January
January 1 – The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.
January 3 – The 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 Great Britain the Archbishop of Canterbury forbids Anglican church remarriage of divorced persons.
January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident, Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort to assassinate the Shōwa Emperor 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 month.
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 22 – The 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising begins, it is suppressed by the government of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez
January 24 – Marshal Pietro Badoglio declares the end of Libyan resistance.
January 26 – The British submarine M2 sinks with all 60 hands.
January 28 – Conflict between Japan and China in the Battle of Shanghai.
January 29 – The minority government of Karl Buresch 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
A general World Disarmament Conference begins in Geneva. The principle 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).
The League of Nations again recommends negotiations between the Republic of China and Japan.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation begins operations in Washington, D.C.
February 4
The 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.
Japan occupies Harbin, China.
February 9 – Junnosuke Inoue, prominent Japanese businessman, banker and former governor of the Bank of Japan is assassinated by right-wing extremist group the League of Blood in the League of Blood Incident.
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 22 – The first Purple Heart was awarded.
February 25 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident.
February 27 – The 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.
Japan proclaims Manchuria an independent state and installs Puyi as puppet emperor.
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.
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.
March 7 – Four people are killed when police fire upon 3,000 unemployed autoworkers marching outside the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
March 9 – Éamon de Valera is elected President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. It is the first change of government in the Irish Free State since its foundation 10 years previously.
March 14 – George Eastman, founder of Kodak, commits suicide.
March 18 – Peace negotiations between China and Japan begin.
March 19 – The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.
March 20 – The Graf Zeppelin begins a regular route to South America.
March 21– A series of deadly tornadoes in the south kills more than 220 people in Alabama, 34 people in Georgia, and 17 in Tennessee during a two-day period.
March 25 – Tarzan the Ape Man opens, with Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in the title role. (Weismuller will star in a total of twelve Tarzan films.)
April
April 5 –
10,000 disgruntled Newfoundlanders march on their legislature to show discontent with their current political situation; this is a flash point in the demise of the Dominion of Newfoundland.
Kreuger & Toll, the company of the "Match King" Ivar Kreuger, collapses.
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 at the World Disarmament Conference.
The trial against fraudulent art dealer Otto Wacker begins in Berlin.
April 11 – Paul von Hindenburg is re-elected president of Germany.
April 13 – The German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning bans the SA and the SS as threats to public order, arguing that they were ones chiefly responsible for the wave of political violence afflicting Germany. April 14 – John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton focus a proton beam on lithium and split its nucleus.
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 are 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 are 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 shoots French president Paul Doumer in Paris; Doumer dies the next day.
May 6 – The politically powerful General Kurt von Schleicher meets secretly with Adolf Hitler.General Schleicher tells Hitler that he is scheming to bring down the Brüning government, and asks for Nazi support of the new "presidential government" Schleicher was planning to form. Schleicher and Hitler negotiated a "gentlemen's agreement" where in exchange for lifting the ban on the SA and SS and having the Reichstag dissolved for early elections that summer, the Nazis will support Schleicher's new chancellor.
May 10 –
Albert Lebrun becomes the new president of France.
Violent scenes in the Reichstag 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 lost the confidence of the Army, and must resign at once. May 12 –
Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead just a few miles from the Lindbergh home.
General Wilhelm Groener resigns as Defense Minister. Schleicher takes control of the Defense Ministry.
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. Back in Japan, the May 15 Incident as an attempted military coup is known occurs. The Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai is assassinated by naval officers.
May 16 – Massive riots between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay leave thousands dead and injured.
May 20–May 21 – Amelia Earhart flies from the United States to County Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.
May 20 – Federación Obrera de la Industria de la Carne initiates a major strike in the Argentinian meat-packing industry.
May 26 – Judgement in Donoghue v Stevenson handed down in the House of Lords, creating the neighbour principle in English law.
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 is sacked 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. The downfall of Brüning is largely the work of Schleicher, who been scheming against him since the beginning of May.Schleicher takes the position of Defense Minister in his friend Papen's government.
June
June – The Chaco War begins between Bolivia and Paraguay.
June 4
A military coup occurs in Chile.
The Papen government dissolves the Reichstag for elections on 31 July 1932 in the full expectation that the Nazis will win the largest number of seats. 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 – The Papen government lifts the ban against the SS and SA in Germany.
