• Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.

• The 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.

• The first Purple Heart was awarded

• The IND Eighth Avenue Line, at this time the world's longest subway line (31 miles (50 km)), begins operation in Manhattan.

• Charles Lindbergh, Jr., the infant son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh, is kidnapped from the family home near Hopewell, New Jersey.

• Amelia Earhart flies from the United States to County Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.

• Babe Ruth makes his famous called shot in the fifth inning of game 3 of the 1932 World Series.

• In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.