Gaspar bleached-color process is announced.

Gandhi challenges British rule with civil disobedience.

The Blue Angel, is an early dual-language production and the first of a series of films directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich.

Luis Buñuel's and Salvador Dali's surrealist L'Age d'or provokes riots in Paris.

Significant genre of movie musicals contingent upon sound.

Double features are introduced to counter Depression-era box-office slump, with "B" films shown for the second half of double bills.

Gangster films and romantic comedies become staples of American sound cinema.

Nickolas Muray's photographs from the 1930s.

Japan is the world's largest producer of film entertainment and the only country in which Hollywood films do not overshadow domestic product. Popular genres include the historical drama, the contemporary-life film, and melodramas.

Mohri Hirowo of Konishiroku Honten Co. produces a f/4.5, 4-element H-type lens with Jena glass that claims to equal the performance of the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

René Clair's early sound feature Le million and À nous la liberté combine musical comedy and politics.

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff chill millions in Dracula and Frankenstein.

Harold Edgerton invents a repeatable short-duration electronic flash, which captured stop-action images that were beyond the perceptive capacity of the eye.

As the Great Depression worsens, the Empire State Building opens. It is the highest structure in the World at the time.

Nichi-Doku Shashin Shokai company, the forerunner of Minolta Camera Co., change their name to Molta Goshi Kaisha.

Electron microscope is developed in Germany.

First light meter with photoelectric cell is introduced.

Johnny Weismuller plays Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man.

George Eastman dies on March 14, 1932, in Rochester, New York.

Ansel Adams founds Group f.64 dedicated to straight photography. Group f.64 photographers use large cameras and small apertures to record nature's light.

Walt Disney's cartoon short Flowers and Trees is the first film made using new three-strip, three-color Technicolor and is the first cartoon to win an Academy Award.

Nippon Kogaku Kogyo K.K., forerunner of Nikon, manufactures its first Nikkor photographic lens. All lenses from Nippon Kogaku Kogyo K.K. are labeled "Nikkor" from this year on.

Technicolor, a three-color system, is introduced.

"Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica," the world's first film festival, is inaugurated by Mussolini at the Lido in Venice.

8 mm Cine Camera and film are introduced.

Phil T. Farnesworth demonstrates electronic television.

In Queen Christina, Greta Garbo places affairs of state over those of the heart.

Walt Disney's cartoon The Three Little Pigs in three-color Technicolor.

The British Film Institute is established in London to "encourage the use and development of the cinematograph as a means of entertainment and instruction."

Franklin D. Roosevelt launches the New Deal.

John Grierson, father of the British documentary movement, heads up the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit.

Ernest B. Schoedsack's King Kong.

Technology is developed to mix separately recorded tracks for music, sound effects, and dialogue at a dubbing stage.

With the Nazis' rise to power, Dr. Josef Goebells becomes Minister of Propaganda and gradually nationalizes the film industry. More than 1,500 filmmakers flee Germany.

In November, Seiki Kogaku Kenkyusho (Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory), the forerunner of Canon Inc., is established by Yoshida Goro (1900-1993) and Uchida Saburo (1899-1982). They are soon joined by Maeda Takeo and they produce the prototype KWANON 35mm camera six months later.

In Japan, Elmo Company is founded.

It Happened One Night, is the first of series of populist Frank Capra comedy-dramas.

Leni Riefenstahl, using 30 cameras and 120 assistants, films Triumph of the Will, a powerful Nazi propaganda film.

Bombay Talkies studio is formed in India.

The Kodak Retina I is introduced using the standard 35mm format.

Asahi Kogaku Goshi Kaisha (forerunner of Asahi Optical Company, Ltd.) becomes a major supplier of camera lenses for camera manufacturers such as Minolta and Konishiroku.

Fuji Photo Film Co. is established in January to produce photosensitized materials.

Frank Lloyd's Mutiny on the Bounty.

Kodak Kodachrome film becomes available.

Rouben Mamoulian's Becky Sharp, is the first three-strip Technicolor feature.

In April, the "Super Olympic" with a lens shutter is marketed by Asahi Bussan (forerunner of Ricoh). This is the first 35mm camera made in Japan.

