1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar).

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 14 - Maurice Ravel's Concerto in G (Ravel) debuts with piano soloist Marguerite Long and Ravel conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra
• 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 - 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York. Japan occupies Harbin, China
• February 11 - Pope Pius XI meets Benito Mussolini in the 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 27 - Adolf Hitler gains German citizenship prior to elections
• February 27 - Mäntsälä Rebellion in Finland

March-April

• March 1 - Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, the infant 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.
• 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 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.
• April 6 - 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.

May-June

• 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 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, 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 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 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 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 - 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 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.
• July 30 - 1932 Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles.
• August 2 - First positron is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
• 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 11 - Canadian operations end on the Great Gorge and International Railway.
• September 18 - Actress Peg Entwhistle commits suicide jumping from the letter H of the (then) Hollywoodland sign
• 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 Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
• October 20 - Hasty Market gets hijacked

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.
• November 30 - the Cipher Bureau broke the German Enigma cipher
• 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
• Zero-length springs 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.
• 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.
• Kreuger & Toll of the "Match King" Ivar Kreuger collapses - he commits suicide.
• 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

• January 3 - Dabney Coleman, American actor
• January 3 - Neil Levang, American musician
• January 3 - Coo Coo Marlin, American race car driver (d. 2005)
• January 5 - Johnny Adams, American musician (d. 1998)
• January 5 - 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 26 - Coxsone Dodd, Jamaican record producer (d. 2004)
• January 29 - Tommy Taylor, English footballer (d. 1958)
• January 29 - George Allen, English footballer
• January 30 - Knock Yokoyama, Japanese comedian and politician

February

• 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
• 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 22 - Edward Kennedy, American politician
• 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

• March 4 - Miriam Makeba, South African singer
• March 12 - Andrew Young, U.S. 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
• 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

• April 1 - Gordon Jump, American television actor (d. 2003)
• April 1 - Debbie Reynolds, American actress
• April 2 - Michael Vernon, Australian consumer activist (d.1993)
• April 4 - Anthony Perkins, American actor (d. 1992)
• April 4 - 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 - Carl Perkins, American musician (d. 1998)
• April 11 - Joel Grey, American actor
• April 12 - Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lankan politician (assassinated) (d. 2005)
• April 12 - Tiny Tim, American musician (d. 1996)
• April 21 - Elaine May, American movie director
• April 23 - Halston, American fashion designer (d. 1990)
• April 26 - Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
• April 27 - Casey Kasem, American disc jockey and voice actor
• April 27 - Gian-Carlo Rota, Italian-born mathematician and philosopher (d. 1999)

May

• May 8 - Phyllida Law, Scottish actress
• May 8 - Sonny Liston, American boxer (d. 1970)
• May 19 - Alma Cogan, English singer (d. 1966)
• May 25 - John Gregory Dunne, American writer (d. 2003)
• May 25 - Roger Bowen, American actor (d. 1996)

June

• June 4 - John Drew Barrymore, American actor (d. 2004)
• June 4 - 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
• June 18 - Geoffrey Hill, English poet
• 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

• July 2 - Dave Thomas, American fast-food entrepreneur (d. 2002)
• July 9 - Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense
• July 12 - Otis Davis, American runner
• July 21 - Ernie Warlick, American football player
• July 29 - Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker, U.S. Senator

August

• August 1 - Meena Kumari, Indian actress (d. 1972)
• August 2 - Lamar Hunt, American sportsman
• August 2 - Peter O'Toole, Irish-born 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 17 - V. S. Naipaul, West Indian-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• August 18 - William R. Bennett, Premier of British Columbia

September

• 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)
• September 25 - Charles Stanley, American televangelist
• September 26 - Richard Herd, American actor
• September 26 - Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India
• September 27 - Oliver E. Williamson , American economist
• September 30 - Shintaro Ishihara, Japanese author and politician

October

• October 10 - Harry Smith, English footballer
• October 12 - Dick Gregory, American comedian and activist
• October 18 - Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuanian politician
• October 19 - Robert Reed, American actor (d. 1992)
• October 20 - Rosey Brown, American football player (d. 2004)
• October 20 - William Christopher, American actor
• October 24 - Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• October 24 - 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

• November 3 - Albert Reynolds, President of Ireland
• November 4 - Thomas Klestil, President of Austria (d. 2004)
• November 4 - Noam Pitlik, American actor and director (d. 1999)
• November 10 - Roy Scheider, American film actor
• November 12 - Jerry Douglas, American actor
• November 13 - Richard Mulligan, American actor (d. 2000)
• November 15 - Petula Clark, British singer, actress, and songwriter
• November 20 - Richard Dawson, British-born comedian and game show host
• November 22 - Robert Vaughn, American actor
• November 29 - Jacques Chirac, President of France
• November 29 - Diane Ladd, American actress

December

• December 2 - Manuel Puig, Argentinian writer (d. 1990)
• December 5 - Sheldon Lee Glashow, American physicist
• December 5 - Little Richard, American singer
• December 6 - Don King, American boxing promoter
• December 7 - Ellen Burstyn, American actress
• December 9 - Bill Hartack, American jockey
• December 24 - Earl Dodge, American temperance movement leader
• December 28 - Dhirubhai Ambani, Indian businessman (d. 2002)
• December 28 - Dorsey Burnette, American singer (d. 1979)
• December 28 - Roy Hattersley, British politician

Unknown dates

• Basil Blackshaw, Irish artist
• Mohammed Hamri, Moroccan artist (d. 2000)
• Mehmood, Indian actor (d. 2004)
• Irene Jai Narayan, Fiji politician
• Blaze Starr, American dancer
• Eileen Lemass, Irish politician

Deaths

• January 8 - Eurosia Fabris, Italian Catholic Blessed (b. 1866)
• 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)
• 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 - 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 - 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)
• July 6 - Kenneth Grahame, English author (b. 1859)
• July 23 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviation pioneer (b. 1873)
• 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)
• December 19 - Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against Japanese occupation of Korea (executed) (b. 1908)

Unknown date

• Lucy Bacon, American painter (b. 1857)

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

1932

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