1932

1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday.

Events

January-February

• January 3 – British arrest and intern Mohandas Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel
• January 8 – In Britain the Archbishop of Canterbury forbids church remarriage of divorcees
• January 12 – Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate
• January 15 – Pierre Laval forms a new government in France
• January 15 – About 6 million unemployed in Germany
• January 26 – British submarine M-2 sinks with all 50 hands
• January 28 – Japan occupies Shanghai
• January 29 – Minority government of Karl Mureschi in Austria ends the governmental crisis
• January 31 – Japanese warships arrive in Nanking
• February 2 – General convention of disarmament begins in Geneva
• February 2 – League of Nations again recommends negotiations between the Republic of China and Japan
• February 4 – Japan occupies Harbin, China
• February 11 – Pope Pius XI meets Benito Mussolini in the Vatican City
• February 18 – Japan declares Manzhouguo (Japanese name for Manchuria) formally independent from China
• February 27 – Adolf Hitler gains German citizenship prior to elections
• February 27 – Mäntsälä Rebellion in Finland

March-April

• March 1 – Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, the baby son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh is kidnapped
• 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
• April 5 – Prohibition is lifted in Finland at 10 in the morning (local time), inventing a new mnemonic "543210".
• April 6 – U.S. president Herbert Hoover supports armament limitations
• April 10 – Paul von Hindenburg elected president of Germany. Adolf Hitler receives over 13 million votes.
• April 17 – Haile Selassie announces an anti-slavery law in Abyssinia
• April 19 – German art dealer Otto Wacker is sentenced for 19 months for selling fraudulent paintings of Vincent van Gogh

May-June

• May 2 – Comedian Jack Benny's radio show airs for the first time.
• May 6 – Paul Gordulof 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 in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few miles from the Lindbergh's 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 occurs.
• May 16 – Massive riots between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay – thousands dead and injured.
• May 18 – Assassination of Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai
• May 20-21 – Amelia Earhart flies from USA to Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes
• May 30 – German chancellor Heinrich Brüning resigns. President Hindenburg takes Franz von Papen to form a new government.
• June – 15,000 World War I veterans march in Washington, DC
• June 4 – Military coup in Chile
• June 6 – The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States (1 cent per gallon sold).
• June 14 – Bans against SS and SA overturned in Germany
• June 20 – Benelux customs union negotiated
• June 24 – After a relatively bloodless military rebellion, Siam becomes a constitutional monarchy

July-October

• July 1- ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) established
• July 5 – António de Oliveira Salazar becomes the fascists prime minister of Portugal (for the next 36 years)
• July 7 – French submarine Sromethee sinks off Cherbourg – 66 dead
• July 12 – Hedley Verity establishes a new first-class 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 – US President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, DC. US troops dispersed the last of the "Bonus Army" the next day.
• August 6 – First Venice Film Festival
• 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 16.500 meters with an air balloon
• August 30 – Hermann Göring 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 9 – The Generalitat reinstaurated, Catalonia regains political autonomy inside the 2nd Spanish Republic from September 25
• September 20 – Mohandas Gandhi begins an hunger strike in Poona prison
• September 28 – According to Prussian statistics, 115 people have been killed in political riots during the year
• October 15 – Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight
• October 19 – Wedding of Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden and Princess Sibylla of Sachse-Coburg

November-December

• November 1 – San Francisco Opera House opened
• 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 – 12 dead, 60 injured
• November 11 – Tornado and huge waves kills about thousand in Santa Crus del Sure in Cuba
• November 19 – Second wife of Josef 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.
• December 3 – Hindenburg names Kurt von Schleicher as a German chancellor
• December 12 – Japan and Soviet Union reform their diplomatic connections
• December 25 – Earthquake in the Kansu Province in China – 70,000 dead

Unknown dates

• Saudi Arabia is declared a unified nation with Ibn Saud as a king.
• Female suffrage in Brazil
• Norway annexes northern Greenland.
• Chaco war between Bolivia and Paraguay
• In the next five years, Dr. Morris Bolber and associates successfully murder and collect the insurance money for more than 30 victims.
• Mars candy bar
• Zippo lighters
• The Kennedy-Thorndike experiment shows that measured time as well as length are affected by motion, in accordance with the theory of special relativity.
• 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.
• Second Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration.

