1933

Events in 1933 128

• 1847 – 1933 Annie Besant (1847-1933) Died 20 September 1933, aged 85 British social reformer, Theosophist and campaigner for Indian home rule. She served as president of the Indian National Congress in 1917.
• 1848 – 1933 Henri Duparc (1848-1933) Died 12 February 1933, aged 85 French composer admired for a small group of art songs, including L'invitation au voyage. Illness ended his composing career in 1885.
• 1848 – 1933 Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) Died 17 January 1933, aged 84 American artist and designer famous for his leaded glass lamps and windows. He was a leading figure of the Art Nouveau movement.
• 1852 – 1933 George Moore (1852-1933) Died 21 January 1933, aged 80 Irish novelist whose works include Esther Waters and The Untilled Field. He was a figure of the Irish Literary Revival.
• 1852 – 1933 Hipólito Yrigoyen (1852-1933) Died 3 July 1933, aged 80 Leader of the Radical Civic Union who was twice president of Argentina. His overthrow in 1930 was the first military coup in modern Argentine history.
• 1853 – 1933 Émile Roux (1853-1933) Died 3 November 1933, aged 79 French physician and colleague of Louis Pasteur who helped develop diphtheria antitoxin treatment. He directed the Pasteur Institute from 1904.
• 1862 – 1933 Edward Grey (1862-1933) Died 7 September 1933, aged 71 British foreign secretary from 1905 to 1916 who led Britain into the First World War. He is remembered for the remark that the lamps were going out all over Europe.
• 1863 – 1933 Albert Calmette (1863-1933) Died 29 October 1933, aged 70 French bacteriologist who developed the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis with Camille Guérin. He also produced the first antivenom for snake bites.
• 1863 – 1933 Anthony Hope (1863-1933) Died 8 July 1933, aged 70 English novelist who wrote The Prisoner of Zenda. The book gave the name Ruritania to fictional European kingdoms.
• 1863 – 1933 Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933) Died 29 April 1933, aged 70 Greek poet from Alexandria whose poems include Ithaka and Waiting for the Barbarians. He died on his seventieth birthday.
• 1863 – 1933 Paul Painlevé (1863-1933) Died 29 October 1933, aged 69 French mathematician and statesman who was twice prime minister of France. He made important contributions to the theory of differential equations.
• 1867 – 1933 John Galsworthy (1867-1933) Died 31 January 1933, aged 65 English novelist and playwright best known for The Forsyte Saga. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.
• 1868 – 1933 Stefan George (1868-1933) Died 4 December 1933, aged 65 German Symbolist poet who led an influential circle of writers and scholars. He left Germany after refusing honours from the Nazi regime and died in Switzerland.
• 1870 – 1933 Adolf Loos (1870-1933) Died 23 August 1933, aged 62 Austrian architect and pioneer of modernism who attacked decorative architecture in his essay Ornament and Crime. His buildings include the Looshaus in Vienna.
• 1872 – 1933 Mykola Skrypnyk (1872-1933) Died 7 July 1933, aged 61 Ukrainian Bolshevik leader who championed Ukrainisation as Soviet Ukraine's education commissar. He killed himself amid Stalin's purge of Ukrainian national communists.
• 1872 – 1933 Calvin Coolidge 30th President — Silent Cal, the Roaring Twenties Calvin Coolidge (Jul 4, 1872 – Jan 5, 1933) was the 30th President 1923-1929. He presided over the prosperous Roaring Twenties with a laissez-faire economic policy. Known for his extreme taciturnity — "Silent Cal".
• 1873 – 1933 Anton Cermak (1873-1933) Died 6 March 1933, aged 59 Czech-born mayor of Chicago who founded the city's Democratic machine. He was fatally wounded in Miami by Giuseppe Zangara during an attempt on Franklin D. Roosevelt's life.
• 1873 – 1933 Sándor Ferenczi (1873-1933) Died 22 May 1933, aged 59 Hungarian psychoanalyst and close associate of Sigmund Freud. He is known for his work on trauma and the relationship between analyst and patient.
• 1875 – 1933 Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933) Died 26 December 1933, aged 58 First Soviet People's Commissar for Education, responsible for culture and schooling from 1917 to 1929. He died in France on his way to take up the post of ambassador to Spain.
