General Historical Events
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The Depression
*Congress authorized the Reconstruction Finance Corporation on January 22 to help finance industry and agriculture in accordance with President Hoover's request.
*A tariff war between Britain and Ireland began in July. The loss of the country's chief export market brought a collapse of its cattle industry and worsened its economic depression.
*Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted to 41.22 by July 7, down from its high of 381.17 on September 3. 1929. This would be the low point of the Dow.
*The Emergency Relief and Reconstruction Act passed by Congress on July 21 gave the Reconstruction Finance Corporation power to lend $1.8 billion to the states for relief and self-liquidating public works projects.
*A Home Loan Act passed by Congress on July 22 established 12 federal home loan banks that would lend money to mortgage loan institutions. The measure was designed to rescue the banks that were being forced to close.
*Under the Home Loan Act, the controller of the currency ordered a moratorium on first mortgage foreclosures on August 26.
*Britain abandoned free trade for the first time since 1849. Britain imposed a ten percent tariff on most important goods but agreed at the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa to exempt Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other Commonwealth nations, which in turn would provide markets for Britain's otherwise uncompetitive textiles, steel, motorcars, and telecommunications equipment, discouraging innovation in many industries.
*Germany had 5.6 million unemployed, Britain 2.6 million.
*The average weekly United States wage fell to $17, down from $28 in 1929. "Breadlines" formed in many cities.
*Some 1,616 United States banks failed, nearly 20,000 business firms went bankrupt, there were 21,000 suicides and expenditures for food and tobacco fell $10 billion below 1929 levels.
*United States industrial production dropped to one-third its 1929 total, and the United States Gross National Product (GNP) sank to $41 billion, just over half its 1929 level.
*Prominent United States intellectuals endorsed communism saying that only the Communist Party had proposed a real solution to the nation's problems. Endorsers included Sherwood Anderson, Erskine Caldwell, John Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, Granville Hicks, Sidney Hook, Matthew Josephson, and Lincoln Steffens.
*Chicago utilities magnate Samuel Insull (age 73) ran into financial difficulties. Three of his largest companies went into receivership. Once Thomas Edison's private secretary, Insull was indicted on charges related to his activities as president of Chicago Edison, Commonwealth Edison, and People's Gas Light and Coke, and other companies, but he would avoid arrest for two years and he was acquitted after trials in 1934 and 1935.
*The American Federation of Labor reversed its long-standing position against unemployment insurance and urged that work be spread through a 30 hour week with some "economic planning" in the federal government.
*United States unemployment reached between 15 and 17 million. 34 million Americans had no income of any kind, and Americans who did work averaged little more than $16 per week.
January
*Latin America's first Communist revolt in January, followed the military overthrow of El Salvador's President Arturo Araujo, who was freely elected last year on a platform to reform the nation's feudal system. He had upset oligarchs and the army that had so long dominated El Salvador. His vice president, General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, suppressed the rebellion, leaving 10,000 to 30,000 dead in what critics called the matanzas, -- the butchery.
January 1
*The United States Post Office Department issued a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.
January 3
*The British arrested and interned Mohandas Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel.
January 7
*The Stimson Doctrine was proclaimed, in response to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
*United States Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson announced that the United States could not admit the legality nor did it intend to recognize the legitimacy of any arrangement with Japan which impaired Chinese sovereignty and threatened the Open Door Policy. However, the Stimson Doctrine had no practical effect.
January 8
*In Great Britain, the Archbishop of Canterbury forbade Anglican church remarriage of divorced persons.
January 9
*In what is known as the Sakuradamon Incident, Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang failed in his effort to assassinate Hirohito Emperor of Japan. The Kuomintang's official newspaper ran an editorial expressing regret that the attempt failed, which was used by the Japanese as a pretext to attack Shanghai later in the month.
January 12
*Hattie W. Caraway, of Arkansas, became the first woman elected to a full term in the United States Senate.