June 16– Lausanne conference opens to discuss reparations, which Germany had not paying since the Hoover Moratorium of June 1931.
June 20 – The 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 – António de Oliveira Salazar becomes the fascist prime minister of Portugal (for the next 36 years).
July 7 – The French submarine Prométhée sinks off Cherbourg; 66 are killed.
July 8 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22.
July 9
The Constitutionalist Revolution starts in Brazil, with the uprising of the state of São Paulo.
Lausanne conference ends, agrees to cancel reparations against Germany.
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 – Altona Bloody Sunday: In Altona, Germany, armed communists attack a National Socialist demonstration; 18 are killed and many other political street fights follow.
July 20 – The Preußenschlag in Germany. The Papen government sends out the Reichswehr under General Gerd von Rundstedt to depose the elected SPD government in Prussia under Otto Braun. The coup gives Papen control of Prussia, the most powerful Land in Germany, and is a major blow to German democracy. July 21 – British Empire Economic Conference opens in Ottawa, Canada.
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 disperse the last of the Bonus Army the next day.
July 30
The 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. 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.
July 31 – Reichstag election sees the Nazis win 37% of the vote, becoming the largest party in the Reichstag.
August
August – A farmers' revolt begins in the Midwestern United States.
August 1 – The second International Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration, begins.
August 2 – The first positron is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
August 5 – Hitler meets with Schleicher and reneges on the "gentlemen's agreement", demanding that he be appointed Chancellor. Schleicher agrees to support Hitler as Chancellor provided that he can remain minister of defense. Schleicher sets up a meeting between Hindenburg and Hitler on for the 13 August to discuss Hitler's possible appointment as chancellor.
August 6 – The first Venice Film Festival is held.
August 6 – In Germany the first worldwide Autobahn opened by Konrad Adenauer: Bundesautobahn 555.
August 7 – Raymond Edward Welch becomes the first one legged man to scale the 6,288 ft. Mount Washington, NH.
August 9 –
The Papen government in Germany, which likes to take a tough "law and order" stance, passes via Article 48 a law proscribing the death penalty for a variety of offenses and with the court system simplified so that the courts can hand down as many death sentences as possible. The Potempa Murder case. In the German town of Potempa, five SA men break into the house of Konrad Pietrzuch, a Communist miner, and proceed to castrate and beat Pietrzuch to death in front of his mother. The Potempa case attracts much media attention in Germany.
August 10 – A 5.1 kg chondrite-type meteorite breaks fragments and strikes earth near the town of Archie, Missouri.
August 11 – To celebrate Constitution Day in Germany, Chancellor Franz von Papen and his interior minister Baron Wilhelm von Gayl-apparently without any sense of irony-present a set of proposed amendments to the Weimar constitution for a "New State", which would have gutted democracy and transform Germany into a dictatorship if implemented. Papen argues that to deal with the Great Depression requires the destruction of democracy as only a dictatorship is capable of solving Germany's problems.
August 13 – Hitler meets President von Hindenburg and asks him to appoint him Chancellor.Hindenburg refuses under the grounds that Hitler is not qualified to be Chancellor, and asks him instead to serve as Vice-Chancellor in Papen's government. Hitler in turn announces his "all or nothing" strategy in which he will oppose every government not headed by himself and will accept no office other than Chancellor.
August 18 – Auguste Piccard reaches an altitude of 16,197 m (53,140 ft) with a hot air balloon.
August 18–19 – Scottish aviator Jim Mollison becomes the first pilot to make an East-to-West solo transatlantic flight, from Portmarnock, Dublin, Ireland to Pennfield, New Brunswick, Canada, in his de Havilland Puss Moth biplane The Heart's Content. 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.
August 22 – The five SA men involved in the torture and murder of Konrad Pietrzuch are quickly convicted and sentenced to death under an emergency law introduced by the Papen government on 8 August.[19] The Potempa case becomes a cause célèbre in Germany with the Nazis demonstrating for amnesty for the "Potempa five" under the grounds they were justified in killing the Communist Pietrzuch; Hitler sends a telegram congratulating the "Potempa five" for the murder.Many Germans arguing that the "Potempa five" are patriotic heroes who should not be executed while others maintain the death sentences are appropriate given the brutality of the torture and murder.
August 23 – The Panama Civil Aviation Authority is established.
August 30 – Hermann Göring is elected as Speaker of the German Reichstag.
