June 1933

June 1, 1933 (Thursday)

• Germany's Law for the Encouragement of Marriage took effect, providing for the Ehestandsdarlehen to all German Aryan newlyweds, with 1000 Reichsmarks to be loaned, interest free, to couples on condition that the wife quit employment or remain unemployed. After encouraging women to vacate jobs in favor of men, the law was amended to encourage the growth of the Aryan population, with the debt to be reduced 25% each time a child was born. In the first four years of the program, 700,000 couples took out the loans.
• The Soviet Communist Party began a purge of party members whom General Secretary Joseph Stalin described as "double-dealers masked as Bolsheviks". Commissions in ten cities, including Moscow and Leningrad, screened one million members, and expelled one out of every six.
• J. P. Morgan Jr. was testifying before the Senate Banking Committee when a man placed a circus midget, Lya Graf, onto his lap. The U.S. Senate warned that any newspapers that printed the photo risked being excluded from future Senate hearings.
• The Soviet Navy activated its new Northern Naval Flotilla as part of its continued growth, the second new fleet created in 15 months. On April 21, 1932, it had created the Naval Forces of the Far East.
• Born: Charles Wilson, U.S. Representative from Texas 1973–1996, whose role in obtaining funding for Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion was dramatized in the film Charlie Wilson's War; in Trinity, Texas

  June 2, 1933 (Friday)

• Bernhard Rust, Minister of Science, Art, and Education for Prussia, ordered that Jews be banned from youth, welfare and gymnastic organizations and that they be denied access to athletic facilities. At the start of 1933, there had been 40,000 German Jews in sports clubs, including 250 Jewish sports organizations. By 1935, there were none.
• Seven people were killed and another 50 injured in an explosion at the Richfield Oil Company refinery in Long Beach, California.

  June 3, 1933 (Saturday)

• Spain's President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, and other prominent members of the government of Spain, were excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI, for having signed laws nationalizing Catholic church properties.
• Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the 26-year-old son of former German Crown Prince Wilhelm, married Dorothea von Salviati, his college sweetheart, at a ceremony in Bonn. His grandfather, the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, decreed that he had forfeited his rights to reign in the event of the restoration of the monarchy. A cheering crowd of 10,000 greeted the newlyweds as they emerged from church.

  June 4, 1933 (Sunday)

• Radio Luxembourg began broadcasting as an English-language station aimed at listeners in England, where the British Broadcasting Corporation had a monopoly on domestic radio. Within a year, 90 British companies were running commercials on Radio Luxembourg, since the BBC did not permit advertising. In 1931, Radio Normandy had pioneered the concept of broadcasting commercial radio from the European continent to Britain.
• An express train carrying holiday travelers from Paris to the Brittany coast derailed near Nantes, killing 14 people. The train struck debris that had spilled onto the track from the wreck of a freight train on adjoining track.

  June 5, 1933 (Monday)

• The U.S. Congress passed the Gold Clause Resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.

  June 6, 1933 (Tuesday)

• The first drive-in theater, created by Richard Hollingshead, opened outside of Camden, New Jersey, on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Pennsauken Township. At 8:30 pm, the first film ever shown at the Automobile Movie Theatre was Wife Beware,
• The first concrete was poured for Hoover Dam, with the last batch poured on May 29, 1935.
• Born: Heinrich Rohrer, Swiss physicist, 1986 Nobel Prize laureate; in St. Gallen
• Died: Prince Shirdar Mohammed Aziz Khan, brother of King Nadir Shah of Afghanistan, and the kingdom's ambassador to Germany, was assassinated in Berlin by an Afghan student.

  June 7, 1933 (Wednesday)

• Representatives of France, Britain, Germany and Italy initialled the Four-Power Pact in Rome, pledging Europe a decade of peace and pledging to work toward disarmament. The ceremony took place in Italian Premier Benito Mussolini's office at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome.

  June 8, 1933 (Thursday)

• Before a crowd of 56,000 at Yankee Stadium, Max Baer of California, knocked out Germany's Max Schmeling.
• The International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Winter Olympic Games to the German city of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, ahead of Montreal and St. Moritz.
• Born: Joan Rivers, American comedian; as Joan Molinsky in Brooklyn, New York City

  June 9, 1933 (Friday)

• In North Arlington, New Jersey, an explosion at the Atlantic Pyroxylin Waste Company killed ten people and injured others. The company manufactured cellophane from highly flammable nitrocellulose.
• German scientists Rudolf Nebel and Herbert Schaefer did the first test launch of a rocket for the "Magdeburg Project", with the goal of eventually sending a man into space, but the first test flight at Wolmirstedt failed. The project would be abandoned in August.
• The romantic comedy film Professional Sweetheart starring Ginger Rogers was released.
• Born: Georges Abi-Saab, Egyptian specialist in international law; in Heliopolis