January 14
*Maurice Ravel's Concerto in G debuted with piano soloist Marguerite Long and Ravel conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra.
January 15
*About 6 million were reported unemployed in Germany.
January 22
*The 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising began. It was suppressed by the government of Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez.
January 24
*Marshal Pietro Badoglio declared the end of Libyan resistance.
January 26
*The British submarine M2 sank with all 60 hands aboard.
January 28
*Conflict arose between Japan and China in the Battle of Shanghai.
January 29
*The minority government of Karl Buresch in Austria ended the governmental crisis.
*In retaliation to the continued Chinese boycott of Japanese goods, the Japanese landed troops from warships in Shanghai and killed thousands in the first terror bombing of civilians. Aware of the effect on world opinion, the Japanese made it clear that any attempt by the United States to interfere with Japan's "destiny" would precipitate war.
January 31
*Japanese warships arrived in Nanking.
February 1
*Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley, was first published.
February 2
*A general World Disarmament Conference began in Geneva. The principal issue at the conference was 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 recommended negotiations between the Republic of China and Japan.
*The Reconstruction Finance Corporation began operations in Washington, D.C.
February 4
*The 1932 Winter Olympics opened in Lake Placid, New York.
*Japan occupied Harbin, China.
February 9
*Junnosuke Inoue, a prominent Japanese businessman, banker and former governor of the Bank of Japan was assassinated by the right-wing extremist group the League of Blood in the League of Blood Incident.
February 11
Pope Pius XI met with Benito Mussolini in Vatican City.
February 15
Clara, Lu & Em, generally regarded as the first daytime network soap opera, debuted in its morning time slot over the Blue Network of NBC Radio, having originally been a late evening program.
February 18
Japan declared Manchukuo (the Japanese name for Manchuria) officially independent from China.
February 22
The first Purple Heart was awarded.
February 24
Women's suffrage was granted in Brazil.
February 25
Adolf Hitler obtained German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 election for Reichprasident.
February 27
The Mantsala rebellion occurred in Finland.
March
Eamon de Valera was elected president of Ireland and suspended Irish land annuity payments.
March 1
*Charles Lindbergh's infant son was kidnapped and murdered, claiming the world's headlines.
Charles Lindbergh, Jr., the infant son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the family home near Hopewell, New Jersey.
*Japan proclaimed Manchuria an independent state and installed Puyi as puppet emperor.
March 2
*The Mantsala rebellion ended in failure. Finnish democracy prevailed. The Lapua Movement was condemned by conservative Finnish President Pehr Evind Svinhufvud in a radio speech.
March 5
*Dan Takuma, a prominent Japanese businessman and director of the Mitsui Zaibatsu conglomerate, was assassinated by the radical right-wing League of Blood group.
March 7
*Four people were killed when police fired upon 3,000 unemployed autoworkers marching outside the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
*In Dearborn, Michigan, police fired into a crowd of 3,000 men, women and children demonstrating outside the Ford Motor Company plant. Four were killed, 100 wounded, and the wounded were handcuffed to their hospital beds on charges of rioting.
March 9
*Eamon de Valera was elected President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. It was the first change of government in the Irish Free State since its foundation 10 years previously.
March 18
*Peace negotiations between China and Japan began.
March 19
*In Australia, the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened.
March 20
*The Graf Zeppelin began a regular route to South America.
March 21
*A series of deadly tornadoes in the south killed more than 220 people in Alabama, 34 in Georgia and 17 in Tennessee during a two-day period.
March 23
*The Norris-La Guardia Act passed by Congress prohibited the use of injunctions in labor disputes except under defined conditions and outlaws "yellow-dog contracts" that made workers promise not to join any labor union. Sponsored by George William North (R., Nebraska) and Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (R., New York).
March 25
*Tarzan the Ape Man opened with Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in the title role. (Weismuller would go on to star in a total of twelve Tarzan films.)
April
April 5
*10,000 disgruntled Newfoundlanders marched on their legislature to show discontent with their political situation. This was a flash point in the demise of the Dominion of Newfoundland.