In May, Mitsubishi Paper Mills and Konishiroku complete joint research to develop Japan's first practical fiber-based photo paper.

In June, Takachiho Seisaku-sho, forerunner of Olympus Optical Company, makes its first photographic lens, a 75mm f/4.5 modeled after the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

In July, the Semi Minolta, Japan's first 6 x 4.5 cm format camera using 120 roll film is marketed by Molta Goshi Kaisha.

in September, Konishiroku markets the "Sakura US Chrome R35" 35mm film.

The Spanish Earth, directed by Joris Ivens with commentary written and narrated by Ernest Hemingway, is made as a response to the Spanish Civil War.

American photographer Margaret Bourke-White takes the cover photo for first issue Life magazine.

The Cinémathèque Française is founded in Paris by Henri Langlois and Georges Franju.

Life photojournal / magazine begins.

Charlie Chaplin speaks on film for the first time in Modern Times.

Pépé le Moko starring Jean Gabin, is the fatalistic hero of French Poetic Realism.

Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange.

American combat photographer, Robert Capa captures on film the Spanish Civil War, notably Death of a Loyalist Soldier.

In September, the Hansa Canon, Japan's first 35mm rangefinder camera with a focal-plane shutter is produced by Seiki Kogaku Kenkyusho (forerunner of Canon) and sold by Omiya Photo Supply Co., Ltd. It had a Nikkor 50mm f/3.5 lens and a pop-up viewfinder.

Nippon Kogaku Kogyo K.K., forerunner of Nikon, lenses are mounted on Hansa Canon cameras and all pre-World War II Canon cameras are to be fitted with Nikkor lenses.

In November, Japan's first 2 1/4 square (6x6 cm) format camera, the Minolta 6, is marketed by Molta Goshi Kaisha.

The Zeppelin Hindenburg is destroyed by fire.

Opening of Cinecittá, a modern government-owned studio complex, is built on the outskirts of Rome.

Saint Tukaram, is a hugely popular Indian "devotional" film and winner at the Venice Film Festival.

Walt Disney produces Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated cartoon.

The January issue of Life magazine features Natori Yonosuke's photos of Japanese soldiers.

In July, it becomes forbidden to publish photographs deemed detrimental to the Japanese military.

In August, taxes on all photograph related materials is increased by 20 percent.

Also in August, Canon forerunner Seiki-Kogaku Kenkyusho (Precision Optical Laboratory) incorporates into Seiki-Kogaku Kogyo K.K. (Precision Optical Industry Co., Ltd.). This is Canon Inc.'s official year of founding.

Nichi-Doku Shashin Shokai company, the forerunner of Minolta Camera Co., change their name to Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko K.K. and begin producing photographic lenses.

Konishiroku Honten changes it's name to Konishiroku Co., Ltd. and began making aerial cameras and X-ray photographic equipment.

In Japan, import restrictions on camera & photo materials are imposed.

American photographer Walker Evans has his first showing at the Museum of Modern Art, the basis for his book American Photographs.

Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Prokofiev collaborate on Alexander Nevsky.

Chester Carlson invents Xerography.

Leni Riefenstahl completes her two-part Olympia, a film record of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Foundation of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF).

Super Kodak Six 20-Autoexposure is developed -- the first camera with built-in photoelectric exposure control.

Foundation of the Leica School which later becomes the Leica Academy.

Fuji Photo Film Co. announces that it will develop all photographic equipment including the melting of optical glass and lenses. During World War II, it makes aerial cameras and lenses.

French films Le Jour se lève and The Rules of the Game sum up the pessimism of a nation on the verge of war and occupation.

Television broadcast from the New York World Fair.

The National Film Board of Canada is established under the directorship of British documentary filmmaker John Grierson.

David O. Selznick's Gone With the Wind and MGM's The Wizard of Oz, two enduring Technicolor classics, debut.

Farmer and Wife by Arthur Rothstein from portfolio of FSA Photographs.

Hitler invades Poland, unleashing World War II.

December in Japan, the military facility protection law is revised to prohibit any photography from 20 meters or higher above ground level. This results in the arrests of those living in the hills of Tokyo.