• 1876 – 1933 Thubten Gyatso, 13th Dalai Lama (1876-1933) Died 17 December 1933, aged 57 Spiritual and political leader of Tibet who declared its independence from China in 1913. He tried to modernise the Tibetan state and army.
• 1883 – 1933 Mohammed Nadir Shah (1883-1933) Died 8 November 1933, aged 50 King of Afghanistan from 1929, when he ended the civil war that followed Amanullah Khan's fall. He was assassinated in Kabul and succeeded by his son Zahir Shah.
• 1884 – 1933 Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) Died 29 January 1933, aged 48 American lyric poet who won the first Pulitzer Prize for poetry, awarded in 1918 under an earlier name. She died by suicide in New York.
• 1884 – 1933 Texas Guinan (1884-1933) Died 5 November 1933, aged 49 American actress and nightclub hostess who ran some of the best-known speakeasies of the Prohibition era. She greeted customers with 'Hello, suckers!'
• 1885 – 1933 Faisal I of Iraq (1885-1933) Died 8 September 1933, aged 48 Leader of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, he was briefly king of Syria and then the first king of Iraq from 1921. He led Iraq to independence and League of Nations membership in 1932.
• 1885 – 1933 Ring Lardner (1885-1933) Died 25 September 1933, aged 48 American sportswriter and short-story writer known for his satirical baseball stories. His best-known book is You Know Me Al.
• 1887 – 1933 Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (1887-1933) Died 29 June 1933, aged 46 One of the biggest stars of silent film comedy, his career was wrecked by the 1921 Virginia Rappe scandal despite his acquittal. He died of a heart attack just as his comeback was starting.
• 1889 – 1933 Luis Sánchez Cerro (1889-1933) Died 30 April 1933, aged 43 Army officer and president of Peru who took power in a 1930 coup and was later elected. He was assassinated in Lima by a member of APRA.
• 1893 – 1933 Mykola Khvylovy (1893-1933) Died 13 May 1933, aged 39 Leading Ukrainian writer of the 1920s who called for Ukrainian culture to turn towards Europe rather than Moscow. He killed himself in Kharkiv during the famine and the crackdown on Ukrainian intellectuals.
• 1897 – 1933 Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933) Died 26 May 1933, aged 35 American singer called the Father of Country Music, famous for his blue yodel. He died of tuberculosis in New York days after his final recording sessions.
• 1899 – 1933 Chaim Arlosoroff (1899-1933) Died 16 June 1933, aged 34 Labour Zionist leader and head of the Jewish Agency's political department. He was shot dead on a Tel Aviv beach, and the killing has never been solved.
• 1932 – 1933 Famine in Stavropol kills half the village Gorbachev was an infant, and lost two aunts and an uncle Both his grandfathers were later arrested in the purges. He learned about the system early.
• 1933 – 2026 Asha Bhosle (1933-2026) Died 12 April 2026, aged 92 Indian playback singer who recorded more than 12,000 songs in twenty languages across eight decades.
• 1933 – 2024 Chita Rivera (1933-2024) Died 30 January 2024, aged 91 American dancer, singer and actress whose Broadway career ran from West Side Story to Chicago.
• 1933 – 2023 Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) Died 13 June 2023, aged 89 American novelist of Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses and The Road, whose austere prose made him one of the great American writers.
• 1933 – 2024 Frederick Crews (1933-2024) Died 21 June 2024, aged 91 American literary critic and one of the most forceful critics of Freud and psychoanalysis.
• 1933 Holodomor peaks in Ukraine Soviet man-made famine kills millions The famine caused by Soviet grain requisitioning and collectivisation reached its peak in the first half of 1933. Millions of people died in Soviet Ukraine and the Kuban region.
• 1933 – 2021 Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933-2021) Died 6 September 2021, aged 88 French actor whose Breathless made him the face of the New Wave and who became France's biggest box-office star.
• 1933 – 2024 John Mayall (1933-2024) Died 22 July 2024, aged 90 British musician whose Bluesbreakers were the school through which Clapton, Green and Taylor all passed.
• 1933 – 2021 Larry King (1933-2021) Died 23 January 2021, aged 87 American broadcaster whose interview programme ran for twenty-five years on CNN.
• 1933 – present Nissan Japanese automobile manufacturer founded Nissan became one of Japan’s largest automobile producers and achieved worldwide success through reliable sedans, sports cars and electric vehicle innovation including the Nissan Leaf.