*Kreuger & Toll, the company of the "Match King" Ivar Kreuger, collapsed.
*The first Alko stores were opened in Finland at 10 in the morning (local time) following the end of Prohibition in that country, resulting in a new mnemonic "543210" (5 April 1932 10:00am).
April 6
*United States President Herbert Hoover supported armament limitations at the World Disarmament Conference.
*The trial against the fraudulent art dealer Otto Wacker began in Berlin.
April 11
*Paul von Hindenburg was re-elected president of Germany.
April 13
*The German Chancellor Heinrich Bruning banned the SA (Sturmabteilung -- "Storm Detachment" -- the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party) and the SS (Schutzstaffel -- "Protection Squadron" -- the subsequent paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party) as threats to public order, arguing that they were chiefly responsible for the wave of political violence afflicting Germany.
April 14
*John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton focused a proton beam on lithium and split its nucleus.
April 17
*Haile Selassie announced an anti-slavery law in Abyssinia.
April 19
*German art dealer Otto Wacker was sentenced to 19 months in prison for selling fraudulent paintings he attributed to Vincent van Gogh.
April 25
*Two of the companions of Islamic prophet Muhammad were 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 were Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman and Jabir ibn Abd Allah.
April 29
*Korean pro-independence paramilitary Yun Bong-gil detonated a bomb at a gathering of Japanese government and mililtary officials in Shanghai's Hongkou Park, killing General Yoshinori Shirakawa and injuring Mamoru Shigemitsu and Vice Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura.
May
May 2
*Comedian Jack Benny's radio show aired for the first time.
May 6
*Paul Gorguloff shot French president Paul Doumer in Paris; Doumer dies the next day.
*Paul Doumer, the French President, was assassinated by a Russian emigre. Doumer was succeeded by Albert Lebrun. May elections gave leftist parties a majority. Edouard Heriot began a second ministry but resigned in December over refusal by the Chamber to support his government's proposal to pay installments on France's war debt to the United States.
*The politically powerful General Kurt von Schleicher met secretly with Adolf Hitler. General Schleicher told Hitler that he was scheming to bring down the Brüning government and asked 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 would support Schleicher's new chancellor.
May 10
*Albert Lebrun became the new president of France.
*Violent scenes erupted in the Reichstag as Hermann Goring and other Nazi MRDs attacked the Defense Minister General Wilhelm Groener for his lack of belief in a supposed Social Democratic putsch. After the debate, General Schleicher informed Groener that he had lost the confidence of the Army and must resign at once.
May 12
*Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh was found dead just a few miles from the Lindbergh home.
*General Wilhelm Groener resigned as Defense Minister of Germany. Schleicher took control of the Defense Ministry.
May 13
*The Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, was dismissed by the State Governor, Philip Game.
May 15
*Japanese troops departed from Shanghai. Back in Japan, the May 15 Incident occurred as an attempted military coup transpired. The Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai was assassinated by naval officers.
*The Japanese Prime Minister Ki Tsuyoshi Inukai was assassinated, effectively bringing party government in Japan to an end. Inukai was succeeded by the Governor General of (Chosen) Korea, the 73 year old Makoto Saito.
May 16
*Massive riots between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay (Mumbai) left thousands dead and injured.
May 20-May 21
*Amelia Earhart flew from the United States to County Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.
May 20
*Federacion Obrera de la Industria de la Carne Initiated a major strike in the Argentinian meat-packing industry.
May 26
*Judgment in Donoghue v. Stevenson was handed down in the House of Lords, creating the neighbor principle in English law.
May 29
*The first of approximately 15,000 World War I veterans arrived in Washington, D. C. demanding the immediate payment of their military bonus, becoming known as the Bonus Army.
