World History 1932

About the history of the world in 1932, the positron and neutron are discovered, Amelia Earhart flies across the Atlantic, Hoovers drives off W.W.I vets.

TWO CENTURIES OF WORLD HISTORY: 1778-1978

1932

* Physicist Carl Anderson, 27, of the California Institute of Technology, discovered the positron. James Chadwick, 41, assistant director of radioactive research at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, discovered the neutron.

Apr. 5 Navy Lieut. Tommy Massie went on trial in Honolulu for murdering a Hawaiian wrongly accused of taking part in the gang rape of his wife, Thalia Massie. The defense imported the aging but still brilliant Clarence Darrow, who at 75 nearly succeeded in convincing a racially mixed jury to accept his client's plea of temporary insanity. Although Massie was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years, the governor of the islands, under pressure from navy brass, commuted the sentence to one hour in the sheriff's custody. The case aggravated already strained relations between native Hawaiians and Americans living or stationed there.

May 21 Social worker-turned-aviatrix Amelia Earhart, 34, became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

July 28 Pres. Herbert Hoover ordered the army to drive out 15,000 W.W. I veterans who had been camped in Washington for two months demanding a bonus from Congress. Leading four cavalry troops with drawn sabers, six tanks, and an infantry column equipped with fixed bayonets and tear gas bombs, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and his reluctant aide, Maj. Dwight Eisenhower, advanced on the "enemy." The Bonus Marchers scrambled for their few belongings and fled before the approaching army. One small boy dashed back to retrieve a pet rabbit and caught a bayonet in the leg. Bernard Myers, a three-month-old baby, died of tear gas inhalation. Maj. George Patton personally led the final charge against the marchers, in which fire destroyed the tent of one Joe Angelino of New Jersey. Ironically, Angelino had saved officer Patton's life in W.W. I and had won the Distinguished Service Cross for that heroic act.

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