August 31 – A total solar eclipse is visible from northern Canada through northeastern Vermont, New Hampshire, southwestern Maine, and the Capes of Massachusetts.
September
September 1 – Germany walks out of the World Disarmament Conference under the grounds that the other powers are refusing to grant gleichberechtigung. 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 the "Potempa five" 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. September 9 – Generalitat of Catalonia is restored within the Second Spanish Republic from September 25 until the collapse of the Republic in 1939.
September 9 – Beginning of the Chaco War a conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia because of delimitation problems and others.
September 10 – The IND Eighth Avenue Line, at this time the world's longest subway line (31 miles (50 km)), begins operation in Manhattan. September 11 – Canadian operations end on the International Railway (New York–Ontario).
September 12 – The very unpopular Papen government 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.
September 20 – Mohandas K. Gandhi begins a hunger strike in Poona prison, India.
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 regimes denies the famine and allows millions to die.
September 23 – The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, concluding the country's unification under the rule of Ibn Saud.
September 27 – Ryutin Affair at its height in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Politburo meets and condemns the so-called "Ryutin Platform" and agrees to expel those associated with it from the Communist Party, but refuses Stalin's request to execute those associated with the "Ryutin Platform".
October
October 1 –
Babe Ruth makes his famous called shot in the fifth inning of game 3 of the 1932 World Series.
Gyula Gömbös becomes Prime Minister of Hungary, marking the first time a member of the radical right has become Hungary's head of government.
October 3 – Iraq becomes an independent kingdom under Faisal.
October 13– Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes lays the cornerstone for a new U.S. Supreme Court building.
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 – Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden marries Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
October 23 – Fred Allen's radio comedy show debuts on CBS.
October 25 21-year old Michael D'Oyly Carte, grandson of theatrical impresario and hotelier Richard D'Oyly Carte, is killed in a car crash in Switzerland.
November
The Cipher Bureau breaks the German Enigma cipher and overcomes the ever-growing structural and operating complexities of the evolving Enigma with plugboard, the main German cipher device during World War II.
November 1 – The San Francisco Opera House opens.
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 hurts the Nazis at the upcoming election with many right-wing voters switching back to the German National People's Party.
November 6 – The Reichstag election is held. The Nazis remain the largest party, but their share of the seats drops from 37% to 32%.
November 7 – Buck Rogers in the 25th Century debuts on American radio. It is the first science fiction program on radio.
November 8 – U.S. presidential election, 1932: Democratic Governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.
November 9
An unjustified shooting of a socialist demonstration by the Swiss army leaves 13 dead, 60 injured.
A hurricane and huge waves kill about 2,500 in Santa Cruz del Sur in the worst natural disaster in Cuban 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 – The 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, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
November 30 – The Polish Cipher Bureau breaks the German Enigma cipher.
December
December 1 – Germany returns to the World Disarmament Conference after the others powers agree to accept gleichberechtigung [clarification needed] "in principle". Henceforward, it is clear that Germany will be allowed to rearm beyond the limits imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.
December 3 – Hindenburg names Kurt von Schleicher as German chancellor after he ousts Papen. Papen is deeply angry about how his former friend Schleicher had brought him down, and decides that he will do anything to get back into power.
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. December 5 – At a secret meeting of the Nazi leaders, Strasser urges Hitler to drop his "all or nothing" strategy, and accept Schleicher's offer to have the Nazis serve in his cabinet. Hitler gives a dramatic speech saying that Schleicher's offer is not acceptable, and he will stick to his "all or nothing" strategy whatever the consequences might be and wins the Nazi leadership over to his viewpoint. December 8 – Gregor Strasser resigns as the chief of the NSDAP's organizational department in protest against Hitler's "all or nothing" strategy. December 12 – Japan and the Soviet Union reform their diplomatic connections.
December 19 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.
December 23 – A coal mine in Moweaqua, Illinois, kills 54.
December 24 – A methane gas explosion causes the Moweaqua Coal Mine Disaster which claims 54 lives.
December 25 – An earthquake in the Kansu Province in China kills 70,000.
December 27 –
Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.
Internal passports are introduced in the Soviet Union.
December 28 – The Cologne banker Kurt von Schröder-who is a close friend of Papen and a NSDAP member-meets with Adolf Hitler to tell him that Papen wants to set up a meeting to discuss how they can work together. Papen wants Nazi support to return to the Chancellorship while Hitler wants Papen to convince Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor. Hitler agrees to meet Papen on 3 January 1933.
