1932
Roosevelt wins presidency
With a quarter of Americans out of work and banks closing every day, voters gave Franklin Delano Roosevelt the biggest electoral margin in a generation. Polio had put him in a wheelchair he hid from cameras. In a hundred days he would remake the relationship between the American government and its citizens for a century.
Chadwick discovers the neutron
In Cambridge, James Chadwick proved that the atomic nucleus contained a neutral particle alongside the proton, completing the picture of the atom's core. It sounded like academic housekeeping. In fact it handed physicists the key to splitting the atom, since neutrons could penetrate nuclei without being repelled, and within thirteen years a version of that same discovery would obliterate two Japanese cities.
Soviet famine kills millions in Ukraine
Stalin's collectivization drive and grain requisitions cut Ukrainian villages off from their own harvests. Peasants hid grain in holes; NKVD teams dug it out. By the following spring, cannibalism was reported in some districts. Perhaps four million died in the Holodomor, a famine caused by policy, denied for sixty years.
Nazis become largest Reichstag party
In a German federal election the Nazi Party won thirty-seven percent of the vote and two hundred thirty seats, becoming the largest party in the Reichstag. They did not quite have a majority, but the Weimar Republic's ability to form a stable government without them was now gone. The democratic republic had six months to live.
Bonus Army routed from Washington
Thousands of unemployed World War I veterans camped in Washington to demand early payment of a promised war bonus. Hoover ordered the army to clear them. General MacArthur burned the shacks with tanks and tear gas; babies in the camp died. Americans, watching on newsreels, were appalled. Hoover lost his reelection bid three months later.
Lindbergh baby kidnapped
The twenty-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was taken from his New Jersey nursery one night. Despite ransom paid, the baby was found dead weeks later. The crime gripped America for years and led to the federal kidnapping statute. It became, as H. L. Mencken put it, the biggest story since the Resurrection.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1932?
Saeculum lists 6 curated events from 1932. The most significant is Roosevelt wins presidency: With a quarter of Americans out of work and banks closing every day, voters gave Franklin Delano Roosevelt the biggest electoral margin in a generation.
What era was 1932 part of?
1932 falls within the Modern Era (1901-2000). World wars, cold war, and the splitting of the atom.
Which regions saw notable events in 1932?
The curated events from 1932 span North America and Europe.