• 1933 Prohibition ends in US Prohibition ends in US The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on 5 December 1933, ending thirteen years of national prohibition on alcohol. It remains the only amendment to repeal another. Prohibition had cut drinking but handed the trade to organised crime, and the Depression made the lost tax revenue impossible to ignore.
• 1933 – 2024 Quincy Jones (1933-2024) Died 3 November 2024, aged 91 American producer, arranger and composer whose work spanned jazz, film and pop, and who produced Michael Jackson's Thriller, the best-selling album ever made.
• 1933 – 2000 Reginald Kray (1933-2000) Died 1 October 2000, aged 66 Reggie Kray and his twin Ronnie ran an organised-crime empire in London's East End in the 1950s and 1960s, mixing extortion and violence with celebrity nightclub glamour. Convicted of murder in 1969, he served more than thirty years and was freed on compassionate grounds weeks before his death from cancer. The twins became enduring figures of British true-crime lore.
• 1933 – 2026 Tony Brown (1933-2026) Died 17 June 2026, aged 93 American producer, writer and filmmaker who hosted Tony Brown's Journal, the longest-running Black news programme in television history.
• 1933 – 1971 Viktor Patsayev (1933-1971) Died 30 June 1971, aged 38 Viktor Patsayev served as test engineer on Soyuz 11 and became the first person to work aboard a space station, Salyut 1. He died during reentry alongside his crewmates when their capsule lost cabin pressure. He was posthumously honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union.
• 1933 Zwicky infers dark matter Galaxy motions in the Coma Cluster point to unseen mass Fritz Zwicky found that galaxies in the Coma Cluster move far too fast to be held together by their visible mass. He proposed the existence of 'dunkle Materie', or dark matter.
• 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London published George Orwell's first book appears Published by Victor Gollancz on 9 January, the memoir of poverty was the first work to appear under the pen name George Orwell.
• 1933 Bodyline Test at Adelaide England's leg theory bowling sparks a diplomatic row During the third Ashes Test, from 13 to 19 January, England's short-pitched bowling seriously injured Australian batsmen Bill Woodfull and Bert Oldfield. The Australian Board of Control's protest cable escalated the row into a dispute between the two governments.
• 1933 – 2004 Susan Sontag (1933-2004) Died 28 December 2004, aged 71 Sontag was an American writer and public intellectual known for essays such as "Notes on Camp" and "Regarding the Pain of Others." She was also a prominent political activist and novelist.
• 1933 – 1998 Shari Lewis (1933-1998) Died 2 August 1998, aged 65 Shari Lewis, the American puppeteer and ventriloquist best known for her sock puppet character Lamb Chop, died of pneumonia while being treated for cancer on 2 August 1998. Her children's television programs spanned five decades.
• 1933 Twentieth Amendment ratified US Constitution moves inauguration from March to January The amendment was ratified on 23 January and shortened the lame-duck period between elections and the start of terms. From 1937 presidents were inaugurated on 20 January.
• 1933 – 2009 Corazon Aquino (1933-2009) Died 1 August 2009, aged 76 Aquino served as President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992, coming to power after the People Power Revolution that ended Ferdinand Marcos's rule. She was the first female president of the Philippines and a symbol of the country's return to democracy. Her death prompted an outpouring of national mourning.
• 1933 Name 'Pakistan' coined Choudhry Rahmat Ali publishes the pamphlet Now or Never Published on 28 January, the pamphlet proposed a separate Muslim homeland in northwestern British India and named it Pakistan. The name was later adopted by the state founded in 1947.
• 1933 – 1945 Adolf Hitler Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler established a totalitarian dictatorship, initiated World War II, and orchestrated the Holocaust.
• 1933 Assassination attempt on Franklin D. Roosevelt Giuseppe Zangara fires at the president-elect in Miami On 15 February, Giuseppe Zangara fired at Roosevelt in Miami's Bayfront Park, missing him but wounding five people. Chicago mayor Anton Cermak died of his wounds on 6 March.
• 1933 Battle of Rehe Japan seizes the Chinese province of Rehe Japanese and Manchukuo forces invaded Rehe in February and took the province within weeks, pushing on to the Great Wall. The fighting was ended by the Tanggu Truce.
