- January 3 - British arrest and intern Mohandas Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel
- January 8 - In Britain the Archbishop of Canterbury forbids church remarriage of divorcees
- January 12 - Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate
- January 15 - Pierre Laval forms a new government in France
- January 15 - About 6 million unemployed in Germany
- January 26 - British submarine M-2 sinks with all 50 hands
- January 28 - Japan occupies Shanghai
- January 29 - Minority government of Karl Mureschi in Austria ends the governmental crisis
- January 31 - Japanese warships arrive in Nanking
- February 2 - General convention of disarmament begins in Geneva
- February 2 - League of Nations again recommends negotiations between the Republic of China and Japan
- February 4 - Japan occupies Harbin, China
- February 11 - Pope Pius XI meets Benito Mussolini in the Vatican City
- February 18 - Japan declares Manzhouguo (Japanese name for Manchuria) formally independent from China
- February 27 - Adolf Hitler gains the citizenship of Germany prior to elections
- February 27 - [[M�nts�l� Rebellion]] in Finland
- March 1 - Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, the baby son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh is kidnapped
- March 9 - Eamon de Valera is elected President of the Executive Council. It is the first change of government in the Irish Free State in 10 years.
- March 18 - Peace negotiations between China and Japan begin.
- March 19 - Sydney Harbour Bridge opens
- March 20 - Graf Zeppelin begins a regular route to South America
- April 6 - U.S. president Herbert Hoover supports armament limitations
- April 10 - Paul von Hindenburg elected president of Germany. Adolf Hitler receives over 13 million votes.
- April 17 - Haile Selassie announces an anti-slavery law in Abyssinia
- April 19 - German art dealer Otto Wacker is sentenced for 19 months for selling fraudulent paintings of Vincent van Gogh
- May 6 - Paul Gordulof assassinates French president Paul Doumer in Paris - Doumer dies the next day.
- May 10 - Albert Lebrun becomes the new president of France
- May 12 - Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few miles from the Lindbergh's home.
- May 13 - The Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, is dismissed by the State Governor, Sir Phillip Game
- May 15 - Japanese troops leave Shanghai; May 15 incident occurs.
- May 16 - Massive riots between hindus and muslims in Bombay - thousands dead and injured.
- May 18 - Assassination of Japanese prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai
- May 20-21 - Amelia Earhart flies from USA to Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes
- May 30 - German chancellor [[Heinrich Br�ning]] resigns. President Hindenburg takes Franz von Papen to form a new government.
- June - 15,000 World War I veterans march in Washington, DC
- June 4 - Military coup in Chile
- June 6 - The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States (1 cent per gallon sold).
- June 14 - Bans against SS and SA overturned in Germany
- June 20 - Benelux customs union negotiated
- June 24 - After a relatively bloodless military rebellion, Siam becomes a constitutional monarchy
- July 5 - [[Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar]] becomes the fascists prime minister of Portugal (for the next 36 years)
- July 7 - French submarine Sromethee sinks off Cherbourg - 66 dead
- July 17 - Bloody Sunday of Altona in Germany - armed communists attack a national socialist demonstration - 18 dead. Many other political street fights follow.
- July 28 - US President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, DC. US troops dispersed the last of the "Bonus Army" the next day.
- August 6 - First Venice Film Festival
- August 18 - Auguste Piccard reaches altitude of 16.500 meters with an air balloon
- August 30 - [[Hermann G�ring]] elected as a chairman of German senate
- August 31 - Total solar eclipse visible from northern Canada through NE Vermont, New Hampshire, SW Maine, and the Capes of Massachusetts
- September 9 - The Generalitat reinstaurated, Catalonia regains political autonomy inside the 2nd Spanish Republic from September 25
- September 20 - Mohandas Gandhi begins an hunger strike in Poona prison
- September 28 - According to Prussian statistics, 115 people have been killed in political riots during the year
- October 15 - Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight
- October 19 - Wedding of Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden and Princess Sibylla of Sachse-Coburg
- November 1 - San Francisco Opera House opened
- November 7 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century airs on radio for the first time.
- November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.
- November 9 - Riots between conservative and socialist supporters in Switzerland - 12 dead, 60 injured
- November 11 - Tornado and huge waves kills about thousand in Santa Crus del Sure in Cuba
- November 19 - Second wife of Josef Stalin is found dead in her home
- November 21 - German president Hindenburg begins negotiations with Adolf Hitler about the formation of a new government
- November 24 - In Washington, DC, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
- December 3 - Hindenburg names Kurt von Schleicher as a German chancellor
- December 12 - Japan and Soviet Union reform their diplomatic connections
- December 25 - Earthquake in Kansu province in China - 70,000 dead
- Saudi Arabia declared as a unified nation with Ibn Saud as a king
- Female suffrage in Brazil
- Norway annexes northern Greenland
- Chaco war between Bolivia and Paraguay
- In the next five years, Dr Morris Bolber and associates successfully murder and collect the insurance money for more than 30 victims
- Mars candy bar
- Zippo lighters
- The Kennedy-Thorndike experiment shows that measured time as well as length are affected by motion, in accordance with the theory of special relativity.
- Chadwick discovers the neutron.
- Geneticist J. B. S. Haldane publishes The Causes of Evolution and thereby unifies the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.
- Second Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration.