  June 10, 1933 (Saturday)

• The Taurus Express passenger train derailed at Eskişehir while on its run between Istanbul and Adana, killing 50 people.
• As part of Executive Order 6166, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and the U.S. Bureau of Naturalization were merged to create the Immigration and Naturalization Service, originally as part of the U.S. Department of Labor, and then in 1940, part of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under the same order, all national monuments and national cemeteries were placed under the administration of the National Park Service.
• Less than three weeks after being paroled from prison, John Dillinger robbed the first of many banks with his gang, taking $10,600 from the National Bank of New Carlisle, Ohio.
• The Barter Theatre was first opened in Abingdon, Virginia.
• While driving near Wellington, Texas, Clyde Barrow failed to yield to warning signs at a bridge under construction and the car flipped into a ravine. Bonnie Parker and fellow Barrow Gang member W.D. Jones were with Barrow at the time. Parker sustained severe third degree burns to her right leg.
• Born:
• *F. Lee Bailey, American lawyer, in Waltham, Massachusetts
• Died: Winchell Smith, 62, American playwright

  June 11, 1933 (Sunday)

• The first ever qualification matches for the World Cup began as teams from 27 countries played for the 16 available spots for the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was to be hosted in Italy in May 1934. Sweden defeated Estonia, 6 to 2, in a match at the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm. The 13 teams for the 1930 FIFA World Cup, the inaugural competition, had been selected by invitation from FIFA.
• Seven unfortunate passengers, who bought tickets for a sightseeing trip over the World's Fair in Chicago, were killed along with the pilot and co-pilot when a wing crumpled. The amphibian plane, Northern Light, plunged 600 feet to the ground in Glenview, Illinois.
• Born: Gene Wilder, American film actor ; as Jerome Silberman, in Milwaukee
• Died: Eugene James, 19, American jockey who had won the 1932 Kentucky Derby, drowned in Lake Michigan.

  June 12, 1933 (Monday)

• The World Economic Conference of 1933 began in London, with representatives from 64 nations, to discuss the reduction of trade barriers, settlement of war debts, stabilizing exchange rates and coordinating monetary policies. The conference would last until July 27, without accomplishing its goals.
• Born: Eddie Adams, American photographer and Pulitzer Prize winner; in Kensington, Pennsylvania

  June 13, 1933 (Tuesday)

• The Home Owners' Loan Corporation was established by law to provide lower interest loans to prevent foreclosures, and the first to be made at a fixed rate. At the time of its creation, 41 percent of home mortgages in the United States had been in default. The HOLC accepted applications until 1936, and effectively refinanced 992,531 homes. After the last of the 15-year loans was collected back, the HOLC ceased operations in 1951.

  June 14, 1933 (Wednesday)

• Jimmie Mattern, seeking to become the first person to fly a plane solo around the world, set off from Khabarovsk in Siberian Russia, headed toward U.S. territory for the first time since his departure from New York. Mattern never arrived in Nome, Alaska. Unbeknownst to most of the world, his airplane, the Century of Progress, had engine failure 14 hours after takeoff, but he had crashed on land, near the Anadyr River, which he would reach after three days. Mattern would find an island in the middle of the river, reasoning that he would be able to signal boats more easily. He would finally be found after two weeks, on June 28, by Eskimos in two rowboats.
• The United States agreed to accept partial payment of $75,950,000 owed by Great Britain for loans from World War One, taking ten million dollars. An earlier request to pay 10% had been refused by President Roosevelt.
• Born:
• *Vladislav Rastorotsky, Soviet gymnastics coach; in Liski, Russian SFSR
• *Jerzy Kosinski, Polish-born American novelist ; in Łódź

  June 15, 1933 (Thursday)

• The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law the next day. The law severely restricted private banks from making risky investments with their depositors' capital.

  June 16, 1933 (Friday)

• The National Industrial Recovery Act was signed into law after being passed by the U.S. Congress, creating the National Recovery Administration.
• Haim Arlosoroff, a Zionist leader who had negotiated an agreement with Nazi Germany to provide for emigration of German Jews to Palestine in return for payments, was assassinated while he was walking along the beach at Tel Aviv.
• Polk County, Missouri, Sheriff William Killingworth was released unharmed after having been kidnapped by gangster Pretty Boy Floyd.
• A census taken in Germany, the first since 1925, showed a population estimated at 65,300,000.
• Born: Margaret Wales-King, Australian murder victim; in Yarraville, Victoria