• 1933 – 2003 Nina Simone (1933-2003) Died 21 April 2003, aged 70 Nina Simone was a singer, pianist and songwriter whose repertoire spanned jazz, blues, gospel, classical and folk. Songs such as 'Mississippi Goddam' and 'To Be Young, Gifted and Black' made her a prominent voice of the civil rights movement. She spent her later years in France, where she died.
• 1933 Japan leaves the League of Nations Japanese delegation walks out over the Manchuria report After the League adopted the Lytton Report condemning Japan's seizure of Manchuria on 24 February, the Japanese delegation walked out of the assembly. Japan formally gave notice of withdrawal on 27 March.
• 1933 Reichstag fire Arson attack on the German parliament building in Berlin The Reichstag building in Berlin was set on fire on the night of 27 February, and the Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested at the scene. The Nazi government blamed a communist plot and used the fire to justify the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended civil liberties across Germany.
• 1933 1933 World Snooker Championship Joe Davis Title 7 Winner: Joe Davis; Runner-up: Willie Smith. Score: 25–18.
• 1933 King Kong premieres RKO's giant-ape film opens in New York King Kong premiered on 2 March at Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy. Its stop-motion effects by Willis O'Brien made it a landmark of special effects cinema.
• 1933 Sanriku earthquake and tsunami Earthquake off northeast Japan triggers a deadly tsunami A magnitude 8.4 earthquake struck off the Sanriku coast on 3 March. The tsunami that followed killed about 3,000 people.
• 1933 Dollfuss suspends the Austrian parliament Chancellor begins ruling Austria by decree After all three presiding officers of the National Council resigned on 4 March, Engelbert Dollfuss prevented parliament from reconvening. He went on to build the authoritarian corporative state.
• 1933 – 1945 F.D. Roosevelt presidency 32nd President — 1933 to 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt served as the 32nd President from March 4, 1933 until his death on April 12, 1945. He implemented the New Deal to combat the Great Depression and led the Allied powers through most of World War II.
• 1933 Frances Perkins becomes US Secretary of Labor First woman appointed to a US cabinet Perkins took office on 4 March and served for all twelve years of Roosevelt's presidency. She played a central role in creating Social Security and US labour standards.
• 1933 German federal election Last multi-party election of the Weimar era Held on 5 March amid intimidation after the Reichstag fire, the election gave the Nazi Party 43.9 percent of the vote. With its nationalist coalition partners it gained a slim majority in the Reichstag.
• 1933 US national bank holiday Roosevelt closes all US banks to halt bank runs Roosevelt declared a nationwide bank holiday on 6 March, and Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act on 9 March. Banks found sound were allowed to reopen from 13 March.
• 1933 Long Beach earthquake Earthquake damages schools across southern California The magnitude 6.4 earthquake on 10 March killed about 120 people and destroyed many school buildings. Its aftermath led to California's Field Act, which set earthquake standards for schools.
• 1933 First fireside chat Roosevelt addresses Americans directly over the radio On 12 March, Roosevelt explained the banking crisis to the nation in the first of his radio fireside chats. The broadcasts became a defining feature of his presidency.
• 1933 – 2020 Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) Died 18 September 2020, aged 87 Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as a US Supreme Court justice from 1993 until her death, becoming a pioneering advocate for gender equality and a cultural icon known as "the Notorious RBG." She died of complications from pancreatic cancer on 18 September 2020.
• 1933 – 2018 Philip Roth (1933-2018) Died 22 May 2018, aged 85 American novelist celebrated for works including Portnoy's Complaint, American Pastoral and The Human Stain. He won nearly every major American literary award, though never the Nobel Prize in Literature. His fiction often explored Jewish-American identity and postwar society.
• 1933 Portugal's Estado Novo constitution Salazar's authoritarian regime formalised A new constitution was approved in a plebiscite on 19 March and came into force on 11 April. It established the Estado Novo, which ruled Portugal until 1974.
• 1933 Dachau concentration camp opens First regular Nazi concentration camp established near Munich Dachau opened on 22 March, initially to hold political prisoners, mainly communists and social democrats. It became the model for the later Nazi camp system and operated until its liberation in 1945.
• 1933 Enabling Act passed in Germany Reichstag gives Hitler's cabinet power to make laws without parliament The Reichstag passed the Enabling Act on 23 March, allowing the government to enact laws without parliamentary consent for four years. It became the legal foundation of the Nazi dictatorship.