- January 3 - Dabney Coleman, actor
- January 4 - Carlos Saura, director
- January 5 - Umberto Eco, Italian semiotic scholar and author
- January 5 - Raisa Gorbachev, Soviet political consort, (d. 1999)
- January 16 - Dian Fossey, zoologist (d. 1985)
- January 18 - Robert Anton Wilson, US author
- January 22 - Piper Laurie, actress
- January 26 - Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, Jamaican record producer
- January 30 - Knock Yokoyama, Japanese comedian and politician
- February 3 - Peggy Ann Garner, actress (d. 1984)
- February 6 - Fran�ois Truffaut, French film director (d. 1984)
- February 7 - Gay Talese, author
- February 8 - John Williams, composer, conductor
- February 9 - Gerhard Richter, painter and graphic artist
- February 11 - Jerome Lowenthal, pianist/professor
- February 12 - Julian Simon, economist, author
- February 14 - Alexander Kluge, author and film director
- February 18 - Milos Forman, film director
- February 22 - Edward Kennedy, US politician and brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy
- February 23 - Majel Barrett, actress (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
- February 24 - Michel Legrand, composer
- February 25 - Faron Young country music singer (d. 1996)
- February 26 - Johnny Cash, US country music singer
- February 27 - Elizabeth Taylor, US actress
- March 4 - Miriam Makeba, singer
- March 12 - Andrew Young, civil rights activist, politician, ambassador to the United Nations
- March 18 - John Updike, US author
- April 1 - Gordon Jump, actor, "Maytag Repairman" (d. 2003)
- April 1 - Debbie Reynolds, actress
- April 4 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director (d. 1986)
- April 4 - Anthony Perkins, US actor (d. 1992)
- April 12 - Tiny Tim, musician (d. 1996)
- April 23 - Halston, fashion designer (d. 1990)
- April 27 - Casey Kasem, American disc jockey
- April 27 - Gian-Carlo Rota, Italian-born American mathematician and philosopher
- May 8 - Phyllida Law, actress
- May 8 - Sonny Liston, boxer (d. 1970)
- May 21 - Gabriele Wohmann, author
- June 4 - Maurice Shadbolt, New Zealand writer (d. 2004)
- June 12 - Rona Jaffe, novelist
- June 25 - Peter Blake, artist
- June 28 - Pat Morita, actor
- July 2 - Dave Thomas - founder of Wendy's restaurant chain (d. 2002)
- July 9 - Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defence (2001-present)
- July 12 - Otis Davis, American runner
- July 29 - Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker, US Senator (1978-1996)
- August 2 - Peter O'Toole, Irish film and stage actor
- August 2 - Lamar Hunt, American sportsman
- August 6 - Howard Hodgkin, painter and print-maker
- August 11 - Fernando Arrabal, writer
- August 17 - V. S. Naipaul, writer
- August 18 - William R. Bennett, Premier of British Columbia
- September 18 - Nikolai Rukavishnikov, Soviet cosmonaut
- September 26 - Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India
- September 27 - Oliver E. Williamson , US economist
- October 19 - Robert Reed, actor (The Brady Bunch) (d. 1992)
- October 20 - Rosey Brown, Pro Football Hall of Famer (d. 2004)
- October 26 - Eidegenegen Eidagaruwo, first Angam Baby
- October 28 - Suzy Parker, actress
- November 3 - Albert Reynolds, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland
- November 29 - Jacques Chirac, president of France
- December 9 - Bill Hartack, jockey
- December 28 - Roy Hattersley, British politician
- December 28 - Dorsey Burnette, Rockabilly pioneer (d. 1979)
- Blaze Starr, American stripper and burlesque performer
- Baginda Almutawakkil Alallah Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail, later Sultan of Johor and 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- Irene Jai Narayan, Fijian politician.
- Mehmood, Indian actor
- January 21 - Giles Lytton Strachey British writer and biographer (b. 1880)
- January 24 - Sir Alfred Yarrow, shipbuilder, philanthropist
- February 10 - Edgar Wallace, novelist, screenwriter for King Kong
- March 6 - John Philip Sousa, US band leader, conductor, composer
- March 1 - Frank Teschemacher, jazz clarinetist and alto-saxophonist
- March 7 - Aristide Briand, diplomat, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1928)
- March 14 - George Eastman, camera inventor
- March 31 - Eben Byers, steel tycoon and Pittsburgh socialite, from radiation poisoning due to the ingestion of the radium-laced nostrum Radithor over three years. His gruesome death made front-page news and led to the eventual regulation of radium and empowerment of the FDA.
- April 3 - Wilhelm Ostwald, chemist
- April 20 - Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician
- April 26 - Hart Crane, American poet (b. 1899)
- May 3 - Charles Fort, US researcher of the unusual
- May 7 - Paul Doumer, French president (assassinated)
- May 15 - Tsuyoshi Inukai, Japanese prime minister (assassinated)
- July 6 - Kenneth Grahame, author, The Wind in the Willows
- September 23 - [[Jules Ch�ret]], master poster designer
- November 9 - Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin, second wife of Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin
- Physics - Werner Karl Heisenberg
- Chemistry - Irving Langmuir
- Medicine - Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, Edgar Douglas Adrian
- Literature -John Galsworthy
- Peace - Not awarded.af:1932
ast:1932 bg:1932 ca:1932 cs:1932 cy:1932 da:1932 de:1932 et:1932 el:1932 es:1932 eo:1932 eu:1932 fr:1932 fy:1932 ko:1932년 hr:1932 is:1932 it:1932 he:1932 la:1932 lb:1932 nl:1932 ja:1932年 no:1932 pl:1932 pt:1932 ro:1932 ru:1932 sl:1932 sr:1932 fi:1932 sv:1932 tr:1932 uk:1932 wa:1932 zh:1932年