1933 CE

A year defined by Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Reichstag fire, and the repeal of Prohibition in the United States.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30 by President Hindenburg, marking the beginning of Nazi rule.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States on March 4, declaring that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself.'
Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in October, signaling its rejection of the post-World War I international order.
Japan also withdrew from the League of Nations in March after the body adopted the Lytton Report condemning Japan's seizure of Manchuria.
The United States formally recognized the Soviet Union in November, establishing diplomatic relations after sixteen years of non-recognition.
The Montevideo Convention was signed in December, establishing the rights and duties of states in the Western Hemisphere and enshrining the principle of non-intervention.
Roosevelt announced the Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America, signaling a shift away from direct U.S. military intervention in the region.
The Enabling Act passed the German Reichstag on March 23, giving Hitler dictatorial powers and effectively ending the Weimar Republic's democratic constitution.
Austria's Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss suspended parliamentary government in March, establishing an authoritarian regime to counter both Nazi and socialist movements.
Saudi Arabia granted its first oil concession to the Standard Oil Company of California in May, beginning the development of the kingdom's petroleum industry.

Conflict & Security

The Reichstag fire on February 27 was used by the Nazi regime as a pretext to suspend civil liberties and arrest political opponents, particularly communists.
The Reichstag Fire Decree, issued on February 28, suspended most constitutional protections and enabled the mass arrest of political dissidents in Germany.
The Dachau concentration camp opened on March 22 near Munich, initially to hold political prisoners; it became a model for the broader Nazi camp system.
Nazi stormtroopers organized a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, marking an early stage in the systematic persecution of German Jews.
The Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay intensified, with both sides suffering heavy casualties in battles across the arid Gran Chaco lowlands.
Japanese forces advanced beyond Manchuria, invading Jehol province in northern China in February and forcing Chinese forces to retreat south of the Great Wall.
The Tanggu Truce in May established a demilitarized zone south of the Great Wall, temporarily halting Japanese military expansion into northern China.
Political violence in Austria escalated as the Dollfuss government moved to suppress both the Nazi Party and the Social Democratic Workers' Party.
The Colombian-Peruvian War over Leticia was resolved through League of Nations mediation, with Peru agreeing to return the disputed territory to Colombia.
The Soviet Union's forced collectivization and grain requisition policies caused the Holodomor, a devastating man-made famine in Ukraine that killed millions.

Economy & Finance

Roosevelt declared a national bank holiday on March 6, closing all banks for four days to halt the wave of bank failures and restore public confidence.
The Emergency Banking Act was passed on March 9, giving the president broad powers over banking and allowing solvent banks to reopen under government supervision.
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated commercial and investment banking and established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to protect depositors.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was created in April, eventually employing over 3 million young men in conservation and infrastructure projects across the United States.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act was signed in May, paying farmers to reduce production in an effort to raise crop prices and restore farm income.
The National Industrial Recovery Act was signed in June, establishing codes of fair competition and guaranteeing workers the right to organize unions.
The Tennessee Valley Authority was created in May to develop the impoverished Tennessee River watershed through hydroelectric dams, flood control, and modernization.
The United States abandoned the gold standard in April, allowing the dollar to depreciate and providing monetary flexibility for recovery efforts.
Unemployment in the United States remained above 20 percent, though New Deal programs began to provide relief to millions of jobless Americans.
The Securities Act of 1933 was signed in May, requiring the registration of securities and disclosure of financial information to protect investors.

Technology & Infrastructure

The Boeing 247, the first modern airliner with retractable landing gear and an all-metal monoplane design, entered service in February.
Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world in July, covering 15,596 miles in the Winnie Mae in seven days, eighteen hours, and forty-nine minutes.
The Douglas DC-1 made its first flight in July, leading to the development of the legendary DC-3 transport aircraft.
FM radio was patented by Edwin Armstrong in December, offering higher-fidelity sound reproduction than existing AM broadcast technology.
The Chicago Century of Progress International Exposition opened in May, showcasing technological advances and attracting millions of visitors.
Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge continued in San Francisco, with the main towers reaching their full height during the year.
The Hoover Dam project progressed rapidly, with the massive concrete arch-gravity dam taking shape in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River.
Polyethylene was accidentally synthesized by Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson at ICI in England, though commercial production would come later.
The first drive-in movie theater opened on June 6 in Camden, New Jersey, offering a novel entertainment experience for automobile-owning Americans.
The London Underground's Piccadilly Line was extended to serve Cockfosters, marking one of the last major expansions of the interwar Tube network.