January 1 – The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.
January 3 – The 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 Great Britain the Archbishop of Canterbury forbids Anglican church remarriage of divorced persons.
January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident, Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort to assassinate the Shōwa Emperor 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 month.
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 22 – The 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising begins, it is suppressed by the government of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez
January 24 – Marshal Pietro Badoglio declares the end of Libyan resistance.
January 26 – The British submarine M2 sinks with all 60 hands.
January 28 – Conflict between Japan and China in the Battle of Shanghai.
January 29 – The minority government of Karl Buresch 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
A general World Disarmament Conference begins in Geneva. The principle 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).
The League of Nations again recommends negotiations between the Republic of China and Japan.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation begins operations in Washington, D.C.
February 4
The 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.
Japan occupies Harbin, China.
February 9 – Junnosuke Inoue, prominent Japanese businessman, banker and former governor of the Bank of Japan is assassinated by right-wing extremist group the League of Blood in the League of Blood Incident.
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 22 – The first Purple Heart was awarded.
February 25 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident.
February 27 – The 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.
Japan proclaims Manchuria an independent state and installs Puyi as puppet emperor.
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.
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.
March 7 – Four people are killed when police fire upon 3,000 unemployed autoworkers marching outside the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
March 9 – Éamon de Valera is elected President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. It is the first change of government in the Irish Free State since its foundation 10 years previously.
March 14 – George Eastman, founder of Kodak, commits suicide.
March 18 – Peace negotiations between China and Japan begin.
March 19 – The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.
March 20 – The Graf Zeppelin begins a regular route to South America.
March 21– A series of deadly tornadoes in the south kills more than 220 people in Alabama, 34 people in Georgia, and 17 in Tennessee during a two-day period.
March 25 – Tarzan the Ape Man opens, with Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in the title role. (Weismuller will star in a total of twelve Tarzan films.)
April
April 5 –
10,000 disgruntled Newfoundlanders march on their legislature to show discontent with their current political situation; this is a flash point in the demise of the Dominion of Newfoundland.
Kreuger & Toll, the company of the "Match King" Ivar Kreuger, collapses.
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 at the World Disarmament Conference.
The trial against fraudulent art dealer Otto Wacker begins in Berlin.
April 11 – Paul von Hindenburg is re-elected president of Germany.
April 13 – The German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning bans the SA and the SS as threats to public order, arguing that they were ones chiefly responsible for the wave of political violence afflicting Germany. April 14 – John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton focus a proton beam on lithium and split its nucleus.
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 are 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 are 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 shoots French president Paul Doumer in Paris; Doumer dies the next day.
May 6 – The politically powerful General Kurt von Schleicher meets secretly with Adolf Hitler.General Schleicher tells Hitler that he is scheming to bring down the Brüning government, and asks for Nazi support of the new "presidential government" Schleicher was planning to form. Schleicher and Hitler negotiated a "gentlemen's agreement" where in exchange for lifting the ban on the SA and SS and having the Reichstag dissolved for early elections that summer, the Nazis will support Schleicher's new chancellor.
May 10 –
Albert Lebrun becomes the new president of France.
Violent scenes in the Reichstag 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 lost the confidence of the Army, and must resign at once. May 12 –
Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead just a few miles from the Lindbergh home.
General Wilhelm Groener resigns as Defense Minister. Schleicher takes control of the Defense Ministry.
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. Back in Japan, the May 15 Incident as an attempted military coup is known occurs. The Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai is assassinated by naval officers.
May 16 – Massive riots between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay leave thousands dead and injured.
May 20–May 21 – Amelia Earhart flies from the United States to County Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.
May 20 – Federación Obrera de la Industria de la Carne initiates a major strike in the Argentinian meat-packing industry.
May 26 – Judgement in Donoghue v Stevenson handed down in the House of Lords, creating the neighbour principle in English law.
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 is sacked 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. The downfall of Brüning is largely the work of Schleicher, who been scheming against him since the beginning of May.Schleicher takes the position of Defense Minister in his friend Papen's government.
June
June – The Chaco War begins between Bolivia and Paraguay.
June 4
A military coup occurs in Chile.
The Papen government dissolves the Reichstag for elections on 31 July 1932 in the full expectation that the Nazis will win the largest number of seats. 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 – The Papen government lifts the ban against the SS and SA in Germany.
June 16– Lausanne conference opens to discuss reparations, which Germany had not paying since the Hoover Moratorium of June 1931.
