January 1932

January 1, 1932 (Friday)

• The #1 ranked USC Trojans faced the unbeaten and untied, but #2 ranked in the Dikenson Ratings, Tulane Green Wave, defeating them 21 to 12 in the Rose Bowl to win the unofficial college football championship of 1931.
• The Mahatma Gandhi issued a statement notifying Indians to be ready to resume the civil disobedience campaign.
• Born: Tzaims Luksus, American artist and fashion designer; as James Henry Luskus, in Chicago
• Died: C. P. Scott, 85, British journalist, publisher and politician.

  January 2, 1932 (Saturday)

• The collision of two trains killed 68 people and injured 131 on the Kazan line near Moscow. The Soviet government initially suppressed news of the disaster.
• The shootout known as the Young Brothers massacre occurred outside Brookline, Missouri. The criminal family of Paul, Harry and Jennings Young gunned down six law enforcement officials who had gone to the family farm to arrest them for trying to sell a stolen car. From the police department of Springfield, Missouri, chief of detectives Tony Oliver, detective Albert Meadows and officer Charles Houser were killed, along with Greene County Sheriff Marcell C. Hendrix and two of his deputies, Wiley M. Mashburn and Oliver Crosswhite.
• Japanese forces in Manchuria captured Jinzhou.
• Born: Jean Little, Canadian children's author, as the daughter of Canadian missionaries; in Taiwan

  January 3, 1932 (Sunday)

• A national manhunt commenced for the Young brothers.
• Born: Dabney Coleman, American film and TV actor; in Austin, Texas

  January 4, 1932 (Monday)

• The Mahatma Gandhi was arrested and imprisoned in Yerwada Central Jail.
• Jawaharlal Nehru was sentenced to two years hard labour.
• The Department of Commerce Building opened in Washington, the largest office building in the world at the time. From the beginning it was informally known as "Hoover's building". The name would become official in 1981 with its renaming as the Herbert C. Hoover Building.
• In Aklavik in the Northwest Territories of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police formed a seven-man posse to go after Albert Johnson, who by now had been dubbed in the media as the "Mad Trapper of Rat River".
• Born: Clint Hill, American Secret Service agent; in Larimore, North Dakota

  January 5, 1932 (Tuesday)

• The Young brothers fatally shot each other in an apparent suicide pact after being surrounded by law enforcement in Houston, Texas.
• Poland and Greece signed a friendship treaty.
• Born:
• *Umberto Eco, Italian scholar and author; in Alessandria
• *Johnny Adams, American singer, in New Orleans

  January 6, 1932 (Wednesday)

• Joseph Lyons became the new Prime Minister of Australia.
• Born: Stuart A. Rice, American theoretical chemist; in New York City.
• Died: Julius Rosenwald, 69, American businessman and philanthropist.

  January 7, 1932 (Thursday)

• The U.S. government enunciated the Stimson Doctrine, telling Japan that it would not recognize Manchuria as Japanese territory.
• German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning asked Adolf Hitler to support a one-year extension of the presidential term of Paul von Hindenburg. The term was set to expire in May but Brüning wanted to save the country from the turmoil of a presidential election.
• Died: André Maginot, 54, Minister of War for France known for his advocacy of the network of border fortresses called the Maginot Line, from typhoid fever

  January 8, 1932 (Friday)

• An assassination attempt against Japan's Emperor Hirohito was made by a man who threw a hand grenade at the imperial carriage as it was leaving the Sakuradamon Gate of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The assailant was identified as Korean independence activist Lee Bong-chang. Lee was hanged in Ichigaya Prison on October 10.
• Ailing French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand announced he was stepping down and retiring from politics.
• Navy Lieutenant Thomas H. Massie and socialite Grace Fortescue were arrested and charged with first degree murder in the death of Joe Kahahawai, a boxer who had been tried in the rape of Massie's wife in a case that ended in a hung jury. The murder led to the criminal case known as the Massie Trial.
• Died: Eurosia Fabris, 65, Italian Roman Catholic mother and benefactor of the poor; she would be beatified in 2005 and be considered as of 2021 for canonization.

  January 9, 1932 (Saturday)

• German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning announced that Germany would refuse to pay any more reparations, saying the present economic situation made it "impossible".
• The comedy film This Reckless Age starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers was released.
• The RCMP arrived at Albert Johnson's cabin and surrounded it, ordering him to give himself up. Johnson never spoke a word but opened fire from holes in the cabin walls when officers approached, and a standoff began.