*"Bonus Marchers" descended on Washington as some 25,000 poverty-stricken World War veterans demonstrated to obtain "bonuses" authorized by the Adjustment Compensation Act of 1924 but not due until 1945. Hoping to get roughly $500 each, the veterans camped out with wives and children in the city's parks, dumps, empty stores, and warehouses.
May 30
*German chancellor Heinrich Bruning was dismissed by President von Hindenburg. President Hindenburg asked Franz von Papen to form a new government, known as the "Government of the President's Friends", which was openly dedicated to the destruction of democracy and the Weimar Republic. The downfall of Brüning was largely the work of Schleicher, who had been scheming against him since the beginning of May. Schleicher took the position of Defense Minister in his friend Papen's government.
May 31
*President Hindenburg of Germany invited Franz von Papen to form a government. Papen does so but excluded Nazis.
June
*The Chaco War began between Bolivia and Paraguay.
June 4
*A military coup occurred in Chile.
*The Papen government dissolved the Reichstag for elections on July 31, 1932 in the full expectation that the Nazis would win the largest number of seats.
June 6
*The Revenue Act of 1932 was 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 lifted the ban against the SS and SA in Germany.
June 16
*The Lausanne conference opened to discuss reparations, which Germany had not paying since the Hoover Moratorium of June 1931.
June 20
*The Benelux customs union was negotiated.
June 24
After a relatively bloodless military rebellion, Siam (Thailand) became a constitutional monarchy.
*Absolute government in Siam (Thailand) was ended as radicals captured Rama VII and held him prisoner until he agreed to reforms and the creation of a senate.
June 29
*The comedy serial Vic and Sade debuted on NBC Radio.
July
*A tariff war between Britain and Ireland began. The loss of the country's chief export market brought a collapse of its cattle industry and worsened its economic depression.
July 5
*Antonio de Oliveira Salazar became the fascist prime minister of Portugal. Salazar would remain as Portugal's prime minister for the next 36 years.
July 7
*The French submarine Promethee sank off Cherbourg. 66 were killed.
*Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted to 41.22, down from its high of 381.17 on September 3. 1929. This would be the low point of the Dow.
July 8
*The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22.
July 9
*The Constitutionalist Revolution began in Brazil, with the uprising of the state of Sao Paulo.
*The Lausanne conference ended in agreement to cancel reparations against Germany.
July 12
*Norway annexed northern Greenland.
*Hedley Verity established 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
*In what became known as Altona Blood Sunday, in Altona, Germany, armed communists attacked a National Socialist demonstration. 18 were killed and many other political street fights followed.
July 20
*In what is known as , the Preubenschlag in Germany, the Papen government dispatched the Reichswehr under General Gerd von Rundstedt to depose the elected SPD government in Prussia under Otto Braun. The coup gave Papen control of Prussia, the most powerful Land in Germany, and was a major blow to German democracy.
July 21
*The British Empire Economic Conference opened in Ottawa, Canada.
July 28
*United States President Herbert Hoover ordered the United States Army to forcibly evict the Bonus Army of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C. Troops dispersed the last of the Bonus Army the next day.
*Army tanks, gas grenades, cavalry, and infantry armed with machine guns and bayonetted rifles dispersed the "Bonus Marchers" demonstrators from their main camp on Anacostia Flats and elsewhere in an operation commanded by United States Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur (age 52), Major Dwight David Eisenhower (age 41), Major George Smith Patton, Jr. (age 45), and other officers. The violence produced 100 casualties, but President Hoover maintained that the Bonus Marchers were "communists and persons with criminal records" rather than veterans.
July 30
*The 1932 Summer Olympics opened in Los Angeles.
*Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first animated cartoon to be presented in full Technicolor, premiered in Los Angeles. It was released in theaters, along with the film version of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude (starring Norma Shearer and Clark Gable). Flowers and Trees would 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.
*A general election in Germany made the Nazi party the biggest party in the Reichstag, but still without an overall majority.
August
*A farmers' revolt began in the Midwestern United States.
August 1
*The second International Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration, began.
*Forrest Mars produced the first Mars bar in his Slough factory in England.