June 20 – The 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 – António de Oliveira Salazar becomes the fascist prime minister of Portugal (for the next 36 years).
July 7 – The French submarine Prométhée sinks off Cherbourg; 66 are killed.
July 8 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22.
July 9
The Constitutionalist Revolution starts in Brazil, with the uprising of the state of São Paulo.
Lausanne conference ends, agrees to cancel reparations against Germany.
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 – Altona Bloody Sunday: In Altona, Germany, armed communists attack a National Socialist demonstration; 18 are killed and many other political street fights follow.
July 20 – The Preußenschlag in Germany. The Papen government sends out the Reichswehr under General Gerd von Rundstedt to depose the elected SPD government in Prussia under Otto Braun. The coup gives Papen control of Prussia, the most powerful Land in Germany, and is a major blow to German democracy. July 21 – British Empire Economic Conference opens in Ottawa, Canada.
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 disperse the last of the Bonus Army the next day.
July 30
The 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. 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.
July 31 – Reichstag election sees the Nazis win 37% of the vote, becoming the largest party in the Reichstag.
August
August – A farmers' revolt begins in the Midwestern United States.
August 1 – The second International Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration, begins.
August 2 – The first positron is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
August 5 – Hitler meets with Schleicher and reneges on the "gentlemen's agreement", demanding that he be appointed Chancellor. Schleicher agrees to support Hitler as Chancellor provided that he can remain minister of defense. Schleicher sets up a meeting between Hindenburg and Hitler on for the 13 August to discuss Hitler's possible appointment as chancellor.
August 6 – The first Venice Film Festival is held.
August 6 – In Germany the first worldwide Autobahn opened by Konrad Adenauer: Bundesautobahn 555.
August 7 – Raymond Edward Welch becomes the first one legged man to scale the 6,288 ft. Mount Washington, NH.
August 9 –
The Papen government in Germany, which likes to take a tough "law and order" stance, passes via Article 48 a law proscribing the death penalty for a variety of offenses and with the court system simplified so that the courts can hand down as many death sentences as possible. The Potempa Murder case. In the German town of Potempa, five SA men break into the house of Konrad Pietrzuch, a Communist miner, and proceed to castrate and beat Pietrzuch to death in front of his mother. The Potempa case attracts much media attention in Germany.
August 10 – A 5.1 kg chondrite-type meteorite breaks fragments and strikes earth near the town of Archie, Missouri.
August 11 – To celebrate Constitution Day in Germany, Chancellor Franz von Papen and his interior minister Baron Wilhelm von Gayl-apparently without any sense of irony-present a set of proposed amendments to the Weimar constitution for a "New State", which would have gutted democracy and transform Germany into a dictatorship if implemented. Papen argues that to deal with the Great Depression requires the destruction of democracy as only a dictatorship is capable of solving Germany's problems.
August 13 – Hitler meets President von Hindenburg and asks him to appoint him Chancellor.Hindenburg refuses under the grounds that Hitler is not qualified to be Chancellor, and asks him instead to serve as Vice-Chancellor in Papen's government. Hitler in turn announces his "all or nothing" strategy in which he will oppose every government not headed by himself and will accept no office other than Chancellor.
August 18 – Auguste Piccard reaches an altitude of 16,197 m (53,140 ft) with a hot air balloon.
August 18–19 – Scottish aviator Jim Mollison becomes the first pilot to make an East-to-West solo transatlantic flight, from Portmarnock, Dublin, Ireland to Pennfield, New Brunswick, Canada, in his de Havilland Puss Moth biplane The Heart's Content. 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.
August 22 – The five SA men involved in the torture and murder of Konrad Pietrzuch are quickly convicted and sentenced to death under an emergency law introduced by the Papen government on 8 August.[19] The Potempa case becomes a cause célèbre in Germany with the Nazis demonstrating for amnesty for the "Potempa five" under the grounds they were justified in killing the Communist Pietrzuch; Hitler sends a telegram congratulating the "Potempa five" for the murder.Many Germans arguing that the "Potempa five" are patriotic heroes who should not be executed while others maintain the death sentences are appropriate given the brutality of the torture and murder.
August 23 – The Panama Civil Aviation Authority is established.
August 30 – Hermann Göring is elected as Speaker of the German Reichstag.