  January 10, 1932 (Sunday)

• British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald tried to prevent the cancellation or postponement of the Lausanne Conference on German reparations scheduled to open on January 25, saying it was "even more necessary than ever".
• In Karachi, at the time part of British India, 28 people were injured when police charged into a crowd of independence demonstrators.
• More Hawaiians turned out for the funeral of murdered boxer Joseph Kahahawai than for any funeral since Liliuokalani, last queen of Hawaii, in 1917.
• The RCMP dynamited Albert Johnson's cabin. Unsure if Johnson was still alive, a flashlight tied to a stick was shone in the doorway. When gunfire shot out the flashlight, the police officers recognized that they were short on supplies and decided to return to Aklavik.

  [January 11], 1932 (Monday)

• Adolf Hitler and Alfred Hugenberg informed Chancellor Brüning that they would not agree to the proposed one-year extension of Hindenburg's presidential term.
• The Indian government issued an emergency decree forbidding all meetings of groups consisting of more than five people.
• Born: Takkō Ishimori, Japanese voice actor in Nagasaki Prefecture

  January 12, 1932 (Tuesday)

• The cabinet of Pierre Laval resigned In France, throwing the Lausanne Conference into even more uncertainty.
• Bulgaria joined Germany in declaring that it, too, was unable to pay any more reparations.
• Born: Des O'Connor, British television presenter and singer in Stepney, London

  January 13, 1932 (Wednesday)

• The Sukkur Barrage opened in India.
• Born: Joseph Zen, Roman Catholic Cardinal and Archbishop of Hong Kong in Shanghai.
• Died:
• *Queen Consort of the Hellenes Sophia of Prussia, 61, German-born daughter of the Emperor Frederick III, later the wife of King Constantine I of Greece. She was the mother of three Greek kings: Alexander, George II, and Paul and was barred from Greece after the abolition of the monarchy in 1924.
• *Ernest Mangnall, 66, English soccer football manager who guided Manchester United to Football League championships in 1908 and 1911

  January 14, 1932 (Thursday)

• Piano Concerto in G Major by Maurice Ravel was performed for the first time in the Salle Pleyel in Paris.

  January 15, 1932 (Friday)

• Cinco Danzas Gitanas op.55 for piano by Spanish composer Joaquín Turina was first performed in Madrid.
• Born: Cleven "Goodie" Goudeau, American art director and cartoonist; in Hillister, Texas

  January 16, 1932 (Saturday)

• Reichstag member Hermann Göring presented an ultimatum on behalf of Hitler and the entire Nazi Party to Chancellor Brüning, saying that they would withdraw their opposition to the extension of Hindenburg's presidential term if Brüning resigned.
• Hitler was acquitted in a Berlin court of a charge of libel brought against him by Walter Stennes, but Der Angriff editor Julius Lippert was ordered to pay a fine of 300 marks for accusing Stennes of being a police spy.
• The ruins of Albert Johnson's cabin were found deserted. An Arctic manhunt for the "Mad Trapper" was now on.
• Born: Dian Fossey, American zoologist; in San Francisco

  January 17, 1932 (Sunday)

• The Soviet government finally released information about the January 2 train disaster after wild rumours exaggerating the death toll became too widespread to ignore. Eleven rail workers stood accused of criminal negligence.
• The Bertolt Brecht play The Mother, based on the Maxim Gorky 1906 novel of the same name, premiered at the Komödienhaus am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin.
• Born: Sheree North, American actress, dancer and singer; in Los Angeles

  January 18, 1932 (Monday)

• Two people were killed and 7 injured in fighting between Nazis and Communists in the Berlin borough of Reinickendorf. Police made 50 arrests.
• Born: Robert Anton Wilson, American writer; in Brooklyn.

  January 19, 1932 (Tuesday)

• Ireland was hit with its worst flooding in thirty years.
• Jury selection began in the Winnie Ruth Judd murder trial in Phoenix, Arizona.

  January 20, 1932 (Wednesday)

• The Lausanne Conference was postponed.
• Imperial Airways began regular service between London and Cape Town, South Africa, with a timetable allowing ten and a half days for the 8,000 mile flight.

  January 21, 1932 (Thursday)

• The National Diet of Japan was dissolved and new elections were called.
• Finland and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact.
• The Volcán de Fuego erupted in Guatemala, killing 34 people.
• Born: Kazuo Inamori, Japanese businessman and engineer who founded Kyoto Ceramic Company, now the Kyocera electronics and ceramic manufacturer; in Kagoshima
• Died: Lytton Strachey, 51, British writer and critic, from stomach cancer.