pius XI meets Benito Mussolini in Vatican City.source
  • September 11 – A bronze statue of Youssef Bey Karam is erected in his memory outside the Cathedral of Saint Georges, Ehden in Lebanon.source
  • December 3 – Hindenburg names Kurt von Schleicher as German chancellor after he ousts Papen. Papen is deeply angry about how his former friend Schleicher has brought him down and decides that he will do anything to get back into power.source
  • December 4 – Chancellor Schleicher meets with Gregor Strasser and offers to appoint him Vice-Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for Prussia out of the hope that if faced with a split in the NSDAP, Hitler will support his government.source

Economy & Finance

  • February 2 – The Reconstruction Finance Corporation begins operations in Washington, D.C.source
  • May 20 – Federación Obrera de la Industria de la Carne initiates a major strike in the Argentinian meat-packing industry.source
  • June 16– Lausanne conference opens to discuss reparations, which Germany had not paid since the Hoover Moratorium of June 1931.source
  • July 8 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average in the United States reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22.source
  • July 9 – Lausanne conference ends, agreeing to cancel World War I reparations against Germany.source
  • August 6 – Carl Gustaf Ekman resigns as Prime Minister of Sweden and is replaced by his Minister of Finance Felix Hamrin.source
  • August 20 – The Ottawa conference ends with the adoption of Imperial Preference tariff, turning the British Empire into one economic zone with a series of tariffs meant to exclude non-empire states from competing within the markets of Britain; the Dominions; and the rest of the empire.source
  • September 20 – Mahatma Gandhi begins a hunger strike in Poona prison, India.source
  • November 6 – November 1932 German federal election: The Nazis remain the largest party in the Reichstag but their share of the seats drops from 37% to 32%. The Communists (KPD) are the second largest party. This will be the last free election for the whole of Germany until 1990.source
  • SPAR, the global retail brand, is founded in Zegwaart, Netherlands.source
  • Unemployment in the United States – ca. 33% – 14 million. A similar level of unemployment affects Germany. Many people in depressed countries do not receive unemployment benefit due to governments not being able to afford benefit payments.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 19 – The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens in Australia.source
  • August 1 – Forrest Mars produces the first Mars bar in his Slough factory in the UK.source
  • August 6 – In Germany, the world's first Autobahn is opened by Konrad Adenauer (Bundesautobahn 555).source
  • September 10 – The IND Eighth Avenue Line, at this time the world's longest subway line (31 mi km), begins operation in Manhattan.source
  • September 11 – Canadian operations end on the International Railway (New York–Ontario).source
  • October 15 – Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.source
  • December 19 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service using a shortwave radio facility at its Daventry transmitting station in England.source
  • December 25 – IG Farben files a patent application in Germany for the medical application of the first sulfonamide oral antibiotic, which will be marketed as Prontosil, following Gerhard Domagk's laboratory demonstration of its properties as an antibiotic.source
  • December 25 – King George V delivers the first Royal Christmas Message on the new BBC Empire Service radio from Sandringham House; the text has been written by Rudyard Kipling.source
  • December 27 – The Radio City Music Hall is opened in New York City.source

Science & Discovery

  • March 1 – Japan installs Puyi as puppet emperor of Manchukuo.source
  • March 20 – The Graf Zeppelin airship begins a regular route between Germany and South America.source
  • April 14 – John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge (England), focus a proton beam on lithium and split its nucleus ("splitting the atom").source
  • May 10 – James Chadwick, working at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge, reports the existence of the neutron.source
  • May 25 – Goofy makes his appearance in the Disney animated short Mickey's Revue.source
  • August 1 – The second International Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration, begins.source
  • August 2 – The first positron is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.source
  • August 18 – Auguste Piccard reaches an altitude of 16197 m ft with a hot air balloon.source
  • August 31 – A total solar eclipse is visible from northern Canada through northeastern Vermont, New Hampshire, southwestern Maine and the Capes of Massachusetts.source
  • November 30 – The Polish Cipher Bureau breaks the German Enigma cipher.source
  • British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane publishes The Causes of Evolution, unifying the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.source
  • Zero-length springs are invented, revolutionizing seismometers and gravimeters.source
  • Walter B. Pitkin publishes Life Begins at Forty in the United States.source

Health & Medicine

  • January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel.source
  • March 21–22 – 1932 Deep South tornado outbreak: A series of deadly tornadoes in the United States kills more than 220 people in Alabama, 34 in Georgia and 17 in Tennessee.source
  • April 13 – German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning bans the SA and the SS as threats to public order, arguing that they are chiefly responsible for the wave of political violence afflicting Germany.source
  • c. June – The Republican Citizens Committee Against National Prohibition is established for the repeal of Prohibition in the United States.source