Science & Discovery

Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Dirac shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to the development of quantum mechanics.
Thomas Hunt Morgan won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for establishing the chromosome theory of heredity through his work with fruit flies.
Leó Szilárd conceived the idea of a nuclear chain reaction in September while crossing a London street, a concept that would later underpin nuclear energy and weapons.
Enrico Fermi developed his theory of beta decay, providing a theoretical framework for the weak nuclear force.
Fritz Zwicky proposed the existence of dark matter after observing that galaxies in the Coma Cluster moved too fast to be held together by visible matter alone.
Tadeus Reichstein independently synthesized vitamin C (ascorbic acid), confirming its chemical structure.
Arthur Compton and his team completed a worldwide survey of cosmic ray intensity, demonstrating that cosmic rays were charged particles deflected by Earth's magnetic field.
Paul Dirac proposed a model of the vacuum as a sea of negative-energy electrons, further developing his theory of antimatter.
Ernst Ruska continued to improve the electron microscope, achieving higher magnifications and better resolution than optical instruments.
The first accurate measurement of the cosmic microwave background would not come for decades, but theoretical cosmology advanced with Lemaître's expanding universe model gaining acceptance.

Health & Medicine

Gerhard Domagk demonstrated that Prontosil cured streptococcal infections in mice, a breakthrough that launched the sulfonamide drug era.
The Holodomor famine in Ukraine caused mass death from starvation and related diseases, with estimates of deaths ranging into the millions.
Polio continued to threaten communities across the industrialized world, with thousands of new cases reported in the United States and Europe.
The New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration provided funds for public health programs, helping to address malnutrition and disease among the unemployed.
Tadeusz Reichstein's synthesis of ascorbic acid opened the possibility of mass-producing vitamin C to combat scurvy and other deficiency diseases.
Tuberculosis mortality rates began a gradual decline in industrialized nations, aided by improved sanitation, nutrition, and public health measures.
The Nazi regime enacted the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring in July, authorizing forced sterilization on eugenic grounds.
Malaria remained endemic across much of the tropical world, with quinine still the primary treatment and mosquito control the main prevention strategy.
Occupational health research expanded as the link between industrial chemical exposure and chronic illness became better understood.
The Depression continued to undermine public health, with overcrowded housing, inadequate nutrition, and limited access to medical care affecting millions worldwide.

Climate & Environment

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was approximately 307 parts per million.
The Dust Bowl intensified as severe dust storms struck the Great Plains, with a massive storm on November 11 stripping topsoil from farms across South Dakota.
The Civilian Conservation Corps began planting trees and building erosion-control structures across the United States, one of the first large-scale federal conservation programs.
The Tennessee Valley Authority was established with environmental management as one of its core missions, including reforestation and soil conservation.
A devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Sanriku, Japan, on March 3, killing over 3,000 people along the northeastern coast.
The Long Beach earthquake struck Southern California on March 10, killing 120 people and leading to stricter building codes for schools and public structures.
Drought conditions continued across the American interior, reducing crop yields and forcing many farm families to abandon their land.
Hugh Hammond Bennett's soil conservation advocacy gained political traction as dust storms provided dramatic evidence of the erosion crisis.
Tropical deforestation continued in the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, and other colonial territories to expand rubber and palm oil plantations.
The Great Plains Shelterbelt project was proposed to plant windbreaks of trees across the Plains states to reduce wind erosion, though it would not launch until the following year.

Culture & Society

The Century of Progress International Exposition opened in Chicago on May 27, celebrating technological and scientific achievements with exhibits that attracted millions of visitors over two seasons.
The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on December 5, repealing Prohibition and ending the thirteen-year ban on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States.
King Kong premiered in New York City on March 2, becoming a landmark in cinema for its groundbreaking special effects and stop-motion animation.
The Nazi regime organized public book burnings on May 10, targeting works by Jewish, communist, and other disfavored authors at universities across Germany.
Gertrude Stein published The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, a memoir of her life in Paris among modernist artists and writers.
The first All-Star Game in Major League Baseball was played on July 6 at Comiskey Park in Chicago, with the American League defeating the National League 4-2.
André Malraux published La Condition Humaine (Man's Fate), a novel set during the Shanghai insurrection of 1927, which won the Prix Goncourt.
The Nazis established the Reich Chamber of Culture in September, requiring all artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers to conform to state-approved ideology.
The world population was approximately 2.15 billion.
The board game Monopoly was developed by Charles Darrow based on earlier designs, though it would not be commercially published by Parker Brothers until 1935.