August 2
*The first positron was discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
August 5
*Hitler met with Schleicher and reneged on the "gentlemen's agreement", demanding that he (Hitler) be appointed Chancellor. Schleicher agreed to support Hitler as Chancellor provided that he (Schleicher) could remain minister of defense. Schleicher set up a meeting between Hindenburg and Hitler on for the August 13 to discuss Hitler's possible appointment as chancellor.
August 6
*The first Venice Film Festival was held.
*In Germany, the first worldwide Autobahn (Bundesautobahn 555) opened by Konrad Adenauer.
*Carl Gustaf Ekman resigned as Prime Minister of Sweden, and was replaced by his Minister of Finance Felix Hamrin.
August 7
*Raymond Edward Welch became the first one legged man to scale the 6,288 foot tall Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
August 9
*The Papen government in Germany, which liked to take a tough "law and order" stance, passed, via Article 48, a law proscribing the death penalty for a variety of offenses and with the court system simplified so that the courts could hand down as many death sentences as possible.
*In what became known as the Potempa Murder case, in the German town of Potempa, five Nazi "Brownshirts" broke into the house of Konrad Pietrzuch, a Communist miner, and proceeded to castrate and beat him to death in front of his mother. The case attracted much media attention in Germany. The murderers were released from jail after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.
August 10
*A 5.1 kg condrite-type meteorite broke into fragments and struck 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 presented proposed amendments to the Weimar constitution for a "New State" to deal with the problems besetting Germany.
August 13
*Hitler announced that he would not serve as Vice Chancellor under Franz von Papen.
*Hitler met President von Hindenburg and asked to be appointed as Chancellor. Hindenburg refused on the grounds that Hitler was not qualified to be Chancellor and asked him (Hitler) instead to serve as Vice-Chancellor in Papen's government. Hitler announced his "all or nothing" strategy in which he would oppose any government not headed by himself and would accept no office other than Chancellor.
August 18
*Auguste Piccard reached an altitude of 16,197 m (53,140 ft) with a hot air balloon.
August 18-19
*Scottish aviator Jim Mollison became 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 ended 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 August 8. The Potempa case became a cause celebre in Germany with the Nazis demonstrating for amnesty for the "Potempa five" on the grounds they were justified in killing the Communist Pietrzuch. Hitler sent a telegram congratulating the "Potempa five". Many Germans argued that the "Potempa five" were patriotic heroes who should not be executed while others maintained the death sentences were appropriate given the brutality of the torture and murder.
August 23
*The Panama Civil Aviation Authority was established.
August 30
*Hermann Goring was elected as Speaker of the German Reichstag.
*Another leading Nazi, Herman Goering, was elected President of the Reichstag, making Franz von Papen's position untenable.
August 31
*A total solar eclipse was visible from northern Canada through northeastern Vermont, New Hampshire, southwestern Maine and the Capes of Massachusetts.
September
September 1
*Germany walked out of the World Disarmament Conference under the grounds that the other powers are refusing to grant gleichberechtigung ("equality of status" i.e. abolishing Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, which had disarmed Germany).
*New York City's playboy mayor James John "Jimmy" Walker, age 51, resigned during an investigation of corruption by a state legislative commission headed by Judge Samuel Seabury.
September 2
*Despite the court's sentence of death against the "Potempa five", Chancellor von Papen in his capacity as Reich Commissioner of Prussia refused to have the "Potempa five" executed on the grounds that they were not aware of the emergency law at the time they committed the murder, but in reality because he was still hoping for Nazi support for his government.
September 9
*The Generalitat of Catalonia was restored within the Second Spanish Republic from September 25 until the collapse of the Republic in 1939.
*The Chaco War, a conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia because of delimitation problems and others, began.
September 10
*The IND Eighth Avenue Line, at the time the world's longest subway line (31 miles [50 kilometers]) began operation in Manhattan.
September 11
*Canadian operations ended on the International Railway (New York - Ontario).