• 1933 Polyethylene discovered ICI chemists create the first polyethylene by accident On 27 March, Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett at Imperial Chemical Industries produced a waxy solid while reacting ethylene under high pressure. Polyethylene became the world's most widely used plastic.
• 1933 Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses Nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned shops and professionals On 1 April, SA members stood outside Jewish-owned shops, law offices and medical practices across Germany to deter customers. It was the first nationally organised anti-Jewish action of the Nazi regime.
• 1933 First flight over Mount Everest Houston expedition biplanes fly over the summit On 3 April, two Westland biplanes of the Houston–Mount Everest expedition flew over the summit from India. The flight produced the first aerial photographs of the mountain.
• 1933 USS Akron crash US Navy airship lost in a storm off New Jersey The rigid airship USS Akron crashed into the Atlantic on 4 April, killing 73 of the 76 people aboard. It remains the deadliest airship accident in history.
• 1933 Executive Order 6102 Private hoarding of gold banned in the United States Signed on 5 April, the order required Americans to hand over most of their gold coins, bullion and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve. It marked the effective end of the gold standard for US citizens.
• 1933 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Jews and political opponents purged from German public service Enacted on 7 April, the law removed Jewish and politically unreliable officials from the civil service, including university teachers. It was among the first antisemitic laws of the Nazi regime.
• 1933 – 1995 Elizabeth Montgomery (1933-1995) Died 18 December 1995, aged 62 Elizabeth Montgomery was an American actress best known for starring as the witch Samantha Stephens in the television sitcom Bewitched. The show ran for eight seasons in the 1960s and remained a staple of television syndication for decades afterward. She continued acting in television films throughout her career.
• 1933 – 1967 Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967) American actress and sex symbol of the 1950s, star of The Girl Can't Help It.
• 1933 – 2024 Arno Penzias (1933-2024) Died 22 January 2024, aged 90 German-American astrophysicist who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for detecting the cosmic microwave background.
• 1933 Gestapo established Secret state police founded in Prussia Hermann Göring created the Gestapo on 26 April from the Prussian political police. It became the Nazi regime's chief instrument for persecuting political opponents and Jews.
• 1933 – present Willie Nelson Singer-songwriter Texan country singer and songwriter — Crazy, On the Road Again — a leader of outlaw country and co-founder of Farm Aid.
• 1933 Modern Loch Ness Monster legend begins Inverness Courier reports a large creature in the loch On 2 May, the Inverness Courier reported a sighting of a large animal in Loch Ness. The report started a wave of public interest that has continued ever since.
• 1933 – 2006 James Brown (1933-2006) Died 25 December 2006, aged 73 James Brown, the American singer known as the "Godfather of Soul," died of heart failure on Christmas Day. His decades-long career shaped funk, soul and hip-hop music. Tributes and memorial services were held in his honor in several US cities.
• 1933 Nazi book burnings Students burn 'un-German' books in university towns On 10 May, students in Berlin and many other German cities burned tens of thousands of books by Jewish, liberal and leftist authors. The Berlin burning on the Opernplatz was attended by Joseph Goebbels.
• 1933 – present Bernadette Chirac Politician and first lady Bernadette Thérèse Marie Chirac, née Chodron de Courcel, was a French politician and former first lady of France. Refusing to be reduced to a president's wife, she built her own decades-long elected career in the Corrèze, championed children's charities, and was the shrewd driving force behind Jacques Chirac's political ascent.
• 1933 Tennessee Valley Authority created Federal agency set up to develop the Tennessee River basin Congress created the TVA on 18 May to provide flood control, electricity and economic development to one of the poorest regions of the United States. It became one of the best-known New Deal programmes.
• 1933 Century of Progress exposition Chicago World's Fair opens its first season The fair opened on 27 May to mark Chicago's centennial and celebrated scientific and industrial progress. It ran until 12 November and reopened for a second season in 1934.
• 1933 Tanggu Truce Ceasefire between China and Japan in northern China Signed on 31 May, the truce created a demilitarised zone south of the Great Wall. In practice it accepted Japanese control of Manchuria and Rehe.
• 1933 First drive-in theater opens Richard Hollingshead opens a drive-in cinema in Camden, New Jersey Park-In Theaters opened on 6 June, letting audiences watch films from their cars. Drive-ins went on to become an American institution in the 1950s.
