1933

Events

January

• January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand.
• January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wishes of U.S. President Herbert Hoover.
• January 28 – "Pakistan Declaration": Choudhry Rahmat Ali publishes a pamphlet entitled Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?, in which he calls for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he calls "Pakstan"; this influences the Pakistan Movement.
• January 30
• * Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg.
• * Édouard Daladier forms a government in France in succession to Joseph Paul-Boncour. He is succeeded on October 26 by Albert Sarraut and on November 26 by Camille Chautemps.

  February

• February 1 – Adolf Hitler gives his "Proclamation to the German People" in Berlin.
• February 3 – Adolf Hitler gives a secret speech to his military leaders, outlining his plans to rearm Germany in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles and to adopt a policy of Lebensraum in eastern Europe.
• February 5 – A mutiny starts on the Royal Netherlands Navy coastal defence ship De Zeven Provinciën in the Dutch East Indies. After 6 days, it is bombed by a Dutch aircraft, killing 23 men, and the remaining mutineers surrender.
• February 6–7 – Officers on the USS Ramapo record a 34-meter high sea wave in the Pacific Ocean.
• February 9 – The King and Country debate: The Oxford Union student debating society in England passes a resolution stating, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and country."
• February 10 – The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduces the first singing telegram.
• February 15 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead fatally wounds the Mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak. Zangara is executed on March 20 by the electric chair.
• February 17 – Repeal of Prohibition in the United States: The Blaine Act passes the United States Senate, submitting the proposed Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. The amendment is ratified on December 5, ending prohibition in the United States.
• February 23 – The Imperial Japanese Army invades Rehe province in northern China.
• February 25 – Arminda de Jesus is burned for witchcraft in Soalhães, Portugal.
• February 27 – Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag building, is set on fire under controversial circumstances. The following day, the Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in response to the Reichstag fire, nullifying many German civil liberties.
• February 28 – English cricket team in Australia in 1932–33: The England cricket team wins The Ashes using the controversial bodyline tactic.

  March

• March 2 – King Kong: The original King Kong film, starring Fay Wray and directed by Merian C. Cooper, debuts in New York City.
• March 3 – 1933 Sanriku earthquake: A powerful earthquake and tsunami hit Honshū, Japan, killing approximately 3,000 people.
• March 4
• * The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure; Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates authoritarian rule by decree, an origin of Austrofascism.
• * Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in as the 32nd president of the United States.
• March 5
• * The Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "Bank holiday", closing all United States banks and freezing all financial transactions.
• * March 1933 German federal election: The Nazi Party gains 43.9% of the votes.
• March 7 – The real-estate trading board game Monopoly is developed in the United States.
• March 10 – The 6.4 Long Beach earthquake shakes Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII, killing 115 people.
• March 12 – Great Depression: Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States, in the first of his "Fireside chats".
• March 14 – Indonesian Association football club Persib Bandung is founded as Bandoeng Inlandsche Voetbal Bond.
• March 15
• * The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises from 53.84 to 62.10. The day's gain of 15.34%, achieved during the depths of the Great Depression, remains the largest 1-day percentage gain for the index.
• * Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss keeps members of the National Council from convening, starting the Austrofascist dictatorship.
• March 20
• * Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed in Germany.
• * First of a series of meetings in the United States called by Jewish organizations calling for an international anti-Nazi boycott in response to the persecution of German Jews.
• March 22 – President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Cullen–Harrison Act, an amendment to the Volstead Act, allowing the manufacture and sale from April 7 of "3.2 beer" and light wines, 8 months before the full repeal of Prohibition in the United States in December.
• March 23 – Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, making Adolf Hitler effectively the dictator of Germany.
• March 27 – Japan announces it will leave the League of Nations.
• March 29 – Welsh journalist Gareth Jones makes the first report in the West of the Holodomor famine genocide in Ukraine.
• March 31
• * March revolution in Uruguay: President Gabriel Terra carries out a coup with the support of the civilian population, police officers and firefighters and rules as a dictator until 1938.
• * The Civilian Conservation Corps is established in the United States as an unemployment relief program.