September 12
*The very unpopular Papen government was 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 had Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag for new elections in November.
September 20
* Mohandas K. Gandhi began a hunger strike in Poona prison, India.
September 22
*The Soviet famine of 1932-33 began, 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 was proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, concluding the country's unification under the rule of Ibn Saud.
September 24
*After his party`s victory in the election to the Swedish Riksdag`s second chamber, Social Democrat Per Albin Hansson became the new Prime Minister of Sweden, after Felix Hamrin.
*In Sweden, a socialist government came to power with Per Albin Hansson as prime minister. Hansson would continue as prime minister until his death in 1946, and the Social Democratic party would retain power until 1970.
September 27
*The Ryutin Affair reached its height in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Politburo met and condemned the so-called "Ryutin Platform" and agreed to expel those associated with it from the Communist Party. However, the Politburo refused Stalin's request to execute those associated with the "Ryutin Platform".
October
October 1
*Babe Ruth made his famous called shot home run in the fifth inning of game 3 of the 1932 World Series.
*Gyula Gombos became Prime Minister of Hungary, the first time a member of the radical right had become Hungary's head of government.
October 3
*Iraq became an independent kingdom under Faisal.
October 13
*Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes laid the cornerstone for a new United States Supreme Court building.
October 15
*Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) made its first flight.
*The Michigan Marching Band (at this time called the Varsity band) debuted Script Ohio at the Michigan versus Ohio State game in Columbus.
October 19
*Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden married Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
October 23
*Fred Allen's radio comedy show debuted on CBS in the United States.
October 25
*Twenty-one year old Michael D'Oyly Carte, grandson of theatrical impresario and hotelier Richard D'Oyly Carte, was killed in a car crash in Switzerland.
November
November 1
*The San Francisco Opera House opened.
November 3
*There was a strike by transport workers in Berlin. The Nazis and the Communists both co-operated in support of the strike. The Nazi-Communist co-operation hurt 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 was held. The Nazis remained the largest party, but their share of the seats dropped from 37% to 32%.
November 7
*Buck Rogers in the 25th Century debuted on American radio. It was the first science fiction program on radio.
November 8
*In the United States presidential election, the Democratic Governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.
November 9
*A hurricane and huge waves killed about 2,500 in Santa Cruz del Sur in the worst natural disaster in Cuban history.
*In what is known as the Geneva Massacre, the military in Switzerland fired on a socialist anti-fascist demonstration in Geneva leaving 13 dead and 60 injured.
November 16
*New York City's Palace Theatre was fully converted to a cinema, which was considered the final death knell of vaudeville as a popular entertainment in the United States.
November 17
*Franz von Papen resigned as Prime Minister of Germany.
November 19
*The second wife of Joseph Stalin was found dead in her home.
November 21
*German president Hindenburg began 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 opened.
November 30
*The Polish Cipher Bureau broke the German Enigma cipher.
December
December 1
*Germany returned to the World Disarmament Conference after the other powers agreed to accept gleichberechtigung "in principle". Henceforward, it would be clear that Germany would be allowed to rearm beyond the limits imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.
December 3
*Hindenburg named Kurt von Schleicher as German chancellor after he ousted Papen. Papen was deeply angry about how his former friend Schleicher had brought him down and decided that he would do anything to get back into power.
December 4
*Chancellor Schleicher met with Gregor Strasser and offered to appoint him Vice-Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for Prussia out of the hope that if faced with a split in the NSDAP, Hitler would support his government.
December 5
*At a secret meeting of the Nazi leaders, Strasser urged Hitler to drop his "all or nothing" strategy and accept Schleicher's offer to have the Nazis serve in his cabinet. Hitler gave a dramatic speech saying that Schleicher's offer was not acceptable and that he would stick to his "all or nothing" strategy whatever the consequences might be and that he would win the Nazi leadership over to his viewpoint.
December 8
*Gregor Strasser resigned 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 reformed their diplomatic connections.
