The following events occurred in December 1933:
December 1, 1933 (Friday) The Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State (Gesetz zur Sicherung der Einheit von Partei und Staat) was promulgated in Nazi Germany to establish a close interconnection between the Nazi Party and the state, giving the party significant control over the government. The new legislation's first section declared that "After the victory of the National Socialist revolution, the National Socialist German Workers' Party is the bearer of the concept of the German state and is inseparable from the state," and permitted dictatorial power by Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Born: Lou Rawls, African-American singer; in Chicago (d. 2006) Hiroshi Fujimoto, Japanese cartoon artist who teamed with Motoo Abiko to write under the pseudonym Fujiko Fujio; in Toyama Prefecture (d. 1996) Died: Harry de Windt, 67, British explorer Richard B. Mellon, 75, American financier
December 2, 1933 (Saturday) In the close to the 1933 college football season in the U.S., the Army Cadets, the nation's only major unbeaten and untied college team (9–0–0), was upset, 13–12 by a 2–5–1 Notre Dame in a game watched by 80,000 people at Yankee Stadium in New York."Notre Dame Defeats Army In Brilliant 13–12 Battle", Pittsburgh Press, December 3, 1933, p. 1 On the same day, the Princeton Tigers closed the season unbeaten (with a 9-0-0 record) by defeating Yale, 27 to 2. The Michigan Wolverines, which had finished 7–0–1 the week before, were named as the national champion under the Dickinson System that was used prior to 1936, and are now recognized by the NCAA as the 1933 champions. Princeton was retroactively declared the national champion by former college coach Parke H. Davis for the 1934 Spalding's Football Guide, a selection also recognized by the NCAA. According to Bruno Hauptmann, it was on this date that his business associate, Isidor Fisch, left a shoebox with him while Fisch went to Germany. Hauptmann would tell FBI investigators that, eight months later, he opened the shoebox and found $15,000 in cash and began spending the money because Fisch (who would die on March 29, 1934) owed him $7,000. Hauptmann's alibi, for being caught with $13,760 of bills that had been paid as ransom in the Lindbergh kidnapping, was not believed by the jury that convicted him of the kidnapping and murder of one-year-old Charles Lindbergh, Jr.; the press would dub the account the "Fisch story".Jim Fisher, The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the Record Straight in the Lindbergh Case (Southern Illinois University Press, 1999) pp xxii In the last convictions for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act, Frank Cornero and his sister Catherine were found guilty in a federal court in Los Angeles. They were sentenced to two years in prison and fined $500 apiece, but U.S. District Judge Paul J. McCormick suspended the prison sentences."Pair Found Guilty on Eve of Repeal", Pittsburgh Press, December 2, 1933, p. 1 Born: Mike Larrabee, American Olympic track athlete, 1964 gold medalist;, in Hollywood, California (d. 2003)
December 3, 1933 (Sunday) The first concrete was poured for the Grand Coulee Dam in the U.S. state of Washington on the Columbia River.Ruth Kirk and Carmela Alexander, Exploring Washington's Past: A Road Guide to History (University of Washington Press, 1995) p. 90 Born: Paul J. Crutzen, Dutch chemist, 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate; in Amsterdam (d. 2021)
December 4, 1933 (Monday) The American radio soap opera Ma Perkins began a 27-season run with 7,065 episodes, starting on the NBC Red Network. It would last until November 25, 1960.Jim Cox, Historical Dictionary of American Radio Soap Operas (Scarecrow Press, 2005) p. 134 Tobacco Road, the most popular Broadway play and musical of the 1930s, premiered at the Theatre Mask in New York City with the first of 3,182 performances. Closing on May 31, 1941, Tobacco Road would hold the record for the longest-running Broadway show until surpassed by Life with Father."Longest-Running Shows on Broadway", Theatre World 2009-2010 (Hal Leonard Corporation, 2011) p. 450 Died: Stefan George, 65, German poet
December 5, 1933 (Tuesday) The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that enacted Prohibition across the U.S., was ratified by the 36th of 48 states, bringing the necessary 3/4ths majority necessary to take effect. At 3:32 pm local time, the constitutional convention in Utah, whose 21 delegates had been elected on November 7, voted for repeal.William J. Bennett, America: The Last Best Hope (Volume II) (Thomas Nelson Inc, 2008) p. 205 Earlier in the day, Ohio and Pennsylvania had become the 34th and 35th states, respectively, to ratify the amendment."U.S. PROHIBITION ENDS- Utah Casts 36th Vote for Repeal", Deseret News (Salt Lake City), December 5, 1933, p. 1 Clarence Norris, the first of the Scottsboro Boys to receive a new trial, was found guilty of rape and sentenced to death for the third time. His attorney, Samuel S. Leibowitz, appealed the verdict of the Decatur, Alabama jury."Negro Doomed for Third Time", Pittsburgh Press, December 2, 1933, p. 1
December 6, 1933 (Wednesday) U.S. District Judge John M. Woolsey ruled that the James Joyce novel Ulysses was not obscene, ending a 12-year-long ban against importation of the book into the United States, and clearing the way for Random House to sell the controversial work.Joseph Kelly, Our Joyce: From Outcast to Icon (University of Texas Press, 1998) p. 131 Born: Henryk Górecki, Polish composer; in Czernica (d. 2010)
December 7, 1933 (Thursday) Good-bye, Mr. Chips, a book by James Hilton about an English schoolmaster, was first published as a 17,000 word novella in the Christmas issue of The British Weekly. Popular in Britain, Mr. Chips was reprinted in the United States in the Atlantic Monthly in 1934, and then as a best-selling book in both nations, a 1939 film and a 1969 musical.Jeffrey Richards, Happiest Days: The Public Schools in English Fiction (Manchester University Press, 1988) p. 252 The Fleet Marine Force of the United States Marine Corps was established by General Order Number 241 of the Department of the Navy as an amphibious strike force.Allan R. Millett and Jack Shulimson, Commandants of the Marine Corps (Naval Institute Press, 2004) p. 242