Crime & Justice

  • March 1 – Lindbergh kidnapping: Charles Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is kidnapped from the family home near Hopewell, New Jersey. On May 12 he is found dead just a few miles away.source
  • April 6 – The trial of fraudulent art dealer Otto Wacker begins in Berlin.source
  • April 19 – German art dealer Otto Wacker is sentenced to 19 months in prison for selling fraudulent paintings he attributed to Vincent van Gogh.source
  • Potempa Murder of 1932: In the eastern town of Potempa, five Nazi "Brownshirts" break into the house of Konrad Pietrzuch, a Communist miner, and proceed to castrate and beat him to death in front of his mother.source
  • September 2 – Despite the court's sentence of death against the "Potempa five", Chancellor von Papen in his capacity as Reich Commissioner of Prussia refuses to have them executed under the grounds that they were not aware of the emergency law at the time they committed the murder, but in reality because he is still hoping for Nazi support for his government.source
  • September 28 – The court of Helsinki sentences Vilho Kallio, Ville Saari and Ida Maria Viden to prison for the Tattarisuo mutilation case.source
  • October – Hergé's Tintin in America (Tintin en Amérique) concludes serial publication and is issued in book format (in black and white) in Belgium.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 26 – British submarine aircraft carrier sinks with the loss of all 60 onboard on exercise in Lyme Bay in the English Channel.source
  • March 14 – George Eastman, founder of Kodak, commits suicide in Rochester, New York.source
  • July 7 – French submarine Prométhée sinks with the loss of 62 of 69 onboard on trial out of Cherbourg in the English Channel.source
  • December 24 – 1932 Moweaqua Coal Mine disastersource

Climate & Environment

  • April 25 – The bodies of Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman and Jabir ibn Abd Allah, two of the companions of Islamic prophet Muhammad, are moved from their graves in Salmaan Paak following a dream of King Faisal I of Iraq that they are affected by water.source
  • July 12 – 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.source
  • August 10 – A 5.1 kg chondrite-type meteorite breaks into fragments and strikes earth near the town of Archie, Missouri, United States.source
  • September 22 – Soviet famine of 1932–33 begins; millions starve to death as a result of forced collectivization and as part of the government's effort to break rural resistance to its policies. The Soviet regime denies the famine and allows the deaths.source
  • November 8 – 1932 United States presidential election: Democratic governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory, having promised a New Deal and repeal of Prohibition.source
  • November 9 – A hurricane and huge waves kill about 2,500 in Santa Cruz del Sur in the worst natural disaster in Cuban history.source
  • December 25 – The 7.6 Changma earthquake shakes the Gansu Province in China with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Two-hundred and seventy-five people are killed.source
  • The heath hen becomes extinct in North America.source

Culture & Society

  • February 4 – The 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.source
  • 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 in the United States, having originally been a late evening program.source
  • March 22 – Tarzan the Ape Man premieres in New York City, first of the classic film series starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan.source
  • April 17 – Haile Selassie announces an anti-slavery law in Abyssinia.source
  • April 25 – Gladys Elinor Watkins consecrates the carillon of the National War Memorial in New Zealand.source
  • June 25 – India plays its first Test cricket match with England at Lord's.source
  • July 30 – Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first animated cartoon to be presented in full Technicolor, premieres in Los Angeles. It releases in theaters, along with the film version of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude (starring Norma Shearer and Clark Gable); Flowers and Trees goes on to win the first Academy Award for Best Animated Short.source
  • July 30 – The 1932 Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles.source
  • August 6 – The first Venice Film Festival is held.source
  • October 19 – Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden marries Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.source
  • November 1 – The Kennedy–Thorndike experiment is published, showing that measured time as well as length is affected by motion, in accordance with the theory of special relativity.source
  • November 7 – Buck Rogers in the 25th Century debuts on American radio. It is the first science fiction program on radio.source

Births

  • February 27 – Dame Elizabeth Taylor, British-American actress (d. 2011)source
  • March 4 – Miriam Makeba, South African singer and civil rights activist (d. 2008)source
  • March 12 - Andrew Young, American civil rights movement activist, Mayor of Atlanta, and ambassador to the United Nationssource
  • April 4 – Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet and Russian film director (d. 1986)source
  • April 8 – Sultan Iskandar of Johor, 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia (d. 2010)source
  • April 26 – Michael Smith, English-born chemist and Nobel laureate (d. 2000)source
  • June 22 – Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari, Princess of Iran; wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (d. 2001)source
  • August 1 – Meir Kahane, American-born Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist (d. 1990)source
  • August 12 – Dallin H. Oaks 18th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintssource
  • August 17 – V. S. Naipaul, West Indian-born writer and Nobel laureate (d. 2018)source
  • August 18 – Luc Montagnier, French virologist and Nobel Prize winner (d. 2022)source
  • September 29 – Rainer Weiss, German-born American gravitational physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2025)source
  • October 24 – Robert Mundell, Canadian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2021)source
  • December 26 – Sajad Haider, Pakistan Air Force officer and 1965 War veteran (d. 2025)source

Deaths

  • February 10 – Edgar Wallace, British novelist and screenwriter (b. 1875)source
  • February 16 – Sir Edgar Speyer, American-born international financier and philanthropist (b. 1862)source
  • March 6 – John Philip Sousa, American band leader, conductor, and composer ("The Stars and Stripes Forever") (b. 1854)source
  • March 7 – Aristide Briand, French statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1862)source
  • March 12 – Ivar Kreuger, Swedish civil engineer and entrepreneur, Swedish Match (b. 1880)source
  • March 14 – George Eastman, American inventor (Kodak) (b. 1854)source
  • April 4 – Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1853)source
  • May 15 – Tsuyoshi Inukai, 18th prime minister of Japan (assassinated) (b. 1855)source
  • June 19 – Sol Plaatje, South African journalist, politician and writer. (b. 1876)source
  • July 22 – Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., American Broadway impresario (b. 1867)source
  • August 2 – Dan Brouthers, American baseball player and MLB Hall of Famer (b. 1858)source
  • August 19 – Johannes Schober, three-time Chancellor of Austria (b. 1874)source
  • September 16 – Sir Ronald Ross, British physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1857)source
  • November 15 – Charles W. Chesnutt, African-American author, essayist and political activist (b. 1858)source