• 1933 – 2014 Joan Rivers (1933-2014) Died 4 September 2014, aged 81 Joan Rivers, the pioneering comedian and television personality known for her sharp-edged humor and red carpet commentary, died from complications during a throat procedure in New York. She had built a decades-long career breaking ground for women in stand-up comedy. She remained a fixture of American television until her death.
• 1933 London Economic Conference World leaders fail to agree on currency stabilisation Delegates from 66 nations met in London from 12 June to try to revive trade and stabilise currencies. The conference collapsed after Roosevelt rejected currency stabilisation.
• 1933 Glass–Steagall Act Banking Act separates commercial and investment banking Signed on 16 June, the Banking Act of 1933 separated commercial from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The separation provisions were largely repealed in 1999.
• 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act New Deal law creates the National Recovery Administration Signed on 16 June, the act allowed industries to draw up codes of fair competition and set up the Public Works Administration. The Supreme Court struck down its main provisions in 1935.
• 1933 – 2019 Danny Aiello (1933-2019) Died 12 December 2019, aged 86 Danny Aiello was an American actor best known for his Academy Award-nominated role as Sal in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. He appeared in dozens of films including Moonstruck and The Godfather Part II. He died in New Jersey.
• 1933 – 2023 Dianne Feinstein (1933-2023) Died 28 September 2023, aged 90 American senator for California from 1992 until her death, the longest-serving woman in the history of the Senate.
• 1933 First Major League Baseball All-Star Game American League beats National League at Comiskey Park The first All-Star Game was played on 6 July in Chicago alongside the Century of Progress exposition. The American League won 4–2, helped by a home run from Babe Ruth.
• 1933 – 2015 Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) Died 30 August 2015, aged 82 Oliver Sacks was a British neurologist and author who wrote bestselling books recounting the case histories of patients with unusual neurological conditions. His works, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings, brought neuroscience to a wide popular audience. Awakenings was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film.
• 1933 Nazi Party becomes the only legal party in Germany Law against the formation of new parties makes Germany a one-party state After the remaining parties were banned or dissolved themselves, the law of 14 July made the Nazi Party the sole legal party. On the same day the regime passed its compulsory sterilisation law.
• 1933 Wiley Post's solo round-the-world flight First person to fly solo around the world Wiley Post flew the Winnie Mae around the world alone between 15 and 22 July, taking 7 days and 19 hours. He relied on an autopilot and a radio direction finder.
• 1933 Reichskonkordat signed Treaty between the Holy See and Nazi Germany The concordat signed on 20 July guaranteed the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany in exchange for clergy staying out of politics. It gave Hitler's regime an early boost of international legitimacy.
• 1933 Simele massacre Iraqi army kills Assyrian villagers in northern Iraq In August, Iraqi troops and irregulars killed thousands of Assyrians in and around the village of Simele. Assyrians commemorate the massacre each year on 7 August as Martyrs' Day.
• 1933 Machado overthrown in Cuba President Gerardo Machado flees after a general strike A general strike and army pressure forced Machado to leave Cuba on 12 August. His fall opened a period of revolutionary instability.
• 1933 Haavara Agreement Deal allowing German Jews to emigrate to Palestine with some assets Concluded on 25 August between Nazi Germany and Zionist organisations, the agreement let emigrating Jews transfer part of their wealth through the export of German goods to Palestine. About 60,000 German Jews emigrated under the scheme.
• 1933 – 2023 Wayne Shorter Jazz Saxophonist & Composer American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of modern jazz. A 12-time Grammy Award winner, he was a foundational member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and co-founder of the fusion band Weather Report. His compositions, including Footprints, Speak No Evil and Nefertiti, became enduring jazz standards.
• 1933 – 1993 Conway Twitty (1933-1993) Died 5 June 1993, aged 59 Conway Twitty was one of the best-selling country music artists in history, scoring more number-one hits on the Billboard country chart than any other performer of his era. He also had early success as a rock and roll singer before shifting to country music in the 1960s. He collapsed and died shortly after a performance in Branson, Missouri.
• 1933 Sergeants' Revolt in Cuba Fulgencio Batista rises to power On 4 September, non-commissioned officers led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista overthrew the provisional government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. Batista went on to dominate Cuban politics for most of the next 25 years.