  April

• April 1 – The recently elected Nazis organize a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany.
• April 2 – As a member of the English cricket team touring New Zealand, 1933, batsman Wally Hammond scores a record 336 runs in a test match at Eden Park, Auckland.
• April 3
• * An anti-monarchist rebellion occurs in Siam.
• * The first flight over Mount Everest is made by the British Houston-Mount Everest Flight Expedition, led by the Marquis of Clydesdale, and funded by Lucy, Lady Houston.
• April 4 – American airship Akron crashes off the coast of New Jersey, killing 73 of its 76 crewmen. It is the worst aviation accident in history up to this date.
• April 5
• * The International Court of Justice in The Hague decides that Greenland belongs to Denmark, and condemns Norwegian landings on eastern Greenland. Norway submits to the decision.
• * United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a national emergency and issues Executive Order 6102, making it illegal for U.S. citizens to own substantial amounts of monetary gold or bullion.
• April 7 – In Germany, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service is passed, the first law of the new regime directed against Jews.
• April 11 – Aviator Bill Lancaster takes off from Lympne in England, in an attempt to make a speed record to the Cape of Good Hope, but vanishes.
• April 13 – The Children and Young Persons Act is passed in the United Kingdom. This raises the age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 8, raises the minimum age for capital punishment to 18, places restrictions on the identification in the press of persons under 18 appearing in court, sets a minimum full-time working age of 14 and makes it illegal to sell tobacco products to under-16s.
• April 21 – Nazi Germany outlaws the kosher ritual shechita.
• April 24 – In Nazi Germany:
• * Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses begins with the seizure of the Bible Students' office in Magdeburg.
• * Jewish physicians are excluded from official insurance schemes, forcing many to give up their practices.
• April 26 – The Gestapo secret police is established in Nazi Germany by Hermann Göring.
• April 27 – The Stahlhelm veterans' organization joins the Nazi party in Germany.

  May

• May 2 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler prohibits trade unions.
• May 3
• * In the Irish Free State, Dáil Éireann abolishes the oath of allegiance to the British Crown.
• * Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to be named director of the United States Mint.
• May 5 – The detection by Karl Jansky of radio waves from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is reported in The New York Times. The discovery leads to the birth of radio astronomy.
• May 8 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 3-week hunger strike because of the mistreatment of the lower castes in India.
• May 10 – Chaco War: Paraguay formally declares war on Bolivia.
• May 17 – Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form the Nasjonal Samling of Norway.
• May 18 – New Deal: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.
• May 26 – The Nazi Party in Germany introduces a law to legalize eugenic sterilization.
• May 27
• * New Deal in the United States: The Federal Securities Act is signed into law, requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
• * The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago.

  June

• June – The Holodomor famine-genocide in Ukraine reaches its peak, with 30,000 deaths from human-made starvation each day. The average life expectancy for a Ukrainian male born this year is 7.3 years.
• June 5 – The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States use of the gold standard, by enacting a joint resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
• June 6 – The first drive-in movie theater is opened in Pennsauken Township, near Camden, New Jersey, by Richard Hollingshead, according to his patent granted May 16.
• June 12 – The London Economic Conference is held.
• June 17 – Kansas City massacre: At the Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, gangsters kill four law enforcement officers and detained fugitive bank robber Frank Nash.
• June 22 – Nazi Germany outlaws the Social-Democratic Party.
• June 25 – Wilmersdorfer Tennishallen delegates convene in Berlin to protest against the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany.
• June 26 – In the United States:
• * The American Totalisator Company unveils its first electronic pari-mutuel betting machine, at the Arlington Park race track near Chicago.
• * Founding of Twentieth Century Pictures as a motion picture production company by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck in Hollywood.