December 1933

Month of 1933

The following events occurred in December 1933:

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. 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". 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. Born: Mike Larrabee, American Olympic track athlete, 1964 gold medalist;, in Hollywood, California (d. 2003)

The first concrete was poured for the Grand Coulee Dam in the U. S. state of Washington on the Columbia River. Born: Paul J. Crutzen, Dutch chemist, 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate; in Amsterdam (d. 2021)

The 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, repealing the 18th 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. Earlier in the day, Ohio and Pennsylvania had become the 34th and 35th states, respectively, to ratify the amendment. 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.

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. Born: Henryk Górecki, Polish composer; in Czernica (d. 2010)

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. 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.

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. 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. ; John Joly, 76, Irish physicist

The most publicized romance of its day officially came to an end as Mary Pickford filed for divorce from Douglas Fairbanks. 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". 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.

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.

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. 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. 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. Died: Antonín Švehla, 60, Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1922 to 1929.

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.

The India national cricket team hosted a test cricket match for the first time in its history, after having played in England the year before. Over a period of four days in Bombay (now Mumbai), India lost to England by nine wickets. India had become the sixth national team to be granted test status the year before by the Imperial Cricket Conference, joining the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, the West Indies and New Zealand. The Newspaper Guild, the first labor union for newspaper journalists in the U. S., was founded. Born: Tim Conway, American actor and comedian; as Thomas Daniel Conway in Willoughby, Ohio (d. 2019)

Romania held elections for its Chamber of Deputies. The official results had been arranged in advance by Premier Ion Duca of the Partidul Naţional Liberal, "who proceeded to assign himself 50.99 percent of the votes and 300 of the 387 seats". The first American ambassador to the Soviet Union, William C. Bullitt, was welcomed to Moscow with a banquet conducted at the Kremlin and attended by the Soviet leadership. Bullitt would later report that General Secretary Joseph Stalin kissed him on the mouth, and that Bullitt returned with a kiss on the cheek. Years later, Bullitt would be bitter about the experience and the feeling of having been betrayed by the Soviets. Born: Jean Carnahan, U. S. Senator for Missouri 2001–2002 after being elected to succeed her husband, Mel Carnahan; in Washington D. C.

Two hundred people were killed when an express train collided with a slower moving train near Paris, on a rail line between Lagny sur Marne and Pomponne. The Paris to Strasbourg express train, moving at 65 miles an hour, crashed into the wooden coaches of a stalled train carrying Christmas shoppers who were returning from Nancy to Château Thierry. The Strasbourg bound train had been racing through a heavy fog to make up for lost time. After 189 bodies were removed from the scene, another eleven died of their injuries, making the death toll exactly 200. The non aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Poland went into effect after having been signed in Moscow on July 25, 1932. Although both sides agreed "to refrain from all aggressive acts or attack on one another", the Soviet Union invaded and conquered eastern Poland in 1939. Born: Akihito of Japan, Emperor of Japan from 1989 to 2019; in Tokyo.

The Archbishop Leon Tourian, who presided over the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, was stabbed to death on Christmas Eve, as he was preparing to being services at the Holy Cross Armenian Church.

The Codex Sinaiticus, dating from about 360 AD and containing the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament, was acquired by the British Museum. The manuscript, which had been owned by the National Library of Russia since 1859, was purchased from the Soviet Union for £100,000, half of which was from private donations.

Ion G. Duca, the Prime Minister of Romania, was assassinated at the railway station in Sinaia by Nicholas Constantinescu, a 26 year old university student and member of the recently outlawed Iron Guard. At 10:20 pm local time, Constantinescu walked up to the Prime Minister, who was waiting for a train to Bucharest, and shot Duca four times. Flying Down to Rio, a musical film, was released by RKO Pictures. Although the leading lady and leading man were Dolores del Río and Gene Raymond, the film marked the first pairing of dancers Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Born: Norman Morrison, American anti war activist; in Erie, Pennsylvania. On November 2, 1965, Morrison would perform a fatal self immolation, sitting down in front of the Pentagon, dousing himself with kerosene, setting himself ablaze to protest the Vietnam War.

A new world's record for longest flight in an airplane was set by two female pilots, Helen Richey and Frances Marsalis who had been piloting their aircraft, the October Girl (a Curtiss Thrush), since December 20. After 236 hours aloft with mid air refueling, the two touched down at 10:46 a. m. local time in Miami, Florida. Ten people were killed in the crash of an Imperial Airways airliner that had been on its way from Brussels to London. The pilot had been flying at low altitude in a heavy fog and crashed into a radio tower at the Belgian town of Ruiselede. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the U. S. state of Vermont was recorded at Bloomfield, where it was measured at −50 °F (−46 °C). The record high of 105 °F had been set on July 4, 1911.