• 1933 – 2019 Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019) Died 19 February 2019, aged 85 Karl Lagerfeld was a German fashion designer who led the houses of Chanel and Fendi for decades while also running his own label. Known for his instantly recognizable white ponytail and sunglasses, he became one of the most influential figures in modern fashion. He died in Paris after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
• 1933 Szilard conceives the nuclear chain reaction Physicist realises neutrons could sustain a chain reaction On 12 September in London, Leo Szilard realised that a neutron-induced chain reaction could release vast amounts of energy. He patented the idea the following year.
• 1933 Reichstag fire trial Leipzig trial ends in acquittal of the communist defendants The trial over the Reichstag fire ran from 21 September to 23 December. Marinus van der Lubbe was convicted and executed, but Georgi Dimitrov and the other communist defendants were acquitted.
• 1933 – 1986 Samora Machel (1933-1986) Died 19 October 1986, aged 53 First president of Mozambique after independence from Portugal, and a leading figure in southern Africa's liberation movements. He died when his presidential plane crashed near the South African border, in circumstances that remain disputed. His death was widely seen amid the region's Cold War-era conflicts as suspicious.
• 1933 – 2025 John Gurdon (1933-2025) Died 7 October 2025, aged 92 British developmental biologist who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for work that laid the foundation for cloning and stem cell research.
• 1933 Air France founded French airlines merge into a national carrier Air France was formed on 7 October by merging Air Orient, Air Union, CIDNA, SGTA and the assets of Aéropostale. It became one of the world's largest airlines.
• 1933 Germany withdraws from the League of Nations Hitler leaves the League and the Geneva Disarmament Conference Germany announced its withdrawal on 14 October after being refused equality in armaments. The decision was endorsed in a referendum on 12 November.
• 1933 Albert Einstein settles in the United States Einstein joins the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton Having renounced his German citizenship after the Nazi takeover, Einstein arrived in the United States on 17 October. He took up his post at Princeton and never returned to Germany.
• 1933 – 2024 William A. Anders (1933-2024) Died 7 June 2024, aged 90 American astronaut on Apollo 8, the first crewed flight around the Moon, who took the Earthrise photograph.
• 1933 – 1995 Ronnie Kray (1933-1995) Died 17 March 1995, aged 61 Ronnie Kray, along with his twin brother Reggie, led the Kray twins, one of the most notorious organized crime gangs in London's East End during the 1950s and 1960s. He was convicted of murder in 1969 and spent the rest of his life in prison or Broadmoor psychiatric hospital. The Krays became enduring figures in British popular culture.
• 1933 – 1983 Garrincha The Joy of the People Considered the greatest dribbler of all time; led Brazil to the 1962 World Cup title.
• 1933 United States recognises the Soviet Union Washington and Moscow establish diplomatic relations Diplomatic relations were established on 16 November through an exchange of letters between Roosevelt and Maxim Litvinov. It ended sixteen years of US non-recognition of the Soviet government.
• 1933 Duck Soup released Marx Brothers' political satire opens Paramount released Duck Soup on 17 November. It flopped at first but is now regarded as the Marx Brothers' finest film.
• 1933 Spanish general election Right-wing parties win the first vote in which Spanish women took part The election on 19 November was the first in which Spanish women could vote. The right-wing CEDA became the largest party, beginning a two-year conservative period in the Second Republic.
• 1933 – 2019 Tim Conway (1933-2019) Died 14 May 2019, aged 85 Tim Conway was an American comedic actor best known for his work on The Carol Burnett Show, where his improvised bits with co-star Harvey Korman became legendary. He won six Emmy Awards over his career. He died in Los Angeles after a long illness.
• 1933 5th Elfstedentocht Shared victory — the only December edition The 1933 edition on 16 December is the only official Elfstedentocht ever held in December. Five skaters crossed the finish line together in a shared victory. After this edition, shared wins were officially banned by the organisation.
• 1933 Armstrong patents FM radio Edwin Armstrong receives patents for wideband frequency modulation On 26 December, Edwin Howard Armstrong was granted four patents for his frequency modulation system. FM greatly reduced static and became the standard for high-fidelity broadcasting.
• 1933 Montevideo Convention American states set out the criteria for statehood Signed on 26 December at the Seventh International Conference of American States, the convention defined a state as having a permanent population, defined territory, a government and the capacity to conduct foreign relations. It remains a standard reference in international law.