March 1, 1932. Charles and Ann Lindbergh’s young son, Charles Jr., is discovered missing from his crib in the family home. Ten weeks after his abduction, Charles Jr. is found dead just a few miles from the Lindberghs’ home. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who will be tried, convicted, and executed for the crime, proclaims his innocence to the end.

March 1, 1932. Japan proclaims Manchuria an independent state called Manchukuo and installs Manchu (Chinese) Emperor Puyi as puppet emperor. (Without the minerals and food supply obtained from their occupation of Manchuria, the Japanese probably could not have carried out their plan for conquest over Southeast Asia or taken the risk to attack Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December, 1941.)

May 16, 1932. Massive riots between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay leave thousands dead and injured.

May 20-21, 1932. U.S. aviator Amelia Earhardt becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

May 29, 1932. 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. On July 28, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell orders the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police meet with resistance, shots are fired and two veterans are wounded and later die. President Herbert Hoover then orders the army to clear the veterans’ campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commands the infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children are driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.

June 15, 1932. War breaks out between the South American countries of Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the Gran Chaco, a forested plain between the two countries. Paraguay needs the resources from the Gran Chaco, grazing land and hardwood from the forests, and landlocked Bolivia needs access to the Gran Chaco in order to trade overseas. The war will last until 1935 and will be the bloodiest military conflict fought in South America in the twentieth century.

September 20, 1932. Mohandas Gandhi begins a six-day hunger strike in Poona prison. This fast was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables (Dalit), whom he named Harijans, the children of God.

November 8, 1932. Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected president of the United States. He promises to end the Great Depression with his “New Deal”, and he further promises that when he is president, “No American will starve.”

In 1932, unemployment in the US reaches between 25-33%—about 14 million people unemployed. A similar level of unemployment now affects Germany. The economic depression has spread worldwide.

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: Collected Poems

Newbery Award: The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth (Macmillan)

The Story of Babar by Jean and Cecile de Brunhoff is an instant best-seller in Europe.

Also published in 1931:
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Also an instant bestseller. Ms. Buck became famous for her novels of ancient and contemporary China.

Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer. I have a copy of this classic that I got as a wedding present, and I have consulted it from time to time. The cookbook’s greatest strength is that it has recipes for almost any dish that one would think of cooking. It was first privately published in 1931 by Irma S. Rombauer, a homemaker in St. Louis, Missouri, who was struggling emotionally and financially after her husband’s suicide the previous year. In 1936, a commercial publisher, Bobbs-Merrill, picked up the book.
The 1936 introduction to Joy of Cooking:

“Although I have been modernized by life and my children, my roots are Victorian. This book reflects my life. It was once merely a private record of what the family wanted, of what friends recommended and of dishes made familiar by foreign travel and given an acceptable Americanization. In the course of time there have been added to the rather weighty stand-bye of my youth the ever-increasing lighter culinary touches of the day. So the record, which to begin with was a collection such as every kitchen-minded woman possesses, has grown in breadth and bulk until it now covers a wide range.”

March 3, 1931. The bill designating The Star Spangled Banner as the United States’ national anthem is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Hoover on this date. Read Peter Spier’s The Star Spangled Banner, not just for the history, but also for the pictures.

April 14, 1931. King Alfonso XIII of Spain abdicates the throne, and Spain declares itself a republic after Republicans win in a general election called after the resignation last year of military dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera.

May 1931. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin announces his second Five Year Plan for the collectivization of Soviet farming and the industrialization of the country.

May 11, 1931. The Creditanstalt, Austria’s largest bank, goes bankrupt, beginning the banking collapse in Central Europe that causes a worldwide financial meltdown. In June, German Chancellor Dr. Heinrich Brüning visits London, where he warns the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald that the collapse of the Austrian banking system, caused by the bankruptcy of the Creditanstalt, has left the entire German banking system on the verge of collapse.

July, 1931. The Benguella-Katanga, the first trans-African railroad, opens in southern Africa. the railroad links the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola with the copper mines of Katanga in Belgian Congo. More about the railway and its history.

August 31, 1931. The Yangtze River floods, leaving 23 million people homeless.

September 18, 1931. The Japanese invade Manchuria in northern China.

October 17, 1931. Al “Scarface” Capone, Chicago gangster, is jailed for income tax fraud. The 28 year old FBI agent who leads the investigation of Capone, Elliot Ness, becomes a hero. His team of law enforcement agents is known as “The Untouchables” for their bravery and honesty in corrupt Chicago.

November, 1931. Mao Zedong and his communist associates, with the help of the Soviet Union, declare a Chinese Soviet Republic in north-central China. The majority of China is still under the control of the nationalist Chinese government (Kuomintang) of General Chiang Kai-shek.

December 11, 1931. The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster, which establishes a status of legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. India still has not been given dominion or commonwealth status.