December 19
*BBC World Service began broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.
December 24
*A methane gas explosion caused the Moweaqua Coal Mine Disaster in a coal mine in Moweaqua, Illinois and claimed 54 lives.
December 25
*An earthquake in the Kansu Province in China killed 70,000. IG Farben filed a patent application in Germany for the medical application of the first sulfonamide oral antibiotic which would be marketed as Prontosil, following Gerhard Domagk's laboratory demonstration of its properties as an antibiotic.
December 27
*Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City.
*Internal passports were introduced in the Soviet Union.
December 28
*The Cologne banker Kurt von Schroder -- who was a close friend of Papen and a NSDAP member -- met with Adolf Hitler to tell him that Papen wanted to set up a meeting to discuss how they could work together. Papen wanted Nazi support to return to the Chancellorship while Hitler wanted Papen to convince Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor. Hitler agreed to meet Papen on January 3, 1933.
Date unknown
*Dust storms began in Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas marking the beginning of the Dust Bowl in the United States.
*Zippo lighters were developed.
*Zero-length springs were invented, revolutionizing seismometers and gravimeters.
*The Kennedy-Thorndike experiment showed that measured time as well as length are affected by motion, in accordance with Einstein's theory of special relativity.
*James Chadwick discovered the neutron.
*Geneticist J. B. S. Haldane published The Causes of Evoluion, unifying the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.
*The heath hen became extinct in North America.
*Walter B. Pitkin published Life Begins at Forty in the United States.
*The Republican Citizens Committee Against National Prohibition was established to work for the repeal of Prohibition in the United States.
*The Yezd Fire temple (Atash Behram) became established in Yazd, Iran.
*The Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc. (ARE) was founded in Virginia Beach, Virginia, as an open-membership group to research the collected transcripts of Edgar Cayce's continuing trances, stored at the Edgar Cayce Foundation.
*"The Noah of Washington Mud Flats" predicted a Deluge in 1936, building an Ark and demon-proof armor.
*Unemployment in the United States reached approximately 33% with 14 million being unemployed. A similar level of unemployment affected Germany. Many people in depressed countries did not receive unemployment benefits due to governments not being able to afford benefit payments.
*Franklin Delano Roosevelt was selected president on a campaign promising a "New Deal" for Americans stricken by the Depression.
*The son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped, resulting in a sensational manhunt and trial.
*****
*"I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people," declared New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt as he accepted the Democratic party nomination for president at Chicago. Roosevelt went on to win election by a landslide, gaining 472 electoral votes and 57 percent of the popular vote versus 59 electoral votes and 40 percent of the popular vote for President Hoover, who carried only six states as economic depression worsened.
*Prospectors struck oil in Bahrain.
*In India, Mahatma Gandhi began a 'fast unto death' to press the British authorities into improving their treatment of untouchables whom Gandhi calls harijan -- "God's children". Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience brought rioting and landed Gandhi in prison. Nevertheless, Gandhi persisted in his demands for social reform and he urged a new boycott of British goods. He succeeded in obtaining a pact improving the status of the "untouchables" after six days of fasting.
*In Britain, 36 year old Oswald Mosley left the Labour Party because of its defeatist attitude towards unemployment and founded his own party, the British Union of Fascists. Mosley would become an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and would demand the expulsion of Jews from Britain.
*The Chinese continued to boycott Japanese goods.
*Josef Stalin cracked down on kulaks in Ukraine and the Caucasus who resisted collectivization. He dispatched troops to requisition all foodstuffs and prevented trains carrying food from reaching the areas.
*The atom was "manually" split for the first time. English physicist John Douglas Cockroft (age 35) and his associate Ernest Walton used a voltage multiplier they developed in the 1920s to accelerate charged subatomic particles to extremely high velocities. They used this "atomic gun" to bombard lithium with protons, and the alpha particles (helium nuclei) they produced showed that the protons reacted with the lithium nuclei to produce helium.
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