Births

January

• January 3 – Dabney Coleman, American actor
• January 4 – Carlos Saura, director
• January 5 – Umberto Eco, Italian scholar and author
• January 5  – Raisa Gorbachev, wife of Mikhail Gorbachev (d. 1999)
• January 16 – Dian Fossey, American zoologist (d. 1985)
• January 18 – Robert Anton Wilson, American author
• January 22 – Piper Laurie, American actress
• January 26 – Coxsone Dodd, Jamaican record producer (d. 2004)
• January 29 – Tommy Taylor, English footballer (d. 1958)
• January 30 – Knock Yokoyama, Japanese comedian and politician

February-March

• 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, pianist
• February 12 – Julian Simon, economist and author (d. 1998)
• February 14 – Alexander Kluge, German author and film director
• February 18 – Milos Forman, Czech film director
• February 22 – Edward Kennedy, American politician
• February 23 – Majel Barrett, American actress
• February 24 – Michel Legrand, French composer
• February 25 – Faron Young American country music singer (d. 1996)
• February 26 – Johnny Cash, American country music singer (d. 2003)
• February 27 – Elizabeth Taylor, English-born actress
• March 4 – Miriam Makeba, South African singer
• March 12 – Andrew Young, American civil rights activist, politician, and ambassador to the United Nations
• March 16 – Don Blasingame, Major League Baseball player and Japanese baseball manager (d. 2005)
• March 18 – John Updike, American author

April-July

• April 1 – Gordon Jump, American television actor (d. 2003)
• 1 April  – Debbie Reynolds, American actress
• 2 April – Michael Vernon, Australian consumer activist (d.1993)
• April 4 – Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director (d. 1986)
• April 4  – Anthony Perkins, American actor (d. 1992)
• April 8 – Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail, Sultan of Johor and 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia
• April 12 – Tiny Tim, American musician (d. 1996)
• April 23 – Halston, American fashion designer (d. 1990)
• April 27 – Casey Kasem, American disc jockey and voice actor
• April 27  – Gian-Carlo Rota, Italian-born mathematician and philosopher (d. 1999)
• May 8 – Phyllida Law, Scottish actress
• May 8  – Sonny Liston, American boxer (d. 1970)
• May 21 – Gabriele Wohmann, author
• June 4 – John Drew Barrymore, American actor (d. 2004)
• June 4  – Maurice Shadbolt, New Zealand writer (d. 2004)
• June 12 – Rona Jaffe, American novelist
• June 25 – Peter Blake, English artist
• June 27 – Anna Moffo, American soprano
• June 28 – Pat Morita, American actor
• July 2 – Dave Thomas, American fast-food entrepreneur (d. 2002)
• July 9 – Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defence
• July 12 – Otis Davis, American runner
• July 21 – Ernie Warlick, American football player
• July 29 – Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker, U.S. Senator

August-December

• August 1 – Meena Kumari, Indian actress
• August 2 – Peter O'Toole, Irish film and stage actor
• August 2  – Lamar Hunt, American sportsman
• August 6 – Howard Hodgkin, British painter and print-maker
• August 11 – Fernando Arrabal, Moroccan-born French writer
• August 17 – V. S. Naipaul, British writer
• September 8 – Patsy Cline, American country singer (d. 1963)
• August 18 – William R. Bennett, Premier of British Columbia
• September 18 – Nikolai Rukavishnikov, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 2002)
• September 25 – Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist (d. 1982)
• September 26 – Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India
• September 27 – Oliver E. Williamson , American economist
• October 19 – Robert Reed, American actor (d. 1992)
• October 20 – Rosey Brown, American football playerr (d. 2004)
• October 28 – Suzy Parker, American actress (d. 2003)
• November 3 – Albert Reynolds, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland
• November 4 – Noam Pitlik, American actor and director (d. 1999)
• November 15 – Petula Clark, English singer, actress, songwriter
• November 20 – Richard Dawson, English-born game show host
• November 29 – Jacques Chirac, President of France
• December 5 – Sheldon Lee Glashow, American physicist
• December 9 – Bill Hartack, American jockey
• December 24 – Earl Dodge, American presidential candidate
• December 28 – Roy Hattersley, British politician
• December 28 – Dorsey Burnette, American singer (d. 1979)

Unknown dates

• Blaze Starr, American stripper and burlesque performer
• Irene Jai Narayan, Fijian politician
• Mehmood, Indian actor (d. 2004)

Deaths

• January 21 – Giles Lytton Strachey British writer and biographer (b. 1880)
• January 24 – Sir Alfred Yarrow, English shipbuilder and philanthropist (b. 1842)
• February 10 – Edgar Wallace, English novelist and screenwriter (b. 1875)
• March 6 – John Philip Sousa, American band leader, conductor, and composer (b. 1854)
• March 1 – Frank Teschemacher, American jazz clarinetist and alto saxophonist (b. 1906)
• March 7 – Aristide Briand, French diplomat, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
• 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 – Hart Crane, American poet (b. 1899)
• April 26  – William Lockwood, English cricketer (b. 1868)
• May 3 – 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 – Fredrick C. Billard, Commandant of the United States Coast Guard (b. 1873)
• July 6 – Kenneth Grahame, English author (b. 1859)
• July 23 – Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviation pioneer (b. 1873)
• September 23 – Jules Chéret, French poster designer (b. 1836)
• November 9 – Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin, second wife of Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (b. 1901)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – Werner Karl Heisenberg
• Chemistry – Irving Langmuir
• Medicine – Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, Edgar Douglas Adrian
• Literature -John Galsworthy
• Peace – Not awarded.