August 31 – A total solar eclipse is visible from northern Canada through northeastern Vermont, New Hampshire, southwestern Maine, and the Capes of Massachusetts.
September
September 1 – Germany walks out of the World Disarmament Conference under the grounds that the other powers are refusing to grant gleichberechtigung. 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 the "Potempa five" 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. September 9 – Generalitat of Catalonia is restored within the Second Spanish Republic from September 25 until the collapse of the Republic in 1939.
September 9 – Beginning of the Chaco War a conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia because of delimitation problems and others.
September 10 – The IND Eighth Avenue Line, at this time the world's longest subway line (31 miles (50 km)), begins operation in Manhattan. September 11 – Canadian operations end on the International Railway (New York–Ontario).
September 12 – The very unpopular Papen government 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.
September 20 – Mohandas K. Gandhi begins a hunger strike in Poona prison, India.
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 regimes denies the famine and allows millions to die.
September 23 – The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, concluding the country's unification under the rule of Ibn Saud.
September 27 – Ryutin Affair at its height in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Politburo meets and condemns the so-called "Ryutin Platform" and agrees to expel those associated with it from the Communist Party, but refuses Stalin's request to execute those associated with the "Ryutin Platform".
October
October 1 –
Babe Ruth makes his famous called shot in the fifth inning of game 3 of the 1932 World Series.
Gyula Gömbös becomes Prime Minister of Hungary, marking the first time a member of the radical right has become Hungary's head of government.
October 3 – Iraq becomes an independent kingdom under Faisal.
October 13– Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes lays the cornerstone for a new U.S. Supreme Court building.
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 – Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden marries Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
October 23 – Fred Allen's radio comedy show debuts on CBS.
October 25 21-year old Michael D'Oyly Carte, grandson of theatrical impresario and hotelier Richard D'Oyly Carte, is killed in a car crash in Switzerland.
November
The Cipher Bureau breaks the German Enigma cipher and overcomes the ever-growing structural and operating complexities of the evolving Enigma with plugboard, the main German cipher device during World War II.
November 1 – The San Francisco Opera House opens.
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 hurts the Nazis at the upcoming election with many right-wing voters switching back to the German National People's Party.
November 6 – The Reichstag election is held. The Nazis remain the largest party, but their share of the seats drops from 37% to 32%.
November 7 – Buck Rogers in the 25th Century debuts on American radio. It is the first science fiction program on radio.
November 8 – U.S. presidential election, 1932: Democratic Governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.
November 9
An unjustified shooting of a socialist demonstration by the Swiss army leaves 13 dead, 60 injured.
A hurricane and huge waves kill about 2,500 in Santa Cruz del Sur in the worst natural disaster in Cuban 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 – The 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, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
November 30 – The Polish Cipher Bureau breaks the German Enigma cipher.
December
December 1 – Germany returns to the World Disarmament Conference after the others powers agree to accept gleichberechtigung [clarification needed] "in principle". Henceforward, it is clear that Germany will be allowed to rearm beyond the limits imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.
December 3 – Hindenburg names Kurt von Schleicher as German chancellor after he ousts Papen. Papen is deeply angry about how his former friend Schleicher had brought him down, and decides that he will do anything to get back into power.
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. December 5 – At a secret meeting of the Nazi leaders, Strasser urges Hitler to drop his "all or nothing" strategy, and accept Schleicher's offer to have the Nazis serve in his cabinet. Hitler gives a dramatic speech saying that Schleicher's offer is not acceptable, and he will stick to his "all or nothing" strategy whatever the consequences might be and wins the Nazi leadership over to his viewpoint. December 8 – Gregor Strasser resigns as the chief of the NSDAP's organizational department in protest against Hitler's "all or nothing" strategy. December 12 – Japan and the Soviet Union reform their diplomatic connections.
December 19 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.
December 23 – A coal mine in Moweaqua, Illinois, kills 54.
December 24 – A methane gas explosion causes the Moweaqua Coal Mine Disaster which claims 54 lives.
December 25 – An earthquake in the Kansu Province in China kills 70,000.
December 27 –
Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.
Internal passports are introduced in the Soviet Union.
December 28 – The Cologne banker Kurt von Schröder-who is a close friend of Papen and a NSDAP member-meets with Adolf Hitler to tell him that Papen wants to set up a meeting to discuss how they can work together. Papen wants Nazi support to return to the Chancellorship while Hitler wants Papen to convince Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor. Hitler agrees to meet Papen on 3 January 1933.