December 8, 1933 (Friday) An anarchist insurrection broke out in Zaragoza, Spain, where members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) proclaim libertarian communism. Bernadette Soubirous, who had seen the first vision of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes on February 1, 1858, was canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church."Girl Who Saw Mother Of Sorrows In Vision Becomes Saint In Colorful Papal Pageant", Pittsburgh Press, December 9, 1933, p. 1 Died: Karl Jatho, 60, German airplane pioneer who claimed that he had been the first man to fly an airplane; Jatho briefly took to the air on August 18, 1903, three months before the Wright Brothers.;"'First Man to Fly' Dies", Pittsburgh Press, December 9, 1933, p. 1 John Joly, 76, Irish physicist
December 9, 1933 (Saturday) The most publicized romance of its day officially came to an end as Mary Pickford filed for divorce from Douglas Fairbanks."Mary Pickford's Divorce Suit Wrecks 'Perfect Film Romance'", Pittsburgh Press, December 9, 1933, p. 1 The University of Michigan, at 7–0–1 the only major unbeaten college football team, was awarded the mythical national championship under the "Dickinson System"."Dickinson System Awards Michigan National Grid Title," Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.), December 10, 1933, p. 19 Born: Orville Moody, American golfer, 1969 U.S. Open winner; in Chickasha, Oklahoma (d. 2008) Died: Chang Apana, 61, Chinese-American detective for the Honolulu Police Department, said to have been the prototype of 'Charlie Chan."Real Charlie Chan Dies in Honolulu", Pittsburgh Press, December 10, 1933, p. 1
December 10, 1933 (Sunday) The Iron Guard (Garda de fier), Romania's fascist political organization, was ordered dissolved by Prime Minister Ion G. Duca ten days before elections for parliament were to start, and arrests were made of about 18,000 of the organization's members. General Gheorghe-Granicerul Cantacuzino warned Duca that he had "signed his own death sentence", and Duca was assassinated 19 days later by one of the Iron Guard members.Ion C. Butnaru, The Silent Holocaust: Romania and Its Jews (Greenwood Publishing, 1992) pp. 50–51 Died: János Hadik, 70, Hungarian politician who briefly served as that nation's Prime Minister
December 11, 1933 (Monday) In the Chaco War, the last two of Bolivia's three tanks were captured by Paraguay. Seven years earlier, Bolivia had signed a contract worth 1.25 million British pounds to purchase 3 six-ton Vickers Mk E tanks. One tank had been destroyed on July 4. At Campo Via, the two tanks had been immobilized by Paraguay's 7th Cavalry in thick vegetation, after soldiers cut down quebracho trees in front and behind of the vehicles. The Bolivian crews surrendered after their ammunition ran out and the heat inside the armored vehicles became unbearable.Alejandro Quesada and Ramiro Bujeiro, The Chaco War 1932–35: South America's Greatest Modern Conflict (Osprey Publishing, 2011) pp. 33–35
December 12, 1933 (Tuesday)
Ace Bailey of the Toronto Maple Leafs was seriously injured and almost killed by Eddie Shore of the Boston Bruins, in the most brutal fight in the National Hockey League up to that time. Shore knocked Bailey to the ice with such force that Bailey's skull was fractured. Bailey required emergency surgery and would never play again.Kelly McParland, The Lives of Conn Smythe: From the Battlefield to Maple Leaf Gardens (Random House Digital, 2011) The entire collection of the Warburg Institute library of renaissance materials, threatened with destruction by Germany's Nazi government because Director Fritz Saxl was Jewish, was moved from Hamburg to London, as its staff of art historians fled on two freighters. The irreplaceable collection now resides at the University of London.Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan Pelt, Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933–1946 (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009) p. 26 All German press services were merged into the DNB (Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro) or German News Bureau, which was supervised by the press department within the Propaganda Ministry.Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II And the Holocaust (Harvard University Press, 2006) p. 18 Died: Antonín Švehla, 60, Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1922 to 1929.
December 13, 1933 (Wednesday) William H. Woodin, U.S. President Roosevelt's first Secretary of the Treasury, resigned effective December 30, after a decline in health that began shortly after he had taken office in March. He had been battling a staph infection for months, years before penicillin would become generally available, and would die less than five months after leaving office.David Tripp, Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed, And The Mystery Of The Lost 1933 Double Eagle (Simon and Schuster, 2004) pp. 152–155 The Nazi sponsored film Hans Westmar premiered in Berlin after substantial revision on the orders of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Originally adapted from the life story of Nazi martyr Horst Wessel, the film was re-edited and the name of the title character was changed.David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema, 1933–1945 (I.B.Tauris, 2001) p. 63 Born: Lou Adler, American record producer; in Chicago
December 14, 1933 (Thursday) The German chemical conglomerate IG Farben signed an agreement with the Reich Economic Ministry to produce 2.5 million barrels of synthetic gasoline annually in return for government financing of the process of hydrogenation of German coal.John E. Lesch, The German Chemical Industry in the Twentieth Century (Springer, 2000) p. 160
December 15, 1933 (Friday)